Digital marketing is not cheap. From keyword research tools to data analytic suites, digital marketing is a real money-pit. With every software tool switching to monthly plans, you have to think twice before committing to anything these days. But maybe there is an answer.
Are Appsumo Deals a Digital Marketer’s Best Secret Weapon? Appsumo deals are an amazing opportunity for digital marketers to buy incredible marketing software for pennies on the dollar. Most of the deals are lifetime deals and are generally in the range of $49 for a lifetime license.
Appsumo deals have completely changed the marketing world. We have tools that would have otherwise costed hundreds of dollars per month that we purchased for for a one-time fee of $49. In fact, many of these same softwares power our business on a daily basis. They are critical to our company. Let’s take a closer look at how sweet Appsumo deals really are.
What are APPSUMO deals?
Appsumo deals are offered to digital marketers at rock bottom prices. Most of the time, a new software agency trying to gain traction will appear on Appsumo and offer their product for lifetime license for around $49. I’ve seen prices as low as $29 and up to a few hundred dollars for the mega lifetime package.
In general, you are often getting the middle tier of a product offering for a one-time fee. Take for example a few years ago when I purchased an SEO search tool called Serpstat. It was in its infancy, so I took a flyer and purchased the tool for $49. At this point, the tier that is most similar to my package is between the $19 per month and $55 per month packages.
I use Serpstat on a near daily basis and the tool has grown into a monster. It’s gone from relatively unknown search tool to an industry competitor on the rise. It’s not going anywhere and it continues to pay for itself every single month. I’d average my savings at this point are at least $700. Not to mention, their competitors are even more expensive and do much the same.
Another tool that I purchased a few years ago was a website form tool called Paperform. Holy cow, this is one of the best purchases we ever made. We paid $39 and our only risk was taking a chance on a new company. We made out like bandits.
Paperform allows you to create any form and embed it on your website. It’s much more advanced than this and so much better than other form technologies. There are free wordpress form tools out there, but Paperform blows them away. It’s on par and in many ways better than Typeform. We have the pro version which now costs $32 per month. Lucky us!
We use this tool on every website and it’s worth every penny. Literally, all 3900 pennies. I estimate I’ve saved around $960 so far.
I could keep bringing up softwares that we use on a weekly basis from Appsumo, but just know they typically work out really well for your marketing budget; and even better if you are solo entreprenuer.
Are all APPSUMO deals lifetime?
Most of the deals on Appsumo are lifetime, but not all. And, when they aren’t, the Appsumo community usually complains about it… LOUDLY. Come on guys, give these companies a break.
Every Appsumo deal has both reviews and questions under the deal that you can read before making your purchase. Appsumo customers have grown so used to lifetime deals that when they aren’t lifetime, they aren’t happy. You’ll see, it happens.
Me on the other-hand, am often very pleased with these deals. They usually offer substantial value in return. I don’t take advantage of every non-lifetime deal—but when I do—I’ve been mostly happy.
Many of the non-lifetime deals are just as valuable as the lifetime deals, dollar for dollar. For example, I bought a DepositPhotos deal for $50 which gave me access to 100 stock photos of my choice. Their photo marketplace is top notch and so I was more than happy to get great photos for .50 each. Shutterstock right now offers $9 per image or $900 for 100 images. That was a $850 savings for me. You can see how good that deal was right?
Another deal I thought was amazing was when Lumen5 gave a year of unlimited usage for free. Their idea was that a free year would convince you to buy Lumen5 at full price after the year was up. I used Lumen5 and thought it was a phenomenal software.
Lumen5 will take your blog post and turn it into a video with images and graphics to share on other social media channels. Really cool software. I chose not to renew after a year, but that trial was an amazing value to me. You should check out Lumen5. Many Appsumo members love it.
How often do new APPSUMO deals come out?
New Appsumo deals appear about every week. That’s the best part—it’s like Christmas morning. I usually check every Monday on the deals and see if any fit my marketing needs. There are weeks when Appsumo will put up 3 or 4 new deals at the same time. Other weeks, you might only see 1 new deal appear.
The deals tend to disappear after a few weeks, though some will stay for 30 days or more. There is always a nice timer on the side of the deal that lets you know when the deal is about to expire. It seems like they are allowing deals to run longer and longer these days. This is really to our benefit.
You’ll have more than enough time to signup for a free trial from the software company first, try it, and then make a purchasing decision. We did this with PromoRepublic. We wanted to make sure it made sense for our social media. Truthfully, we do this for most deals.
To further help you with your purchasing decisions, there are many other marketing experts that do video reviews of most deals as well. Shout out to Adam at WPcrafter—keep up the great work buddy.
What’s been your experience with Appsumo deals?
The good: As I stated above, I’ve bought some really top-notch softwares from Appsumo. Many of these marketing softwares I use everyday to run my business. I also really like the contributions from the community. They are really active and do a great job commenting and reviewing softwares before I make a purchases. The owner of the software deal often chimes in and reassures the audience of their questions.
Most of the marketing products promoted are top-notch as well. Many young software companies got their start here and then exploded later on. I also really like how the community gives feedback to the founders. I’ve seen this impact the product roadmap many times. Companies will openly acknowlege that they aren’t making much money (Appsumo keeps most of it), but it helps them determine what users like about their product and dislike. Appsumo customers are the best testing audience for marketing software developers.
The bad: I’ve bought quite a few duds. I’m not going to name the particular softwares because I’m not here to damage reputations, but they were useless and/or ineffective. Most of those won’t be coming back anyway; the Appsumo community has aired its grievances with these types of softwares. I didn’t try the free trials on many of these “misses”.
There have also been instances where the software either went out of business or they completely changed scope. For example, I bought a writing software called Airstory that was supposed to create distraction-free writing, upload blogs directly to my WordPress, and help manage writing teams. And it was awesome—until they stopped doing all of those things and became a research plugin. Hey, I’m not knocking them, they have to do what makes sense for their business. I sure would. But, you need to be aware that what you buy today may or may not be the same software in a year. It’s $49 for crying out loud.
If you are like the rest of us in the Appsumo community, you are likely to buy 1 or 2 softwares along the way that pay for the duds in spades. I can only almost guarantee it.
Related Questions
Do you receive software updates with a lifetime license? In many cases, yes. In fact, the Appsumo community expects it. I’ve personally seen many of the softwares I own get progressively better on my Appsumo plan (Paperform, Tallyfy, Viral Loops, CloudApp, Stencil, Lemlist, and Serpstat). However, there are some companies that have expensive data overhead that may not continue to upgrade Appsumo plan users with new upgrades. It’s frowned upon in the community, but again, it’s low-cost high-value software. The risk is yours.
What happens when the deal is over on Appsumo? You missed out. Plane and simple. Every now and then the good ones come back, but for the great newcomer softwares, it’s only a launching pad, and then they blast off into marketing fame and no longer require your starter capital. Sigh. I’ve lost out on some good ones.
What’s your biggest Appsumo purchase regret? There isn’t one in particular, but I have purchased too many social media management tools. You know, the ones that manage all your social profiles from one platform (e.g., buffer, hoot-suite). If you are new to Appsumo and see one that you feel serious FOMO, just know that we’ve seen at least 10 others come through Appsumo before that one. Read the comments, they’ll tell you.
