So what is redemption? In a nutshell, redemption is the process by which Sumo-lings (our customers) get access to the goods: aka your product.
First, here’s a checklist for what you’ll need to set up redemption:
Now let’s break these three components down further by outlining the buyer’s journey from a customer perspective. Here’s how that magic happens:
First, a Sumo-ling buys your product on AppSumo.com. After they go through checkout, they can select to redeem your product, and when they do so, they’ll have access to those three components we’ve been talking about – again, they are the redemption URL, the coupon code, and any redemption instructions needed to help them along the way.
Let’s talk about the redemption URL first.
After clicking “Redeem Now” on your product, the Sumo-ling will be automatically redirected to the redemption URL you provided. There, they can fill out whatever fields you want to capture in terms of customer information.
The most common fields are name and email address. It’s also important to note that we do not allow partners to ask for customer phone number, address, or any billing information.
This is especially important to note with regards to credit cards. Since the Sumo-ling has already paid in full for your product, we do not allow partners to ask for any credit card information as part of the redemption process.
In general, too, you want to avoid any unnecessary friction, so don’t include up-sells, SMS/push requests, triple opt-in, or anything of that nature that would create additional, unwanted headaches for your customers.
Finally – and most importantly – you’ll want to make sure you include a field in your redemption process for the Sumo-ling to submit their unique, one-time-use access code.
For security reasons, we do not allow multiple-use coupon codes – all codes must be one-time-use-only and completely unique so they can be individually assigned and redeemed by specific customers.
Make sense so far? Awesome sauce.
Alright, let’s break down the two types of redemption URL you can create for your AppSumo product submission: dynamic and static.
In dynamic redemption, AppSumo will automatically embed a customer’s specific access code at the end of the redemption URL itself, providing Sumo-lings with an easy-breezy one-click redemption experience.
While this is the best option for a redemption URL, note that you'll need to build this logic into your sign-up page URL ahead of time to allow for this functionality if this is the route you end up choosing.
After purchasing your product, all the Sumo-ling has to do in a dynamic redemption flow is input their name, email address, and whatever other info you want to capture from them.
Now let’s talk about static redemption.
Static redemption uses just a classic URL with no fancy business or logic at the end. Instead of having a code automatically added to the end of the URL, the Sumo-ling goes to your sign-up page and manually enters their unique access code right there alongside any other standard information you might want to capture (like name and email address).
Note that the Sumo-ling starts their redemption journey by copying their code directly on AppSumo. When they click “Redeem now,” they then get redirected to your static redemption URL page.
It’s there that they input their information, which again, should include name, email, code, and any other information you might need or want to set up their account – minus phone number, address, or any credit card info though, of course. Don’t forget!
Now, it’s important to note that these redemption methods – dynamic and static – both were explained just now with the assumption that your redemption URL is a landing page.
If you’re not sure how to develop an AppSumo-specific landing page as your redemption URL, you can also turn your existing cart or checkout page into a bonafide AppSumo redemption URL if you’d so prefer.
In this method, the Sumo-ling actually gets redirected to your standard sales or cart checkout page instead of an AppSumo-specific landing page.
The beginning of the account registration process can be standard like it is for your non-AppSumo customers, but just make sure that upon successful entry of the unique coupon code, any credit card requirements either become optional or disappear entirely.
This is also a good time to remind you that because the Sumo-ling has already purchased your product and paid for it in full on AppSumo – due to the fact we operate off revenue share with all our partners – the code also needs to fully discount the product down to $0 or “free” at this step.
We see a lot of partners who accidentally set up their codes to only do a partial discount to their AppSumo sale price, which doesn’t make sense of course since the Sumo-ling already paid that amount to get their code in the first place. So just a word to the wise: make sure the code takes 100% of the cost away.
Okay, this is all great, but what if you’re someone who is completely overwhelmed by everything you’ve just read? You either don’t know how to build a landing page or you simply don’t want to, and you don’t have the ability to add a promo code field to your existing checkout process.
You just want the easiest, simplest, least technical way of setting up a redemption URL. If this sounds like you, don’t worry – here’s how to do that…
After a Sumo-ling copies their individual access code and clicks “Redeem now,” you can build your redemption out so they get redirected not to a landing page or to a checkout page, but just to a simple Google Form. This is something most partners probably are able to set up in 5 minutes or less, it’s about as non-complex technically as you can get, and plus – it’s absolutely free.
