Apps.Deals vs Indie App Santa vs Rare Big Deal: Where to Promote an App Deal

If you make an app and plan a discount, a free week, or a Black Friday sale, you need people to hear about it. Deal sites are one of the cheapest ways to do that, but they differ a lot in which platforms they cover, what they charge, and how they reach buyers.

This post compares three that are active in October 2026: Apps.Deals, Indie App Santa, and Rare Big Deal.

An earlier version of this comparison included AppAdvice and its "Apps Gone Free" list. As of October 2026, appadvice.com no longer loads (the domain doesn't resolve), so we replaced it with Rare Big Deal.

Quick Verdict

• Apps.Deals fits Mac developers who want a free listing, year-round deals, and a promo code system that stops one person from taking every code.
• Indie App Santa fits iPhone and Android developers who want a paid, scheduled feature in a dedicated deals app with push notifications and social posts.
• Rare Big Deal fits developers of any kind of app or SaaS who are comfortable with GitHub and want a free listing, mostly around Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Feature Comparison

Apps.Deals

Apps.Deals lists Mac apps that are free for a limited time, discounted, or giving away promo codes, all year. Each deal is reviewed before it reaches the main page, and buyers can search, filter by category and pricing model, and browse past deals.

What developers get:

• Free submissions. You get a public link to your deal page right after submitting, even before approval.
• Promo codes with rules. Each code can be claimed once, each user can claim one code per deal, and all codes are made public 12 hours after the last one is claimed. The FAQ notes you can use this to distribute codes for iOS, Android, or web apps too.
• Optional paid tiers. $5 for review within a day, $49 per featured month (featured section, highlighted placement, newsletter exposure), or $169 per Premium run (adds a carousel banner, 3 months of featuring, and a permanent do-follow backlink). Only Premium includes the backlink.
• Reach. The site lists 1,200+ newsletter subscribers and says it had 20k+ unique visitors during last year's Black Friday period.

Limits: Mac apps only, and a free listing gets no guaranteed review time.

For a full walkthrough, see Apps.Deals explained.

Indie App Santa

Indie App Santa started as an iOS deals service and now also covers Android. It shows featured apps on a daily deals page in its own app, and featured apps also get push notifications, social media shout-outs, and newsletter mentions. Its Android app is live on Google Play. The App Store link on its site returned a "not found" page when we checked in October 2026, even though the iOS packages still promise placement "in our iOS app", so ask where an iOS feature will appear before you pay.

How it works: you choose a package, submit your app's description, the discount or freebie, and your preferred dates, and the team reviews it for quality. After the feature runs, they check in on how it performed.

Pricing from its pricing page:

• iOS one-time features: $150 for one (a 1-day premium placement plus social shout-outs), $200 for two, or $250 for five. Larger plans add ASO help: $500 (Growth) and $800 (Pro, with a consultation call).
• Android one-time features: from $75.
• Subscriptions: $199, $299, or $499 per quarter for one, two, or three features per quarter, with extras such as community access and growth credits on the higher tiers.

Limits: no Mac coverage, and every feature is paid.

Rare Big Deal

Rare Big Deal is a broad deals directory for iOS apps, Mac apps, SaaS, AI tools, and web apps. The site currently calls itself the "RBD 2026 edition" and is aimed at Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and lifetime deals, though it stays online all year. Visitors can browse by category, staff picks, a Top 25, and a "Last Chance" list, or follow its RSS feed.

How submissions work: you open a pull request on the project's GitHub repository. According to its FAQ, every deal is accepted automatically, there's no limit on how many you submit, and deals appear shortly after. You need at least a name, a short description, and the deal text. The FAQ says you don't need coding skills, but you do need a GitHub account.

Limits: there's no paid option to feature a deal at the top, deals are shown alphabetically within categories, and a broad mix means a Mac app competes with SaaS and AI tools for attention. Some listings still carried last year's Black Friday codes when we checked in October 2026, so buyers should confirm each offer on the developer's site.

Which One Should You Use?

Choose Apps.Deals if you:

• Make a Mac app, or want to find Mac app deals without wading through SaaS offers.
• Want to list for free and decide later whether a featured spot is worth paying for.
• Plan to give away a limited number of promo codes fairly.

Choose Indie App Santa if you:

• Make an iPhone or Android app.
• Want a scheduled, managed feature with push notifications and social posts, and have a budget for it.

Choose Rare Big Deal if you:

• Sell a SaaS product, web app, or cross-platform app and want a free listing.
• Are comfortable opening a GitHub pull request.
• Are planning a Black Friday or Cyber Monday offer.

These platforms don't exclude each other. A Mac and iOS developer running a Black Friday sale could reasonably list on all three. For more places Mac buyers look in November, see our list of websites to find Black Friday deals on Mac apps.

Final Verdict

For Mac apps, Apps.Deals is the focused option and costs nothing to start. For mobile apps, Indie App Santa offers the most hands-on promotion, at a price. Rare Big Deal is the free, broad catch-all, best timed for Black Friday. If you're a buyer rather than a developer, follow the one that matches your devices: Apps.Deals for Mac, Indie App Santa for iPhone and Android, and Rare Big Deal for a bit of everything.

Note: First published in February 2025 and updated in October 2026. Features and prices are current as of October 2026 and can change; verify them on each official site before you pay for a feature.

Disclosure: Apps.Deals is made by Softal, the same company behind this blog.