[evanelias]

Exactly correct. In theory, GitHub's app marketplace offers developers a separate option for "unverified listings", which have "no minimum install or user count requirements", but requires your app to be free.

However, when I submitted a new app as an unverified listing last year, I received a rejection email stating they were only "looking for apps with at least 25 installs". I attempted to appeal (based on their marketplace system's text directly stating there was no minimum user count), but I received no response, and none of the ~dozen engineers I personally know at GitHub were able to help.

I can still make my app available, and implement a third-party billing system, but without a marketplace listing it's much harder to gain exposure and users.

All in all, developing a GitHub app was an extremely frustrating experience, especially since GitHub extensively makes internal use of my open source project upon which my GitHub app was based.