Have you all tried the burger with special sauce and tots + beer cheese this week? It's incredible, you are in for a real treat if you haven't cooked it yet. They did really good on this one and wow I've never had beer cheese until tonight and now I'm obsessed! I like it way better than the white cheese they usually put with the pretzel bites (white cheese is still good). But holy moly Tovala thanks for coming through this week, I'd eat this over a restaurant burger any day! I almost forgot to put my jalapeños on it but my wife reminded me. I've also never had jalapeños on a burger and I'm in love with it too! Here's a quick tip for this meal, eat your tots first with the beer cheese then take the left over beer cheese and put it on your burger with the special sauce and jalapeños! 🍔🤤 Do me a favor and review this one up for me on your meal feedback so we get it more!

Be careful if you are thinking about buying Socialbu or have bought it. Recently, they bumped Tier 4 from 75 social connections up to 150 social connections. I checked my Socialbu account limits under "Settings" and "Subscription," and it still showed the old limit of 75 social accounts. However, on Appsumo it shows I'm on tier 4 with 150 accounts. The founder of Socialbu is already nickel-and-diming its users. You can see in my image attachments that it says I get 150 social accounts. When I contacted them via appsumo support, the founder said this:

"I think there has been a confusion. You first bought old AppSumo Tier 4 with 75 social accounts at the price of $449. But we upgraded that Tier 4 with 150 social accounts AND with new price of $499 (not $449).

Since you bought old Tier 4 that is why you have old limits + 20% limist increased due to review = total 90 social accounts

If you paid extra $50 or bought the new Tier 4 at the price of $499 (for updated limits) then share proof of it with us. If not then those limits are what you get as per old Tier 4 pricing"

Of course, Appsumo customer support is sitting in on the email like a cuck and not jumping in to back me up when my plan literally says 150 social accounts. Unfortunately, this has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I will most likely refund. Just giving everyone a heads-up: to me, this is a red flag for me If you picked up Socialbu check your account limits under settings!

Something I noticed while going through my OpenAI API privacy settings made me think about all the AI lifetime deals we buy here.

OpenAI currently gives API users an incentive to share their inputs and outputs with OpenAI. As you can see in the screenshot, my account is being offered up to 1 million free tokens per day on certain models and up to 10 million per day on certain smaller models if I enable sharing.

The setting itself says that shared inputs and outputs may be used to help improve OpenAI's services, including improving and training its models.

I personally keep this disabled.

But it raises an interesting question about LTDs.

When we buy an AI tool for $39, $59, $99, etc. and receive lifetime AI usage, somebody has to keep paying the inference costs long after our one-time payment is gone.

So what do you think most LTD founders are actually doing?

Are the trustworthy founders keeping data sharing disabled and paying the ongoing API costs themselves?

Are some taking advantage of these massive free-token incentives to make the economics of lifetime AI usage work?

And most importantly, do the privacy policies of the AI LTDs we're buying actually tell us which one they're doing?

I'm not accusing any particular AppSumo seller of doing this. I genuinely hadn't thought about the incentive until I saw the option sitting in my own OpenAI API dashboard.

It makes me think this should become a standard question we ask before buying an AI LTD:

"Are customer prompts, files, inputs, or outputs submitted through API accounts that have model-training/data-sharing programs enabled?"

Because "we don't train on your data" and "OpenAI doesn't train on API data by default" aren't necessarily enough information if the API account owner can voluntarily opt into sharing in exchange for free usage.

For people here who care about privacy, would this affect whether you bought an LTD?

And founders lurking here, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing how you handle this.

I've been buying lifetime deals from AppSumo for years. I'm an AppSumo Plus member, joined in 2021, and have purchased 165 deals through the platform.

I recently purchased Tier 3 of Inkfluence AI.

During the campaign, a new, more expensive plan was introduced with additional functionality, including Priority Rendering. I wasn't happy about buying what I thought was the highest/best available tier and then having another tier introduced afterward with a feature I would have wanted.

So I mentioned that experience in my review.

AppSumo denied the review.

I've attached the screenshot of AppSumo's response so everyone can read exactly what they told me rather than relying on my interpretation.

Their explanation included:

>"We don't accept reviews that focus primarily on features that weren't included in your purchase."

They also told me that:

>"Adding new higher tiers or features mid-campaign is standard practice and has always been extraordinarily commonplace."

That second statement particularly surprised me as a longtime AppSumo customer.

Maybe other longtime customers have had a different experience, but I don't remember this being the normal way AppSumo campaigns operated. My recollection is that the tiers and terms were generally established for a campaign, and substantially different offers were more commonly something you'd see when a product returned for another campaign.

