Jun 4, 2025

Unpacking App Discovery on Meta Horizon OS

Today we’re pleased to share more details about app discovery on Horizon OS, the operating system that powers Meta Quest devices. App discovery happens in all sorts of places: the Meta Horizon Store, search results, promotional surfaces, and more. We’ll dive into how it all works—from ranking models and content curation to predictable user behaviors and developer tools that you can use to plan and maximize your 2025 marketing initiatives.

Over the past several months, we’ve strived to elevate developer success by providing greater clarity on how our ecosystem is rapidly evolving, the emerging user trends we’re seeing and what actions we’re taking to improve discoverability across the platform.

Throughout it all, we’ve listened closely to the Horizon OS developer community to understand your needs and learn how we can help your content reach audiences effectively. Your feedback has made one thing clear: To be successful, you need deeper insights that enable faster, targeted optimizations.

Using the tips and learnings we lay out below, you’ll be better equipped to adapt faster, capitalize on emerging trends and optimize distribution. Now, dive in to start unpacking app discovery on Horizon OS.

Understanding Discovery and Personalization

Most app discovery occurs off-platform, via YouTube, social media, word of mouth and news articles. But for those customers that find content on our platform, discovery in the Meta Horizon ecosystem occurs across three major platform surfaces: The Horizon Feed, the Meta Horizon Store and Search systems.

Let’s start by covering where people can access these surfaces. Users can visit the Meta Horizon Store and its Search systems on Meta Quest headsets, on the Horizon mobile app and on the web. The Horizon Feed is only accessible on Meta Quest headsets and on the Horizon mobile app.

To understand how discovery works on-platform, it’s important to understand these surfaces and what purpose they’re designed to serve. Conversion rates for these surfaces are calculated by measuring the percentage of people who entitle an app after seeing it on a given surface. Entitlement is when a person completes a purchase and now as the ability to install and play that app. Entitlement is when a person has the ability to install and use an app or IAP. For example, if 100 people see an app on the Store, Search or Feed, and 25 of them click through the Product Detail Page (PDP) and go on to entitle the app, the conversion rate would be 25%

A thoughtfully constructed PDP plays a key role in driving app downloads, and it’s where customers determine if an app is right for them. By including visually appealing artwork and trailers along with captivating descriptions, you help customers make more informed, confident decisions and increase the likelihood they download your app.

The Meta Horizon Store

The Meta Horizon Store is the primary commerce surface intended to help customers discover and buy apps they will enjoy. The Store requires an extra click to visit, and customers that do this are actively seeking to browse and download new apps. Often, when customers discover an app off-platform, they will visit the Store directly and search for it.

Users often visit the Meta Horizon Store (shown on mobile above) with a high intent to purchase.

Updating and A/B testing your app metadata, creating bundles, and adding subscriptions or add-ons to your app’s PDP can help drive discovery and revenue from customers with only medium or low intent to make a purchase. App metadata includes descriptive information about your app such as creative assets, descriptions and app category. Your app metadata helps us make sure that the right people see your title. You can learn more about providing app metadata by visiting this documentation and watching our short code course on Driving Discoverability with Metadata⁠.

Going back to A/B testing, Meta offers an intuitive A/B testing tool in the Developer Dashboard that enables you to test new artwork, trailers and descriptions with different user groups. Performing A/B tests can help you evaluate the effectiveness of the creative assets and information displayed on your app’s PDP and make changes that drive incremental increases in conversions and revenue. You can check out our A/B testing case study from 2023 that illustrates how lucrative A/B testing can be for conversions.

The Meta Horizon Feed

The Feed is the first discovery surface users see, both in-headset and on mobile. Feed reaches more users than any other on-platform surfaces; however it also accounts for the lowest impression to entitlement conversion rate since customers often see the Feed without any intent to browse or purchase apps.

The Meta Horizon Feed garners the most impressions of any discovery surface, but as the first surface users, it produces the lowest conversion rate.

With this being said, the Feed can be effective for gaining visibility as it highlights new and popular experiences as well as app updates. To drive additional visibility and engagement with customers, you can create Developer Posts and Events that appear in the Feed.

Developer Posts (shown above in the Horizon mobile app) enable developers to share new content and updates to engage their user community.

Search

Search systems on Horizon OS support high, medium and low-intent customers, whether they’re looking for specific apps they want to download or casually browsing and looking at recommended titles before entering a query in the search bar. Search has the highest impressions to entitlement conversion rate among on-platform discovery surfaces.

