Lemon Squeezy received my application on October 24, 2026 at 11:43 AM. The store was live on October 28 at 3:56 AM. Four days, one short video, and a reply that started with "I'm a real person."
That's the whole method. The rest of this is the detail, including the exact message I sent, because the thing people get wrong is overthinking it.
Why there's a review at all
Lemon Squeezy is a merchant of record. When you sell through it, Lemon Squeezy is the legal seller and you're the supplier. That means every fraud chargeback, every stolen-card dispute, every "this course was a scam" refund lands on their books, not yours.
So the review isn't about whether your product is good. It's about whether you're a real person with a real product who isn't going to generate a pile of disputes. Read every request they send through that lens and the right answer becomes obvious.
The timeline
- October 24, 11:43 AM: application received. Automated confirmation.
- October 25, 12:27 PM: I replied to an older support thread I already had with them and mentioned the pending application. I can't prove this sped anything up. It didn't hurt.
- Within a couple of days: the review team came back with a request for more information. Four items, listed below.
- October 27, 3:06 PM: I sent my reply with the video.
- October 28, 3:55 AM: someone on their team watched the video. I know because the recorder notifies me.
- October 28, 3:56 AM: store activated.
One minute between the video and the approval. Whoever reviewed it watched a real person click through a working product and signed off on the spot.
What they asked for
This is their standard request. I've seen the same four items in other people's threads, so have the answers ready before you apply and you can skip a round trip.
- Pricing information. A breakdown of what you charge.
- Demo video. A video showing the product's functionality.
- Social media URLs, business and personal. They say it's for KYB/KYC, which is "know your business" and "know your customer." They want to see that the name on the application belongs to a human with a history.
- What you're selling, specifically: what it is, how it's made or licensed, who it's for, and whether it's one-time or subscription.
Notice what's not on the list. No business plan. No revenue projections. No company registration documents (those come later, at payout). They want to see a person and a product.
What I actually sent
Here's my reply, in full, with only the recording link shortened:
I'm a real person. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmurrayhq/ https://x.com/andrew_murray
Here is the demo: [recording link]
The products are going to be subscriptions, either monthly or yearly, to add more domains than just the three (three is free).
Some of those additional services that you saw are just for the paid model, like discovering what pages you should put more links on. But it's basically a SaaS, and something I think has real value for people who have a website.
That's it. Four sentences and two links. I didn't write a pitch. I didn't attach a PDF. I answered the four questions in the order they asked them, in plain language, and I led with the one thing they most needed to hear.
If you're tempted to write more, don't. The reviewer is working a queue. A short, direct answer that covers the list gets approved faster than a long one that makes them hunt for the pricing.
The video
I recorded the demo with Kommodo, a free screen recorder that hosts the video and tells you when someone watches it. That last part is how I know the exact minute they reviewed it. Loom does the same. Either works.
The product was DR Buddy, a link-building tool. The recording was a low-key walkthrough: me, logged in, clicking through what the product does and pointing at the parts that are paid. No script. No intro music. No "hey guys."
What I'd keep from that:
- Show it working, logged in. A landing page isn't a product. The reviewer wants to see the thing behind the paywall doing the thing you charge for.
- Point at the pricing. If the video shows which features are free and which are paid, you've answered question one and question two at the same time.
- Keep it short. Mine was a quick walkthrough. They watched it and approved in sixty seconds, which tells you they weren't looking for depth. They were looking for proof.
- Don't polish it. A rough recording of a real person is more convincing than a produced promo, because the question they're answering is "is this real," not "is this good."
Social proof, the cheap kind
I gave them LinkedIn and X. Both have my real name, my face, and years of posts about the things I build. That's the KYB/KYC check done.
If you don't have much of a social presence, give them whatever is real: a GitHub with commits, a YouTube channel, a personal site with an About page, a Product Hunt profile. The point isn't follower count. The point is that a stranger could look you up and find a consistent human. One or two links that do that beat five that don't.
The nudge
I'd had a support thread with Lemon Squeezy from before, on a different product. The day after applying, I replied to that thread and mentioned the new application was pending.
I don't know if that moved it. What I do know is that a thread with a human already in it is a better place to get noticed than a new ticket from the queue. If you've got any existing contact with them, use it. If you don't, don't invent one; just answer their four questions fast when they come.
What this doesn't tell you
Getting approved is the easy part. Two things worth knowing before you build on Lemon Squeezy in late 2026:
Stripe bought Lemon Squeezy in 2024, and in January 2026 the CEO said the team is building Stripe's own merchant-of-record product and will help Lemon Squeezy users migrate. Support is slower and updates are fewer, by their own admission. The approval process is clearly still staffed, as the timeline above shows. Whether the platform you've been approved onto is the one you'll be selling on in two years is a different question.
And if you want affiliates: you can't add your own. Every affiliate has to be vetted by Lemon Squeezy before they can apply to your program. That's a separate review, run on the affiliate, and it's the main reason my full Lemon Squeezy review gives it the highest lock-in score in the directory.
The short version
Apply. Have your pricing, a logged-in demo video, two real social links, and a plain description of what you sell ready before they ask. When they ask, answer in that order, in a few sentences, and send it the same day. Use a recorder that tells you when the video's been watched, so you know where you stand.
Four days. That's what it took for me, and nothing I did was clever.
Timeline and correspondence from the author's DR Buddy store application, October 2026.