But here's the bigger issue.

Why shouldn't customers be allowed to review the deal itself?

AppSumo's published moderation guidelines explicitly say:

>"Review the product, not the structure of the offer."

They say reviews that focus largely on the quality of the deal rather than the product can be denied.

I think that's a terrible policy for a marketplace whose entire business revolves around software deals.

When I'm considering spending $50, $100, $300, $500 or more on a lifetime deal, I don't just want to know whether the software works.

I want verified purchasers to tell me about the entire purchasing experience.

Were the limits reasonable?

Was the highest tier actually worth buying?

Did the company introduce another tier afterward?

Were important features moved into a more expensive tier?

Did early purchasers feel that what they bought was devalued?

Did the structure of the offer change their opinion of the purchase?

That's useful consumer information.

AppSumo apparently considers much of that information inappropriate for its product reviews.

Here's where I think the legal question gets interesting

I'm not claiming AppSumo has broken the law, and I'm not an attorney.

But after this happened, I started looking into the FTC's rules and guidance concerning online reviews.

The FTC's guidance to review platforms specifically says:

>"Treat positive and negative reviews equally."

It also tells platforms not to subject negative reviews to greater scrutiny and recommends publishing genuine reviews rather than excluding negative ones.

Even more interestingly, the FTC directly addresses businesses establishing rules excluding certain categories of reviews.

For example, the FTC says a company can have a policy against reviews mentioning other products as long as the policy treats positive and negative reviews equally. It similarly says customer-service-only reviews can be excluded as long as positive and negative reviews receive equal treatment.

That leads to the question I'd really like AppSumo to answer.

Suppose someone posts:

"I love the new higher tier! I upgraded and the additional features are absolutely worth the money. Everyone on Tier 3 should upgrade!"

Would AppSumo reject that review because it's discussing the structure of the offer rather than reviewing the product?

If they would, I still disagree strongly with the policy, but at least it's being applied consistently.

But what happens if positive reviews encouraging people to purchase higher tiers are permitted while negative reviews criticizing the introduction of those tiers are rejected?

That's a much more interesting question.

The FTC's Consumer Review Rule specifically addresses review suppression. The rule recognizes legitimate content-neutral reasons for withholding reviews, but the criteria need to be applied without regard to sentiment.

The FTC also warns that presenting reviews in ways that give consumers a misleading picture of customer sentiment can potentially raise issues under Section 5 of the FTC Act.

And this isn't some imaginary area of consumer law

The FTC has actually pursued companies over suppressing negative reviews.

For example, the FTC alleged that shoe retailer Hey Dude automatically published five-star reviews with little scrutiny while rejecting many less favorable reviews. The company ultimately agreed to pay $1.95 million to settle FTC charges that included negative-review suppression allegations.

I'm not saying AppSumo is doing the same thing.

One rejected review doesn't establish that.

But I think AppSumo's policy raises a legitimate question that could be answered with evidence:

Does AppSumo enforce its "don't review the structure of the offer" rule equally against positive and negative reviews?

Consumer-protection attorneys: I'd actually like your opinion

If there are any attorneys here who practice consumer protection, deceptive trade practices, advertising law, or class-action litigation, I'd genuinely be interested in your interpretation.

I'm not calling this an "easy lawsuit" because I don't know that there is a private cause of action applicable to these facts, and the federal FTC Consumer Review Rule itself is enforced by the FTC rather than providing consumers a general private right to sue under that rule.

There could also be separate questions under applicable state consumer-protection/deceptive-practices laws depending on the facts, AppSumo's representations, its terms, actual damages, and how its moderation system operates.

So maybe there's nothing actionable here. Maybe there is.

If an attorney thinks there's something worth investigating, have at it. I'm happy to provide the original review, rejection, screenshots and other documentation I have.

More importantly, I'd like to know whether other customers have experienced the same thing.

If you're an AppSumo customer, please check your reviews

If you've ever had an AppSumo review rejected because you criticized:

• pricing
• tier structure
• limits
• upgrades
• changes made during a campaign
• features being moved or added to higher tiers

please save the rejection and post a screenshot.

And I'm particularly interested in the opposite evidence.

Can anyone find approved AppSumo reviews that positively discuss upgrading tiers, higher-tier features, pricing, deal structure, or recommending that customers purchase a more expensive tier?

Because that's the comparison that matters.

If AppSumo removes positive and negative discussion of deal structure equally, then I think they simply have a bad review policy.