Many users who discover an app off-platform use Search as a fast path to the PDP to make a purchase, and so their conversion rates are high. Other customers use search to explore possibilities, or look for apps of a particular type, without a specific title in mind. Having accurate and up to date app metadata helps ensure that your experience appears in relevant queries.

Search systems (shown on the web above) automatically recommend apps based on prior user behavior and engagement.

How users engage with discovery surfaces

As we mentioned earlier, most users discover apps off-platform. After discovery, when users are ready to browse, purchase and start engaging with apps, they often jump straight to the Store in-headset and search for specific titles. For this reason, more than half of monthly total payment volume comes from in-headset purchases. Traditionally, the Horizon mobile app surface has been a comparatively small percentage of total app sales, and that trend has continued through 2024 and into 2025.

This discovery pattern also underlines the importance of effectively showcasing your experience in mixed reality by leveraging features like 360° previews and visually appealing creative assets.

Submitting your app with accurate app metadata, such as genre and category, is critical for our discovery systems to be effective and match your content with the right audience, regardless of which surface customers are visiting.

How ranking models work today on Horizon OS

We rank apps to match developers with users who are likely to engage and enjoy their apps. If users are matched with relevant apps that they like, they are far more likely to continue using their Meta Quest headset regularly and contribute to the health of the platform.

Therefore, our ranking models populate the Store, Feed and Search results by prioritizing two things: an app’s relevance to the customer, and an app’s likelihood to engage that customer.

App relevance is determined by overlapping an app's metadata with customer’s past behavior. Signals such as search queries, prior downloads and the length of time a customer has been on the platform contribute to user behavior in this context and influence what we consider to be relevant.

An app’s likelihood to engage users is a key signal we use in our ranking systems. We consider an app to be engaging when users are spending a lot of time in it, whether during a single session or in recurring sessions over time. Simply put: If users are spending more time in your app because they are enjoying it, we consider that to be a positive signal.

Beyond user relevance and engagement, there are a few more ranking factors to consider:

To keep discovery surfaces fresh and create paths for new apps to be successful, our ranking systems also promote new, high-quality apps via our content exploration system, along with product spaces like the ‘New Release’ Store shelf that are designed to promote new apps.

Quality is an integral part of the ranking system and impacts how apps are promoted throughout the platform to different audiences. We evaluate app quality and review metadata to avoid promoting low-quality apps in the ranking system. For new users, we recommend high-quality apps to create good first impressions and foster long-term retention.

We regularly review apps to ensure their ongoing platform compliance with our developer policies and VRCs. Compliance issues will restrict your app's distribution within the Store. Our policies are updated over time, so it’s important to regularly check your app to ensure it remains compliant and discoverable.

When planning out your long-term strategy, it’s important to remember that our ranking models are not static—they are retrained and updated on a regular basis to effectively adapt to recent trends and shifts in user preferences. We’re always looking to improve and refine our ranking models to optimize discovery and relevance, and we look forward to sharing future changes as they occur.

Our approach to app curation

Editorial promotion compliments our ranking models. On some shelves within the Store, we promote specific apps but allow ranking to determine the order in which they appear.

Our ranking models are effective at categorizing and prioritizing apps based on metadata information and relevance, but editorial curation enables our Store team to hand-pick high-quality apps based on factors that algorithms might miss, such as seasonal relevance, overall quality, unique mechanics, emerging trends and cultural moments. Users see curation at work in a few key ways:

Spotlight Carousel placements: Throughout the year, we highlight different apps in a spotlight carousel based on their likelihood of resonating with a broad audience and delivering a replayable, high-quality experience.

Store shelving and collections: Several Store shelves are automatically programmed, including Top Charts, New Releases, and genre-based shelves, while others are manually curated, such as “Best of 2025.” Automatically programmed shelves rely on factors such as metadata, launch date and a variety of performance metrics, while manually programmed shelves are hand-picked after reviewing metrics and an app’s relevance to a topic, such as a holiday-themed shelf.

Store views and categories: The Store enables users to segment viewable apps by relevance factors, such as games, apps and worlds. Below this top-level segmentation, users can filter results to further segment the catalog by genre or categories. After filtering, the remaining apps are automatically prioritized according to metadata alongside relevance and engagement likelihood. This ranking further emphasizes the importance of accurate and up-to-date metadata.

Meta Horizon Store shelves and collections are curated based on several factors including metadata, launch date, performance metrics and relevance.

The priority assigned to any given app by the ranking system changes over time as we learn more about it. Next, let’s explore some tips that can help you improve your app’s ranking.

