SUGO

Is SUGO safe?

SUGO is a legitimate app from a listed company, not malware, but it is built to make you spend. Users join voice "party rooms", chat one to one and buy coins to send animated gifts to hosts and other users. We score it 40/100. Its privacy labels say less than its own privacy policy, its age checks are thin, and coin purchases are final under its terms. In February 2026 Turkey blocked it along with Bigo Live and seven other live and voice-chat apps.

SUGO belongs to Newborn Town, a Hong Kong-listed company that also runs the MICO and YoHo social apps and has focused on the Middle East and North Africa since 2017. In a 2024 release, the company said SUGO's monthly users more than tripled in 2023, with revenue and profit also up more than threefold. The Google Play listing claims more than 130 million downloads worldwide.

What SUGO collects about you

The App Store label is short. It says identifiers may be used to track you across other companies' apps and websites, and lists device ID, coarse location and phone number as linked to you.

The privacy policy, revised in December 2024, describes much more. It covers your purchase records, search history and in-app actions; device identifiers including the Android ID, Google advertising ID, Apple's IDFA, hardware serial number and MAC address; and location worked out from your IP address and Wi-Fi network name. Streamers who want certification, or users who verify their gender or avatar, also hand over a face-recognition video, which SUGO says it does not keep. Advertising partners "may use information about your visits to this and other websites" to target ads, and data can be shared within the corporate group and stored on servers in several countries, including the US.

Google Play's data safety form adds voice recordings, in-app messages, files, precise location and, as an optional field, sexual orientation. It also says SUGO shares no data with third parties, which does not match Apple's tracking declaration or the policy's section on advertising partners. Under our rules, when the label understates the policy, we score the broader of the two.

Coins, gifts and hosts

Money is the centre of the app. On the US App Store, coin packs run from 1,200 coins for $0.99 to 130,000 coins for $99.99. Coins buy animated gifts, festival gifts, medals and "entry driving machines" that announce you when you join a room. The listing promises "plentiful users and hosts from across the globe waiting to connect", and the Android version advertises private video calls.

The terms are blunt about refunds: once a payment is completed it "cannot be revoked, refunded, or reversed", and virtual items cannot be traded or exchanged for real money. That makes the usual scams in voice-room apps costly. A friendly host or room admin asks for gifts, a fake "official" account offers cheap coins, or a new contact asks to move the chat to WhatsApp. SUGO's own policy bans ads for compensated companionship and underage dating, which shows the company knows where the risks lie.

Age checks and moderation

SUGO's terms and policy say the service is for adults aged 18 or over, and both app stores rate it for adults (18+ on Apple, Mature 17+ on Google Play). Apple lists frequent mature or suggestive themes, infrequent crude humour, loot boxes and user-generated content.

In practice, age is a field you fill in at sign-up. The face check applies only to certified streamers and to users who opt into verification for "more benefits". The App Store description claims that "all registered users must be reviewed" for authenticity and that chat content is "completely confidential", neither of which the privacy policy backs up. SUGO publishes no transparency report, so there are no figures on removed accounts or reports to child-safety bodies.

On 14 February 2026 Turkey's telecom regulator, the BTK, blocked SUGO, MICO, Bigo Live, Poppo Live and five other live-streaming and voice-chat apps by an administrative order of its president. No reason was published. We found no fine against SUGO anywhere.

How to use SUGO more safely

1. Set a spending limit with Apple or Google before you buy coins, and never buy coins from a seller outside the app.
2. Do not move a conversation to another app at a stranger's request, and never send money or gift cards to a host.
3. Leave the optional profile fields, including sexual orientation, empty.
4. Refuse the tracking request on iPhone and keep location at "approximate" or off.
5. If a child is using the app, email [email protected] to have the account deleted, and ask the app store about refunds for their purchases.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (60) is the strongest factor, though it reflects one national block without a fine rather than a clean record. Privacy (32) is the weakest, because the store labels understate a policy that collects broad device identifiers and shares data with ad partners. Scams and harmful content (35) reflects a paid-gift model with self-declared ages and no transparency reporting. For a larger live-streaming app with a similar model, see Bigo Live, and for karaoke rooms, StarMaker.