Short answer: fewer than you think for the top 10, and a lot for #1. In 853 popular US App Store searches, 62% had at least one app with under 1,000 ratings in the top 10, and 23% had one in the top 3. The app at #1 had a median of about 106,000 ratings.
What we looked at
AppTrendKit records the top results for 11,980 US App Store searches every day. For this post we took the ones Apple rates as popular (a search popularity of 40 or more on Apple's 5–100 scale) and left out brand searches, where people look for one specific app, such as a company's name. That left 853 searches. For each one we looked at the 10 apps ranking on October 20, 2026: how many ratings each had, where it ranked, and whether its name contains the search phrase.
Small apps hold one top-10 spot in six
| App ratings | Top-10 spots | Share | #1 spots | Search phrase in app name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1,000 | 1,387 | 16% | 46 | 65% |
| 1,000–9,999 | 1,644 | 19% | 105 | 57% |
| 10,000–99,999 | 2,648 | 31% | 281 | 51% |
| 100,000 or more | 2,809 | 33% | 434 | 30% |
Apps with fewer than 1,000 ratings took 16% of all top-10 spots. They rarely win #1 (46 of 853 searches), but the spots from #2 to #10 are far more open than the size of the leaders suggests. The median top-10 app had about 32,000 ratings, so a search led by a giant often has much smaller apps below it.
The small apps that rank have the search in their name
The clearest difference is the app name. 65% of the small apps in a top 10 had the exact search phrase in their name, against 30% of the apps with 100,000 ratings or more. Big apps rank on their history: ratings, downloads and years of relevance. Small apps rank because they match the search word for word.
That fits how App Store search works. Apple matches a search against the app name, the subtitle and the hidden keyword field, and ASO practitioners widely treat the name as the strongest of the three. A new app can't buy ratings, but it can choose its name.
Examples from October 20, 2026
| Search | Popularity | App | Rank | Its ratings | Biggest app in the top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| clock | 72 | Clock - Wake Up Gently | #2 | 436 | 249,574 |
| gif keyboard | 66 | GIF Keyboard: Memes & Emoji | #3 | 427 | 1,428,161 |
| auto clicker | 66 | Auto Clicker™: Automatic Tap | #3 | 143 | 23,779 |
| voice memo | 65 | Voice Memos - Voice Recorder | #2 | 272 | 1,112,477 |
| pdf converter | 64 | PDF Converter | #1 | 181 | 1,951,362 |
| temp mail | 62 | Temp Mail - Temporary Mail Box | #2 | 557 | 20,262 |
| fast vpn | 61 | Fast VPN & Proxy Unlimited | #2 | 212 | 2,125,240 |
“PDF converter” is the striking one: an app with 181 ratings was #1, above apps with nearly two million. Every app in this table uses the search, or its plural, in its name. Rankings change daily, so these are a snapshot, not a promise.
What to do with this
- Look for searches where a small app is already in the top 10. It's the best evidence that the search is winnable without a big ratings count. Our free ASO keyword tool shows the ratings of the top apps and how many use the phrase in their name.
- Put the exact phrase in your app name. Keep it readable: “Voice Memos - Voice Recorder” reads like a name, not a list of keywords. Use the subtitle and the 100-character keyword field for the rest.
- Aim for the top 3 to 10 first. #1 belongs to apps with a median of about 106,000 ratings. A top-5 spot on a popular search still brings steady downloads, and the ratings it earns help you climb.
- Skip brand searches. People searching for a company or app by name want that app; ranking below it brings few downloads.
How we measured, and the limits
- US App Store, iPhone, rankings as recorded on October 20, 2026. Rankings change every day.
- 853 searches from AppTrendKit's 11,980 tracked US keyword pages with an Apple search popularity of 40 or more, and at least 8 ranked apps recorded.
- Brand searches are the ones our keyword model marks as navigational (a brand flag, or difficulty 90 or more). The rule misses some brands, so a few remain in the sample.
- “Search phrase in app name” is a whole-word match on the app name only. Apps that use the phrase in their subtitle or keyword field aren't counted, so the real share is higher.
- Ratings are the count shown on the app's App Store listing in our catalog on that day.
Want to check a search of your own? Try the free ASO keyword tool: it shows the difficulty, the ratings of the top apps and how many use the phrase in their name, with no signup.