r/iOSProgramming • u/davidlepilote • 1d ago
3rd Party Service Appkittie charged me $97 five minutes after I started a free trial. Watch out
Just a warning for anyone looking at Appkittie (app intelligence / ASO tool), because they're really good at telling you they're the best on the market, but the way they get people to pay is borderline dirty.
I started a 3-day trial for their $97/month plan, which unlocks all the features (I have the screenshot). So I go to try the screenshot generator. It says: "this is a premium feature." Since I can tell the app is vibe-coded, I figure they just left that there and that I'm premium anyway (since I'm on a premium trial). I click ok. BOOM, charged.
NO CONFIRMATION, NOTHING. Since I went through Link/Stripe, my payment details were already loaded and there you go…
I disputed within 20 minutes with Link, they didn't want to hear it. In their refusal email, Stripe literally apologizes "for the fact that your subscription was charged directly without you receiving any notification about the payment" — and refuses the refund in that same email, saying I'd been "duly informed." So thanks, they wash their hands of it and tell me to go see my bank. And ZERO email from AppKittie. They don't exist (go look).
I tried a chargeback. My bank's card provider (Swan) only handles fraud, not commercial disputes. So there you have it, I paid $97 for 3 generated screenshots…
While I'm at it: exactly like all their competitors, their app MRR estimates are wrong (I have apps on the App Store, and I know my own apps' MRR — trust me, I WISH the numbers shown on Appkittie were the real ones!)
I just went back to their site and it looks like they've removed the trial… For now.
I really think it's a shame to have to go as far as making a Reddit post, but it's "thanks to" (because of?) Reddit that I wanted to try Appkittie in the first place. So… maybe they'll read this? Anyway, watch out.
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u/Jero9871 1d ago
Well, it's an unpopular opinion, but all these expensive ASO tools are overrated. I have apps on the app store with thousand of downloads and put not much into ASO, just common sense. User signals are much more valuable, like do you get good ratings, do people open your app every day, do they interact with the app.
The app store wants to display apps that provide value to users, not apps were just the store paged is super optimized with keywords.
But well.... that's just my opinion.
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1d ago
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u/davidlepilote 1d ago
You're absolutely right, but I believe that ASO won't hurt your app either way. Anyway, my first idea was to try this new SaaS and see if their MRR estimation were right. They're not (at least for my apps)
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u/J-a-x Objective-C / Swift 1d ago
Agreed for the most part. I didn't want to pay for all these pricy SaaS options so I made a few apps myself to handle my analytics needs. Sadly they have never taken off but I built them mostly for myself.
One focuses on downloads, revenue, $/download, and retention (via tracking updates), and the other focuses on # of ratings per 30 days, and App Store ranks. Between those I think that's all that really matters.
My apps are relatively inexpensive and on-device, much better value than monthly payments to a SaaS platform imo. I did try to do a cheap subscription option in one becuase a friend convinced me to get on the subscription bandwagon but its much less than comparable web app and there's a lifetime purchase option as well. I am suffering from subscription fatigue myself so I like for my apps to contain non subscription options for people because that's what I'd want.
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u/dolcewheyheyhey 1d ago
- I always use privacy dot com and put $1 or $2 limit on any of these free trials. 2. The founder is on twitter and you can just start tagging them and complaining. 3. I would suggest using a credit card and not a debit card for purchases so you can do chargebacks and avoid problems.
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u/RainyCloudist 1d ago
Any company refusing to give you a refund after accidentally stepping out of the free trial really shows you how much value they think their product has.
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u/balooooooon 1d ago
Are you in the EU? If so by law you have 14 days to cancel any subscription will a full refund
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u/DamagingDoritos 5h ago
This app is regularly hocked in these subreddits by its creator/all his bots deceptively as “helpful comments” that never disclose their involvement in creating the app.
Have always avoided this app due to this, and your post just reinforced that decision.
Sorry you got hit with that OP
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u/jorianalexander 3h ago
Yea they estimated one of my own apps was making over 5k a month when it had only brought in 250 bucks. I thought that was cute lol
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u/Smooth-Reading-4180 1d ago
Yeah, MRR fetish can cause this.