Pickaxe Reviews

Due to the change from credit system to "dollar" system, the deals now are laughable. Value of the deal dropped like 98%. Total scam and unethical move from Pickaxe company, I hope Appsumo will stand by us and help us get back the value we had.

I picked up this tool on I think the Tier 2 level when it was first on Appsumo. Played around with it but wasnt quite sure it was ready for prime time so I shelved it to come back later. No problem. When I come back to check on the progress it seems that there have been some, unfortunately most dont apply to LTD buyers. Unfortunate, but fair enough. Whats not fair is that major features of the LTD (Document limits and most importantly Bring Your Own API key) have been removed. I honestly would not have purchased if these features were not offered and judging by the recent reviews many others feel the same. Super shady. Of course we're past the refund period so this will just be pretty much a toy for me now. But I dont like the feeling of being conned.

From today's mail from Pickaxe:

"If you fail to migrate by Jan 23 2026, your data will not be lost, but your Pickaxes will stop working! If you are an LTD holder and you do not migrate, we will consider your account with us closed."

I repeat the last sentence:

"If you are an LTD holder and you do not migrate, we will consider your account with us closed."

I wonder how you think you can justify that?

Given all the lost trust (just read all the reviews) how can you do that?

Appsumo as a platform should never allow such actions. MANY of us AS customers lose more and more trust in the AS plattform.

Adquirí Pickaxe hace aproximadamente un año y debo admitir que mi experiencia inicial fue decepcionante. Los resultados de los asistentes y la funcionalidad general no cumplían expectativas, lo que me llevó a abandonar la plataforma durante meses.

Recientemente decidí darle una segunda oportunidad y reconozco mejoras significativas en la interfaz de usuario y la variedad de modelos de IA disponibles. La adaptación de prompts también ha mejorado considerablemente.

Sin embargo, persisten limitaciones importantes. Utilizo la plataforma para crear asistentes de atención al cliente, y a pesar de desarrollar prompts ultra-detallados, la calidad de las respuestas sigue siendo inferior comparada con herramientas como ChatGPT usado directamente. Esto requiere múltiples iteraciones y mayor inversión en tokens para obtener resultados aceptables.

Adicionalmente, existen deficiencias en la experiencia de usuario que afectan la productividad diaria:

Gestión de archivos: No permite drag & drop ni pegar imágenes directamente. Obligar a usar el botón de subir documentos es ineficiente para flujos de trabajo ágiles.

Gestión de conversaciones: Los usuarios no pueden renombrar, borrar o organizar conversaciones, generando listas interminables con nombres genéricos.

Como usuario comprometido con el proyecto a largo plazo, me gustaría conocer dónde puedo acceder a su hoja de ruta de futuras implementaciones. Considero importante entender las mejoras planificadas para evaluar si estas limitaciones serán abordadas.

A pesar de estas limitaciones, sigo creyendo en el potencial del proyecto. Las mejoras implementadas demuestran que el equipo está trabajando activamente en el desarrollo. Sin embargo, para usuarios que requieren respuestas precisas y flujos de trabajo eficientes, aún hay camino por recorrer.

Recomiendo a los desarrolladores considerar estas mejoras de UX y continuar optimizando la calidad de respuestas para competir efectivamente con herramientas directas del mercado.

Update: Nathaniel, you still didn't answer my question about having access to the Pickaxe API. AppSumo users expected it to be included in the deal, but instead, you changed the terms after the LTD ended and now only include it in the Pro subscription ($147 a month, up from $97 a month) outside of AppSumo, which is not right. You should include it in our AppSumo subscription. This is why you keep getting negative reviews.

Cool software, but I'm very disappointed, like everyone else. Unfortunately, AppSumo buyers aren't treated well regarding the deal. As others have mentioned, they are locking out AppSumo buyers from all the new LLM models, API access, forcing you to move to a Pro Subscription outside of AppSumo, even though there is no additional cost to them when we use our own API Keys (BYOK) for the LLMs, and we cover the costs. In the original AppSumo deal, they included all LLM model updates, but now that isn’t the case.

Also, it's crazy to me that they charge 10% on top of the 3% you pay for Stripe, which processes our payments. They are now increasing their monthly plans, which is shocking, considering they already charge 10% on Gold plans and 8% on Pro plans. If you plan to increase your monthly pricing, you should also adjust your take rate. I have never seen SaaS companies do this. If they charge a 10%-20% take rate, they usually don't charge any monthly fee.

Once the take rate drops to 10%, they start charging a monthly fee. When their pricing reaches its highest monthly membership, their take rate is 0%. I understand this is a new AI SaaS, but a more appropriate number would be 3-5% Gold and 0-3% take rate for Pro. I’d give them 5 tacos if they address all these issues.

People want to grow with your software, and when they reach their studio limits, they will upgrade to Pro. However, forcing people to upgrade before they reach their limits by removing promised features is not good business and will tarnish your reputation in the long run.