This is my first negative review on Appsumo.

Here’s what's driving me to write it: I spent a significant amount of time going through the tool, watched all the tutorials several times, filed bugs, reached out to support multiple times over two weeks (Email, Chat, Discord), and never heard anything substantial back. My chat messages even got erased by them.

At this stage of a product, that's not a good sign.

I'm trusting that this gets resolved with time, but right now it's just not something to confidently put in front of a client.

The first impression is genuinely great. The interface is clean, it looks polished, and I really like it. That's why I went in and even upgraded. But as you move from looking at it to actually using it with real workflows, a lot of things start to come apart, and I don't think you see that from a first impression or a quick demo.

Here's what I found after living in it for 2+ weeks and using it extensively:
- The white label isn't truly white label. I upgraded to a higher tier specifically for this, giving them the benefit of the doubt, and even set up my own SMTP. The emails still don't carry my branding, particularly in the client portal sign-in. For a tool you're meant to put in front of clients, that's a real miss.

- The notification system isn't fully functional. Clients don't reliably get notified of tasks and updates, which defeats the point of a client portal.

- Support grows quiet over time. A scheduled meeting was a no-show on their end. I had a Calendly meeting set up and no one showed. No acknowledgement, no follow up. I had to reach back out myself.
- Support is scattered across too many channels -- email, in-app chat, and Discord, and then asked me to use WhatsApp too. There's no single place to get a straight answer, and nothing gets closed out.

The comms on what each tier covers is a moving target decided on a rolling basis. On AppSumo, all tiers above tier 1 share similar functionality. But in reality Heffl seems to be cherry-picking on the back end: one moment API is allowed in tier 2, the next moment it's not. Then MCP is allowed, then it's not.

*Side note*: giving API access but not MCP is odd as MCP is becoming table stakes these days. Moreover, some of your API functionalities seem limited while MCP works (it signals the API may be abandoned over time). I'm not saying you plan to do this. I'm just telling you that's the perception coming off, and it's not a good one. I've had my fair share of getting burned on AppSumo and I usually shrug it off. For some reason your comms got to me, so forgive me if I'm a bit emotional on this part.

I believe this team works hard and the direction is promising, which is the only reason I'm taking the time to write this. If the white label became real, notifications worked reliably, and support actually closed the loop after quick replies, I'd gladly come back and raise this rating. Right now I'd just temper your expectations and make sure the tool does what you need before you put clients in front of it.

*Some concrete asks to help Heffl team move forward*:
- Transparently clear up the difference between the tiers so people know exactly what they're buying and can choose rightly from the onset.
- Consolidate your support channels into one go-to spot: not email, Discord, chat, and WhatsApp (remember not everyone uses WhatsApp, which should be okay).
- It's not enough to quickly acknowledge someone reaching out. You should have a ticketing system to track and make sure a concern is truly resolved.
- Test the client portal flow end to end.
- Collapse contacts, leads, and companies. Your tutorials mention starting from companies as a first touch, but the existence of contacts remains confusing and doesn't add much value to the UI flow.
- If someone files a bug, acknowledge that you received the report, because this is someone taking time out of their day to help your product improve.
- Finish specific experiences as you currently risk building lots of disparate features that don't fully work.

I suspect some of these are already things you plan or are aware of, but I wanted to give you as much detail and constructive feedback as I could. There are still areas I left out, but I think the bugs I logged may be helpful.

I'm on the fence about keeping this, not because I don't believe in it, but because I need to know someone's actually going to fix the issues, beyond a quick reply.

Fix a few of these core things, don't just promise them for later, and I'll happily stay bought in and update this review.

I'm rooting for you, and I'd rather be writing the five-taco version.