Featuring pitch
Start here: what Apple says it considers
AppleWrite against each factor in your own words. These notes are not a form field and Apple never sees them — they are what the description gets written from, and a factor you have nothing to say about is a real answer rather than a gap.
User experience
What does someone get done in your app, and what did you do to make that path short?
UI design
Name the specific interactions or visuals you would want a screenshot of.
Innovation
Which platform technologies do you use, and what problem does each one actually solve?
Uniqueness
What does your app do differently from the rest of its category, in one sentence?
Accessibility
Which accessibility features are supported, and how far did you take each one?
Localization
Which languages ship, and what is localized beyond the strings?
App Store product page
Is the product page ready to be sent traffic today — screenshots, preview, description?
“While there’s no checklist of requirements for getting featured on the App Store, our team considers the following factors”
Apple publishes the factors and prefaces them by saying there is no checklist. Both halves matter: the list is the best raw material anyone has for a nomination description, and the sentence in front of it is why this page carries no score, no readiness meter and no odds.
The nomination
AppleThe fields App Store Connect asks for, with the character maximums Apple documents. Creating one needs a team role of Account Holder, Admin, App Manager or Marketing.
Nomination Type
Publish dates
Platforms
Apple’s yes/no questions
Do you plan to launch in certain markets first?
Apple curates featuring per storefront — its own words are that selections are “localized and regionally curated”.
Do you intend to submit a new In-App Event for this nomination?
An event can be attached once it is approved or published, up to 25 of them, and Apple recommends attaching as early as possible.
Does this app or game include a pre-order?
Apple lists pre-orders as one of the ways it highlights upcoming launches.
Every field on the form
AppleThe nomination’s fields are publicly documented, in the reference for the CSV bulk import — which is the same nomination the App Store Connect form creates. The remaining fields are ones App Store Connect fills in for you from the app record: the related apps (up to 10 from one developer account), the countries it is sold in, and its existing localizations, each editable afterwards.
| Field | What Apple says | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Nomination ID | Blank for a new nomination. Only used when updating an existing one. | Optional |
| Related Apps locked after submitting | The Apple ID of the app, plus up to 9 more from the same developer account — 10 in total. | Required |
| Nomination Name | A name so you recognise it later. 60 character maximum. | Required |
| Nomination Type locked after submitting | New Content, App Enhancements or App Launch, entered exactly as Apple spells it. | Required |
| Nomination Description | Your case for the app. 1,000 character maximum. | Required |
| Publish Date (Start) | The date you plan to publish, or the start of the window. YYYY-MM-DD. | Required |
| Publish Date (End) | The end of that window, if you gave one rather than a single date. YYYY-MM-DD. | Optional |
| Relevant Countries or Regions | Three-letter ISO codes. The countries your app is available in are selected automatically and can be edited. | Optional |
| Do you plan to launch in certain markets first? | Yes or No. | Optional |
| Do you intend to submit a new In-App Event for this nomination? | Yes or No. | Optional |
| Platforms | Every platform this nomination covers, named exactly as Apple spells it. | Optional |
| Related In-App Events | Up to 25 In-App Event IDs. Apple recommends attaching an approved or published event as early as possible. | Optional |
| Localization | Locale shortcodes. Your app’s existing localizations are selected automatically and can be edited. | Optional |
| Supplemental Materials | Up to 5 URLs — documents, files, art assets, even a TestFlight public link. | Optional |
| Does this app or game include a pre-order? | Yes or No. | Optional |
| Helpful Details | Apple: what makes you stand out from the crowd. 500 character maximum. | Optional |
A nomination created in App Store Connect saves as a draft first. One imported from a CSV is submitted the moment it uploads and can never be a draft — you can edit it afterwards, except for the two locked fields. Apple accepts up to 50 nominations in a single CSV; that is a batch size, and Apple documents no limit on how many nominations you may submit in total.
What happens after you submit
Almost nothing is documented, and the honest version of this section is short.
The only outcome Apple states
“It’ll be reviewed with certain considerations in mind and if it’s a fit, we’ll reach out to the email address you provide.”
There is no published reply time, no decision date, and no status beyond the dashboard’s own Drafts, Submitted and Archived sections. Silence is the normal case and it does not mean anything in particular.
