App Store In-App Events: Limits and Setup

A tutoring app runs a live language-exchange hour every Thursday. That hour is not a new app version, and it is a bad fit for a subtitle you will regret in May. An In-App Event is the object Apple built for it: a dated card, a badge, a deep link into the room, and a review that does not wait on a binary. The screenshots stay aimed at someone who has never taken a lesson. The card is aimed at someone who already has the app.

The public description is on In-App Events . Field lengths and caps are on Offer In-App Events . Featuring is editorial. You can share an event with Apple’s editors, and Apple decides. This post does not invent an acceptance rate. Listing updates that are not events belong in shipping a store listing update.

What the event is for

The event is timely and it happens in the app. A 45-minute Spanish conversation hour qualifies. A permanent “we have tutors” claim does not. That claim belongs in the subtitle and the screenshots. The card carries an image or video, the event name, and a short description. The details page has a longer description and can note if an in-app purchase or subscription is required. People can opt in for a notification when the event starts, share the details page, and, if they do not have the app, download it from the card.

From the card or the details page, Open should land in the room, not on your home tab. Apple asks for an event deep link, a universal link or a custom URL, tested by pasting it into Notes and tapping it. Skip URL shorteners. If the hour requires an extra purchase on top of the subscription, say so on the details page. A subscription app only needs the in-app purchase flag when the event itself costs more, such as a pay-per-view on top of the plan. A normal lesson inside the plan does not need a fake surcharge.

The caps, counted

You can publish up to 10 In-App Events on the App Store and Apple Games at a time. You can have up to 15 approved events per app in App Store Connect at a time. Events must be approved before users see them. You can also have up to 10 events with overlapping start dates and times, counting both approved events and drafts. A tutoring app that schedules a dozen hours on the same Thursday evening will hit the overlap cap before it hits the “15 approved” cap.

Fifteen approved, ten published, ten overlapping starts. The reference name is internal and 64 characters. The name, short description, and long description are 30, 50, and 120.

Review does not wait on a version

You submit the event for review on its own. Apple’s events page says you can submit independent of a new app version, and you configure the event in App Store Connect: reference name, metadata, badge, and regional availability. Required role on the help page is Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, or Marketing. The binary can stay on the current build as long as the deep link already opens the live room. If the room does not exist in the shipping app, the event is a promise you cannot keep, and no metadata limit will save it.

Country or region availability defaults to all storefronts, and visibility still follows where the app itself is available. The publish start is when the card becomes discoverable, up to 14 days before the hour begins. A Thursday lesson can be on the product page the Thursday before, not a month before. That window is the whole point of a 14-day cap. Do not burn an approved slot on an event you will not publish for a quarter.

Badge, priority, and the order on the page

You pick a badge that matches the kind of event. It shows above the title on the card and on the details page. Pick the one that fits a live session. Do not pick a badge because it looks more exciting than the hour is. Events on the product page are ordered by start time, soonest first. If you mark one High Priority, it appears ahead of Normal Priority events. A tutoring app with a Spanish hour and a quieter weekend clinic should mark the hour High Priority only if it should beat an earlier-starting clinic. Priority is not a substitute for a nearer start time. It is a tie you are allowed to call.

The card and the screenshots are for different people

Apple’s events page draws the search split in one sentence. When someone searches for your app, the event card appears with the app for people who have already downloaded it, and screenshots show for people who have not. Someone can also search for the event itself, and then the card appears with the app. Editorial placements on Today, Games, and Apps can include the card too. That is not a featuring promise. Editors choose.

The live-hour card is a return surface, plus a download path for people who found the event. It does not replace the screenshots that explain tutoring to a stranger. If the only clear picture of a lesson sits on the card, new searchers never see it. Keep that picture in the first three screenshots, and let the card say Thursday, 45 minutes, Spanish, live.

A worked hour that fits the fields

Reference name, internal only, unique, 64 characters: spring-es-conversation-hour. Event name, 30: Live Spanish hour. That is 17 characters. Short description, 50, for the card: A 45-minute live speaking hour with a tutor. That line is 44 characters. Long description, 120, for the details page: Practice spoken Spanish in a 45-minute live hour. Open the app to join the room. Included in your plan. The deep link opens that room. The event runs 45 minutes, which clears the 15-minute minimum, and it ends the same day, well inside 31 days. Publish it within the 14 days before start, not earlier.

If you run English, Spanish, and Japanese hours that start in the same hour, those starts overlap and they share the cap of 10. Drafts count. Delete or move drafts you are not going to run. High Priority on the Spanish hour puts it ahead of Normal Priority hours. It does not raise you above a different app’s event, and it does not get you featured. Nomination, if you pursue it, is Apple’s featuring flow, and Apple decides.