Partner Listing & Updates Policy

Welcome to our Partner Payments Policy! Since you’re reading this, you’re probably an AppSumo Partner, or interested in becoming one, (a “Partner”, for short) so you can sell your digital products on the AppSumo marketplace.

Keep in mind that you are legally bound by the terms of this policy, and it is also not the only document you agree to follow when you participate in the AppSumo marketplace. For example, by participating in the AppSumo marketplace, you agree to adhere to all agreements you enter into with us, such as our Terms of Use and Partner Terms (both of which incorporate additional agreements) as well as our Community Policy and Payments Policy. Violations of our policies or these agreements have legal consequences such as those specifically set forth in our Terms of Use.

Ready to get your product live on AppSumo? Read on!

Listing on AppSumo

a. What TO sell on AppSumo

You probably know AppSumo as being synonymous with finding the hottest deals on all different types of software. While that’s been true for over a decade now, it doesn’t really tell the whole story of how the company has evolved into a multidimensional digital marketplace.

Now, you can find a truly diverse range of digital products and services on our site. These include:

  • SaaS

  • Online courses

  • Memberships

  • Conference tickets

  • Resource lists

  • PDFs

  • eBooks

  • Templates

  • Chrome extensions

  • WordPress plugins

  • Services

  • Hosting

Not sure if your product falls into any of these categories? No sweat—feel free to submit it anyway. We’ll let you know whether it’s ultimately a good fit or not.

Of the utmost importance to us is maintaining a high standard of integrity and originality with the products submitted for showcase in our community marketplace. Note that, by listing your product, you made a legal representation to AppSumo that you own all rights to your product and acknowledged that AppSumo and third-parties may hold you liable for your breach of this representation. Please review our Terms of Use for more information.

We also want to make sure we’re featuring high-quality products made by Sumo-lings for Sumo lings. While you’re encouraged to make tweaks and improvements to your offering based on the feedback you’ll receive once listed, we do ask that you make sure your product is polished and ready for consumer use when it’s initially submitted.

Wondering what constitutes ‘polished and ready?’ Check out our free Seller Success Guide here for tips and tricks on perfecting your product launch.

b. What NOT to sell on AppSumo

  • Anything that requires shipping & handling for a customer to receive isn’t a good fit for our digital marketplace. We love cute, cuddly animals as much as anyone, but that doesn’t mean our marketplace is the right place to unload that Beanie Babies collection gathering dust up in your attic.

  • PLR, white-labeling, or resale products in general also won’t work. If you’re submitting a product for sale on AppSumo, our expectation is that it’s your own original creation.

  • Products that could be divisive or controversial aren’t a good fit either. While we welcome a wide array of digital tools that could benefit the lifestyle of the everyday entrepreneur, we’re not a good home for products or services that could potentially be considered divisive or controversial, such as religious/spiritual or political offerings, inappropriate/profane content, get-rich-quick schemes, or even diet and exercise fads.

  • Anything that violates another’s intellectual property rights is strictly forbidden and trying to sell anything that does expose you to legal liability.

  • Anything that involves countries, entities, individuals, or items prohibited by sanctions, embargoes, regulations, or orders administered by the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) or other government agencies.

Keep in mind that, if your product is found to be in violation of these guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your listing, refund customer money, withhold payments due, and “clawback” any payments you have already received from us.

Remember that one of the biggest benefits of listing on AppSumo is getting both exposure and valuable feedback from tens of thousands of Sumo-lings. With that in mind, our Sumo-ling community is also diligent about maintaining our standards and flagging potential problems, so they will help keep the marketplace at its best!

c. Marketplace Standards

Your product page is a reflection of your business. Just as AppSumo strives to operate with integrity while maintaining our own unique voice, branding, and culture as we deliver a great experience across our marketplace, we expect our Partners to meet high standards in connection with their products, listings, and customers. Therefore, as an AppSumo Partner, you agree to:


  • Honestly represent your product in the images, features, written description, and everywhere else applicable in your listing.

  • Maintain your listing for at least 120 days after your product page goes live. We have designed our Marketplace such that product deals are “evergreen” so customers always have a chance to buy great products. It can be very disruptive when Partners leave, so if you do remove your listing within the first 120 days, understand that (i) AppSumo may void payments you otherwise would have been entitled to in connection with the sales of your product and prevent you from listing products in the future and (ii) you may not use the AppSumo name, logo, wordmark, brand, or any other indication of an association with AppSumo in any communications with your customers or in your marketing efforts.

  • Honor our 60-day “no-matter-the-reason” refund window for customers if your product is refundable.

  • Extend a full year of updates and support to customers who purchase annual access to your product OR extend lifetime updates and support to customers who purchase your product as a lifetime deal (LTD).

  • Provide information, instructions, and support for code-stacking, if your deal allows for stacking. Please note that stacking is currently not supported by AppSumo for self-listed products; stacking must be handled internally by those partners).

  • Update your listing appropriately whenever product changes occur and communicate any new upgrades, modifications, or changes to your product with your existing AppSumo customer base.

  • Support the users of your product and respond to all customer feedback on your listing in a timely manner

  • Adhere to our expectations when it comes to community interaction, so take a look at our Community Policy

  • Ensure your product and listing complies with all relevant laws and regulations and does not infringe on anyone’s intellectual property

Pricing General Rules

In the spirit of empowering every entrepreneur, AppSumo encourages our Partners to choose their own prices for their self-listed products.

