A workshop where indie developers help each other ship.

IndieRank is an experiment: take everything indie App Store developers lack — references, testers, feedback, distribution — and put them in one place where the value loops back on itself.

/01

Three loops, one network.

01

Research

Browse hundreds of thousands of indie App Store apps across 14 regions. Sort by rating, category, momentum, age. Study what works — names, icons, screen flows, pricing.

The loop: make the catalog easier to learn from than the App Store itself.

02

Mutual beta testing

Submit your TestFlight build to the Beta Stage. Other indie devs install it, run it on their device, and file a structured report — first confused screen, bug, suggestion, willingness to pay.

The loop: testing earns points; points fund promotion; promotion attracts testers.

03

Promote with points

Spend the points you earn from testing on featured slots inside the app gallery and developer pages. Indie marketing without an indie budget.

The loop: contribution converts to visibility, not money.

/02

How we identify "indie".

STEP 01 · CRAWL

Sweep the storefront

Across 14 storefronts, we walk every category's RSS feed, run thousands of search keywords, and probe known developer pages. Roughly 580K unique apps surfaced so far.

STEP 02 · FILTER

Cut the corporates

We exclude legal-entity names (株式会社, Inc, Ltd, GmbH, K.K., S.A.), finance-and-institution words, and operations with corporate-scale review counts. Only solo creators survive.

STEP 03 · SCORE

Rank by IR Rate

Each indie developer gets a single number: log10(reviews+1) × 300 × (rating/5) + activity + portfolio. Logarithmic to fight whales, weighted by quality, with a recency bonus.

IR Rate = log10(reviews + 1) × 300 × (avg_rating ÷ 5)  +  activity_bonus  +  min(active_apps, 5) × 40
/03

Project at a glance.

UNIQUE APPS CRAWLED
577,903
INDIE DEVELOPERS
137,677
REGIONS COVERED
14
UPDATE CADENCE
WEEKLY
/ DISCLOSURE

IndieRank is an independent project, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple Inc. "App Store" is a trademark of Apple Inc. We use publicly available iTunes Search/Lookup endpoints. Per Apple's marketing guidelines, IndieRank does not present itself as an official Apple service.

/ JOIN THE EXPERIMENT

Workshop opens in beta soon.

Browse the gallery now. Beta testing and points launch with the next version.