Reddit roasted my app. Then it got featured by Apple.
Here’s why launching my Mac app on Reddit was extremely valuable and how you can do the same.
In this post I’ll go over how I approach launching a new app on Reddit and what lessons I learned so you can successfully (hopefully *wink) do the same.
"I'd rather let my MacBook die than pay $10 for this app."
That comment genuinely made me laugh. And hurt. A lot.
Two months ago, I launched Juicy, a small Mac app that shows you beautiful custom battery alerts at any percentage level.
I built it because I work a lot from coffee shops and love to squeeze the last juice (no pun intended) out of my Macbook battery.
However, I hate when it just suddenly dies so now I have an alert at 15%, 5%, 3% and 1% and I tell you. Once I see the 1% notification I do actually run to grab my charger haha!
So I built the first version and then it was time to share it with the world.
I could have initially shared it on X, as I already have a somewhat decent following there but I decided against it.
I wanted people to tell me if my app actually sucked.
When you have an audience, feedback gets a little skewed. People want to be nice. They want to support you.
That's great for morale but terrible for building a good product.
So I went to Reddit first. The place where nobody knows you and nobody cares about your feelings. I posted about Juicy and got…
…absolutely roasted.
Not going to lie, it hurt a little but fast forward today, Juicy has been featured by Apple for over a month on the official Mac App Store homepage under “Apps We Love” so I’m extremely grateful for the humbling experience and feedback from Reddit.
I actually did end up making my first sales from Reddit as well so even if there’s some harsh feedback you’ll still reach enthusiastic people as well.
That’s the beauty of Reddit.
The strategy
Before randomly just posting about Juicy to the first subreddit that came to my mind I spent a good amount of time first researching which subreddits developers mainly share their apps in.
In my case I found r/MacOS and r/macapps to be the two most prominent subreddits where the actually allow you to also post about your app.
I spent a good day observing dozens of posts.
Top performing posts all had one thing in common: a visual. Screenshot or quick video demo.
So I recorded a short clip showing Juicy's bouncy notification pills and glow effects.
The format was simple. I really like the "I made an app that does X..." for the post title approach.
In my opinion your post should write in first person, be extremely transparent and shy away from all the marketing fluff.
Try to not use AI for this post.
Just "Hey, I built this thing because it solves [my own problem] so I thought I share and hopefully its helpful to some as well".
I decided to first post on r/MacOS, wait a day, learn from the comments, and only then do the second post on r/macapps.
One subreddit at a time so I could actually learn and iterate.
The interesting thing is here that your post does not have to go viral to get you meaningful feedback.
You can see the first post got me 67 upvotes and 82 comments. The second one below 31 upvotes and 37 comments.
While that might not look like much it was all I needed.
The $9.99 meme
Turns out Reddit has a visceral hatred for $9.99 Mac utility apps.
Like, an actual meme level hatred. I had no idea! I simply priced it 9.99 because I felt like that it’s a fair value.
Turns out, probably every developer and their mum thinks the same *shrug shrug.
My first post got solid engagement. Comments, upvotes, discussions.
But almost no sales.
I was a bit upset but then I quickly found out that there's real price sensitivity for Mac utilities that I completely underestimated coming from a B2B background.
Even if Reddit isn't your entire market, they're not wrong about this.
So I dropped it to $4.99 and suddenly the floodgates slowly opened.
People actually started buying it and even commented how fair the price is and they love it.
Interesting. I did not expect that.
Respond to everything
This is probably the most important thing I did: I responded to every single comment. Even the brutal ones. Especially the brutal ones.
When someone said the price was too high, I didn't get defensive. I thanked them and explained my thinking.
When someone called it "AI slop," I acknowledged it stung but explained my actual process.
When someone found a CPU usage issue, I said I'd look into it and actually did.
People associate your app with you.
If you come across as a real human who listens and owns their mistakes, they're way more likely to trust your product.
This matters a lot for B2C apps where there's no sales team or brand reputation backing you up. It's just you.
One Redditor wrote:
This leads me straight into the next “trick”.
The edit trick
You probably know this but you can edit your existing Reddit post.
After the first wave of comments on r/MacOS, I added an "Edit:" section at the bottom of my post.
I addressed price concerns, the "AI slop" accusations, use case clarifications.
This way new readers could immediately see I was listening without having to dig through hundreds of comments.
It removes objections before people even raise them. Then I took those lessons to r/macapps the next day.
On the vibe coding thing
A few people called Juicy "vibe coded." That one stung a bit.
Yes, I use AI to help me code.
But calling the entire app "AI slop" ignores the hours I spent in Figma prototyping, learning Swift fundamentals, and obsessing over small details like the bounce animation timing.
I wrote an entire blog post about this here.
I spend about 86% of my coding time with AI assistance now. The other 14% is bare hands plus brain.
This lets me ship faster and spend more time on the details that make software feel unique.
Maybe we need a better term for this than "vibe coding."
What actually changed
That brutal Reddit feedback shaped version 1.1 of Juicy:
- Alert size slider (people found them too in your face)
- Toggle for the glow effect
- Fixed the menu bar icon proportions to match Apple's native battery icon
- Added a minimalistic iPhone style battery icon option
- Optimized CPU usage after someone flagged it was hitting 2 to 4%
One user, u/No-Aside9851, left incredibly detailed design feedback. Pixel level stuff. I implemented almost everything.
They noticed the 1.1.0 update and thanked me. That felt good.
My takeaway
If you're launching on Reddit, here's what worked for me:
- Add a visual. Look at what performs well in that subreddit and copy the format.
- Write in first person. Be transparent about who you are and why you built it.
- Post in one subreddit at a time so you can learn and iterate.
- Respond to every comment. Be a human. Own your issues.
- Add an "Edit:" section after feedback comes in to address concerns for new readers.
- Test your pricing. $9.99 might be a meme. $4.99 might be the magic number or not. You got to keep experimenting.
Launch where it's uncomfortable.
Reddit won't spoil you.
But if you listen, respond like a human, and actually fix the issues, they'll also buy your app and tell others about it.
A few weeks later, Apple featured Juicy under "Apps We Love."
So yeah. Let Reddit roast you.
The feedback might hurt, but it might also be exactly what your v1 needs.
BTW, if you are looking for a tool that helps youautomate your growth marketing on Reddit, my SaaSRedreachmight be worth a look :) It helps you find posts to interact with, track mentions and even send automated DMs.
