AskSami or GrowthMentor: which one for getting your first users?

What GrowthMentor is

GrowthMentor describes itself as 1 to 1 mentorship for marketers, founders and product people. You join, pick a mentor and talk to that person on a video call. Its about page says it has run since 2018 and counts 750+ vetted mentors and 62,000+ sessions booked. Those are its own figures.

What a member gets

• Price. The membership page shows $255 billed every 3 months, given as $85 a month, or $600 billed once a year, given as $50 a month. Tax is added for a member in the EU with no registered VAT number.
• Who you talk to. The home page says about 85% of mentors are included with the membership, and the page on free and paid mentors says around 80% at any given time. The rest set their own rate, paid to the mentor on top.
• How many calls. Unlimited, with one rule: up to 3 free calls active at once. Completing one and leaving a review frees a slot.
• Booking. Three steps: pick a mentor, choose 15, 30 or 60 minutes, and write what you are stuck on. The home page says mentors book at least 24 hours out. The booking page says 48 hours by default.

How mentors are vetted

Its page for people applying to mentor asks for 5+ years in growth marketing, at a startup or in a technology company, then an application form, a practical exercise, a video interview and a final review. It says fewer than 5% of applicants make it through.

What AskSami is

AskSami is a marketing and distribution expert for founders who have launched a product and cannot get users or paying customers. It is software. Sami, the one you talk to in the chat, is a character and not a person.

AskSami reads what you give it, all of it optional: your GitHub repository, up to 40 pages of your live site, and the screenshots, ad exports and payment exports. From that it writes an honest read of why the product does or does not sell, and a ranked plan of up to ten ways to get customers, free methods before paid ones.

The rules Sami applies come from one founder's own record, set out in the guide to getting customers. AskSami launched on 19 September 2026 and has no results of its own to quote.

Signing up is free, and so are your full honest read and your ranked plan. A plan gives you more of Sami. The paid plans are Starter $20, Growth $100 and Max $240 per month, paid a month at a time with no contract. How AskSami works has the detail.

Side by side

When GrowthMentor is the better pick

GrowthMentor has its own page on mentors and AI. Its case for the person:

That holds for AskSami. Sami has read your product, not lived your problem. Pick GrowthMentor when:

• You want a person's judgement. A mentor answers from their own career, including what failed. Sami answers from the records of your product and the rules it was given.
• You need a specialist in one channel. Its mentors are listed by topic, among them SEO, Google Ads, Facebook Ads and pricing strategy. If you know your channel and want someone who has run it for years, book that person.
• You want accountability. The same page says: "A real person expects you to show up next month with progress." Nobody is waiting for you in AskSami.
• You want a network. The home page counts a community of 3,000+ members and says people have met a cofounder there. AskSami introduces you to nobody.
• You are a marketer or a team. Team plans start at two seats. AskSami is for the builder who does the marketing alone.

When AskSami is the better pick

• You cannot say what is wrong. A call starts from your account of the product. AskSami starts from the product itself, from whatever you give it: the code, up to 40 pages of the live site, the numbers.
• You want one ranked order. Up to ten ways to get customers, free methods before paid ones, one family of channels at a time.
• You want it without booking. There is no slot to wait for. Sami answers in the chat from your records, and says so when it has no data.
• You want every number kept. AskSami keeps a dated record of every number, channel and decision you give it, and nothing in it is edited or deleted while the account exists.
• You want to pay a month at a time. The honest read and the ranked plan cost nothing, and Starter is $20 per month with no contract. GrowthMentor's shorter term is $255 for 3 months, with a full refund in the first 14 days. They buy different things: a person's time, and software.

Using both

They do different jobs, so using both is sensible. GrowthMentor's home page says a lot of its members use AI before they book.

1. Let AskSami read the product and write the honest read and the ranked plan.
2. When a step is a channel you have never run, such as Google Ads or cold email, or a judgement such as your pricing, book a mentor who has done it. Put the plan step and your dated numbers in the session request.
3. Tell Sami what you decided on the call. It is kept as a dated decision.