Most of the apps in Apple’s App Store are slowly moving away from asking you to pay upfront, opting to make their money either through ads or in-app purchases. But if you’re someone who prefers to buy an app rather than deal with micro-transactions, keeping track of prices can be a pain—especially since Apple ditched its wish list feature a few years ago.
If you’re waiting for a good deal to finally buy a particular app, you need a dedicated price tracking service to help you out, and you have a few good options.
AppRaven
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AppRaven helps you keep tabs on updates and discounts for the apps you like. Its free to use and helps you discover when an app you’re watching goes on sale. The app is easy to navigate, and once you create a free account, you can add as many apps as you want to your watch list. AppRaven’s community features include the ability to make your own app collections and a forum to post about sales or to discuss your favorite apps.
User-created app collections are great for discovering hidden gems or for easily tracking sales in bulk—Including discounts on in-app purchases. But even this app has felt the pull of micro-transactions: While AppRaven can track price changes for free, you’ll have to pay $2 per month to get price drop alerts.
AppSliced
For a totally free source to track deals on App Store games and apps, try AppSliced. This service does not have an app of its own, so you’ll have to use the website to track prices.
Once you create an account, you can sign up for email alerts for price drops. AppSliced also provides free email alerts for in-app purchase sales, which is a nice feature (just make sure they don’t end up in your spam folder).
There’s a very active community on the AppHookup subreddit that makes tracking app sales, including those on in-app purchases, easier. Follow this community to get alerts via Reddit’s app, or an alternative Reddit app like Apollo.
On Reddit, you aren’t likely to find deal alerts for all the apps you’re tracking, but you will find discussion of both popular and obscure app deals alike. The community also posts about non-Apple apps, but most of its posts are centered around iOS apps.
Make your own wish list using the Shortcuts app
If you’d rather create your own App Store wish list, you can use Apple’s Shortcuts app to do so. Reddit user /u/refreshingbleach has created two such shortcuts, each serving a different app-tracking purpose:
Add App to Wish List. Once you download this shortcut, you can open App Store, find the app you need, and hit the Share button. Select the “Add App to Wish List” shortcut, and it will add the app to Reminders. Now, when you open Reminders, you’ll see the name of the app and its price WHEN it was added to the list. (To see the current price, you’ll need the next shortcut too.)
Update App Store Wish List Prices. Run this shortcut whenever you want to check the latest prices of all the apps you’ve added to your wish list. The list in Reminders will be updated with the current rates.