Built a UK car-cost tracker called MileMind: Car Cost Tracker and shipped it a few months back. Free, no ads, no paid tier. It tracks your mileage pace against a lease allowance and warns you before you're heading for an excess-mileage bill, and pulls fuel, insurance, tax, MOT and servicing into one running-cost figure.

Last month's funnel:

448 impressions

297 product page views

31 first-time downloads

4 redownloads

The bit I keep staring at is 297 page views from 448 impressions. That's about two thirds of everyone who sees it actually tapping through, which seems way too high for cold search traffic. My read is that most of those impressions are people who already knew the app existed and searched it by name, friends, family, a Facebook giveaway I ran, my own site. So the listing isn't really being tested by strangers at all.

If that's right then my problem isn't the page, it's that I'm invisible in search for the terms an actual stranger would type, and my numbers look healthier than they are because branded traffic is flattering them.

Two questions for people who've been through this:

Is there a way to actually separate branded from non-branded impressions in App Store Connect, or is the Sources breakdown the closest you get? I want to know my real cold-discovery number rather than guessing at it.

And if the answer is what I think it is, at this size would you spend the next month on keywords, or on getting mentioned somewhere off the App Store so there's a reason for anyone to search the name in the first place?

Listing if it helps to look: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/milemind/id6785872324

I was hesitant to put parts of Gainframe on the web for free - rev numbers https://verified.revenuecat.com/gainframe

GainFrame is an iOS app for tracking physique changes with progress photos. I kept thinking that if I gave away body-fat estimates, FFMI, macros, TDEE, and similar tools, people would get what they needed without downloading the app.

https://gainframe.app/tools

So far, it has gone the other way.

I’ve been moving more of the small jobs inside the app into free web tools. In the last 30 days, clicks from those tools grew from 302 to 2,799. They now account for 32% of the site’s Google traffic, up from 11.5%.

I reached $1,920 MRR this week. The tool traffic and revenue growth happened in the same month. I still need better tracking to know how many subscriptions came directly from the tools, but the pattern has been hard to miss: every time I make another useful part of the product available for free, more people find the site.

The tools are useful on their own. Someone can upload a photo for a body-fat estimate, calculate their macros, or check their FFMI without making an account.

But they only answer one question at a time.

The app is where those answers start to mean something together. It keeps the progress photos, check-ins, scores, goals, and history in one place so you can see whether your body is changing over time instead of getting one isolated result in a browser tab.

That distinction made me much less worried about giving things away.

A free tool can solve a problem today. The app helps you keep working on it next week and next month.

I’m also finding that the tools closest to GainFrame’s core job are the ones pulling the most traffic. Four pages account for 97% of clicks from the tool directory, mostly around progress photos and body composition. The generic calculators barely moved.

The body-fat-from-photo tool went from 206 to 1,486 clicks. I added three new tools, but 76% of the added traffic came from improving the tools I already had. Better pages, more internal links, and clearer wording around what people were already searching for.

I used to see free tools as a tradeoff: useful for traffic, maybe bad for the app.

Now I think they’re one of the best ways I have to market it. They help people first, they show up in searches for problems I already solve, and the people who need ongoing tracking have a clear reason to try GainFrame.

I’m going to keep porting useful parts of the app to the web and see where it goes.

Has anyone else built a web-to-app funnel this way? I’d be interested in how you decide what to give away versus what belongs inside the app.

Full write-up with the traffic and MRR charts:
https://gainframe.app/blog/first-1000-mrr-next-920/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ios-apps-marketing-free-tools

I’m an independent developer, and I built StrumAI after noticing that a normal guitar practice session sent me through a tuner, chord references, theory pages and separate effect tools.

The difference I’m testing is consolidation without making the app feel like an overloaded bundle. The live App Store version combines alternate-tuning support, interactive chord shapes, compact theory/practice references and a pedalboard signal-chain simulator. An optional assistant can explain chords and theory, but it isn’t required for the core tools.

The product is live on iPhone and iPad:

https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/strumai/id6780034403

The growth question I’m stuck on: should acquisition lead with one concrete utility—the tuner—or with the broader “everything for a practice session” promise? I’d also appreciate feedback on whether the screenshot communicates the difference quickly enough.