Tips to Optimize Distribution

Now that you’ve gained a better idea of how apps are discovered across the Horizon OS platform, let’s explore some tips that can help you make your app more appealing and visible in the Store. Whether you’re new to distributing apps on Meta Horizon or want to position your next title to appeal to a broad audience, here are some recommendations that can help you stay ahead of the curve in a competitive market:

Focus on retention and stickiness. The more effective your app is at driving repeat sessions and higher time spent, the more it will be prioritized. Putting effort towards an evergreen engagement strategy that introduces frequent app updates can be an effective mechanism for incentivizing users to engage with your app regularly.

Effective user onboarding can also drive repeat sessions by reducing user confusion and empowering your audience to feel more competent and confident. Consider exploring different engagement tools and the user onboarding edition of our Growth Insights Series, which can help you foster higher retention and average session duration by optimizing users’ first impressions with your app experience.

Regularly update your on-platform marketing assets. Refreshing cover art, trailers and other metadata regularly can increase the likelihood a user visits your PDP while decreasing fatigue that occurs when users see the same marketing assets repeatedly over time. Consider using the creative A/B testing tool to compare the effectiveness of assets like cover art, app descriptions and more. Tailoring your key art and video trailers to coincide with sales and highlight new content like in-app purchases (IAP), level updates or new features can also improve discovery with prospective users.

Localize your app’s metadata. As the Horizon audience expands to more regions across the globe, it’s important to localize content that users see in the Store. You can learn more about localization by visiting our documentation.

Build organic interest and streamline distribution on and off-platform. A significant amount of discovery occurs off-platform via social media, news platforms, etc. To reduce the steps users need to take to purchase or download your app, we recommend linking off-platform promotions directly to your PDP. To garner more interest, you may want to work with influencers to promote your apps. Consider offering custom promo codes and developing short links to track traffic and conversions for specific campaigns. You can also leverage App Ads to promote your experience across several platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Participate in Meta promotions: Meta offers promotions and sales throughout the year that are highlighted at the top of the Store and on dedicated shelves. A front-and-center placement in the Store can help you gain clicks, and all it takes to opt-in to Meta’s yearly promotions is visiting the Promotions page in the Developer Dashboard. Keep an eye out for our regular email reminders announcing when opt-in periods for sale events are open.

Evaluate your app’s pricing in relation to its demand. Beyond participating in platform sale events, consider running your own sales, offering custom promo codes and running price A/B tests to better understand whether frequent discounts or a change to your app’s baseline price will yield better long-term results. It’s also important to localize your app’s pricing to stay competitive across different regions, and you can get started by visiting the Adjust Local Pricing documentation.

Understanding Predictable User Behaviors

Regardless of your target audience, there are predictable user behaviors that you can capitalize on to improve the effectiveness of your distribution and marketing strategies.

While these trends do apply to both games and apps, we find that games are impacted more by seasonality and have a higher degree of fluctuation in entitlements and time spent based on the time of year.

Entitlements increase during the northern hemisphere winter holiday season: Our research shows that entitlements of both paid apps and free apps that include IAP increased over 1.5x during the two weeks following Christmas. This rise is driven by new users activating their headsets for the first time and existing users returning to purchase apps and expand their content library.

Paid app entitlements consistently increase on Christmas among new and existing users.

On Black Friday, we observe the second-highest week of entitlement across both paid-only and free-to-play apps. However, for free-with-IAP apps, Black Friday ranks as the third-highest week, with the last week of March 2024 (03/23/2024-03/29/2024) being the second-highest. Users aim to take advantage of widespread discounts and seek new releases that launch before the winter holidays.

Strategically timing your promotional efforts can make a huge difference, so evaluating your marketing resources and user behaviors during certain times of the year is important. On one hand, launching during high-traffic seasons like the winter holidays may give you more exposure with audiences actively looking to spend, but on the other hand, launching during the quieter spring or summer months may help your app stand out.

Free apps that offer IAP follow a similar winter entitlement pattern as paid apps, peaking the most around Christmas, the last week of March, and Black Friday.

Time spent increases during the northern hemisphere winter holidays (Christmas, and Thanksgiving) and during summer.

Paid apps see the highest time spent in the two weeks following Christmas as users engage with recently purchased experiences.

Between May and September, younger audiences typically have more free time to engage with mixed reality when they’re not in school. This pattern helps explain why we also see a large lift in time spent on free experiences with IAP during the summer. While paid and subscription-based titles see a small uptick in time spent, the summer lift for free games with IAP rivals the time spent increases we see around Christmas. Knowing these trends, a big marketing push during the summer, along with dropping new content updates, can help you reach younger users when they have fewer obligations.

