I get it.
You want to grow your startup—fast.
You need to find more paying users, yesterday.
You’ve heard about AppSumo, and startups earning $200,000+ in just a few weeks. Is it too good to be true? Or is it the solution to get startup capital and launch your product into success?
Well… it depends. And by the end of today’s article, you’ll know the answer for your business.
Let’s get started.
Chapter 1: AppSumo: An Introduction
AppSumo is a daily deals website for software and digital products, mostly for businesses and entrepreneurs.
They offer all kinds of products at a discount, but they’re most famous for lifetime deals marked down by 50-97%. Users—called Sumo-lings—buy a code on AppSumo which they redeem on your website.
Users can also stack codes. So you might offer basic, premium, and agency plans for one, three, and five codes, respectively.
Appsumo has helped launch a number of high-profile companies, like Dropbox, Mailchimp, and Evernote.
Noah Kagan, formerly of Facebook and Mint, founded the site back in 2010. His legendary love of tacos inspired the rating system, which uses tacos instead of stars.
The basic concept is simple. For a select few apps, they’ll promote a heavily-discounted offer. They have an email list of 730,00.
They have 130K+ Twitter followers:
And almost 200K followers on Facebook:
In short, they’re an important player for startups looking to launch.
AppSumo can leverage its massive fan base—called Sumo-lings—and turn your tiny SaaS company into a household name.
Perhaps the neatest part is that there’s no upfront fee for the promotion. AppSumo takes a cut of your sales (more on that later) which is great for scrappy startups.
This is, as far as I know, the most comprehensive AppSumo guide on the internet.
My team and I have worked behind-the-scenes for daily deal launches, including AppSumo. I’ve read or interviewed dozens of founders who have launched on AppSumo. And I’ve obsessively read hundreds of reviews on the AppSumo site itself to give you the best shot.
I’ll throw in the shameless promo here at the top—my team and I work with a lot of international (read: not based in the US) startups.
We write content, sales pages, emails, and even customer help docs that help you nail the US market.
By the way, all of this is recommended by the AppSumo team.)
Click here if you want to talk.
Otherwise, let’s move onto the big question. Is AppSumo even a good fit for your brand?
Chapter 2: Should You Launch on AppSumo?
But before you try to launch on AppSumo, you need to decide if it’s really a good idea for your business.
Most people think of the two “hard” advantages AppSumo: revenue and users. Our research indicates, however, that neither is a compelling reason to use AppSumo.
The real advantages are in the two “soft” advantages: exposure and education.
Whether or not you should launch depends on those factors. Let’s look at each one in more depth.
Money: How much can we earn with an AppSumo launch?
The headlines above are mostly the exception.
Our client, for example, did well on AppSumo, but didn’t become an instant billion-dollar startup.
But nobody writes an article called “Our AppSumo Launch Was Okay!”
Like most things, there are some wild successes, some wild failures, and a lot of launches in between.
In addition, AppSumo takes 65-70% of the total revenue. That means creators earn as little as $75,000 from a quarter-million-dollar launch.
(AppSumo doesn’t say this on their website, but articles by Lemlist, CustomerLabs, PixelMe, Krisp, and EventsFrame all agree it’s around 65-70%.)
Despite the headlines, very few, if any, startups have walked away with $100,000 USD or more.
Based on my research, here’s what to expect to walk away with after AppSumo takes their cut:
- For an average launch, expect to earn $15,000-30,000 USD
- An excellent campaign might hit $60,000
- A 0.1% “unicorn” might hit $90,000
There are also expenses involved, including staff for the launch and ongoing support and maintenance for each customer.
Case Study: SerpStat
In 2018, SerpStat offered a lifetime deal on AppSumo for $39—a steal, considering their cheapest plan at the time was $19/month.
In early 2019, however, SerpStat eliminated the $19 plan entirely, stating “its maintenance and online support, as well as user training, is not profitable for the service at this stage of development.”
Yet AppSumo users stay onboard. SerpStat has stated pretty definitively they won’t be offering an AppSumo deal again.
Users: How many will we get?
The answer to this is simple: Yes, absolutely.
Back in 2017, the average deal generated 2,000 sales. Today, really successful launches might hit 7,000 sales.
But there are a few strikes against users.
Strike 1: It depends on your industry
The AppSumo website has a list of these categories:
Just because your tool doesn’t fit well into one of those categories means it will flop. But it does mean you’ll have more of an uphill battle.
