How to Get Featured on the App Store in 2026

To get featured on the App Store, build an app that does well on the seven things Apple's editors consider, then tell them what is coming through a Featuring Nomination in App Store Connect. Apple's Getting Featured page asks for a minimum of two weeks of notice and recommends submitting up to three months in advance for wider consideration. Its nomination help recommends a minimum lead time of three weeks. Nominations are free, open to any developer, and reviewed by Apple's editorial team; nothing guarantees a placement.

Apple says there is no checklist of requirements, but it names what its team considers: user experience, UI design, innovation, uniqueness, accessibility, localization and the App Store product page, with eight more factors for games. It looks for new apps and games, significant updates, In App Events, cultural or seasonal moments and good stories about the people behind an app. A nomination works best when it ties one of those to a date.

Featuring means many different placements: Today tab stories, App of the Day and Game of the Day, collections and lists, In App Events, pre orders, personalized recommendations and the Editors' Choice badge. They have different rules. Personalized recommendations are chosen by the store's systems from what people do, not by editors, and Editors' Choice is a badge that stays on your product page. Each one is covered below with Apple's own description.

Two things on this page are easy to miss elsewhere. Apple's own pages disagree on lead time, two weeks on one and three weeks on two others, and most guides quote only one. And you cannot buy an editorial feature. Apple Ads can place an ad on the Today tab, but that is advertising, labeled as such, and separate from the editorial picks. Every Apple fact here links to the Apple page it was read on, on October 19, 2026.

Write it for a busy editor who has never opened your app. Apple's nomination help asks for the purpose and priority of the nomination, specific details about the update and the objectives of the new feature. In practice that means four things in the first two sentences: what is new, when it ships, who it is for, and why it matters now.

Lead with the user, not the company. "Our new widget lets runners see today's training load on the Lock Screen without opening the app" gives an editor something to write about. "We are excited to announce version 4.0 with many improvements" does not. Name the Apple technology if there is one, because Apple's considerations include innovation and new technologies, but only if it changes what users can do.

Then give the story. Apple's own session on app discovery, in its transcript, says editors read every submission and asks developers with a unique story to tell it. A solo developer, a team from an underrepresented community, an app built from a personal need or a cultural moment the app was built for are all worth a sentence in Helpful Details, which allows 500 characters.

Finish with proof and materials. Up to five supporting links can carry a press kit, a short video of the feature, artwork, a public TestFlight link or early reviews. If you attach a TestFlight build, make sure it shows the feature you nominated, and that any login it needs is written in the nomination.

Teams with several apps or a full release calendar can import nominations in bulk. Apple's nominations template takes up to 50 nominations per CSV file. You download the template from App Store Connect, start in column A, row 5, put one nomination per row, keep the columns exactly as provided and save it as UTF 8.

Three rules catch people out. Nominations imported by CSV are submitted immediately and cannot be saved as drafts. Any change to the columns, such as deleting, adding or renaming one, makes the import fail. And when the file has errors, App Store Connect gives you a report with an extra column describing each error, which you fix and upload again.

To update many nominations later, select them under See All, export them as one CSV, edit it and import it again, keeping each Nomination ID so App Store Connect knows they already exist. Apple's nomination help describes the same export and duplicate options from the menu next to each nomination.

The Featuring Nominations dashboard has three sections, according to Apple's nomination help. Drafts can be edited freely. Submitted nominations can be edited too, except for the type and the related apps, which lock once you submit. Archived nominations cannot be restored or edited, but you can duplicate or export them.

Duplicating is the fastest way to start the next nomination. It copies the details and adds "copy" to the name, but leaves out the publish date, platforms, any plans for first market launches and the supplemental materials, so you fill those in again for the new release.

Deleting is permanent. A submitted nomination has to be archived before it can be deleted. Keeping old nominations archived rather than deleted gives you a record of what you pitched and when, which helps when you plan the next year's calendar.

Apple does not send a reply to every nomination. Its template says that if a plan is a fit, the team will reach out to the email address you provide. If you hear nothing, the nomination was still read, according to Apple's own session, and the next one starts from zero.