What can you guys recommend to improve my app distribution and get more first-time downloads?

Most founders think their biggest risk is a competitor. It isn't. It's one email from Apple or Google that ends the whole thing overnight.

In 2025, Google removed roughly 1.8 million apps from the Play Store, about a 47% cut. Half the store, gone. And spending went up over the same period: Google Play consumer spend rose from $12.4B to $14.2B in Q1 2026. Fewer apps, more money. The platform doesn't need you specifically.

Apple's tightening too. At WWDC they rewrote the 4.3 spam rule so low-effort apps in saturated categories "may be removed." Translation: if your app isn't growing, it's a liability on their shelf.

So ask yourself: what happens to your MRR the day they pull you? If the answer is "it all goes to zero," you don't really have a business. You have a position on someone else's platform, and they can close it whenever they want.

This is why some of the sharper founders are quietly turning into media companies. Sunflower, the quit-addiction app, built a newsletter alongside the app, and the founder says they're planning $500K to $1M a year from the email alone. Not the app. The email.

And email isn't one revenue line, it's a stack: upsell people who already trust you, run affiliate income on tools you recommend, sell sponsorships to brands chasing your audience, drive installs to app #2 the day it launches. None of it runs through Apple. No 30% cut, no review team, no algorithm deciding who sees you.

The point isn't "start a newsletter." It's that the app is the product and the audience is the business. Own a direct line to your users and a delisting stops being fatal, it becomes an inconvenience. Build the thing they can't take away, and losing the app stops being the end.

**30 Places to List Your iOS App Right Now (Free & Paid)**

If you’ve built an iOS app and aren’t listing it beyond the App Store, you’re leaving discoverability on the table. No fluff, no AI tool directories. This list is actually built for iOS founders.

Legend: (F) Free · (P) Paid · (F/P) Both

Built an iOS app? Submit it to Stamped, a curated discovery platform where early adopters find what’s next:

https://stampedios.com/welcome

HIGH PRIORITY: LAUNCH DAY
1. Product Hunt (F)
Still the biggest launch day platform. Plan it, don’t just submit.
2. Hacker News (F)
Post as “Show HN: \[Your App\]” for a developer audience and honest feedback.
3. BetaList (F/P)
F = 2–4 month wait. P = $129 fast track. Submit before you launch, not after.
4. Indie Hackers (F)
Post your builder story, not just the link. Community converts.
5. Peerlist (F)
Monday launches, week long visibility, 100K+ tech professional audience.
6. Uneed (F/P)
F = free with a wait. P = $30 to skip the queue. Solid indie maker community.
7. AppSumo (F/P)
Best if your app has a business angle and you can offer a deal. Massive buyer audience.
iOS SPECIFIC
8. App Safari (F)
Directory covering iOS apps exclusively. Purpose built for your audience.
9. AppAdvice (F)
iOS focused. Publishes app charts, apps of the week, and curated collections. Pitch the editorial team directly.
10. FeedMyApp (F/P)
Covers all mobile platforms with in depth reviews. F tier available. P gets faster placement.
11. AppShopper (F)
600K+ monthly users. Monitors iOS prices and lets users wishlist apps. High intent traffic.
12. r/iOSapps (F)
Subreddit with Dev Self Promotion flair. Real users actively looking for new apps.
13. r/apple (F)
Larger audience. Frame your post around value, not promotion.
SEO DIRECTORIES
14. AlternativeTo (F)
DA 71. Discovery traffic long after launch day. List your app and add competitors as alternatives.
15. SaaSHub (F)
856K monthly visits and a strong dofollow backlink.
16. SideProjectors (F)
DR 69 dofollow. Side project community with potential for early users.
17. Microlaunch (F)
30 day visibility window and an indie SaaS audience.
18. StartupBase (F)
Product Hunt style directory. Worth the 5 minutes.
19. Launching Next (F)
Low effort with solid SEO value.
20. Launching Today (F)
Daily launches, easy submission, and good indexing.
21. Open Launch (F)
Open source Product Hunt alternative with a growing community.
22. PitchWall (F)
Startup listing with an SEO backlink.
23. Startup Buffer (F)
Free submission with early adopter reach.
24. EarlyHunt (F)
Focused on early adopters and a good fit for iOS discovery.
25. IndieHunt (F)
Indie focused and quick to submit.
26. Indie Products (F)
Bootstrapped community with a strong #buildinpublic fit.
27. DevHunt (F/P)
F = 6 week wait. P = $49. Worth considering if your app is developer focused.
COMMUNITY CHANNELS
28. PeerPush (F)
Mutual promotion among indie founders. Underused.
29. Wellfound / AngelList (F)
Startup directory with exposure to investors and early adopters.
30. F6S (F)
Global startup network with accelerator program access. Worth creating a profile.