There are, however, some important conditions that we strictly enforce with regard to pricing, and circumventing or ignoring these conditions could result in removal of your product from the marketplace, suspension or termination of your account, and other actions determined by AppSumo in its sole discretion that are needed to maintain our customers’ trust and confidence in our marketplace. In connection with the pricing of your products, you agree not to:

  • Product listings on AppSumo must be priced at a uniquely low price (aka a ‘lower than anywhere’ price). This means that it has to be below the lowest price for the offering found anywhere else.

  • Set pricing that could be misleading to customers, such as including hidden fees (or making fees difficult to understand) or providing other caveats.

Understand that if we see any pricing practices that we consider to be taking advantage of our customers or AppSumo, even beyond those listed above, we will take actions that we deem appropriate to stop such practices from occurring in the future.

Not that we don’t trust you, but… AppSumo regularly monitors the prices of products, both on our own marketplace as well as on other platforms and retailers.

Evergreen Policy

Keep in mind that, unlike AppSumo Select or traditional limited-time-offer “deals,” self-listed AppSumo product listings are designed to be evergreen in nature.

The self-listing initiative aims to empower our existing community of entrepreneurs to create their own products, providing them with a robust, comprehensive platform and customer base to market those products and gain valuable feedback.

To that end, all self-listed products are deliberately intended to never expire. Ideally, your product listing page on our marketplace serves as an ongoing source of revenue, exposure, feedback, new customers, and key insights, all in addition to your regular sales platform and marketing efforts. But, at a minimum, Partners are required to maintain their listing for 120 days after their product listing goes live on AppSumo.

Changing Price Point, Deal Features, Or Deal Length

We firmly believe that altering your product’s price point, features, or deal length frequently and/or erratically is a surefire way to erode customer faith and turn away potential new customers. That being said, should you still decide to make changes after your product listing has gone live on the website, we invite you to do so by filling out our Deal Updates Form.

Once this form has been completed, our Partner Success team will review your intended changes. Assuming all changes adhere to existing company policies and our Terms of Use, our Partner Success team may execute those changes and notify you that your listing has been modified accordingly. It is at the sole discretion of our Partner Success team to either approve or deny any requested updates submitted via the form, so submitting the form in no way guarantees such updates.

As you can see, Partners are strongly encouraged to put careful thought and attention into setting up their price, features, deal length, and all other aspects of their listing prior to launch.

Pausing Your Deal

We understand that sometimes situations call for pausing a deal on the site, so we really want to help you out here.

Our policy regarding pausing deals:

  • Only deals that have been live for a minimum of 120 days are eligible to be paused.

  • The maximum length of time a deal can be paused is 6 weeks.

  • AppSumo reserves the right to delay the start of the pause to give customers some time to purchase before the pause takes effect.

  • After 6 weeks, a resubmission of the product may be required before the paused deal goes live again, so there is a risk of losing reviews from the original deal.

After pausing your deal, the “Buy Now" button will change to a "Coming Soon" button, letting Sumo-lings know you will be back.

Please be aware that it may take several days before we can address requests to pause deals.

Grandfathering Existing Customers

In the event that a Partner changes in any way the deal it is offering in its listing, the Partner agrees to “grandfather in” all previous purchasers of the deal, giving them the benefits of any product updates, feature enhancements, or support for the full length of time for which they originally purchased access to the product.

If a Partner fails to grandfather in previous purchasers, AppSumo may remove the Partner’s listing, refund customer money, withhold payments due, and “clawback” any payments Partner may have received from us.

Here are some more details about grandfathering:

1. Pricing changes

If you raise your price, previous purchasers keep your deal at the old price. You may also be required to put a deal timer on your listing that lets customers know that your current price point is ending soon or expected to change.

If you lower your price, previous purchasers who contact us wishing to be refunded the difference in price will receive that refund. Any refunded amount due to a pricing change will reduce the amount of your revenue share payments. Refunds will be granted in this situation even if our 60-day “no-matter-the-reason” refund period with respect to the previous purchase had ended.

2. Feature changes

If you wish to upgrade your deal and provide new customers with a better deal by, for example, offering more storage or allowing more authorized users to your platform, all previous purchasers will be grandfathered into the new features offered automatically and at no additional cost. It is the Partner’s responsibility to ensure that all of the previous purchasers have their accounts upgraded to reflect the latest offering.

If you wish to downgrade your deal, you must end your product listing and create a new product listing page to replace it. Until the new listing is created, tested, and approved (including new redemption codes if applicable), the old listing will remain live on the AppSumo marketplace with its original terms that you must offer.

3. Deal length changes

If your deal was previously set up for annual access and you wish to change it to a lifetime deal (LTD), previous purchasers will be grandfathered into lifetime access to your product. It is the Partner’s responsibility to ensure that all previous purchasers in this event have their accounts upgraded to reflect lifetime access. Failure to do so could result in disciplinary action.

If your deal was previously set up for lifetime access (LTD) and you wish to change it to annual access (1 year), you will need to end your product listing and create a new product listing page to replace it. Until the new listing is created, tested, and approved (including new redemption codes if applicable), the old listing will remain live on the AppSumo marketplace per the terms of your initial product submission.

Conclusion

AppSumo is committed to providing a safe and transparent online ecosystem for buyers and sellers of digital goods and services. As the #1 digital marketplace for entrepreneurs, we take all the preceding policy measures extremely seriously, so please carefully consider your choices while moving through the self-submission flow.