App of the Day and Game of the Day are stories on the Today tab on iPhone and iPad, handpicked and refreshed every day. Apple's Getting Featured page says all apps and games are eligible, whether brand new or around for a decade, and that the stories focus on what the editors love about the app, quick tips for users and the developers themselves.

There is no separate form. The path is the same nomination, with a pitch that gives editors material for a story: what the app does better than anything else, two or three tips a new user would thank them for, and a sentence about the people who made it. Keep the product page and screenshots current, because the story links straight to it and editors look at it when they choose.

If you are picked, Apple's promote page says you will get a notification in the App Store Connect app, which lets you choose from visual assets and share them to social media. Apple may also email team members with the Admin, App Manager or Marketing role asking for promotional artwork, so make sure those roles belong to people who read their email.

Editors' Choice is a badge, not a slot. Apple's Getting Featured page describes it as celebrating the very best apps and games, handpicked by App Store editors around the world, that show impeccable attention to design and give innovative, enjoyable experiences. If selected, the badge appears on your product page across platforms, and the app may also appear in Editors' Choice stories on the Today tab and collections on the Apps and Games tabs.

Two details matter. Editors' Choice is curated for each App Store storefront, so an app can carry the badge in one country and not another. And it is a judgment on the app as a whole, not on one update, so it tends to follow a long record of quality rather than a single launch.

What Editors' Choice means for a user is simple: Apple's editors vouch for the app. You can mention the accolade in your marketing. Apple's product page guidance suggests putting an accolade at the end of your description or in your promotional text, which holds 170 characters and can change at any time.

Editors feature moments, and two App Store features create moments you control. The first is pre orders. Apple's pre orders page says a brand new app can open pre orders 2 to 180 days before release, and an existing app entering a new region 2 to 365 days before. Pre orders show in search, and on the Today, Games and Apps tabs if the app is being actively featured. On release day the app downloads to everyone who ordered it. Nominate the launch as an App Launch and say a pre order is planned.

The second is In App Events. An event is a dated thing happening in your app, with its own card on the store, and Apple's In App Events page says you can share an event with editors for promotional consideration. Create the event, get it approved, then attach it to a New Content nomination. Our guide to App Store In App Events covers the limits, sizes and badges.

Both work because they give editors a date to write against. A nomination that says "available for pre order now, launching on the 14th" or "a 31 day challenge starting on the 1st" is easier to place in a calendar than one that says "a great update coming soon".

Apple's editors plan around the year. The biggest fixed point is September, when Apple releases new operating systems, and the weeks after WWDC in June, when new features are announced. Apps that support a new feature on day one give editors something to show, which is why many developers ship their biggest update for the September release.

Seasonal and cultural moments are the other anchor. Apple's Getting Featured page says it highlights cultural and seasonal moments, and AppTweak's 2026 guide names examples such as New Year, Pride Month, Mental Health Month, Back to School, Diwali, Golden Week, Carnaval and Ramadan, and suggests preparing four to six weeks before each one. Featured selections are regionally curated, Apple says, so a moment that matters in one country is pitched for that country.

Lead times stack. For a September launch tied to a new iOS feature, the build has to be ready for the new SDK, the nomination has to be in at least three weeks before, and the app still has to clear App Review in the busiest month of the year. Our App Store review time guide shows how much longer the queue gets in September, and the app launch checklist puts the nomination into an eight week plan.

First, you may hear from Apple before it happens. If your app is being considered, Apple's Getting Featured page says it may email team members with the Admin, App Manager or Marketing role to request promotional assets, following Apple's App Store promotional artwork guidelines. Reply quickly and to spec, because the artwork is what a story is built on.

Second, for select Today tab placements such as App of the Day or Game of the Day, Apple sends a notification through the App Store Connect app. Apple's promote page says you can then choose from an assortment of visual assets and share them to social media, and the same app generates assets for other moments such as a launch or new version.

Third, traffic changes for a few days. Be ready for it: make sure servers, sign up and support can take a spike, keep the product page current, and watch App Analytics for impressions and downloads from browse traffic. Apple does not publish how many downloads a feature brings, and the effect varies with placement, country and category.