Case study: Benjamin Dell, 3x AppSumo launcher
Serial entrepreneur Benjamin Dell has launched three startups through AppSumo. Each was in a different industry and saw vastly different results.
2017 – missinglettr – Social media and blogging – 4K in sales
2018 – HelpShelf – Customer support – 2K in sales
2019 – HeySummit – Online conferences – 6.5-7K in sales
In an interview with AppSumo, Benjamin said, “the success of your deal will be impacted by the industry in which it sits — and how that fits with the AppSumo community writ large.”
Strike 2: Lots of sales don’t (always) mean lots of users
As many as 50% of your sales might be through stackable codes. That means 1,000 sales might actually just be 500 users, since lots of people buy more than one code.
Strike 3: Refund rates
You can expect a few to request refunds. AppSumo has a no-questions-asked 100% refund policy for 60 days after purchase.
Most of the screenshots of the AppSumo sales dashboard show refund rates around 1-3%. For example, this screenshot from MalCare shows 2.27%.
However, most of these screenshots are taken before the 60-day refund window.
The numbers probably aren’t much higher after then, but Datagran saw between 7-8% refund, and Botletter saw a refund rate of 15%. So it really depends.
Strike 4: Poor user engagement
Many users never use the product—around 30% for CustomerLabs, about one-half for OutreachNinja.
This was one of the biggest issues our client faced, as well. A lot of the work after the campaign was just getting users to sign on to the app. A huge number bought the code and never even logged in.
So for every 100 sales, expect around 55 engaged users. Here’s the math using generous numbers:
100 sales -> 25% stackable codes -> 75 -> 3% refund rate -> 73 -> 25% disengagement rate -> 55
What kinds of customers can you expect?
Well, if your goal is to move into the US market, you’ll hit the jackpot. Over a third of traffic comes from the US, but around 65% of customers are American.
(In other words someone browsing in the US is twice as likely to buy.)
Around three-fourths of AppSumo users are “solopreneurs,” that is, one-person businesses or freelancers. According to AppSumo, a good number of these are “wantrapreneurs” who don’t have a business yet.
The rest are small businesses and agencies. You won’t find many large agencies or corporate clients on AppSumo, if any.
Unfortunately, AppSumo users probably won’t upgrade. They’re on AppSumo to save money, after all!
After VooPlayer’s launch, 7.7% of AppSumo users upgraded to a paid plan. And seven months after the launch, CustomerLabs saw an even smaller number, with only 1-2% upgrading.
Exposure: Will AppSumo get you more brand awareness?
So there’s not a lot of money or users.
But what’s amazing about AppSumo is that just being featured puts you in the spotlight.
Leverage and connections are possibly the strongest feature of AppSumo. You want to spend a lot of time building up connections and reaching out to others.
We’ll cover exact scripts for this later on.
Case Study: PixelMe 10x weekly signups from exposure
The best takeaway was exposure. They went from 13 to 130 signups weekly. PixelMe source. This is after the promotion—just from the afterffects of the campaign.
Feedback: Will AppSumo improve my product?
While it doesn’t make a great headline, product-market fit and user feedback is the real advantage of AppSumo.
My advice? Don’t think of AppSumo as fundraising, but as a distribution platform. For the low cost of breaking even, they’ll put your software in the hands of tons of passionate users.
They’ll use the software, aggressively compare it to your competitors, and provide detailed analysis on your strengths and weaknesses.
If you’re still looking for product-market fit, this is the absolute best place to go.
Is that a good deal? You bet!
While these may not be your most lucrative customers, as mentioned earlier, they’re still people who have paid money for your product. Their feedback matters a lot.
But listen: be honest with yourself. If this is your baby, and you want to grow it in the current perfect state it’s in, don’t do AppSumo.
You’ll get feedback, honest and raw. If you can’t take it and use it, don’t go through this.
AppSumo also uses lots of technology to maximize conversions. They’re doing split tests all the time to ensure you get max conversions. So keep that in mind—they know what sells.
You also get their team to write amazing copy for you.
Sure, it’s their property. You can’t use it somewhere else. (It’d be weird, anyways).
But you can see which features they highlight, and why.
Chapter 3: Getting in
Okay!
You know you want to get on AppSumo. You know you want to be successful. But what do you need to get approved by the team?
The answer isn’t what you’d expect. We’ll explain why.
Fill out the application
AppSumo requires you to submit a detailed, 24-question application to get started with them.
It covers lots of stuff. We won’t cover all the details, but a few notes are worth mentioning.
First, be honest in everything. Don’t pretend to be a bigger team than you really are. And don’t pretend to be a US-based company if you’re not.
