The App Store words next to your screenshots
the short version
- Screenshots sell the glance. The subtitle, promotional text and the first lines of the description sell the people who tap through.
- The subtitle is 30 characters and should say what the app does. The name is not the place for a slogan.
- Promotional text is the one field you can change without a new version. Use it for what’s true this week.
- The keyword field is 100 characters. Don’t spend them on words already in your name or subtitle.
In this post7 sections
You can spend a week on screenshots and then upload them under a subtitle that says “Your new favourite app”. The pictures do their job. The words undo it.
The screenshot checklist is about the frames. This is about the text that sits next to them: the name, the subtitle, the promotional text, the keyword field, and the only lines of the description anyone reads. None of it is mysterious. Most of it is a character limit and a decision.
The limits below are Apple’s, as published for App Store Connect. They change, and the form will stop you when you run over, so treat the numbers as the current boxes, not a law of nature. Check them in App Store Connect before you lock the copy. The same goes for Google Play at the end.
The name and the subtitle do different jobs
The name is what people search for once they already mean you, and what they see under the icon. Keep it the product name. A tagline crammed into the name (“Flatmate – Shared Lists & IOUs”) makes the icon’s label unreadable and burns words you’ll want elsewhere.
The subtitle is 30 characters, including spaces. It sits under the name on the product page and in search. It is the one-line version of your landing-page sentence: what the app does, not a mood.
Thirty characters is about five short words. That’s the point. You can’t hide a paragraph in it.
| Use the subtitle for | Not for |
|---|---|
| The outcome, in plain words | “The future of X” |
| A specific person, if it still fits | Your company name (it’s already on the page) |
| Words a stranger would search | A joke that needs the screenshots to make sense |
A few made-up subtitles, so the length is obvious:
- “See who owes you” (16)
- “Dinners from your fridge” (24)
- “Standup, from your commits” (26)
- “A wind-down in ten minutes” (26)
If your favourite line is 34 characters, don’t sneak it in with a clever abbreviation. Cut a word. “Dinners from the fridge” is the same promise and it fits.
Promotional text is the line you can change today
Promotional text is up to 170 characters, and you can edit it without submitting a new version. The description, the subtitle and the screenshots go through review with the build. This line doesn’t.
So don’t write it as a second slogan you’ll forget. Write it as what’s true this week.
- Before launch: “Out on Thursday. Join the list and we’ll send the link.”
- Launch week: “Now on the App Store. The first week is free, no card.”
- The week after: “New: split a receipt by photo. Tell us if we missed a shop.”
If nothing is newly true, leave last week’s line. An empty promotional text is better than “Download now and start your journey.”
The keyword field is a hundred-character puzzle
Apple gives you a 100-character keyword field. Commas separate words, and a space after a comma is a space you paid for and didn’t use. Don’t repeat words that are already in your app name or subtitle: those are indexed too, and repeating them is a wasted slot.
A practical way to fill it:
- List every word a stranger might type when they want the outcome, not your brand.
- Cross out anything already in the name or subtitle.
- Cross out competitor names. Riding someone else’s trademark is a good way to have a review argument you don’t need.
- Cross out “app”, “free”, and the category name. People add them out of habit. They rarely earn their place.
- Join what’s left with commas and no spaces. Trim until the counter says 100 or under.
flatmate,iou,owe,receipt,split,bill,rent,shopping,houseshare,sharedThat’s a made-up field for a made-up flatmate app whose subtitle is already “See who owes you”. “Owe” can stay if you want the other forms; “see”, “who” and “you” should not, because the subtitle spent them. Plurals are worth a thought: if you only have room for one of “bill” and “bills”, pick the one you’d actually type, and don’t assume the store will tidy it up for you.
Then stop fiddling. Keyword fields reward a clear product more than a clever one. If you can’t explain the app in a sentence, no arrangement of a hundred characters will.
The first three lines of the description
The description can run to a few thousand characters. Almost nobody reads the bottom of it. The top is doing the work, and on a phone the first two or three lines show before “more”.
Write those lines as if the subtitle wasn’t there, because in some layouts it might as well not be. Same rules as the landing page: what it does, who it’s for, what to do.
Then, if you want a longer description, this shape holds:
- The promise, in two sentences.
- Three or four concrete things the app does, as outcomes (“Photograph a receipt, see who owes what”), not feature names.
- One honest limit or reassurance (price, privacy, offline).
- Who made it, in one line, if you’re a small team and that’s a reason to trust you.
Don’t open with “Welcome to [Name]!” Don’t paste your press release. Don’t list 20 features in bold. And don’t claim a rating, a download count or a quote you don’t have. The store will show your real rating when you have one. Until then, silence is cleaner than fiction.
A full set, for a fake app
Split, a made-up app for flatmates. None of this is a real listing.
| Field | Copy |
|---|---|
| Name | Split |
| Subtitle | See who owes you |
| Promotional text | Out this Thursday. Photograph a receipt, tick who ate, and stop keeping a note in your phone. |
| Keywords | flatmate,iou,receipt,bill,rent,shopping,houseshare,shared,expense,tab |
| First lines | Split is for flatmates who are tired of buying milk twice. Photograph a receipt, tick who it was for, and the tab stays up to date without a spreadsheet. |
Read the subtitle and the first screenshot caption next to each other. They should agree. If the caption says “Collect every dish you eat” and the subtitle says “See who owes you”, one of them is on the wrong product. The screenshot set and this text are one conversation.
Google Play, briefly
Don’t paste the iOS subtitle into Android and hope. Google Play has its own short description (a short line above the full one; the console will show you the current limit) and a longer description. The short line does the subtitle’s job: what it does, in words that still make sense when the screenshots are a swipe away.
Use Android phrasing if you have it. “Flat” and “flatmate” read as British, which is right if your first users are here and slightly odd if they aren’t. Write the short line for the store you’re actually in.
The checklist
Our screenshot package is the set plus an icon review, one week, from £1,500, on the menu. The words are yours to write, and a free teardown will mark up the listing you’ve got.
If you’d rather read the subtitle out loud to someone before you submit it, book a free 15-minute call. Bring the line. Thirty characters is plenty of time.