If you are being considered, Apple may ask for artwork
Apple says it may email team members with the Admin, App Manager and Marketing roles requesting promotional assets. Which means those inboxes need to be ones somebody reads. Apple’s promotional artwork guidelines
Where every rule on this page comes from
The field list, the three character maximums, the nomination types, the platform names and the considerations on this page are Apple’s, fetched from Getting featured on the App Store, Nominate your app for featuring and the nominations template reference, last checked on 2026-08-25. Nothing was added to Apple’s lists, and where Apple’s wording is quoted it is quoted rather than paraphrased.
Two things Apple does not publish, and this page therefore does not carry: any limit on how many nominations you may submit, and any character maximum for the fields Apple caps nothing on. Apple also states its lead time twice and differently — two weeks on the featuring page, three weeks in App Store Connect. Both are shown above and the arithmetic uses the longer one.
Your answers are stored in this browser only. Nothing is uploaded, and this page makes no network requests of any kind.
About this tool
How do you actually pitch Apple for App Store featuring?
Apple takes pitches directly. Featuring Nominations in App Store Connect is a form where you tell the App Store editorial team about a launch, a significant update or new in-app content, and it costs nothing but the writing. Most indie developers never send one, and the usual reason is that nothing tells them what the form asks for.
This worksheet is that missing half. It carries Apple’s own nomination fields with the three character maximums Apple documents, the factors Apple publishes as what its team considers, the lead times Apple states, and the parts of the form that lock the moment you submit. You fill it in here, then paste it across one box at a time.
How it works
- 1Write against Apple’s seven featuring considerations in your own words — user experience, UI design, innovation, uniqueness, accessibility, localization and the product page itself. These notes never leave your browser; they are the raw material the description is written from.
- 2Pick one of Apple’s three nomination types: New Content, App Enhancements or App Launch. This is one of only two fields that cannot be changed after you submit.
- 3Draft the nomination name (60 characters) and the description (1,000 characters), which is the only place you get to make the case. Live counts flag anything over Apple’s documented maximum.
- 4Set the publish date. The page reports how many days of notice that gives and shows both figures Apple publishes — two weeks on its featuring page, three weeks in App Store Connect — and plans against the longer one.
- 5Add platforms, supplemental links (Apple takes five) and the optional Helpful Details field, then copy the whole draft out laid out under Apple’s own field names.
What it cannot tell you
- It cannot see or influence Apple’s decision. Nothing is submitted from this page, no nomination status is readable, and App Store editorial selection is not a public process.
- There is no score and there will not be one. Apple’s own sentence is that there is no checklist of requirements for getting featured — a page that graded a pitch would be contradicting the source it is built on.
- It publishes no odds. Nobody outside Apple knows how many nominations are submitted or how many are picked up, so no figure of that kind appears anywhere here.
- Apple documents no limit on how many nominations you may submit, and none is stated here. The numbers Apple does publish are a CSV batch size of 50 and a per-nomination cap of 10 related apps — neither is a quota.
- Apple documents no reply. The only outcome it states is that if a nomination is a fit, it will reach out to the email address you provide, so silence is the normal case and means nothing in particular.
Questions
How do I submit an app for App Store featuring?
Through Featuring Nominations in App Store Connect: open the app, then Nominations under Featuring, and create a nomination. You need a team role of Account Holder, Admin, App Manager or Marketing. Individual nominations save as drafts first; ones imported from a CSV are submitted the moment they upload and can never be drafts.
How far in advance should I submit a featuring nomination?
Apple states two different minimums. Its featuring page asks for “a minimum of two weeks notice”, while both the App Store Connect help page and the nominations template reference say at least three weeks. For wider featuring consideration Apple recommends submitting up to three months in advance. This page shows both minimums and measures against the longer one.
How long can a featuring nomination description be?
1,000 characters. Apple also caps the nomination name at 60 characters and the optional Helpful Details field at 500. Those three are the only fields Apple documents a character maximum for, so no other limit is stated here.
What does Apple look for when choosing apps to feature?
Apple publishes seven factors it says the team considers — user experience, UI design, innovation, uniqueness, accessibility, localization, and the App Store product page — plus eight more for games, listed without definitions. Apple prefaces all of it by saying there is no checklist of requirements, so treat the list as what to write about rather than as criteria to satisfy.
What happens after I submit a nomination?
Apple documents almost nothing here. The one stated outcome is that if the nomination is a fit, Apple will reach out to the email address you provide. There is no published reply time and no status beyond the dashboard’s Drafts, Submitted and Archived sections. Apple does note that if you are being considered it may email team members with the Admin, App Manager and Marketing roles asking for promotional artwork.