Approximately 80% of AppSumo’s partners are outside the US, mostly from Europe. The team is very welcoming of international companies and will help you target the American audience.
It’s best if you haven’t done a lot of other promotions with other daily deal sites before working with AppSumo. Don’t run a lot of deals. See their application form.
The official AppSumo documentation ends with filling out an application, and good luck!
But if you’re serious, you need to know a little secret about the AppSumo application.
The real way to get an interview
You see, the application isn’t really a very good way to get on AppSumo.
Why? Because it’s a surefire way to get ignored. AppSumo 100 applications a week, and let’s be honest—after a while they start to look the same.
If you just submit an application, you’re in for a frustrating journey. Datagran kept submitting applications and didn’t get accepted until the third time.
Olman Quesada, the Head of Business Development at AppSumo (one of the guys in charge of this process), has said himself that companies get ignored. SerpStat submitted a few applications before Olman even saw them.
So, how can you get around this? What set SerpStat apart?
An introduction.
If you want to get on AppSumo, you need an introduction from someone who knows the team. In the case of SerpStat, they got noticed because they had an introduction from Max Pecherskyi at PromoRepublic, a former AppSumo company.
(If you’re curious, PromoRepublic submitted two applications before they got noticed. If they had to do it again, Max has written, he’d get an introduction.)
If you know a company that’s used AppSumo, call in a favor with them. If not, you’ll need to find a connection. The best way to do this is on LinkedIn.
First, go to the official AppSumo LinkedIn page.
In the bottom corner, click on “See all employees on LinkedIn.”
LinkedIn will automatically bring people you have connections to at the top. For example, I have three separate connections to the team (and none of them are the previous AppSumo client).
You can also reach out to “3rd” connections
Here’s a basic script for your outreach. (Like all scripts, don’t use this exactly—it looks lazy! But the structure is a good one to follow.)
Hey name! Hope all is well, (comment on a recent project).
As you know, I’ve been working with my app for a while. Basically [short summary].
The team and I were hoping to launch on AppSumo. I was on LinkedIn and noticed you’re connect to NAME on the AppSumo team. Any chance you could give me an introduction?
No worries if you can’t—just thought I’d ask!
Stephen
Don’t pressure them, stand on the quality of their app.
If you’re not connected to someone on the team this way, look at groups. Look for other companies that have launched on AppSumo that are in the same group as you.
While rapport with them is important, you know what’s more important?
A great product.
Your best friends won’t risk their reputation with the AppSumo team if your product is terrible. But if your product is awesome, be honest and reach out to a near-stranger. If they think your product is the next big thing on AppSumo, they’ll do it for you.
You’re in! Acing the interview
Different companies have different processes when they go with AppSumo.
But one of the first steps is usually a Skype call with someone on the AppSumo team. They’ll be friendly and nice—because they’re nice people!—but don’t get too carried away.
AppSumo is a serious business, and they want to make sure you are, too. Make sure you have someone on the call who knows numbers about the team and has a good command of English.
In general, AppSumo is looking for a few key features in your team:
- You’re serious, and not just looking to make quick money on an AppSumo scam and disappear.
- You have long-term plans, and won’t shut down in the next year or two and leave their users hanging.
- You have a large enough support team to handle the infrastructure necessary to run an AppSumo promotion.
It’s a good idea to prepare this information in advance. What can you use to show you’re qualified?
- Current number of users and growth.
- Know who your target user is, and how it’s appealing to AppSumo users (if they’re not your ideal target user).
- Any funding you have.
- Current help documentation, or software you use to manage customer support.
- Any accolades or awards you’ve won.
- A serious presence. A website is a must. Social media isn’t that important, but only share if you’re serious and committed with it. If you started the account two months ago and have three posts live, it’s probably better to not even show it at all.
- Your email list, if applicable.
- The number of people on the team. (Full-time is better than part-time, part-time is better than freelancers or contractors.)
- A roadmap (we cover this in detail later. Click here to jump to that section.)
If you’re in, it’s time to pop a bottle of champagne! Because for the next few weeks, you won’t have time…
Now, you’ll work with the AppSumo team to nail down the specifics of the offer, the time frame, and other details. Here’s how to succeed.
Chapter 4: How to prepare for your AppSumo launch
You’re in, congratulations!
The AppSumo team wants you to succeed—they have a great sales model that means they want you to sell more—and they’ll put in a ton of work to make that happen.
But the really successful brands know they can’t just rely on AppSumo. Here’s what you need to do get ahead.