Apple does not publish featuring results. The public numbers come from ASO companies and are case studies, not averages. AppTweak reports that the game Train Station 2 saw a 470% lift in organic installs and a 540% lift in organic revenue after being Game of the Day in the US. Treat a figure like that as what one top placement did for one game, not as what your app should expect.

The same guide reports that 95% of apps featured on the App Store and 96% of featured apps on Google Play hold average ratings of 4.0 or higher, from AppTweak's own 2026 benchmarks report. That fits Apple's own wording, which names positive ratings and reviews as part of the product page consideration. Our guide on how to get App Store reviews covers how to raise ratings within Apple's rules.

The lasting value is usually indirect. A feature brings a burst of downloads and ratings, which can lift rankings in search and charts for a while after the feature ends. Third party guides such as Gummicube's say this, but the size of the effect is not something anyone outside Apple can measure across the store. Plan as if the feature is a bonus on top of a launch that works without it.

No. Editorial placements, App of the Day, stories, collections and Editors' Choice are chosen by Apple's editors, and Apple sells none of them. Agencies that promise a feature are selling a pitch, not a placement, and the only official channel for a pitch is the nomination form, which any developer can use for free.

What you can buy is advertising. Apple's promote page says Apple Ads can reach people on the Today tab, on the Search tab, in search results and at the bottom of product pages, in 91 countries and regions, with a 100 USD credit for eligible new accounts. Apple's discovery tech talk describes Today tab ads as built from a custom product page. These are ads, marked as ads, and buying them does not affect editorial selection.

Personalized recommendations are not bought either. Apple's Getting Featured page says they are based on people's past purchases, downloads and other activity, shown when the setting is turned on. That is the honest answer to how Apple chooses suggested apps: by what people do, not by a fee.

Google Play works differently. AppTweak's guide says Google does not accept ongoing editorial pitches the way Apple does, and describes a Featuring Nomination form for apps and games launched within the last four months that meet Google's quality and design requirements, with minimum ratings of 3.0 for apps and 3.8 for games, plus program based collections such as Indie Games Corner and Apps Innovation Corner. Those details come from AppTweak; we could not find them in Google's Play Console help.

What Google does document is the store listing. Its preview assets help says the feature graphic is required to publish, measures 1024 by 500 pixels, and is shown when Google presents apps in a large format collection and games in groups of recommended titles. The App Store has no equivalent graphic; Apple asks for promotional artwork only when an app is being considered.

For updates, Google points developers to promotional content. Its promotional content help describes offers, time limited events and major updates that appear on the Apps or Games tab, search and the store listing, open to all games and to apps that meet its eligibility criteria. It plays the role that In App Events and New Content nominations play on the App Store.

Most nominations do not lead to a feature, and Apple does not explain why. From Apple's considerations, the common gaps are easy to list: the app does what many others do without a clear difference, the interface lags behind the current system design, accessibility or localization is thin for the regions nominated, the product page undersells the app, or the nomination arrived too late or said too little.

Some of those are product work and take a release or two. Others are fixable this week: a clearer first sentence in the nomination, a product page refresh, VoiceOver labels on the main screens, or translated screenshots for the markets you care about. Fix the ones you can, then nominate the next real moment.

Keep nominating. Each release, new content drop or event is a new reason for editors to look, and Apple's wording, that editors read every submission, means a steady record of clear nominations is how an app becomes familiar to the team. Getting featured once tends to be the result of a year of good releases, not a single pitch. The releases editors pass over can still reach people through your own channels: the app update announcement examples and how to market an app cover those posts and the plan behind them.

Featuring lights up the App Store, but the people who follow your app elsewhere only hear about it if you post. Spreadcast watches your public App Store listing every day and turns what changes there, a new version, a new 5 star review or a rating milestone, into a designed post with your own icon and screenshots in an iPhone frame, plus a caption written for each network.

It publishes to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and your other connected accounts on the schedule you set, and you approve with one tap or let it post by itself. The release you nominated goes out in your feeds the day it ships, whether or not editors pick it. Paste your App Store link on the start page to see a first post drafted from your listing, and see the plans for automatic publishing. Apple's own featured assets from the App Store Connect app can go out alongside.