What are App Store Pre-Orders?
Apple allows developers to build excitement for new apps, and even sell them to interested customers, for up to 180 days before said apps officially launch in the App Store. These are known as pre-orders.
When an iOS user purchases a pre-order, Apple registers their information, then automatically charges them and installs the pre-ordered app on the user’s device on launch day. The “App Store Pre-Orders” metric measures the number of pre-orders your app receives, minus cancellations. If 10,000 people pre-order your app, for example, but 2,000 of them change their minds before your app launches and cancel their order, your app’s pre-order total would be 8,000.
Pre-orders are available for both free and paid apps and the “App Store Pre-Orders” metric calculates totals for both. Only devices running iOS 11.2, iPadOS 13, tvOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and watchOS 6 and beyond are able to take advantage of pre-order offers.