Free apps with IAP see a surge of time spent during the summer that rivals the levels of time spent in the two weeks following Christmas.

It’s important to note that your app experience will heavily influence your pricing strategy, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Developers have found success distributing paid experiences, free experiences with IAP, and “freemium” experiences that are sold at a lower price point but rely on IAP for additional revenue. Visiting our pricing documentation can help you determine an affecting pricing strategy and adjust existing price points if necessary.

If you’re rethinking your monetization strategy, whether you’re considering moving from a premium paid model to a free-to-play model, incorporating subscriptions, or anything in between, and your core loop seems like a good fit, easing into a new approach can benefit your transition. For example, try gradually lowering your upfront price while introducing more IAP options when moving to a free-to-play model. This approach can help sustain revenue and gives you more flexibility to support live services and test new monetizable content. After you measure how users respond to your changes, you’ll be better equipped to determine whether a full shift makes sense for your app and audience.

Improve your strategy for teens and young adults

Teens and young adults are a growing audience on the platform, particularly since the launch of Meta Quest 3S. Our research indicates that these groups spend most of their time in-headset enjoying fun, free-to-play apps featuring highly social environments, while placing less emphasis on premium paid apps and time-intensive experiences.

Here are some strategies you can use to make your approach more effective with teens and young adults:

Deliver fresh content regularly: Generally speaking, teens don’t have nearly as much disposable income as working adults, but they have shown a tendency to spend the money they do have incrementally on IAP versus splurging on higher priced, premium apps. Regularly updating your experience with themed or seasonal cosmetic items, weapons and other digital goods can incentivize engagement and retention, especially with teens and young adult users.

Build “snackable” content: Focusing on gameplay that delivers immediate engagement with low commitment can enhance replayability and make your experience more enticing for teens and young adults looking to jump in with friends.

Encourage social interactions: Developing core mechanics that naturally encourage conversation and interactions between friends and family can lead to stronger connections that provide more reasons to come back to your experience. Social interactions can also be nurtured off-platform by creating a strong social media presence that encourages engagement and sharing user-generated content.

Leverage other Meta platforms: Reaching teens and young adults on their favorite social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook can make your user acquisition funnel more effective by getting more clicks to your app’s PDP. On the flip side, facilitating easier content sharing to social media platforms can help you gain organic traffic without much investment.

How We’re Helping Developers Succeed

Improving discoverability is an ongoing process of experimentation, evaluation and optimization. As our ecosystem evolves, we’re continuing to explore new ways to scale distribution for more apps in 2025 and beyond. Here’s a preview of what we’re working on currently:

Search optimizations: Search is a primary focus for us in 2025, and so far we’ve already rolled out updates that enable apps to show up in search results almost instantaneously after launch. Soon, we’ll also roll out broader keyword relevance for apps to make search results more meaningful.

Store UI changes: We’re running UI experiments with the aim of making Store experiences more engaging while encouraging deeper browsing behaviors. These include changes to the top navigation and new mid-scroll units that highlight apps in unique ways.

New user interactions with app tiles. To reduce the amount of clicks and steps a user must take to learn about your app, we’re introducing changes that allow users to preview app metadata from the Store home without needing to click into a PDP. These changes also make it easier for users to add apps to their wishlist while scrolling through the Store.

Making IAP more discoverable. Soon, we’ll be introducing new mechanisms to promote and monetize your IAP in the Store like premium bundles and season passes.

Ongoing experiments: We’re constantly experimenting with improvements to our ranking systems and ways to improve developer monetization tools like Try Before You Buy (TBYB), which can be particularly effective for games that feature short game loops or have a short onboarding experience, such as multiplayer games.

Discovery surface optimizations are in a constant flux state as we work to provide you with effective tools and levers to increase visibility, discoverability and conversions. To stay informed on new updates, read the latest release notes.

What’s Next?

App success isn’t an exact science, and there are many factors that contribute to discovery. Understanding these factors and the tools you can use to promote your app can empower you to adjust your strategy and be more effective. While there isn’t a one-size-fits all approach for distributing apps, our goal is to provide more transparency and the tools and mechanisms you can use to attract, engage and retain audiences.

We hope that these insights surrounding app discovery will empower you to focus your efforts on meaningful adjustments that will ultimately lead to better long-term results. We’re continuing to launch new tools and resources aimed at helping you navigate distribution effectively and optimize your approach to meet the demands of an evolving ecosystem, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you throughout the year.

To stay up to date with the latest news, tips and resources, follow us on X⁠ and Facebook⁠, see our latest release notes and subscribe to our monthly newsletter in your Developer Dashboard settings⁠.

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