What the numbers mean, and where they come from
Which figures are the stores’ own, which are our estimates, and how fresh they are.
IndieTower reads only what the App Store and Google Play show publicly. Some numbers come straight from the stores; a few are our own estimates. We always say which is which.
Straight from the stores
- Ratings and number of ratings, chart ranks, prices, versions and release dates.
- Google Play installs: the counter Google shows on the app’s page, such as “10,000+”.
- Search positions: the order of the stores’ public search results.
- Reviews: the public written reviews.
IndieTower estimates
- Downloads of App Store apps and revenue of any app. The stores do not publish these. Each estimate has a tag “IndieTower estimate” and a chip saying how sure we are.
- Opportunity score, keyword difficulty, the niche verdict and the listing score. These are our own scores, built from the store figures above.
What we never show
Search volume. Neither store publishes how often a term is searched, so we show signs of demand instead, such as whether the store’s search box suggests the term.
How fresh it is
- New App Store apps usually appear the day after release; Google Play apps can take longer.
- Apps you saved are looked at again about once a day.
- Keywords are checked once a day. Charts are captured every one to three days per country.
- Reviews of saved apps are fetched daily; other apps when someone opens them.
Pictures show a demo account. The names and numbers in them are examples, not live data.