How to choose a niche for an iPhone app. Five checks before you write code

Check 1. Money

The first question is whether anyone in the topic pays at all. We count a niche as one with money if at least one app in it makes $100K a month or more on the App Store before Apple's commission. That bar has been in place since September 23, 2026. Before that it was $1M.

The amounts are our estimate from the growth in App Store ratings, not Apple data. In half of the cases the estimate is within 2x of the real figure, in four out of five within 3x, and for large apps it tends to run low. Ads, web sales and Google Play are not included. How the estimate works is covered in How much does an app make? Estimating App Store revenue from ratings.

Of the 134 niches, 28 dropped out right here. There are apps in them and people use them, but nothing proves that even one makes $100K a month. Some of them were checked before September 23, when the bar was higher, so they are worth a second look.

Check 2. Weak leaders

Several players should share the money. If one giant takes it all, skip the niche. In the self-care pet niche Finch had 753,331 ratings and the next app, Quabble, had 4,168 (September 19, 2026). The leader was two orders of magnitude ahead, and the niche scored 5 out of 13.

Weakness shows in three ways. Some leaders have few ratings, leaders haven't updated in a long time, and the same complaints keep coming up in reviews. In the guitar fretboard trainer niche two of the four leaders have fewer than 1,000 ratings, and the book gives it 12 out of 13.

Check 3. Do newcomers break through

Look at when the apps that make money now were released. If some of them came out last year, the door is open. If the top of the search results belongs to apps with hundreds of thousands of ratings that all update every month, a newcomer will struggle.

Of the 115 niches where Appto checked this, newcomers break through in 82, don't in 30, and in 3 the answer is unclear (October 13, 2026). A wall looks like the photo cleanup niche, where the leader has 721,958 ratings (September 23, 2026). An open door looks like sleep sounds. Anima launched on October 21, 2025 and by our estimate makes $165K to $661K a month (not Apple data, October 13, 2026).

Check 4. Could a chatbot replace it

If someone gets the same result by asking a chatbot, they don't need your app. Of the 134 niches, a chatbot covered the whole job in 2, part of it in 10 and couldn't replace the app in 122 (October 13, 2026).

Even failing this check doesn't kill a niche if there is something to build next to it. A chatbot will write up a natal chart reading, but it won't do the exact calculation, a calendar of future transits or a notification at the moment of the event. It will name the notes of a scale, but it won't give you a timed fretboard drill with a score. An app stays useful when it keeps data for weeks, works with sensors or sound, or reminds you at the right minute.

Check 5. Can you build it

Version 1 should fit in five screens and not depend on things you don't have. The hardest are data licenses, other people's content and a server that has to run for years. The easiest are niches where the content is drawn and computed by code.

On October 13, 2026 a family photo album for grandparents dropped out with zero points, even though it had more money than any other niche that day. It means storing other people's photos, which costs money every month and only works while the server lives. A guitar fretboard trainer needs no content at all. The fretboard is drawn in code, the notes are computed and the sound is synthesized.

How the score works

The answers add up to a score out of 13. From 8 points a niche passes Appto's cut. A niche with no money drops out whatever its score, and a zero for feasibility zeroes the whole score. Next to the score the book shows a shelf of four scales from 0 to 100, covering money in the niche, weak leaders, room to be different and ease of building.

The score is a bar, and it isn't the whole story. On October 13, 2026 a digital business card app scored 9 and formally passed. There is money in it, but the top of the search belongs to Blinq with 132,265 ratings and Popl with 102,926, so Appto doesn't recommend it.

Here is the tally for September 6 to October 13, 2026. Of 134 niches, 87 passed, 8 scored under 8 points and 39 dropped out.

One niche, start to finish

Take sleep sounds and white noise, niche 14 in the book 50 iPhone app niches.

• Money. Three leaders make at least $160K a month each at the low end of our estimate (October 13, 2026). Passed.
• Leaders. Several apps share the money. BetterSleep has 390,805 ratings but adds them slowly. Weak leaders scale 50 out of 100.
• Newcomers. Anima launched in October 2025 and is already among the top earners.
• Chatbot. Can't replace it, a text model makes no sound.
• Ease. 85 out of 100. The sound is synthesized in code, no recordings needed.

Total 11 out of 13, so the niche passes. The main risk is visible in advance too, since people search for these apps with the word free. The leader table and a version 1 plan are in our piece on the sleep sounds niche.

How to check your own niche

Appto checks your own topic on live App Store data in 1–2 minutes. Niche searches and topic checks come with a subscription from Solo. There's no free trial, but before you pay you can look around Appto in the demo that's built into the app and runs on sample apps (Appto, October 15, 2026). The leaders' revenue figures are open on Studio and Pro (appto.store, October 13, 2026). Appto for Mac is on the download page.

Once the niche is picked, the concept, design, code and App Store page come next. The whole path is covered in How to build an iOS app with AI, from niche to App Store.