KingSumo Review: Best Giveaway Tool? (AppSumo Lifetime Deal)
KingSumo is AppSumo's in-house giveaway platform that lets you run contests, collect emails, and grow your audience — all for a one-time $49 lifetime deal.
KingSumo
KingSumo is a giveaway and contest platform that helps you grow your email list by running viral sweepstakes with social sharing incentives.
Content creators, marketers, and small business owners who want to grow their audience through giveaways without paying recurring fees.
Gleam, RafflePress, Viral Loops, SweepWidget
What Is KingSumo and Why Consider the Lifetime Deal?
KingSumo is one of AppSumo's Originals — tools developed in-house by the AppSumo team and offered as lifetime deals. At its core, KingSumo is a giveaway platform designed to help you run contests that grow your email list and social following through viral sharing mechanics.
There are two ways to get it: a free plan with surprisingly generous features, or a $49 one-time payment for the full Pro version. The free tier gives you unlimited giveaways, website embedding, multiple prize support, and basic integrations with SendFox and Zapier. The paid plan unlocks custom branding, Meta pixel tracking, conversion tracking, 19-language translations, custom form fields, removal of AppSumo branding, and advanced integrations with MailChimp, ConvertKit, and Klaviyo.
There's actually a third path worth considering: AppSumo Plus. For $99 per year, you get 10% off every AppSumo purchase, KingSumo Pro included for free, SendFox Tier 1 for free, and a $25 voucher every 90 days. If you shop at AppSumo even quarterly, the membership more than pays for itself.
Creating Your First Giveaway: Step-by-Step Walkthrough
Setting up a giveaway in KingSumo is straightforward. You start by clicking "New Giveaway" and filling in a title and description. From there, you configure the schedule — start date, end date, and when the prize will be awarded. You can set your timezone and upload images of the prize to create a visual slider on the contest page.
For data collection, email is mandatory (this is the whole point, after all), and you can optionally collect names and phone numbers. The setup wizard walks you through sharing options next, where you pick which platforms contestants can use to spread the word — Facebook, Twitter, Messenger, and email are the default selections.
The bonus entries system is where things get interesting. You can incentivize specific actions like subscribing to a YouTube channel, following on Instagram or Twitter, subscribing to a podcast, watching a specific YouTube video, or even providing a phone number. Each action can be assigned a custom number of bonus entries, letting you weight the actions that matter most to your growth strategy.
Integrations and Connecting Your Email Platform
KingSumo supports five integrations: SendFox, Zapier, MailChimp, ConvertKit, and Klaviyo. There's also an API for custom connections if you're a developer. Connecting an integration is simple — for SendFox, it took just a couple of clicks to authenticate and link the account.
One practical tip: connect your integrations before you start building your contest. While you can add them after publishing (by editing the giveaway), it's cleaner to have everything wired up from the start. Once connected, you choose which email list new contestants get added to, so every giveaway entry automatically becomes a subscriber in your email marketing platform.
The integration selection isn't enormous, but it covers the most common email marketing platforms. And with Zapier in the mix, you can technically connect KingSumo to hundreds of other tools if needed.
Branding, Tracking, and Account Settings
The Pro plan lets you customize the look of your giveaway pages with your own logo, which appears at the bottom of the contest page. You can update your branding from the account settings at any time, and changes reflect immediately on all active giveaways.
The tracking section is simple but effective — just drop in your Meta (Facebook) pixel ID to track contest signups for retargeting and conversion optimization. This is particularly valuable if you're running paid ads to drive traffic to your giveaway, since you'll be able to measure actual signup conversions rather than just clicks.
Additional settings include invisible reCAPTCHA to prevent bot entries, a GDPR consent checkbox for EU compliance (or just general privacy-consciousness), and customizable rules and terms. You can use KingSumo's default legal language or swap in your own, which is handy if you've had a lawyer draft specific contest terms for your jurisdiction.
The Contestant Experience: What Your Audience Sees
The contestant-facing experience is clean and well-designed. The giveaway page features an image slider showcasing your prize, a countdown timer, and a simple entry form. Contestants can sign up with their email or use Google authentication for a one-click entry.
After entering, contestants land on a congratulations page with a confetti animation and a list of bonus actions they can take for additional entries. The YouTube video embed is worth highlighting — rather than just linking to a video, KingSumo embeds it directly on the page with no player controls visible. This means contestants actually have to watch the video to earn their bonus entries, which is a nice touch for engagement.
There is a caveat with social sharing actions like tweeting: KingSumo can't verify whether a contestant actually completed the share. Someone could click the "Share on Twitter" button, close the window without posting, and still receive credit. This is an industry-wide limitation that affects virtually every contest platform, not just KingSumo.
Embedding and Distribution Options
KingSumo gives you several ways to get your giveaway in front of people. You can share the native KingSumo-hosted link (which lives on kingsumo.com), share directly to Facebook, Twitter, or email using built-in templates, embed a badge on your website, or fully embed the giveaway widget on your own site.
One limitation to be aware of: there's no CNAME or custom domain support. Unless you embed the giveaway on your own website, contestants will see a kingsumo.com URL. For most use cases this isn't a dealbreaker, but if brand consistency in the URL bar matters to you, embedding on your own site is the way to go.
The embed option is particularly useful for content creators and bloggers who want the giveaway to live within their existing site experience rather than sending visitors to a third-party domain.
Final Verdict: Is KingSumo Worth It?
KingSumo earns a solid 8.7 out of 10. It's been around for a long time, it's battle-tested, and it does exactly what it promises without unnecessary complexity. The integration list isn't massive and there aren't a ton of bells and whistles, but for running straightforward giveaways that actually grow your email list, it's hard to find something that does it significantly better.
The value proposition is tough to argue with. At $49 for a lifetime deal, you're paying a fraction of what most contest platforms charge per month. Tools like Gleam, RafflePress, and SweepWidget often run into the hundreds of dollars annually, making KingSumo's one-time fee an easy win for anyone who runs giveaways even occasionally.
If you need a no-frills contest platform that just works, KingSumo is a reliable choice. And if you're already considering AppSumo Plus for the broader discount benefits, you'll get KingSumo Pro thrown in for free — making it essentially a bonus tool in an already worthwhile membership.
Watch the Full Video
Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.
