Competing Apps Count
The competing apps count is the number of apps that appear in search results for a given keyword in a specific storefront — a proxy for how saturated that keyword's search results are.
When a user searches a keyword in the App Store, Apple returns a list of apps it considers relevant. The competing apps count tells you how many apps are in that pool — a keyword with 12 competing apps is a very different competitive situation from one with 2,000.
A high competing apps count does not automatically mean a keyword is hard to rank for. What matters is the quality of the apps in the ranking set — 50 mediocre apps competing for a keyword might be easier to break into than 20 apps with hundreds of thousands of ratings. Competing apps count is a useful first filter, but difficulty score gives you the more precise answer.
In practice, competing apps count below 50 is often a signal of an underserved niche — either the keyword is very specific, demand is low, or established apps haven't targeted it yet. Above 500, expect a mature, competitive field. The sweet spot for an emerging app is often keywords in the 50–200 range that have acceptable popularity.
Frequently asked questions
- Is a high competing apps count bad?
- Not necessarily. A keyword with 500 competing apps but dominated by weak, poorly-rated apps may be more accessible than one with 100 competing apps all held by major publishers. The difficulty score gives you a better answer than the raw count alone.
- How does competing apps count relate to keyword difficulty?
- Competing apps count is one input into difficulty, but the main driver is the strength of the apps at the top — their rating counts, tenure in the store, and how well their metadata matches the keyword. A large pool of weak apps still produces a low difficulty score.
Related terms
- Keyword DifficultyKeyword difficulty is a 0–100 score estimating how hard it is to break into the top-ranking positions for a given App Store keyword, based on the strength of apps currently holding those positions.
- Niche KeywordsNiche keywords are terms specific enough to describe a well-defined subset of App Store users — they have moderate-to-low popularity scores but often dramatically lower difficulty than the broad category terms.
- Long-Tail KeywordsLong-tail keywords are multi-word, specific search phrases that individually have lower search volume than broad terms but collectively cover the majority of App Store searches and often have much lower ranking difficulty.
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Put this into practice
Score App Store keywords by popularity and difficulty across 109 storefronts — the numbers behind competing apps count.
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