Make or Zapier App Review Stuck? How to Unblock It
If your Make custom app has sat on "pending approval" for weeks, or your Zapier integration has said "Pending" for much longer than a week, the problem is usually not the code. Most stuck reviews come down to a message nobody answered, on one side or the other. Start by finding the review thread: the "App review: [your app name]" email on Make, or the reply to your publishing request from Zapier's team. Reply there and say clearly what you changed. If that thread has gone quiet, escalate: on Make, to your Tech Partner Manager; on Zapier, to Partner Support through Zapier's developer contact form or partners@zapier.com.
Neither platform promises a fixed approval date, so nothing here guarantees one. But following these steps in order removes the delays you control.
Why reviews stall
Both platforms review apps by hand, and both have a queue.
- Make doesn't publish a review timeline. On October 1, 2026, a Make Community team member told a waiting developer that the team was "currently dealing with a backlog" (Make community thread). That developer had submitted in February 2026, received feedback in August, replied, and then heard nothing.
- Zapier says that after you submit, "one of our developers will reach out to you in 1 week or less with any outstanding requirements" (Zapier's publishing guide). That's the first reply, not the approval. In a June 2026 thread, one team said their integration had been Pending for 28 days, with no blocking validation errors, and their follow-up emails had gone unanswered (Zapier community thread).
The most common pattern in those threads isn't a lost submission. Feedback was sent and missed, or a fix was made and the reviewer was never told.
Make: find out where your review really is
1. Check the App flow and Review tabs
Make's review status docs give you two places to look:
- The App flow tab shows which stage the app is in: Private, Published (approval not requested), Published (pending approval), or Approved.
- The Review Status section at the bottom of the Review tab is an activity log. Each entry has a date, an action, a status and sometimes a manual comment. "Approval requested" marks the start of review; "Review status updated" means Make changed something on its side.
If the last entry is a "Review status updated" you haven't acted on, the next move is yours.
2. Read the whole "App review" email thread
When you request review, Make sends an email with the subject "App review: [your app name]," and Make says it keeps "all communication about the app review in this email thread." Search for it, including spam and the inboxes of everyone on your team who might have submitted. It carries three kinds of message:
- A link to the review form (your relationship to the API vendor, partnership and support contacts, categories, logo, service URL, and trademark and terms confirmations). Review can't move until it's filled in.
- A PDF from the automatic review, which checks for common issues. Make labels it beta and warns there "might be inconsistencies."
- Feedback from the manual review by a Make QA engineer.
See Make's request review page for each phase.
3. Fix, re-run your scenarios, and say so in the thread
Make's docs say to run your test scenarios again each time you update the app based on reviewer feedback, so the reviewer sees fresh logs. If your scenario links changed, update the form and click Update review. Then reply in the "App review" thread with a short list: what the feedback asked for, what you changed, and the scenario links.
This step matters more than it looks. In one October 2026 Make community thread, a SaaS team said it had fixed everything, resubmitted several times, got no reply, and eventually saw the review cancelled. When the team asked on the forum, Make's developers said they had sent detailed feedback on August 17 and hadn't heard back since. Each side was waiting on the other. A Community team member asked the team to tell the developers once the changes were in, and the developers sent a new batch of feedback the next day.
4. Don't change the app while it's being reviewed
Make advises avoiding "significant changes to the code of your app" while the review request is received or in progress, because they may slow it down. Fix what the reviewer asked for, and hold new features until the app is approved.
5. Escalate through your Tech Partner Manager
If the thread has gone quiet, the community forum is the public fallback. Make's Community team has asked app owners there for the app name and passed it to the developers. The more direct route was spelled out by a Make employee in a March 2026 thread: "Your best route for escalation is with your Tech Partner Manager - you can find their details in the onboarding invitation email." In that case, an update to an already approved app had sat without a reviewer since February 18. The developer reported the next day that the app had been reviewed and re-approved.
When you escalate, include:
- The app name and its invite link
- When you requested review, and the date of the last message in the "App review" thread
- What you changed since that message, and links to scenarios with fresh logs
Updates to approved Make apps go through review too
Every change to an approved app needs Make's approval: connections, modules, RPCs, custom IML functions, webhooks, even a new theme or logo. You submit changes with Update review, and Make confirms with an email titled "App Update Review: [your app name]" (approval of changes). If you're waiting on an update, look for that thread, not the original one. To roll back changes, Make says to contact them.
Zapier: find out why your integration is still Pending
1. Check email first, including spam
When a developer asked on the Zapier community why their app was still pending after a month, Zapier's answer was to check the inbox and spam folder of the account that submitted the integration, because any feedback or questions "would have been sent in an email" (Zapier community thread). Zapier also checks that the owning account belongs to your company, largely by email domain, and needs at least one admin team member with an address on your app's or API owner's domain (publishing requirements). If a contractor submitted from a personal address, the reviewer's questions may be sitting in their inbox.
2. Run validation and clear every blocker
All errors and publishing tasks have to pass before an integration can be published. Warnings don't block it (integration checks reference). Run Run Validation in the Platform UI or zapier-platform validate in the CLI. The checks that catch most new integrations:
- S001: at least 3 users with a live Zap using the integration. "Live" means switched on with at least one successful run in recent history.
