SAAS (software as service) has become increasingly popular all over the world. When you pay for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 or similar products, you are essentially using a SAAS Service. This has enabled vendors to build strong platforms and create annuity flows which in turn help in building better products and features.
However, for small and medium businesses these commitments for multiple softwares can become a large overhead. Noah Kagan, ex Facebook saw this an opportunity for creating lifetime deals for SAAS Products as well as other areas such as courses & Learning, templates and creative resources. Thats how APPSUMO was born. Over the years it has had significant success in this space and is by far the runaway market leader. Some past deals include Intercom, Zapier, Shopify, Hopin etc. The ten year anniversary blog has more details
However, for the unitiated, Appsumo could be complex, so a few quick pointers
- There is no entrance or subscription fee for Appsumo. However, it has a yearly subscription program for $99 called Appsumo Plus which offers a 10% discount on all purchases and other value adds including courses as well as products such as KingSumo Pro, SendFox Tier 1, Email Badge, ShortySMS, & SleekBio. There is a [special collection of deals]https://appsumo.com/collections/plus-exclusives/ which either have an extended date or better value
- There used to be a referral discount earlier which has been discontinued and users occassionally get a discount of 10 to 15 per cent but its targeted
- Every year they run multiple promotions icluding Last Call, Black Friday (which just ended)
- Each deal by default has a 60 day refund period but this is no longer the case, although most do offer this facility. You can als choose to retain the refund as Appsumo credits
- There is an Affiliate Program which is why you see all those links in FB groups. You can see a list of FB groups here which are focussed on SAAS Deals
- Deals have Tiers and each tier has matching benefits. There are very few agency deals (where the buyer can resell the deals). Deals tenure also varies with some on year deals also showing up
- Appsumo technically frowns on resale of deals and a few founders also do now. This has resulted in a separate niche of disposable emails e.g. Vend email where you can use the email alias and forward to your own email id.
- Appsumo Select are deals which are vetted and promoted by Appsumo
- Appsumo Market place is where any provider can list their deals
- There is a separate blog on Appsumo economics and feedback from developers
- As soon as product leaves Appsumo, you will find resellers trying to market the product ( this kind of dies down after the 60 day refund period)
- A recent article says Appsumo is doing 80 million USD perhaps defining a system turnover of USD 200 million for lifetime deals along with other providers
- In the Resale Market there are always more sellers than buyers and you can see a list of deals active on https://dealcode.org. For guidelines on buying and selling check this blog
- There is always some activity on the FB groups and there are some common themes around the discussions
- As Marketplaces evolve so will Appsumo and its competitors and it would be interesting to watch this space.
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