Best Ways to Promote Your App in 2026

We ranked ten channels by cost, effort and staying power

Most promotion advice lists everything at once. A solo maker cannot do everything at once, so this list puts the channels in the order we would do them, with the reasons.

How we ranked these

Each channel was weighed on four things: what it costs, how much work it takes, how soon it shows results, and how long those results last after you stop. A channel that is free and keeps working for years beats one that is loud for a day. We used AppTierList’s own measurements of ranked apps where they apply, the research we read from makers on Reddit, and the vendor studies named below, labelled as estimates. This list includes AppTierList, the site it is published on; it sits third because it works best once the first two are in place.

Channel	Best for	Effort	Cost	Time to results
ASO fundamentals	Every app	Medium	Free	A few weeks
Ratings to the threshold	Every app	Medium	Free	Weeks to months
Category and tier lists	Being compared with rivals	Low	Free	Fast to add
A website AI can read	Search and AI answers	Medium	Low	Months
Comparison pages	People ready to switch	Medium	Free	Months
Niche communities	Your first users	High	Free	Days to weeks
Apple Ads, exact match	Ratings in one storefront	Medium	Paid	Days
Press and data stories	Links and reach	High	Free	Weeks
Short video	Visual, consumer apps	High	Free to low	Days, then fades
Product Hunt	A launch day spike	Medium	Free	One day

The first three channels cost nothing but time

First: ASO fundamentals

App store optimization (ASO) is the work of making your listing show up and convert in App Store search. Apple reads your title, subtitle and keyword field, so each word there should earn its place. The keyword field is hidden, so it helps App Store search only. The visible parts, your title, subtitle and description, now speak to AI assistants too: by AppTweak’s estimate, 47.5% of what ChatGPT cited when it recommended apps in the US were store listings.

Pick the short phrase after your app’s name (“AppName: phrase”) on your phone. Type it into App Store search. In what we see, the right phrase returns fewer than ten apps, so a new app can be one of them, but not zero, because a phrase nobody else uses is one nobody searches.

• Best for: every app, before anything else.
• Effort and cost: medium, free.
• Time to results: a few weeks for a keyword change to settle.
• One step: find a name phrase that returns a handful of apps in App Store search, and never repeat a title word in the keyword field.

Second: ratings to the threshold

Aim for 50 ratings or more in each country store that matters to you, then move on to the next market. In AppTierList’s ranked lists, 34.0% of F tier list entries have fewer than 50 ratings, summed across the storefronts it reads (US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany for most apps), against 0.0% at S tier. Use Apple’s built-in rating prompt, and follow its limits.

• Best for: every app; in what we see, the effect is largest for a new one.
• Effort and cost: medium, free.
• Time to results: weeks to months.
• One step: trigger the rating prompt right after a user finishes something that worked, never on first open.

Third: list your app on category and tier lists

A list where your app sits next to its rivals gives search engines and AI assistants the context to place it. On AppTierList, adding an app costs nothing and takes minutes, and the order cannot be bought: it is worked out mostly from public App Store figures, which How we rank sets out in full. Its pages were read by AI crawlers at least 494,250 times over the 30 days to 2 November 2026. Ahrefs estimates that “best X” lists were 43.8% of the page types ChatGPT cited in its study, which used software prompts, not apps.

• Best for: being named in the same breath as the apps people already compare.
• Effort and cost: low, free.
• Time to results: fast to add; the context builds as crawlers return.
• One step: add your app, then read the list it lands in to see who it sits beside.

Web pages and communities pay back slowly but last

Fourth: a website that AI can read

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of making an app easy for AI assistants to find, read and recommend. In what we see, your own site matters most after the store listing itself. Google says its AI features need no special markup, only pages that are indexed and useful.

• Best for: search and AI answers about your use case.
• Effort and cost: medium, low.
• Time to results: months.
• One step: write one page that says, in plain text, what the app does, for whom, and what it costs, using the same words as your listing.

Fifth: comparison and alternatives pages

A person searching for an alternative to a rival already wants to switch. Keep each page narrow: a short verdict, who each app suits, then a link to download.

• Best for: people ready to leave a competitor.
• Effort and cost: medium, free.
• Time to results: months.
• One step: write one honest page comparing your app with the rival your reviewers mention most.

Sixth: niche communities and Reddit

Answer real questions where your users already ask them, and mention the app only when it truly answers one. Makers who grew this way often spent a long time helping before anyone asked for a link.

• Best for: your first users and honest feedback.
• Effort and cost: high, free.
• Time to results: days to weeks.
• One step: pick one community, read its rules, and answer questions for two weeks before you mention the app.

Paid and loud channels give spikes, not a stream

Seventh: Apple Ads with exact match

Apple Ads (formerly Apple Search Ads) puts your app at the top of search results. In what we see, ads early on are there to earn ratings rather than installs. Pick a single storefront, such as the US or one large European market, and run them there until it reaches 50 ratings, and only then spread out. Use exact match keywords only.

• Best for: reaching the ratings line in one storefront.
• Effort and cost: medium, paid.
• Time to results: days.
• One step: run a small exact match campaign in one storefront, and stop once it has 50 ratings.

Eighth: press and data stories

In what we see, a story with a dated, named number behind it gives writers more reason to cover you than a launch announcement does. Try a small study from your own data.

• Best for: links from sites with reach.
• Effort and cost: high, free.
• Time to results: weeks.
• One step: publish one finding from your app’s data with a chart, then send it to the few writers who cover your niche.

Ninth: short-form video

Short videos and photo carousels can bring a burst of installs for apps you can show in a few seconds. Bursts fade, and some markets download without paying.

• Best for: visual consumer apps.
• Effort and cost: high, free to low.
• Time to results: days, then it fades.
• One step: post one clip a day for two weeks showing the app doing its one job, and keep what gets saved.

Tenth: Product Hunt

A launch there brings a spike of visits for a day. It rarely turns into a steady stream of users.

• Best for: a launch day moment, after everything above is done.
• Effort and cost: medium, free.
• Time to results: one day.
• One step: launch only once the listing, ratings and website are ready to catch the visitors.

Claim your app, then put the page to work

It is free and quick to start:

1. Claim the app for free.
2. Fill in its page.
3. Share the page.

Claiming needs only an email address, whether you submit the app or tap Claim where it is already listed, and no password. On the page, your website and your words say who the app is for and what it does better, beside the computed order, and readers see them from the day it is Verified. Sharing the page then links your listing, your website and your facts from one place.