App Store Connect Help

Support / App Store Connect / Manage your app's availability / Publish for pre-order

Manage your app's availability

Publish for pre-order

Before releasing your app on the App Store in a country or region for the first time, you can choose to offer it for pre-order. When your app is available for pre-order, customers can view your product page and order your app before it's released for download.

Eligibility

You can offer your app for pre-order in any country or region on the App Store where the app hasn't already been released.

Free and paid apps on all Apple platforms are eligible to offer pre-orders. In-app purchases aren’t eligible for pre-order, but you can set up your in-app purchases, including promotional metadata, in App Store Connect before and during the pre-order period so that everything is ready once your app is released for download. Promoted in-app purchases don’t display on your App Store product page until your app is released for download.

App bundles cannot be made available for pre-order. Apps that are offered for pre-order must have at least one country or region where the app is already Ready for Sale in order to be added to a new app bundle.

Customer experience

Pre-orders can be made on devices running iOS 11.2, iPadOS 13, macOS 10.13.2, tvOS 11.2, and watchOS 6, or later. During pre-order, product pages are accessible to customers using earlier operating systems through direct links. However, the Buy button is disabled and customers are prompted to update to the latest OS version to pre-order apps.

Customers can cancel their pre-orders in their App Store settings on iOS and macOS, and in their iTunes settings on a PC. Learn more.

If your pre-order’s release date is less than 180 days from today, the complete release date will display on your app’s product page (for example: “Expected Jan 1, 2024”). If your release date is more than 180 days from today, only the month and year of the app’s release date will display (for example: “Expected Jan 2024”).

Customers who pre-order a paid app won’t be charged until the day the app is released for download. You may adjust the price of your app during the pre-order period, but keep in mind that if you change pricing, customers will be charged the lower price — either the price they accepted for pre-order or the price on the day of release.

Once your app is released, customers are notified and your app automatically downloads on the device on which they made the pre-order. It will also download on their eligible devices if they turn on automatic downloads.

Learn how to manage pre-orders with the App Store Connect API.

Required role: Account Holder, Admin, or App Manager. View role permissions.