If positive discussion of tiers and upgrades is allowed while criticism of those same things is suppressed, then I think there's a much more serious question about whether prospective purchasers are being shown a distorted picture of consumer sentiment.

The FTC itself tells review platforms to treat positive and negative reviews equally.

And here's the part I find pretty funny

AppSumo's moderation actually backfired.

My original review wasn't primarily an attack on Inkfluence itself.

A significant part of my dissatisfaction concerned the tier structure and what happened with the offer.

AppSumo told me I wasn't allowed to focus on that and should instead review the actual product.

So I did.

I rewrote the review to focus specifically on my experience with Inkfluence.

I gave it one taco.

I explained that I thought the quality was very low, that the generated writing was generic, that I didn't think the UI was visually appealing, and that I would only consider using the generated content for disposable quick lead magnets rather than serious publishing.

AppSumo approved that version.

Then I fully refunded the product.

So instead of prospective customers seeing something along the lines of:

"Longtime AppSumo customer dislikes how this company handled its tiers."

AppSumo's moderation resulted in them seeing:

"Verified purchaser with 165 AppSumo purchases thinks the actual product is very, very low quality."

I genuinely think my first review was kinder.

Sources for anyone interested in the legal side:

The FTC's Consumer Review Rule took effect in October 2024 and addresses, among other things, certain forms of review suppression.

FTC Consumer Review Rule Q&A

FTC guidance for online review platforms

FTC's Hey Dude negative-review suppression case

AppSumo's own review moderation guidelines

I'd really like to hear from longtime AppSumo users. Has this happened to you, and can anyone find examples showing whether this rule is actually enforced equally in both directions?

UPDATE: I found AppSumo reviews that make their explanation to me even more questionable

After posting this, I searched AppSumo's own published reviews to see whether they actually prohibit people from discussing tiers, upgrades, and the structure of an offer like they told me.

Apparently, they don't always.

Here are some actual reviews AppSumo allowed to remain published:

1. WorkLLM, "Why I Bought Two Tier 4s"

This is probably the most relevant example.

The verified purchaser explicitly says they didn't even consider buying WorkLLM until Tier 4 was introduced because Tier 3 didn't have enough credits for them. They then bought Tier 4 twice and even say they'd be first in line for a Tier 5.

AppSumo allowed the review, and the founder responded positively to it.

WorkLLM review: "Why I Bought Two Tier 4s"

That's particularly interesting because my review was rejected after I criticized a higher tier being introduced after I had already purchased Tier 3.

Apparently discussing the introduction of a higher tier isn't automatically prohibited when the customer is happy about it.

2. ZeroRank AI, "Great product, but the support is why I upgraded"

This verified purchaser explicitly says:

>"I upgraded from Tier 3 to Tier 4 without hesitating."

They then recommend backing the product. The review remains published.

ZeroRank AI Tier 3 to Tier 4 review

3. MagicFit, specifically about upgrading Tier 3 to Tier 4

This one literally begins by explaining why the reviewer upgraded from Tier 3 to Tier 4.

One of the review's three main sections is:

>"The move to Tier 4 made sense from a value perspective"

The reviewer then evaluates the pricing, features, long-term value, and why securing the higher tier was the better choice. AppSumo published it, and the founder thanked the reviewer for upgrading.

MagicFit Tier 3 to Tier 4 review

And it isn't an isolated example on MagicFit. Its reviews page contains other published reviews discussing which tier to purchase, credit allocations at different tiers, and upgrading to higher tiers.

4. Formly, "Invest in the top tier!"

The title itself is telling customers to buy the top tier.

The verified purchaser explains that the higher-tier features are where the real value is and recommends buying the highest tier rather than limiting yourself with a lower tier.

The founder responds positively and specifically mentions the higher-tier features.

Formly review: "Invest in the top tier!"

So now I'd like AppSumo to explain the distinction.

AppSumo told me:

>"We don't accept reviews that focus primarily on features that weren't included in your purchase."

Their published policy also says:

>"Review the product, not the structure of the offer."

Yet AppSumo has published reviews specifically discussing:

Tier 4 being introduced.

Why Tier 3 wasn't sufficient.

Upgrading from Tier 3 to Tier 4.

Why Tier 4 represents better value.

Why customers should buy the highest tier.

Some of these aren't passing references. The tier decision is literally the title or a central subject of the review.

To be clear, this does not by itself prove illegal review suppression, and I've also found negative reviews involving tier complaints that AppSumo has allowed. I'm not going to claim evidence proves something it doesn't.

But it does make me question how AppSumo applied its stated rule to my review.