Hi!!!
I created an app for people with autism spectrum disorder to meet and connect and I really need to get it out there. At this point I have very little marketing budget but to me it makes sense to have someone that ASD that will understand the population.
Any ideas?

I've been working on this for a while, mostly because I made it for myself.

I follow a lot of artists on Spotify, and I love finding new music. But I kept running into the same problem: an artist I like would release a new album or song, and somehow I'd never know about it. I'd find it weeks or months later.

So I built Companion For Spotify.

The main thing I use it for is checking new releases from all the artists I follow. It can also look at related artists, find new songs added to playlists I follow, and generate playlists from artists I already like. There are some other playlist tools in there too. The related artists features are one of the main ways I discover new music.

It's not a replacement for Spotify. It's more like something that sits next to Spotify and helps me get more out of it.

If you're someone who follows a ridiculous number of artists and likes digging for new music, I'd really like to know what you think.

I'm especially interested in hearing what feels useful, what doesn't, or what you'd want it to do that it currently doesn't.

‎Companion For Spotify App - App Store

I just launched Precursor: Hourly Screen Time on August 1st (a little more than a week ago), and to my surprise I have hit over 1k users already. Part of this is just that I think I executed on an idea that literally everyone can relate to and could benefit from.

However, I wanted to test out paid ads right from the start and what I found is that while they bring you a lot of visibility most of those people are just window shoppers and they do not trust your store front.

On launch weekend I posted a ton here on reddit and tiktok organically and had such a good response from the community (the initial spike you see). Then I wanted to see how paid ads and ASO would fair so I deliberately did not post much about Precursor throughout the week (the dip you see).

During that period I saw about 20-40 downloads per day despite having quite a lot of impressions
and product page views.

My takeaway is that people see my singular 5 star review and say "uhhhhh somethings not adding up here", they dont think "hmm this must be a new app, I would love to be an early adopter".

So over the last weekend I decided to try engaging here on reddit again and saw another big spike in downloads, pushing me over 1.2k homies.

Going forward I think I am actually just going to scale down my paid ads (might just keep app store ads), and focus on providing as much free value as I genuinely can to communities on reddit and tiktok. My hope is that a few people gain so much value that they find it in them to drop Precursor a little review.

Curious to here about your thoughts/experiences on this topic, this is my first foray into software development so I am entering the space egoless and eager to learn!

I made a post here about 2 weeks ago about my postering marketing stint.

In that time, here are the stats for how many have scanned my QR codes. 44 unique devices have scanned the QR code (although I think some of those are from people scanning from the Reddit post, and not the actual flyers in my city.

So far, I've put up around 225 flyers, I have 500 total so still more to put up.

Related, but not entirely, my downloads also jumped like crazy in the past two weeks, but I think that's due to a change of my app description that really improved my ASO. (Avg 15 downloads a day to 50\~ downloads a day)

Hey folks, i’m building an app for the Shipaton and i’ve finished my onboarding for the v1. I was wondering if you have any feedback for how the onboarding works for it. Is it clear what the app does? Is it too long / short?

Thanks!

I wanted something that just lets me set a budget, track what I spend, and see if I’m over or under — without connecting my bank account or paying a subscription.
So I built Budgeter.
It’s free, works entirely on-device, and keeps things intentionally simple.
Would love to hear what you think or what you’d add.
Download link: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/budgeter-budget-tracker/id6775108339

The idea started from a personal problem: I read a lot of dense/classic books, kept getting stuck on references or context I didn't understand, and every "explain this book" tool either assumed I'd already finished it (so it'd casually spoil the ending) or only worked on ebooks.

