A TikTok account with only 4 videos, and a copied military-benefits app: how ServicePerks squeezed into the US Finance top 10

ServicePerks is a "benefits + discounts + calculators" subscription app for US military members and veterans. It launched in August and hit #10 on the US App Store Finance bestseller chart in November 2. The product copies almost every feature of the Military Benefits App, which launched in May. The difference is distribution, not the product: a batch of newly created veteran-persona TikTok accounts posted "things the VA will reimburse you for" every day, with discount codes in their bios. This piece explains how it broke out, how the money is collected, why copying it isn't worth it, and where this playbook could be moved.

81 followers, 66k views

In 2026 November 3, a TikTok account called @katiexoxo270 posted a 30-second video: "Veterans, you might not know about this VA benefit. Even without a disability rating, VA healthcare may cover massage therapy!" The caption ends with "Find out more in the ServicePerks app! #ServicePerks." The account had only 81 followers and 4 videos at the time, and this one reached 11-06 views 65,908 times (TikTok, 11-06). The next day it posted "VA may cover chiropractic care," and the day after, "Military members can get free golf clubs."

That kind of account isn't unique. @sethleveledup's bio reads "Military benefits and discounts in the ServicePerks app." A September 18 video got 76k views, and lately it posts daily: free massages, free suits, LASIK deals, Las Vegas military discounts. @jaeinsider's bio says "CODE: 'JAE'" and focuses on "4 travel money-saving tips for military and veterans," "free stays in Punta Cana," with one video at 41k views 10-15. @thatguymikey claims to be an Army veteran with the bio "Use Code: MIKE." Another account with a dozen-plus videos ends every one with the same line: "ServicePerks app is legit."

New accounts, low followers, uniform topics, and a personal discount code for each creator: this is a paid creator/UGC program, not organic word of mouth (inference, but the evidence lines up). The App Store reviews fit too: "I found this app on tiktok from KhadkaVlogs" (8-16), "I got this app after seeing it on TikTok" (8-06).

What it is

Opening the app shows a big number for the "total value of benefits you're tracking": pay estimates based on rank and years of service, unclaimed benefits, and VA disability compensation estimates, all added together. Below that are 240 military discount listings (each states who's eligible and whether verification uses ID.me or a military ID), a map of nearby merchants that accept military discounts, and a set of calculators: pay, TSP (Thrift Savings Plan), combined VA disability rating, state benefits directories, military resorts and hotels, and airport lounge guides.

Pricing is $12.99/month or $59.99/year (the annual plan includes a 7-day trial), with a hard paywall and no content without payment. The first line of the store page states it is "not affiliated with the Department of Defense, the VA, or any government agency."

It's made by Srinjay Verma, operated by QuickScaleApp LLC. On social media he calls himself the founder of Tone AI, a Pilates app, and an "Exited Founder." Tone AI reportedly reached 9.7M views in two weeks using a "YouTube → TikTok SEO → UGC account matrix" approach, and the growth blog Social Growth Engineers wrote a teardown of it (2025-03). He also has ten-odd other apps, including Gluco AI, Kaboo AI, and ScopeIt, and most never took off. It's a classic spread-your-bets approach: scale whichever one breaks out.

Someone else validated this business first

In May 17, a Florida company launched the Military Benefits App (MBA below). By 11-06 it had 2,840 iOS ratings, about 49k installs on Google Play, and its website claimed 265k members. The third-party estimator Peekly put its revenue at roughly $100k/month and estimated 59 active Meta ads (estimate, unverified).

ServicePerks launched in August 5 with identical pricing ($12.99/month, $59.99/year, 7-day trial) and an identical feature list (discount map, combined disability rating, pay / BAH / TSP, credit card SCRA/MLA fee waivers, lounges, military hotels). Even the support page domain is mba-military-benefits.web.app, and the Android package name is militarybenefits. By August 26, a user had already written in a review: "

This app literally just rips off the military benefits app.

The same TikTok playbook is at work with MBA too: a pile of UGC accounts with 'side hustle' in their names under the #getMilitaryBenefitsApp hashtag, individual videos hitting up to hundreds of thousands of views. ServicePerks is basically that content template with a different brand name.

Its only real original choice is category: MBA sits in Lifestyle, ServicePerks is in Finance. The Finance Top Grossing chart has a lower bar, so it can reach the top 40 on less revenue, and it looks more 'serious' in the store (inferred).

