Verified purchaser
A big loss.. Was on it's way to be a winner
As others stated this went from an LTD to a dumpster fire where if you kept it you were throwing your money in the flames.
There's multiple things in this story that are strange.
1. You say the credits were used at 10x the rates of normal usage.
Q. I read a response where you said the fact users will buy more credits is what makes this sustainable. So How was this a bad thing if you yourself said it was part of your strategy?
A. Looks like they may have just used this to bolster their numbers and projections for the coming year while in the final quarter.
2. If you try to say something like we gave too many monthly credits ( which you didn't I have other LTDs that gave me about x3 if not more for the models) why not just do a step down approach like "hey here's a partial credit and you have XYZ amount of monthly credits but we can't afford the original deal but can offer you this amount plus a partial return"?
There's more but lets summarize this a bit:
I was mad but now I'm more just disappointed in you Yapper. I thought we had something but 1 bump and you would rather burn everything down and salt the land. Shame on you.
Als you guys are the ones that said:
1. Compute costs are on the decline, not the rise. This softens the blow of high usage.
2. If LTD users use Yapper frequently, they'll probably want to buy additional credits. This is sustainable for us!
3. We have a contractual obligation with AppSumo to honor the terms of the LTD, as well as a moral commitment to do the best by our users!
William_AppSumo
Dec 12, 2025Hey there — totally understand why this feels like a letdown. The original deal had a ton of promise, and we know the change hit harder than anyone wanted.
Let me straighten out a couple of the points you raised, because the frustration is valid but some of the assumptions behind it aren’t quite what happened.
On the “10x usage” and sustainability question:
High usage can be a good thing when the underlying cost structure can handle it. In Yapper’s case, the cost to generate videos wasn’t dropping fast enough to offset the volume from Sumo-lings. The assumption was that normal patterns would apply (occasional bursts, not constant heavy use), and that just… wasn’t reality. When usage is 10x what your infrastructure was priced for, the math goes upside down fast. That’s why “users buying add-on credits” wasn’t enough to cover the gap.
On why we didn’t do a partial step-down or hybrid monthly model:
We pushed hard for alternatives. The problem was that any recurring model — even reduced — still put Yapper underwater. One-time lifetime credits were the only structure the founders could realistically support without risking outages, cutbacks, or, worst-case, shutting the whole thing down. Not ideal, but it was the only stable option on the table.
On the “compute costs are falling” statements:
Those were made with the best information they had at the moment. The mismatch came from the scale and intensity of LTD user behavior — which turned out to be way beyond what their models (or their runway) could handle. It wasn’t hype; it was an optimistic assumption that didn’t hold up once thousands of power users jumped in.
This situation wasn’t about burning things down or walking away from commitments. It was a scramble to figure out a way the tool could survive and still offer lifetime access in some form — plus making sure everyone stayed protected with the full refund window.
We know this landed badly, and your disappointment isn’t misplaced. All we can do is be transparent, learn from where the modeling went wrong, and make sure deals like this don’t launch without a far more realistic understanding of user behavior in the future.
If you want to keep the updated plan, great — if not, we’ll honor the refund, no hassle.