Offering apps and games for pre-order

Build excitement for your app’s launch by making it available for pre-order on the App Store. People can order your app before it’s released, and it’ll automatically download onto their devices on release day.

Overview

With pre-orders, you can increase awareness and momentum for your app or game’s launch before it’s released on the App Store. When you offer your app for pre-order, a limited version of your product page is published on the App Store and people can order your app before it’s released. Pre-orders are also discoverable in search results, as well as on the Today, Games, and Apps tabs if your app is being actively featured.

Pre-orders let you release your app in specific regions and set a different release date for each region. With this flexibility, you can offer pre-orders for brand-new apps that have never been published on the App Store and use them to bring existing apps into new regions.

On release day, your app automatically downloads onto the devices of people who have pre-ordered and they receive a notification so they can start experiencing your app right away.

Configuration and eligibility

Configure and manage pre-orders in App Store Connect, in the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps. For each pre-order, you’ll select an expected release date and the regions where you’d like to offer it. The length of the pre-order period is based on the status and availability of your app. Brand-new apps can have a release day that’s 2 to 180 days after the pre-order is published, while existing apps can have a release date in a new region that’s 2 to 365 days after the pre-order is published. Once your app has been submitted and reviewed by App Review, you can publish your pre-order. Pre-orders can be made on devices running iOS 11.2, iPadOS 13, tvOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and watchOS 6 or later.

Marketing pre-orders

You can use the App Store pre-order badge in your marketing materials to let people know it’s available for pre-order and encourage them to order your app. You can also promote pre-orders in your own marketing channels, such as your website, mailing list, and social media accounts. Include a clear call-to-action — for example, “Pre-order on the App Store” — and provide a direct link to your product page. Additionally, you can use Apple Search Ads to promote your app while it’s available for pre-order.

Your product page displays an expected release date. If there’s a chance this date will shift, we recommend that you don’t include this date in your marketing efforts. Keep in mind that people who pre-order your app aren’t notified by Apple of date changes or if you remove the pre-order from the App Store, so you’ll need to communicate any adjustments.

On release day, be sure to update all of your marketing materials and App Store badges to share that your app is now available to download on the App Store.

Existing apps can use custom product pages and product page optimization for their pre-order product page. With custom product pages, you can create additional versions of the product page to highlight a particular feature or specific content. Share each page’s unique URL in your corresponding marketing materials. With product page optimization, you can test up to three alternate product page versions against the original, view the results in App Analytics, and set the best performing version to display to everyone on the App Store.

Use the preorder_date receipt field to identify people who pre-ordered your app and use this information to display in-app messaging that thanks them for their purchase, or unlock rewards for them — such as additional gems in a game.

Measuring success

Measure the success of your app’s pre-orders in App Store Connect. App Analytics helps you understand how pre-orders perform over time, and includes the number of pre-orders broken down by date, region, and source type.

You can also track the performance of pre-orders in Sales and Trends, where you’ll find the number of purchased pre-orders and cancellations, and download this information as a report.

Learn about pre-order report

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