Numbers: peaked at #10, then slid

• US Finance Top Grossing: 10-28 at #27,11-02 then #10, after that 14 → 18 → 30 → 11-06 at #37 (App Store US chart).
• Ratings count: 10-28's 995 → 11-06's 1,216; daily adds fell from a peak of 10-30 at 58 back to 12–22 (App Store US). Average 4.80.
• Google Play: 10,861 installs, +3,875 over the last 7 days (Google Play, 11-06).
• Revenue isn't public. The third-party site apptomy estimates about $64K/month based on chart rank, and showed about $350K/month when it was at #10. These are model estimates with low confidence.

4.8 stars, but recent written reviews are almost all 1 stars

Average 4.8, but the written reviews from the past month or so read like a different app:

Before I could even see what was available in the app they want to charge a fee. Not much of a perk for veterans. (10-28,1 stars)

Was opening the app for the first time, and before even properly trying it, it asks me to rate it… Then it started asking me for money. (10-22,1 stars)

All they offer is things we already know, we already know Chili's got a free meal on Veterans Day. (10-25,1 stars, original in all caps)

Others say they were charged $14.37 even after cancelling on the trial day. The second review explains the 4.8-star problem: the onboarding asks for a rating before it shows the paywall. The people giving stars are those who were moved by the video and haven't reached the paywall yet; the people writing text are those who have.

This is also its biggest risk: charging veterans a subscription for what is mostly a reorganization of public information invites complaints, refunds, App Store review action, or a counterfeit complaint from MBA, any of which could happen.

Who it's competing with

The US military benefits niche this year has the original, one copy that took off, and several copies that didn't.

If it were you

B. Being the third copycat in the US military space isn't worth it: the original is running paid ads, the copy is flooding UGC, and users are already calling it a 'scam.' What's worth taking is the playbook itself: 'scattered identity-based benefits, bundled into one subscription, with information-gap content from an identity persona account.' Apply it to a different audience or country where no one has done it yet.

Good fit for: people or small teams who can run many TikTok creator / UGC accounts at scale, and who are willing to spend time verifying benefit terms for a given audience one by one.

Not a fit for: anyone hoping to win on product features (the content in this category is public information, so the product itself has no moat), or anyone unwilling to deal with paywall backlash and refund disputes.

How to build it: pick an identity group that has 'lots of benefits nobody tells you about': nurses, teachers, frontline firefighters and police, college students, seniors (Medicare benefits), or switch countries for veterans (the UK, Canada and Australia all have structured veteran benefits; inferred, I haven't verified competitors there). Copy MBA's skeleton: a 'how much money you can get' total, a discount list with a map, and two or three calculators this group actually uses. Do better where it does worse: let users see several benefits before asking for payment, and build 'we're not a scam' into the product.

How to get users: follow its approach. Find ordinary people in the group and open accounts, with each video covering one specific free benefit ('the VA covers massages' beats 'a money-saving app' by a mile), put a dedicated discount code in the bio and track payouts by code, and once one or two accounts produce a topic that gets tens of thousands of views, copy it.

Deadline: no hard deadline, but the same studio will likely take this playbook to the next audience on its own, and the later you start the more likely you'll collide with it (inferred). Validating one audience within three months is enough.

Signs you've misjudged it: ① your UGC accounts fail to get single videos in the tens of thousands of views for a full month, which means this audience doesn't respond to 'information-gap benefits' on TikTok; ② trial-to-paid conversion is well below expectations and refunds are high, which means this kind of audience won't pay a subscription for public information, so MBA's numbers only hold for military users; ③ ServicePerks is taken down or drops out of the Finance Top Grossing top 100 before December, which would mean the hard paywall plus rating-prompt route has stopped working.

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Data and sources: App Store US chart and ratings counts (10-28 to 11-06); iTunes lookup and reviews (11-06); ServicePerks store page description and support page; Google Play page (11-06); Military Benefits App website and store page; Peekly and apptomy estimate pages; TikTok profiles @katiexoxo270, @sethleveledup, @jaeinsider, @thatguymikey, @damnthatsdedric (read on 11-06). Places marked 'estimated', 'inferred' or 'unverified' are estimates and inferences.