Partner promotion: How we actually use revenue share to market your tools

AppSumo is built on partnerships with up-and-coming creators in the software space. But what do our partners get out of it?

The short answer? We put new software in front of a SaaS-loving audience of 1.3M that’s ready to buy a product (not just upvote), give feedback, and become their most passionate users. 

From building PDPs (product detail pages) to running Meta ads to tapping our huge email list and affiliate network, our marketing team has our partners’ backs from the moment they launch on AppSumo. 

There’s a common misconception that we pocket our share of tool revenue (we average ~55% for Select tools) all for ourselves. The truth is, most of those funds get reinvested back into marketing our partners.

Our goal is simple: spread the word about our partners’ awesome tools and secure as many new customers as possible. That’s the biggest win for both our partners and us.

In this post, we’ll break down the promotional strategy and marketing tactics that have helped AppSumo Select partners walk away with hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus thousands of new users.

Let’s jump in.

Our standard Select marketing practices

All Select partners get the following support:

• Getting in front of a warm audience of entrepreneurs ready to buy new solutions
• Distribution across paid and organic channels, our 1.3M subscriber email list, and our network of thousands of affiliate partners

But here’s the fun part: the more successful a tool is with our audience, the more we can expand their marketing even further. We're talking additional email placements, spotlight features in affiliate promotions, and more.

Product detail pages

Promoting a new tool across our marketing channels starts with the product detail page (or PDP).

Once the partner sends us their brand assets and fills out a form explaining their product, our Product Operations team gets to work on creating their dedicated landing page (example here). We’ll link to this PDP in all of our promotions.

Every Select tool gets the following on their PDP:

• A promotional video
• Personalized sales copy highlighting the key features of each product
• Detailed explanation of the deal terms
• A “From the Founders” post where they can talk to Sumo-lings directly
• Reviews and Q&A section
• Links to additional promotional & how-to videos, and reviews from external platforms
• FAQs
• News & updates

Once the page has been tested and reviewed, it’s ready for launch.

Email marketing

Our email list of 1.3M subscribers (~275K hyper active) is our largest and most effective marketing channel.

Every Select campaign receives a feature in our weekly tool drop email on Mondays.

If your tool meets our minimum performance standards, you can unlock more email features like:

• Dedicated recap email
  
  • Goes out on Tuesdays and Thursdays
  • Features the top performing tool leaving the store within five days
  • Tools are chosen based on revenue earned during the tool’s duration and taco average ratings
• Dedicated top performer email
  
  • Go out on Wednesdays and Fridays
  • Fridays = #1 performing tool from that week
  • Wednesday = #2 performing tool from the previous week
  • Featured tools must have high taco ratings
• Additional ‘Top 5 Trending’ section in emails Tuesday through Friday
  
  • Based on the previous day’s sales, reviews, and taco ratings
• A mention in our weekly leaderboard email on Sundays

Note: if a tool is selected to launch as part of an event (e.g., AI Week, Black Friday, Sumo Day), that product may receive additional email promotion throughout the campaign based on performance.

Let’s do some quick math. Based on market rates for comparable paid email placements to lists of similar size, you can expect to pay about $15,000 for a dedicated send, $7,500 for prime placement, and $3,500 for an additional placement. Altogether, a campaign that meets minimum performance at AppSumo is valued at about $43,500.

For comparison:

• Morning Brew charges $35,000–$60,000 for a full sponsorship (depending on the section & day).
• A single send from a mid-sized B2B list can run $8,000–$15,000.
• Niche newsletters (like AI, productivity, etc.) often price per click, e.g., $5–$12 CPC. Our emails receive between 1-5k clicks per product.

By working off revenue share, our partners can get the same level of exposure without needing a huge marketing budget upfront.

Affiliate marketing

At AppSumo, we’ve got a robust network of thousands of activeaffiliates who are ready to promote tools to their audiences.

Each Select tool gets featured in these affiliate promos:

• Affiliate roundup email highlighting newly launched tools.
• Spotlight feature sent weekly to drive extra attention to high-performing tools.
  
  • a. This is earned based on store performance (considering factors like revenue per session, gross sales, and AOV).
    
• High-impact reach during major campaigns like Sumo Day and Black Friday, where affiliate engagement doubles.

We run a pay-per-performance model, with payouts up to 100% on new customer sales—making AppSumo one of the most incentivizing affiliate programs around.

It’s an always-on strategy: our team runs campaigns and touchpoints year-round to keep affiliates active and excited about new tools.

Partners can also join the Affiliate program themselves. If you promote your own deal (pro tip: start with freemium users), you’ll earn 100% on all new buyers you bring in—on top of your revenue share.

Some partners have driven $50K+ in extra revenue from affiliates during their 60-day campaign.

Ambassador marketing

Ambassadors are AppSumo’s social media affiliates who must meet certain follower and quality criteria to qualify for ambassador status and payouts. We’ve built a network of hundreds of YouTube creators and influencers who make in-depth video content around AppSumo tools. These ambassadors drive some of the most high-intent traffic and best-fit customers across all of our channels.

