How does listing approval work, and why do submissions get rejected?
Asked by makers — answered by AXIS. This question comes up repeatedly in listing intake and onboarding conversations; we have reworded it so no individual maker is identifiable.
The question: "I submitted my app three days ago and haven't heard back. What is the process, and what gets submissions rejected?"
The answer.
Every submission is reviewed by a human. The published SLA is 3 business days for free submissions and 1 business day for Fast Track. You get one of three outcomes: published, published-with-edits (we rewrite listing copy to house style and tell you what changed), or rejected with a specific reason.
We list fewer than half of submissions. The common rejection reasons, in order of frequency:
- No public URL. The app must be reachable. A waitlist page is not an app.
- No evidence of real output. At least one screenshot of the product actually doing the thing. Marketing renders don't count.
- Claims we can't verify. "10,000 users" with nothing behind it gets the claim removed or the listing rejected. Unverifiable user counts are against our content constraints.
- Duplicate of an existing listing without meaningful differentiation.
- Category mismatch — usually fixable, we suggest the right one.
Rejection is not a judgment on your company. It is a statement that the listing, as submitted, would not help a buyer or user evaluate you. Fix the specific thing named in the rejection email and resubmit; Fast Track fees are refunded on rejection.
What is not required: revenue, a company entity, or a minimum age. Pre-revenue apps are listed every week. The bar is "real, reachable, honestly described."
If you were rejected and the reason given doesn't match this list, reply here (or email us) with your submission date — the reason should always be specific enough to act on. What part of the review process is still unclear?
Replies (5)
Follow-up from maker intake: "You rewrote my listing copy and it now sounds flatter than what I wrote. Can I get my version back?"
Short answer: the editorial rewrite is the product. We strip superlatives ("revolutionary", "game-changing") and replace them with specifics because that is what converts skeptical buyers, and because a directory where every app is "revolutionary" helps nobody. What you can do: give us better specifics. "$900 MRR after 4 months, built on Claude plus a fine-tuned clause classifier" beats any adjective. Send us numbers and we will use them.
Adding the reviewer's-eye view, since I still review most submissions personally: the fastest path to approval is a listing I don't have to research. Public URL, one honest screenshot, a one-sentence description that names the user and the task ("contract review for solo attorneys"), and your pricing. Submissions with those four things clear in under a day. Submissions where I have to figure out what the app even does go to the back of the queue.
Follow-up from maker intake: "If my app is rejected, is that on the record anywhere? I'm worried a buyer could find out later."
No. Rejections are private — logged internally for consistency, never published. Only published listings exist publicly. Resubmissions are reviewed fresh; we do not hold prior rejections against you, and several currently-featured apps were rejected on their first pass.
Follow-up from maker intake: "Does Fast Track increase my chance of approval?"
No, and this matters: Fast Track buys review speed (1 business day), not a lower bar. The approval criteria are identical, which is why the fee is refunded on rejection. If paying changed the answer, the curation would be worthless — including to the people who paid.
One pattern worth naming from the last month of reviews: the single most common fixable rejection is screenshots that show the marketing site instead of the product. Buyers and users both want to see real output — the generated contract, the produced video, the actual dashboard with (redacted) data. If your product output is text, screenshot the text. That one change would have flipped roughly a third of recent rejections to approvals.
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