Just ensure the form has those common areas of information capture we’ve covered so far: name, email address, and AppSumo code – that’s really all you need. When the Sumo-ling clicks “Submit” after entering those informational fields, the form gets sent to you as the partner.
At this point, you have a couple of options. You can use an automation tool – something like Zapier, for example – to automatically check the form response, validate the code, and if it’s good, send an access credentials or welcome message directly to the email associated with that particular code – aka the Sumo-ling who bought your deal.
But you certainly don’t have to automate this process either if that’s too complicated. You can simply open the form response yourself, check the code included against the list you provided in your AppSumo submission, and if it matches, boom – you can then email the Sumo-ling their product yourself.
This is a manual process, of course, but it’s an easy one. The point of showing you this is just to illustrate how literally anyone can set up a redemption URL, so don’t let it scare you or stop you from submitting your product to AppSumo.
Alright, now that we’ve covered redemption URLs in detail and you feel more confident than ever about that first component we identified, let’s move on to the second: the codes!
AppSumo codes are the key to unlocking your deal. Think of it as simple as this: one code equals one purchase on AppSumo. A Sumo-ling sees your product listing and decides to pay for it in full, they get issued a unique code as a result of that transaction.
Remember, like we said earlier, we do not allow just one multiple-use code for product submissions. The problem with that setup is that it leaves both you as our partner and us as AppSumo open to abuse and customer misconduct, since that one code could be shared improperly or distributed who knows where and given out to who knows who with reckless abandon. No one makes any money in that scenario, so let’s just both agree right now that individual, unique, one-time-use codes are the way to go.
So what exactly do we need here? We need a minimum of 100 or a maximum of 10,000 unique, single-use, purchase-ready codes. You can create these codes however you want, but we recommend using a free online random code generator – something like Voucherify, for example – to get started.
On that note, feel free to investigate the platform you’re already using to host your product to see if they can help generate the codes for you. Teachable, for example, has this function already built in, so if your course is hosted with them and you’re submitting it on AppSumo, you can generate all the codes you need right there in Teachable itself.
We do have certain specifications with regards to these codes, mind you. They need to be completely alphanumeric in nature – meaning only numbers and letters are allowed. No special characters, punctuation, etc. The individual codes themselves also need to be between 3 and 200 characters in length and they need to be formatted in plain text.
In terms of organization, make sure they’re listed in a single vertical column with no extra information in the adjacent columns – we just need the codes themselves, no URLs or other tracking information. Please arrange the sheet so that there’s only one code per row and there are no blank spaces between the rows.
Finally, make sure there’s no header on your sheet and that it gets uploaded as a CSV file. If you follow all these parameters, you shouldn’t have any issues uploading your codes sheet to AppSumo.
So just to recap: you’ll need to upload between 100 to 10,000 unique, one-time-use codes in a CSV file while submitting your product on AppSumo. You can use a service like Voucherify to generate the codes for free within seconds if you need to. Make sure you keep the code list on your end, but know that we’ll upload the copy you submit to us into our system, and that’s what we’ll pull from every time a Sumo-ling buys your product on AppSumo.
Alright, last but certainly not least, let’s talk about redemption instructions.
These are exactly like what they sound like: instructions to help guide the Sumo-ling so they know exactly what to do with their code and your redemption URL to gain access to the product they’ve already paid for.
Here’s a helpful thought exercise for when you’re writing your redemption instructions: Did you take an action? Write it down! Start at your redemption URL and make note of every action you take until you’ve gained complete access to the final product.
So for example, if a Sumo-ling needs to register for a free account first before they can redeem their coupon code in the pricing section of your website, you should include that info in the redemption instructions. If they need to fully install your software on their device before opening it and then adding their AppSumo code in the license or registration key field of that software, great – include those steps here.
That’s it! You now know everything there is to know about redemption, including the three components we require to get your product live on AppSumo: your redemption URL, your redemption codes, and your redemption instructions.
If you have any questions about anything you’ve just read, know that we’re here for you!
You can shoot us an email at partners@appsumo.com, you can write in to our live chat right there in our seller submission flow.
We’re committed to doing everything in our power to get you across the finish line so we can get that phenomenal product of yours making sales on AppSumo sooner rather than later. Hopefully this walkthrough has been helpful in giving you all the tools and knowledge you need to make that happen.
Now let’s go crush this thing!