In November 2021, as I was accustomed to (a bit too much) at the time, I bought the LTD (Lifetime Deal, pay once, have access for life) of RankTracker.com. I used Rank Tracker for almost a year for daily keyword tracking.
The deal was not bad: pay $299, get access to these features:
We could even leave a review on Capterra, G2, or Trustpilot to get more credit (lifetime as well).
Recently, Felix Rose-Collins, the CEO of RankTracker, decided to change his plans. No user who bought this deal will be able to access the tool unless they pay an additional annual fee of $82. In itself, the amount is not incredible, to be able to use a tool like this. Zero communication beforehand. The hundreds of users with this deal found themselves facing a paywall overnight... you can imagine.
The main issue arises from the long-term vision of the software when faced with this type of action:
AppSumo, on their part, has published a note on their website announcing that they will no longer partner with RankTracker:
I tried to find solutions... in vain. A message to their support got lost in the abyss.
Then I tried their email directly... to get a rather amusing response:
"I have opened a support ticket for my team to check, if you are in a rush to get it fixed please buy the support plan to skip to the front of the queue."
Okay, so they're explicitly mocking me... Anyway, I try another communication channel, their Slack. Not surprisingly, any mention of AppSumo or LTD is deleted within 5 minutes, apparently, this problem is not supposed to exist. I tried to contact him directly on Slack but to no avail as the old saying goes:
Felix Rose Collins confirming RankTracker is a scam Far from me the idea to remain bitter for too long (I still am a little) - this kind of move in a business doesn't bode well. Prices have increased, and users can find themselves without their daily tool overnight. Fortunately for me, I had already moved to TrueRanker before this problem.
In conclusion, if you want a long-term tracking tool, DO NOT go to RankTracker, as you risk finding yourself overnight with a price change, a blockage, or any other surprise coming out of the head of its boss.
It took less than 10 minutes after publication to receive a DMCA complaint about this article. It seems this man doesn't like it when people talk about him!
After publishing this article - Felix blocked me from the website's support (what a pity) and kicked me out of the Slack. I was ready to accept a bribe, but apparently, that won't happen!
It seems that this story is not over yet! The number of reviews on TrustPilot continues to increase, with some very recent ones (https://fr.trustpilot.com/review/ranktracker.com?languages=all&stars=1).
It also seems that they were even rebuked by Trustpilot for writing fake reviews themselves!