- S002 and T001: every visible trigger, search and action needs a live Zap with a successful run.
- A001: at least one connected account, to show you've tested auth.
Don't delete your test Zaps or their runs. Zapier may ask you to share them.
3. Check the requirements validation can't see
Some publishing requirements aren't automated checks, and a reviewer will come back to you about them:
- A test account. It must be non-expiring and use the email integration-testing@zapier.com. Zapier support must be able to change its password (unless it uses passwordless login), and any paid features your triggers and actions need must be switched on.
- A launched product. Your app must be publicly available, not invite-only or in beta.
- Documented APIs. Links to accurate, up-to-date API docs go in the submission.
- Ownership. You must own or have permission to use every API the integration calls.
4. If Zapier sent it back, submit a new version
Zapier's check L002 says you can't submit a version that's already been submitted. If your integration was pushed back, make the changes on a new version and submit that one. And don't send several near-identical submissions to speed things up: Zapier says flooding the team with consecutive submissions of the same integration "may result in slower review times or further penalties."
5. Escalate to Partner Support
Zapier's help page for integration builders says integration launches are handled by the Partner Support team, through the developer contact form. Zapier's docs also list partners@zapier.com for partner coordination, and the accepted answer in an older community thread sent a stuck developer there to check on review status. The Zapier community can't move your review. In the June 2026 thread, Zapier's community team said reviews are handled by Partner and Platform Support, and told the developer to follow up on their existing email ticket.
Put the essentials in one message: the integration name and app ID, the version and the date you submitted, your current validation result, and a direct question. That team's integration was locked while Pending, so it asked Zapier whether the version should be rejected and unlocked so it could fix two warnings. That's the kind of question Partner Support can answer.
Make and Zapier review at a glance
| Make custom app | Zapier integration | |
|---|---|---|
| Status while waiting | Published (pending approval) | Version Pending, integration stays Private |
| Published response time | None published | First reply "in 1 week or less" |
| Where feedback arrives | "App review: [app name]" email thread | Email to the submitting account |
| Self-check before review | Make's review prerequisites and an automatic review PDF | Run Validation / zapier-platform validate |
| After you fix feedback | Re-run scenarios, Update review, reply in the thread | Submit a new version |
| Escalation | Tech Partner Manager (from your onboarding email) | Partner Support via the developer contact form or partners@zapier.com |
| After approval | Every change goes back through review | 90 days in beta, then public |
Make the next review faster
Most of the waiting happens after a round of feedback, so the best way to shorten review is to cut down the rounds:
- Self-review against the published list first. Make's prerequisites and Zapier's publishing requirements are specific. Our guides to building a Make custom app from your OpenAPI spec and generating a Zapier integration from your OpenAPI spec turn them into checklists.
- Get your Zapier users before you submit. S001's three users with live Zaps is a stats check, and it's the one teams most often can't meet on submission day. Invite customers to the private integration early. How to get listed in the Zapier App Directory explains how to invite them.
- Use one shared inbox for review mail so feedback doesn't wait in one person's inbox.
- Answer every message, even "no further changes." Saying when you've finished is what restarts the reviewer's clock.
- Budget for review time. Review is part of the cost of every platform launch, and every update on Make. Our integration development cost guide puts real numbers next to each step. If you're also going through n8n's process, the n8n verified community node checklist covers it.
NativeShip builds official Make, Zapier, n8n and Activepieces integrations from your OpenAPI spec, published under your own accounts and brand. Each build is checked against the platform's own tooling before you submit, and our team can build, test and submit the app for review for you. Approval is always the platform's decision, so we can't promise a date, but we can keep your side of the thread from being the reason it stalls. See pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Make doesn't publish a review timeline. In October 2026, Make's Community team told developers on the forum that the review team was dealing with a backlog, and one developer reported an app first submitted in February 2026 still in review seven months later. Plan your launch so it doesn't depend on a particular approval date.
Zapier's one-week promise is for the first contact about outstanding requirements, not for approval. Check the submitting account's inbox and spam folder, run validation for blocking errors such as S001 (three users with live Zaps), and confirm your test account meets Zapier's requirements. If nothing turns up, contact Partner Support through the developer contact form or partners@zapier.com.
Make's docs don't describe a cancelled review or a separate restart process. Check the Review Status log in the Review tab, then reply in the "App review: [your app name]" email thread with what you changed and links to freshly run scenarios. If you get no answer, escalate through your Tech Partner Manager.
On Make, avoid significant code changes while review is in progress, because Make says they may slow it down. Make only the changes the reviewer asked for. On Zapier, one team reported its authentication, triggers and actions were locked while the version was Pending. If you need to fix something, ask Partner Support whether the version should be rejected so you can submit a new one.
On Make, your Tech Partner Manager, whose details are in your onboarding invitation email. On Zapier, Partner Support through developer.zapier.com/contact or partners@zapier.com. Community forums can point you in the right direction, but they can't approve your app.
On Make, yes. Every change to connections, modules, RPCs, IML functions, webhooks, and even the logo or theme needs approval through Update review. On Zapier, you promote new versions yourself, but validation compares them with the public version and flags changes that would break existing Zaps.