Here’s how tools get promoted through our Ambassador network:

• Ambassador prospectus & webinar: Each month, ambassadors get early access to new tool launches and campaign details via email/slack/live webinar. That way, they can plan timely, relevant content.
• Dedicated videos: Our ambassadors either pick tools they’re excited about from our upcoming launches or promote ones flagged by our team to create high-quality dedicated videos on their channel.
• Monthly roundups & evergreen content: We sponsor recurring roundup videos and evergreen reviews, giving tools repeated exposure to highly engaged audiences.
• Event amplification: During major campaigns like Sumo Day and Black Friday, ambassador activity spikes with bigger sponsorship budgets and coordinated outreach, doubling visibility for featured products.

We use a combined fixed-fee and commission model: the fixed fee guarantees product coverage, while the commission incentivizes ambassadors to focus on video quality and cross-promotion. That way, we can attract professional creators who treat promotions like real content, not just ad spots. We encourage ambassadors to share honest reviews, giving them full creative freedom over the video’s direction, overall sentiment, and key themes.

For partners, it’s a huge payoff. Ambassador videos often hit hundreds of thousands of views that boost partner brand value long after their AppSumo campaign ends. Ambassadors are incentivized to highlight tools that appeal to their niche audiences, and our team actively recruits creators in entrepreneurship, SaaS, and small business spaces to make sure there’s a strong match.

When multiple creators feature the same product, partners can see over $75,000 in incremental value over a 60-day campaign.

Paid ads

We run paid ads on behalf of our partners on Google and Meta, with additional testing on channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, and display. 

Every Select product is placed in at least one carousel ad: this is a multi-product format where several tools are shown together. Products with a strong starting performance are  eligible for their own dedicated ads and higher spend. 

Ads are one of our most scalable growth engines—they consistently bring in new buyers and re-engage existing ones.

• Campaign and creative planning: Each month, our paid media team reviews upcoming launches and forecasts ad spend, ensuring new tools are considered for paid campaigns. Partners can request visibility into where and how ads are running.
• Dedicated campaigns: High-performing products earn dedicated campaigns on Google and Meta (search, display, video, carousel), based on revenue per session, sales, and AOV.
• ‍Dynamic & evergreen ads: Every Select partner is featured in dynamic product ads, getting continuous exposure throughout the entirety of the campaign. Evergreen campaigns are refreshed weekly to optimize targeting and creatives.
• Event amplification: During major events like Sumo Day and Black Friday, ad budgets scale way up. Usually, this leads to campaign reach growing three to four times its typical amount, putting your product in front of hundreds of thousands of new buyers.

We follow an 80/20 approach: 80% of spend in proven campaigns, 20% in experimental testing to maximize growth. Our ads team monitors pacing daily––adjusting budgets, creative, and targeting to hit transaction, CAC, and AOV goals.

All of this comes at no extra cost to partners. Paid ads not only generate direct sales, but also boost brand awareness across high-intent audiences worldwide.

Based on current spend and performance, the average product receives ~$10K–$25K in promotional value from the ads program. Top-performing products with dedicated campaigns can see $100K+ in paid ad value over a 60-90 day run, especially during peak events.

Organic/Social

As we mentioned before, part of a tool’s AppSumo promotion includes a short explainer video on its PDP walking through top features. This video is also shared to our YouTube channel, which features 128K subscribers.Engagement on these videos varies based on performance, but a typical video will receive ~2K views (popular deals can expect 5x that).

Here are a few more ways we market our tools organically:

• Pre-launch: If your product has a strong market fit with our audience, you may be asked to record additional content with our marketing team. Lately, we’ve been posting use case videos as YouTube Shorts. Here’s an example.
• Post-launch: if your product is trending in our store, we may invite you to hop on a recorded chat with us to go deeper into your tool or share your founder story. . From there, we’ll cut the interview into clips to post organically.
• Ambassador boost: Products that crush it with our ambassador network can also get featured in extra UGC-style short videos on influencer social channels.
• If you hit “Monster Deal” status (what we lovingly call heavy-hitting performers), you might even get a shoutout from our founder, Noah Kagan, in his newsletter (100K+ subscribers).

The value of polished video content, social reach, and ongoing deal page exposure adds up to about $3,800–$7,400. For tools that get picked for additional marketing pushes, that number jumps another $2,500–$5,000. On average, that’s around $6,000–$12,500 of extra marketing and exposure.

Conclusion

Launching on AppSumo means not paying marketing fees up front. Partners tap into a proven engine—email, ads, affiliates, ambassadors, and events—that’s built to drive buyers, not just clicks. 

Meet our performance benchmarks and you’ll unlock even more exposure. Most tools see a mix of direct sales now and brand lift that keeps paying off after their campaign. 

All of this is funded through revenue share: if you win, we win.

Have questions about launching on AppSumo? Our inboxes are always open. Comment or email us at support@appsumo.com. We can’t wait to partner with you.

Think launching on AppSumo just means listing your tool? Not even close. Our revenue share model powers a full-scale marketing engine that gets your product in front of a SaaS-loving audience of 1.3M buyers—without upfront costs.

Every Select partner starts with a polished product detail page and promotion in our weekly email drops. But the real magic happens as performance builds: more email features, affiliate spotlights, ambassador videos, paid ads, and even social boosts that amplify reach. From our $43K-valued email campaigns to affiliate payouts that drive $50K+ in extra sales, partners gain access to high-intent buyers at a fraction of traditional marketing costs.

We reinvest most of our share directly into campaigns across email, ads, affiliates, ambassadors, and events like Sumo Day or Black Friday. The result? Thousands of new customers, long-term brand lift, and hundreds of thousands in revenue for top performers.

Launch with AppSumo and unlock growth that keeps paying off.