App Launch Checklist
PopularEverything to nail before, during, and after your app launch — in one interactive checklist.
0 of 26 complete
Progress is saved in your browser.
Pre-Launch: 4-2 Weeks Out
Pre-Launch: Final Week
Launch Day
Post-Launch: First Week
Launching an app is a project with three distinct phases, and teams consistently over-invest in the first while neglecting the other two. Pre-launch is the store work: metadata, keywords, screenshots, privacy setup, and review approval. Launch week is coordination: release timing, marketing pushes, and making sure analytics actually fire. Post-launch is where growth happens or doesn’t: watching reviews, crashes, and keyword rankings while the store’s new-app signals are still warm.
This checklist covers all three phases in sequence, from “keyword research done” to “first review responses sent.” Items are ordered by dependency — you can’t A/B test an icon you haven’t uploaded — and your progress persists locally, so it works as a living launch plan across the weeks a real launch takes.
How to run your launch with this checklist
- 1
Start the pre-launch section 2–4 weeks out: finalize metadata and keywords, produce screenshots for every required device size, and complete privacy declarations.
- 2
Get your app approved early using a manual-release option, so review delays can’t move your launch date.
- 3
On launch day, work the launch section: release the build, verify the store listing and deep links live, trigger your marketing channels, and confirm analytics and crash reporting receive real events.
- 4
In the first two weeks, work the post-launch section daily: respond to reviews, track keyword rankings and conversion, and ship your first fix update fast — it signals active maintenance to both users and algorithms.
Why the first weeks after launch matter disproportionately
New apps get a window of elevated attention: freshness plays a role in discovery, early velocity of downloads and ratings shapes keyword rankings, and editorial teams look at new and updated apps for featuring. What you do in the first days — prompting satisfied users for ratings at the right moment, answering every early review, fixing the first crash cluster within days rather than weeks — compounds, because early ratings and rankings are the base every later effort builds on.
The mechanics deserve as much attention as the marketing. Verify that your attribution and analytics events actually arrive from production builds (a misconfigured key silently costs you your entire launch dataset), that your product page renders correctly in every localized storefront you shipped, and that your rating prompt logic can’t fire on a user mid-frustration. These are one-hour checks that regularly go unchecked.
Pre-launch decisions that pay off later
Two store mechanics are worth setting up before day one. Manual release (or a scheduled release date) decouples approval from availability, letting you pass review days early and launch at the moment your marketing lands. On iOS, phased release then rolls the update out to a growing percentage of automatic-update users over seven days — invaluable for catching a bad crash before it reaches everyone; Google Play’s staged rollouts do the same with percentages you control.
Also decide your measurement baseline before launch, not after. Record your keyword targets and their current rankings, define what week-one success means in installs and conversion rate, and set up store analytics access for the whole team. Post-launch, the difference between “the launch felt good” and “branded search drove 60% of installs, generic keywords need work” is entirely determined by what you instrumented beforehand.
Frequently asked questions
How long before launch should I start store preparation?
Four weeks is comfortable: week one for keyword research and metadata, week two for screenshots and creative, week three for privacy setup and submission, week four as buffer for review and rejection fixes. Compressing into one week works only if nothing goes wrong — and something usually does.
Should I release immediately after approval or use manual release?
Use manual release (or a scheduled date) for any coordinated launch. It lets you bank approval days early and release at the exact moment your announcement, press, or campaign goes live, instead of letting Apple’s review timing choose your launch moment.
What day of the week is best to launch an app?
There is no universal winner, but common practice favors mid-week (Tuesday–Thursday): store teams and press are active, and you have working days to react to problems. Avoid Fridays — a launch-day crash discovered over the weekend is a bad first impression you can’t quickly fix.
What metrics should I watch in the first week?
Crash-free session rate first — stability problems poison everything else. Then product page conversion rate, downloads by source, keyword rankings for your target terms, day-1 retention, and rating velocity. Reviews deserve manual reading, not just scoring: first-week reviews tell you what onboarding actually feels like.
When should I ship the first update after launch?
Fast — within one to two weeks if you can. A quick first update fixes the issues early reviews surface, shows the store and users the app is actively maintained, and gives you a natural moment to reply to early negative reviews with “fixed in the latest version.”
Run your launch from one dashboard
Appalize’s launch setup status pulls your real App Store Connect state — metadata, assets, privacy, builds — into a single readiness view, then tracks rankings and reviews from day one.
Related free tools
Pre-Submission Checklist
Run through every App Store submission requirement before you press “Submit for Review”.
Free ASO Score Checker
Search any app and get an instant ASO score with concrete fixes for title, subtitle, description, and keywords.
Screenshot Order Planner
Plan the sequence of your store screenshots so the first three do the selling.
Release Timing Planner
Pick the right day to submit and release your app update, with review times and rollout curves accounted for.