Creating a winning offer
You’ll work on this with the AppSumo team. Take their advice seriously, they’re really looking out for you,too. They have a major incentive to sell (since they earn money when you do), so pay attention to their recommendations.
Make pricing as aboslutely clear as you possibly can. As well as limits, caps, and feature limitations. Otherwise, you’ll get tons of questions about this, all the time, along with plenty of confusion.
My first marketing job right out of college was at a juice company. We’d sometimes offer coupons at grocery stores and the like.
So when coupon saves $0.50 on a bottle of juice, they are one of three types of customers:
- An existing customer who would have paid full price anyways
- A lower-tier customer who bought a bigger/nicer product because it was on sale
- A new customer who only bought because of the coupon
You need to maximize the number of new customers.
So, the question is—are customers you get through AppSumo likely to pay full price already? Or will you be finding new customers?
Another possible disadvantage is that future customers will resist paying full price. You’ve offered a deal in the past… maybe you’ll do it again.
The sweet spot is $39-49, according to DepositPhotos. $99 deals don’t do as well. They would know, they’ve run nine deals!
Most common things are requests for agency plans. PixelMe, AppSumo asked for the agency plan their customers wanted (source). For PromoRepublic, they launched an agency plan, too. Our client also had an agency plan.
That said, here are a few general do’s and don’ts based on what Sumolings like to see and dont’ like to see.
How to create an offer Sumo-lings will rave about
What do Sumo-lings really love?
Well, to understand that, you’d need to read thousands of comments, reviews, and questions to understand what really matters. It’d take days to dive deep into the minds of AppSumo users, study common trends, most-requested features, and the complaints that show up over and over.
Well today, you’re in luck. Because I did all that work for you. As part of the research for this article, I read thousands of comments, questions, and reviews across dozens of apps launched on AppSumo, taking notes as I read.
I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the kind of offers that make people look twice. Here’s the breakdown of exactly how to create an offer Sumo-lings can’t resist.
Do
- Lifetime offers. Anything less will usually get lots of negative comments claiming that AppSumo is lowering their standards, you’re cheating them out of money, AppSumo is somehow in on the deal. Most of these will be directed towards the AppSumo team, but they’re still one-taco reviews on your page, so be careful.
- Excellent support. Be fast, be friendly, and use your own name.
- Consider adding an addon for extra features. Examples include missinglettr and Socialbee.
- Make it easy to learn and use. Since most Sumo-lings aren’t marketing professionals, they may not have experience with a complex product and this will show up in reviews.
- Show that you’re committed to continuing improving the product. Most Sumo-lings understsand that these are new, up-and-coming products. They’re forgiving for some limited functionality, but do expect improvements to be planned and actually happen in the near future (ideally, progress within the first few months.)
- Map it to a subscription plan. Why? Because that means you’ll get upgrades. If you don’t, Sumo-lings are (rightly) concerned that upgrades for everyone won’t get applied to them. This has happened before, they’ve gotten burned. NO matter what you promise, they likely won’t believe you unless it’s mapped to an existing plan.
- Have an upgrad product ready-to-go. Don’t launch without the ability to upgrade. And don’t promise to build it with the money you make on AppSumo. Allow stacking for the Pro plan.
- Check out previous, related AppSumo deals. Sumo-lings frequently request integrations with previous LTDs, especially the most popular ones. This isn’t a vital piece, but worth looking into.
- Do a native English pass on your dashboard and content. Small typos can cause disproportionate distrust in comments.
- If you’re going to do one integration, make it Zapier. This connects to a lot of other apps, and is the #1 requestex integration by AppSumo users.
- Be GDPR compliant.
- Beware of doing multiple LTDs across other sites. Users perceive this as you trying to make lots of money quickly, with intentions to quickly disappear.
- If you don’t have a features, be polite and say you don’t. While it might sound more appealing to give a vague answer (we’re considering this!) you’ll only get slammed by people who don’t trust you and think it’s super evasive.
- Use this script:
- “Hey NAME! We don’t have this feature, and don’t have plans to add it in the near future. That said, I’ve added it to the roadmap, so it might get added at some point. Thanks for the feedback. :)”
- Lots of WordPress users (there’s even an entire category of WordPress tools), so be well-versed in how your app will work with WordPress, or how it compares.
