I’ve been an author for several years and have extensive experience with self-publishing on various platforms such as Google Play Books, Kobo, Amazon Kindle, Draft2Digital, Everand, Fnac, among others.
Recently, I decided to test the Brazilian platform Hotmart — and unfortunately, the experience was negative.
The site is constantly slow, pages stop responding, and customer support is unsatisfactory: the chatbot is inefficient and, when trying to reach support by email, responses are usually generic, merely stating that there are many pending requests and that service may take time.
Another major issue is the lack of privacy. The platform does not allow the use of pseudonyms: even if the author sets up a pen name in their public profile, their real name still appears on the product’s payment page. This makes it impossible, for example, to publish works under a pseudonym — something common in genres like erotica, where privacy is essential.
The refund policy is also unsatisfactory. Although it seems designed to protect consumers, in practice it ends up favoring dishonest individuals. It’s common for people to purchase a course or eBook, download the material, and then immediately request a refund — keeping the product without paying anything.
In this scenario, who protects the author or content creator? Unfortunately, no one. Hotmart doesn’t care about us. There are countless similar reports in forums, YouTube videos, and Facebook groups — and I’ve personally been a victim of this situation myself.
Another bug (error): when trying to upload EPUB files, it always failed (though my EPUBs are professionally formatted — they were accepted by Amazon Kindle and Google Play Books). On Hotmart, only PDF uploads worked; every EPUB file triggered an error.
Given so many problems, I decided to delete my account. However, even that process had issues: the site froze and displayed errors during the deletion attempt — reinforcing the negative impression of the platform.
In summary:
Lack of privacy: the author’s real name appears on payment pages, even when using a pseudonym.
Abusive refund system: allows users to obtain digital products for free, harming creators.
Slow technical support and unstable website.
Compared to other platforms — such as Google Play Books, Amazon Kindle, and Kobo — the difference is striking. These companies show more respect for authors, have better support structures, and policies that genuinely protect digital content creators.
In my experience, Hotmart has proven to be an unreliable platform, technically deficient, and lacking proper regard for creators.