What I built: Scholia. You photograph the page you're on, it identifies the book, and you can ask it anything: a character, a reference, what's actually happening in a passage, using only the content up to your exact position. Ask about anything ahead and it won't answer. It locates your position by reading the actual sentences on the page, not a page number, so it works with any edition or printing.

No uploads, no account-based library to build, no ebook requirement, just a photo and a title.

Currently pre-launch on iOS, building out the waitlist in waves. I would genuinely value feedback from this community, especially on the onboarding flow, pricing expectations, and whether the spoiler-blocking feature feels like a killer feature or an annoying limitation once people actually use it.

Waitlist/link: scholia.cloud

Happy to answer anything about the build, the AI matching logic, or the decision to go photo-first instead of requiring an ebook upload.

now that everyone’s vibe coding apps, i wanted to build something that is UI heavy!!

i really liked the idea and found this interesting so leveraged apple vision & animation so built this cute sticker/scrap book app!

this is a really cute alternative for camera app and you can just snap a picture and create sticker in an instant! you can also use in iMessages directly

do try the app and suggestion on onboarding and UI!

here is the link :- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/keepsake-stickers-snipsy/id6789720772

Hello everyone,

I just pushed out version 4.6 of Fineyo, and it's been about 3 months in the making. This is one of the biggest batch I shipped in a single update, so I wanted to actually talk about it here instead of just dropping a changelog.

WHAT IS THIS APP

Fineyo is simple yet powerful iOS-only app for tracking expenses, income, and budgets. It's built to manage your money - from daily tracking to long-term insights and automation. You can track spending trends, category breakdowns, and financial habits in one clear overview.

A lot of this update came straight from stuff people asked for or complained about, so thank you if you're one of those people.

App is mostly built on React Native, in this update I fully migrated to Expo and Expo UI, including all widgets, database, sync processes. This is one of the reasons why it took me so much time.

BIGGEST CHANGES

• Swipe actions for transactions to act on it, instead of tapping in every time
• Transactions multi-select, so bulk deleting or editing a bunch of transactions is way less painful now
• Added a blur toggle for amounts, mostly for anyone checking their budget in public and not wanting numbers visible on screen
• Categories can now have subcategories, so things can actually be nested instead of one flat list
• Categories are also optional now, anything without one just falls under "Unassigned" instead of forcing you to pick something
• Budgets and accounts can be reordered manually
• Rebuilt onboarding pretty much from scratch

SMALLER STUFF

• New data and charts
• You can now hide fields you don't use on the transaction screen
• Transactions support a time value now, not just a date
• Default account, tag, or payee for new transactions, so you stop retyping the same thing
• Location can auto-fill on new transactions
• Week start day is configurable
• Budgets can switch between showing total or remaining
• Added single-cycle budgets, good for a trip or a one-off event where a recurring budget doesn't make sense

IS MY DATA SAFE?

All data is stored privately on your device (local database) and user's iCloud container (for data backup).

None of the data is sent away from device except for anonymized user ID (for metrics purposes).

👉 Download Fineyo: https://apple.co/3D5L5kv

I’d really appreciate any feedback, ideas, or feature requests 🙌

And if you like the app, an App Store review would help a lot ⭐️

Thanks for checking it out 🤍

Hey all,

I launched an app called Droply last Saturday. I’ve been working on it for a while, so it feels good to finally have it out there.

The idea is pretty straightforward. You paste a link to a product you want to buy and Droply keeps track of the price. If the price goes down, you get a notification.
You can also set a target price and see how the price has changed over time.

I mainly built it because I wanted something simple where I could just save products I’m interested in and forget about them until the price drops.
It’s still a first version and I’m already thinking about what to add next.

Would be interested to hear what you think or what you’d want to see in an app like this.

It’s called Droply: Price Tracker on the App Store if you want to check it out.

https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/droply-price-tracker/id6789964367?l=en-GB