If "review the product, not the structure of the offer" is the rule, why are reviews whose central premise is "buy Tier 4," "upgrade from Tier 3 to Tier 4," or "Tier 4 was introduced and that's why I bought" acceptable, while my discussion of a newly introduced higher tier was rejected?

The obvious difference in the WorkLLM example is especially interesting:

Their reviewer: Tier 4 was introduced, Tier 3 wasn't enough for me, so I bought Tier 4. Published.

My review: A higher tier was introduced after I bought Tier 3, and I disliked that. Rejected.

Maybe AppSumo has a legitimate explanation for why one complies with its policy and the other doesn't. I'd genuinely like to hear it.

But this is exactly why I think their moderation practices deserve scrutiny.

If any consumer-protection attorneys are interested in this issue, these examples may be worth looking at alongside AppSumo's stated moderation policy and the FTC's rules concerning review suppression.

And if other AppSumo customers have had reviews rejected for discussing tiers, pricing, limits, upgrades, or changes to an offer, save your screenshots.

I'd be particularly interested in building a larger collection of rejected negative tier reviews versus approved positive tier reviews. That's what would help establish whether we're looking at inconsistent moderation of individual reviews or an actual pattern.

My personal experience that may vary from your experience:

We had been using Tovala for a couple years and we are going to cancel our membership.

First of all the initial oven they sent us from the beginning has had issues.

I sent customer service an email two weeks after receiving the oven explaining that multiple times during the day when I scan the recipe and press start the oven then shuts off as if its short circuited but its completely random. I sent several emails explaining what was happening.

The customer service rep kept asking me to run a 30-minute bake cycle at 450F. Which I didn't understand because I clearly explained that it does this at random and that it doesn't always have an issue running.

But she kept insisting so I ran the cycle and voila the cycle ran! Obviously because it didn't randomly short circuit that time.

So I went back to the email and said:

"Hello, I went to run a bake cycle as you asked and when I selected bake it shut off and turned off so I wasn't able to complete the test."

Then she replied:

"To confirm, did you run the bake test today? I see one in your oven logs, however, it appears to have been a 2 minutes cycle and is logged as completed.
 Are you able to attempt to catch the issue on video?"

To my shocking surprise they can apparently track when and what you have cooked with your oven! I felt like my privacy was violated and since I didn't know they can do that or sign any document saying that I accept those privacy terms it made me wonder what else the oven is capable of. Is it listening to our convos at dinners too?!

Needless to say I never got a replacement because my oven only does it when I don't have my phone in hand and recording me pressing the start button. I was still within the 30 day refund and return policy too.

So terrible customer service.

My next issue... We never had any issues with this over the past couple years but now recently they are putting all the good meals in 4-packs! Stuff as simple as beef tacos and hamburgers are now being put in a 4 pack family kit... So people that are single eaters or if its for you and your wife well sorry if you want something as basic as burgers and tacos well you have to buy their MEGA pack and be forced to eat too many to the point where you never want to order it again.

So your telling me I can't order a taco or hamburger this week because I don't have a family its ridiculous. I reached out to support about it and complained and explained they should offer it at least in a 2 pack if not single. I was hoping more people noticed this and complained but I guess not because for the next month as I'm picking on the menu to eat I'm out of luck and can't get any tacos or hamburgers because I don't want to order 4 servings.

SO I will be canceling and I warn those who haven't signed up that this is an issue. This food isn't cheap and to be forced to get 4 servings of something that should be offered to those that don't have giant families is nuts.

Also if you live in Florida don't bother with this service they barely package it well with enough ice packs for the weather down here, I can't count how many times my food has arrived over 65 degrees. Yes I bought a food thermometer because I was tired of being hassled by customer service for proof so now I take a picture with the temp showing and multiple videos squeezing and dropping the melted ice pack so they believe me.

The videos I have to send:
Video Proof

My dogs get their food delivery packaged better with Farmers dog and its always cold as can be, I actually have to let the box sit out for a little before I can touch them with my fingers and not get frost bitten.

I'll take any suggestions for other meal providers? I have been getting Territory foods along with Tovala and its been fantastic but sorry Tovala has to go.

If you are a single person buying meals and you want to try Tovala then be prepared to have nothing on the menu to pick from besides low quality hake fish, heart burn inducing Cacio e Pepe pasta, pork, or some weird Andouille Sausage meal. I'm struggling to be able to put a 4 meal order together with the choices.

This switch happened within the past couple of days. I love the manipulation tactics Appsumo uses to make us more likely to purchase. It's like David Copperfield is running the listings algorithm, with all kinds of magic tricks and illusions. I guess sales are down. *Also, what defines or makes a review "relevant"?