Excellent platform with excellent founder (previous review edited because of this!)
In my previous review I gave Hey Summit 3 tacos and felt it deserved 3.5. Based on what has happened since that review (in just a few days) I am upgrading it to a 5.
Founder Ben has been great with replies throughout this campaign - his responses are fast and clear. My previous review what honest and respectful, but I pointed out some things which were issues for our business. Ben responded as a gentleman, took the points on board, explained his thoughts and so on, rather than reacting negatively as others may have done.
Since then, the ticketing has been upgraded for all Growth plan customers, completely negating one of our issues. Another issue was the way Hey Summit charges the application fee. Ben calmly and respectfully explained my misunderstanding here and explained how and why they charge on a monthly basis to credit card rather than via the Stripe app.
We had decided to refund as it appeared it would be difficult to do what we needed to do given the limitations we saw. As I said previously, it would have been with regret as truly we are impressed with the product and Ben. As a result of how he responded and the ticketing upgrade, along with the fact we know we will only be charged once per month for ticketing, we have decided to stay.
Well done Ben for reading and responding to EVERY question and EVERY review. It can't be an easy job and many here don't do that. You're an example of the sort of founder Appsumo should be attracting. I wish you and the business much success. Thank you!
Ben_HeySummit
Edited Jun 25, 2025Hey @bd, thanks so much for posting your honest review - it really is appreciated. Any opportunity to receive feedback is always welcomed on my end. So, thank you for taking the time to share your early thoughts.
I'd love to take the time to respond to your feedback items individually, not just for you but also for anyone else who might be reading this, in case it's helpful for anyone in the future. Naturally, if you have any further questions about anything, just let me know.
Your first point regarding the various features within HeySummit that require upgrades is a valid one, and I'm sorry that you encountered so many of these in your case. We've based the Growth plan (which this AppSumo deal is based with) on our most 'typical' customer. Most customers on this plan typically don't need all the features offered in the top success plan. However, I completely understand that there will always be use cases (yours being a good example of one) where features from the success plan might be needed.
One thing I hope you've seen is that we like to move fast as a product and keep new features rolling in based on feedback. This underpins our philosophy quite deeply when it comes to the features associated with various pricing plans and how they move from one plan to another.
For example, we are currently discussing the possibility of adding the advanced ticketing feature (which is currently on the success plan) to the growth plan in the next few months as we have several new features, such as networking and our own live streaming product, that will initially start out on the success plan. When we add meaningful new features to the Success plan we always like to ask ourselves whether that provides an opportunity to move older / more established features down to the Growth plan - and we think the Advanced Ticketing feature could be a great candidate for this :)
As such, there is a good chance (although I can't guarantee it for obvious reasons at this point) that the primary upgrade issues you encountered regarding ticket restrictions and expiration, etc., will soon be made available on the growth plan. I know that doesn't help you now, but I hope it provides an insight into how we think about features on plans and how they can migrate from one to another over time.
Next up, the HeySummit platform fee issue that you raised. I just wanted to clarify that although we do ask for card details upfront (though only if you're running a paid event), we only take one payment at the beginning of each month for any transaction fees accrued during that period. We absolutely don't take a payment for every individual ticket processed through the platform, as that would understandably become an absolute nightmare to manage :)
The primary reason why we take this approach, as opposed to adopting the internal Stripe process that you outlined, is simply because we have multiple payment providers that we support, with more providers in the pipeline. Not all of them handle transaction fees internally in the way that Stripe can and so to ensure uniformity across our platform, it's important that we're able to treat and handle transaction fees within HeySummit consistently, irrespective of the payment provider that a customer might choose to use within their event. As such, we track, calculate, and report on transactions within HeySummit, and then bill for any associated fees when the next subscription payment is due, typically at the beginning of each month.
Finally, I want to address the point about my background. Yes, I've sold companies in the past, but HeySummit has been around since 2018. We're a mature product at this point, with investors who are with us for the long run and are absolutely not pressing us to sell for short-term gains.
In addition, we have big ambitions for the business and the product as a whole. We already have a phenomenal event platform, and later this year, we'll be launching additional community-focused products, as well as a live streaming product for those looking for quick, one-off workshop-style formats to run alongside their larger scale events. Even though we've been around for seven years, we are only just getting started, and we still have much to do.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your feedback and for giving me the opportunity to address some of the points you've raised.
All the best,
Ben
UPDATE: We now include Advanced Ticketing on ALL AppSumo tiers :)