Don’t
- Add too many limitations. Sumolings are super sensitive to these limitations. For example, if your normal plan offers 1,000 searches a day or 100 GB—don’t cut your AppSumo deal to 250 searches per day or 20GB. They will notice, and not be happy. Remember—about 30% of these users will never use the app. Based on your figures, don’t go broke, but see if that baseline can sort of subsidize a full-featured app for the rest of the users. And remember, most people won’t upgrade. So as long as a feature doesn’t cost you money (like extra storage or something), consider giving them the whole thing.
- They don’t’ like being locked in. If you require data, have a way to export it. If you don’t have that feature already, include it on your roadmap.
- If you include audio or video calls, letting people record them is a good idea.
- Have a server crash. Even though it’s a rare thing that happens because of AppSumo, people will assume it happens all the time and your product isn’t stable.
- Prohibit current users from doing AppSumo. A small percentage will, but if you prevent it you’ll probably just make them angry. Likely not worth the negative PR. In addition, some Sumo-lings will worry that buying this offer will lock them out of future (potentially better) deals, just like you locked out older users from this deal. As a result, they’ll wait for a better deal. You’ll decrease sales by doing this. Not recommended.
- Add a few features to a free plan. People will really not like that.
- Have branding. A whitelabel feature is a plus. It’s almost worse to have it but not include it in your AppSumo deal—it’s a good idea to have it as a stack, if you like.
Like any group of internet marketers, there’s always a contingent of black-hat people. But to AppSumo’s credit, there’s a much stronger group of “never black-hat” users. Meaning, if your app has the potential to be abused (fake reviews, artificial statistics, or similar) a group of people will request these features.
Of course, I can’t tell you what to do. But I will tell you that if you give in to them and include these features, you’ll anger a much larger and more serious group who frequently post that they’ll never pay for an app that allows deception.
Chapter 5: Launching successfully
Let’s launch!
The soft launch
It will go live without a major promotion.
This does two things: lets you get a feel before the giant email blast, and lets you prove yourself.
While this might seem like the calm before the storm, and a time to relax a bit before things go crazy, it should be the opposite for you.
NOW IS THE TIME TO GET PEOPLE TO POST REVIEWS.
Don’t have them pretend to be Sumolings or anything. Just some honest reviews from real, existing customers can go a long way to show that a) people like your product and b) you’re already a real company with success and a future.
Should you promote to your existing users? Won’t they just unsubscribe and take the better AppSumo deal? They might. I’d recommend pitching people on your email list who haven’t signed up yet. Ask for LONG and DETAILED and HONEST reviews. A hundred people who say “this is great!” isn’t worth much.
Whether they tell you or not, the AppSumo team will promote you more based on your early success. It’s like the Matthew Principle, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Think of two scenarios.
One company launches. They tell everyone they know about the deal, including non-customers on their email list. Perhaps they even threw in a custom deal (a dedicated hour walk-through, an eBook with their best tips, a free email course) to people who sign up in the first 48 hours. They encourage 20 new signups, and by frequently reminding those people to leave a review, they get 10 reviews in the first ten days. They’re positive reviews, too, because the people on the email list were already interested in the product.
The positive reviews mean that AppSumo promotes it to their top Sumolings early. That generates another 5 reviews—still within the first few days.
When they send the email blast, lots of people buy because it’s clearly a popular product.
Those purchases means AppSumo decides to feature it (remember: their goal is more sales, too—so if you get a high percentage of sales from visitors, it’s in their best interest to promote). They show up under “What’s Hot” on the home page. Now, everytime someone visits the site they see your product.
Do you see how it’s a snowball effect?
Compare group two. The product goes live, and there are zero reviews in the first three days. After the first week, AppSumo can’t justify an email blast… so they just sit on the site, without active promotion.
They don’t get featured… in fact, they become less and less popular as other offers launched around the same time get more reviews. Whos’ going to click on “4 reviews” when all other offers are 20+?
Sales trickle in. And by the end, Product A finishes with 5,500 sales. Product B gets 1,500. The way you start your campaign can dictate how it will end.
Get people to post reviews. Those early 5-taco reviews will help you with the AppSumo team. In other words, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. AppSumo will boost the sites that do the best… which in turn, will do better.
Conclusion
You’re ready for a killer AppSumo launch. Hopefully the reseources in this guide have been helpful.
If not, or if your expeience was different, please let me know. I’m always looking to improve and correct my articles.
Please let me know if you used this guide! I’d love to see how it worked for you.
Ready to get started? Whether you’re looking for a quick strategy call or more in-depth partnership to help you promote on AppSumo, please contact us.
We’ll be happy to see what you’re looking at and based on our knowledge of AppSumo, give you an honest recommendation.
