Featuring pitch
Apple takes pitches for App Store featuring directly, through Featuring Nominations in App Store Connect. It costs nothing but the writing, and most indie developers never send one — usually because nothing tells them what the form asks for. This is that, with Apple’s own field list, character limits and lead times. Your answers stay in your browser.
Nothing on this page can see or influence Apple’s decision. No nomination is sent from here, no status is readable from here, and there is no score — App Store editorial picks what it picks, and Apple publishes no odds, no criteria you can grind through and no reply you are owed. What this page does is make sure that when you do write one, you are writing against the fields Apple actually asks for.
Start here: what Apple says it considers
Apple publishes the factors its team weighs, 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 will never grade what you write.
“While there’s no checklist of requirements for getting featured on the App Store, our team considers the following factors”
— Apple, Getting featured on the App Store
Write against each one 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
Cohesive, efficient, and valuable functionality that’s helpful and easy to use.
What does someone get done in your app, and what did you do to make that path short?
UI design
Great usability, appeal, and overall quality, such as beautiful visuals or intuitive gestures and controls.
Name the specific interactions or visuals you would want a screenshot of.
Innovation
New technologies that solve a unique problem and provide an enhanced user experience.
Which platform technologies do you use, and what problem does each one actually solve?
Uniqueness
A fresh approach to a familiar category that stands out from the crowd or defines a new genre.
What does your app do differently from the rest of its category, in one sentence?
Accessibility
A great experience for a broad range of users with well integrated features.
Which accessibility features are supported, and how far did you take each one?
Localization
High-quality support for multiple languages with culturally relevant and appropriate content.
Which languages ship, and what is localized beyond the strings?
App Store product page
Compelling screenshots, app previews, and descriptions, as well as positive ratings and reviews.
Is the product page ready to be sent traffic today — screenshots, preview, description?
The nomination
The 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
Apple’s three, in Apple’s wording. Required, and locked once the nomination is submitted.
Apple’s words: a name to help you recognise this nomination later. It is for your own dashboard, not a headline for editorial.
The whole pitch, and the only place you get to make the case. Apple asks that it state the purpose and the priority of the nomination, include specific details about what is changing, and articulate what the new work is for.
Publish dates
A single date, or the start and end of a window you expect to publish in. The start is required. App Store Connect reads these in your device’s local timezone.
Platforms
Apple’s six, spelled exactly as the import template requires them. In-App Events are available on iPhone and iPad only.
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.
Up to 5 URLs, one per line. Apple names documents, files, art assets and TestFlight public links as examples of what belongs here.
The one field Apple describes in the first person: “We want to know what makes you stand out from the crowd.” Apple names accessibility, inclusivity, how you would rank this nomination against your others, and anything unusual about your app or your team — and says the editorial team takes all of it into account.
Worth a second look
Every line here is either a field Apple marks required, a limit Apple documents, or a question pointing back at Apple’s own wording. None of it is a judgement about your pitch, and there is deliberately no readiness score — Apple says there is no checklist, so a page that produced a passing mark would be contradicting its own source.
4 required fields are still empty
Nomination Type, Nomination Name, Nomination Description, Publish Date (Start). Apple marks these as required on the nominations template, along with Related Apps — which is the app itself and is filled in for you by App Store Connect.
Your draft
Laid out under Apple’s own field names so it can be pasted across one box at a time, with the counts alongside for the three fields Apple caps. Your working notes come last, labelled as notes — they are not a field on the form.
Nothing filled in yet. Your draft builds as you work through the sections above.
Every field on the form
The 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
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.
Featuring is one launch surface among several. Where to launch lists the rest, the in-app events planner covers the events you can attach to a nomination, and the campaign link builder tags the links you send out.
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.
Frequently asked 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.
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