Apple gives you 3 video slots. You're using zero.

Both stores let you attach video to your listing, and on both stores it plays automatically, before a visitor taps anything. Almost no indie app uses it. Here's what each store actually requires, why the bar is lower than it sounds, and where it genuinely isn't worth your time.

The part that should change your mind: it autoplays

This isn't a video you have to hope someone clicks. On the App Store, Apple's own product page documentation says the preview autoplays, muted, the moment a visitor lands on your listing — and it sits in the first slot of the gallery, ahead of your screenshots, not after them. On Google Play, the first 30 seconds of a linked promo video autoplay in search and browse surfaces too. In both cases you get motion in front of a visitor who hasn't decided anything yet, while every competitor next to you is a static frame.

What Apple actually requires

An App Store app preview is 15 to 30 seconds long — Apple rejects anything shorter or longer — and you can upload up to three per localization. Accepted formats are H.264 (.mov, .m4v, .mp4) or ProRes 422 HQ (.mov), sized to match your screenshot dimensions per device class (roughly 886×1920 or 1920×886 for iPhone, 1200×1600 or 1600×1200 for iPad).

The rule that trips people up: it has to be screen-captured app usage, not a marketing reel. Apple's guidelines require the preview to show your actual interface in action — no filmed hands, no external footage, no motion-graphics intro bolted on top. That's a constraint, but it's also what makes this cheap to produce: you don't need a videographer, you need a screen recording and an editor.

And because it plays muted by default, the audio track is optional in practice. Design the first two seconds — the poster frame and opening beat — to read with the sound off: on-screen captions, a visible action, large contrast. Apple's own guidance is that your poster frame should look almost identical to your slot-one screenshot, so treat the video as an extension of the screenshot set you already have, not a separate production.

What Google actually requires

Google Play doesn't accept an uploaded file at all — your promo video is a YouTube link. That link has to be public or unlisted (never private), can't be age-restricted, and Google requires monetization turned off on the video. You still need a feature graphic (1024×500) regardless of whether you add video — Play requires one for every listing — but with a video attached, that graphic doubles as the paused-state cover before playback starts.

The practical upshot: if you've ever cut a launch trailer for YouTube or Twitter, you already have an asset that qualifies for Play with zero extra editing. The bar Apple sets — screen-capture only, exact codec and duration — doesn't apply here.

How to actually produce one without hiring anyone

Because Apple requires real screen-captured usage anyway, you don't need a camera crew — you need a clean run-through of your app and an afternoon. The practical path: record the device screen directly (iOS's built-in screen recorder on a real device, or xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo for a Simulator run, both at native resolution), perform the flow you'd want a friend to see, then trim it to the 15–30 second window in any basic editor — iMovie and CapCut both export H.264 at the right frame rate with no extra setup. Add captions for the muted-by-default reality, export, upload. No actors, no motion-graphics agency, no separate shoot.

The one rejection reason worth knowing in advance: Apple's app preview rules require the recording to reflect the current shipping version of your app, with no fabricated UI, no third-party trademarks in frame, and no overlaid marketing copy pretending to be interface — the same "no fake screens" rule that governs your screenshots applies here. If your screenshots are honest, your video clears this automatically.

Localize it or skip it — don't half-do it

Apple's three-preview cap is per localization, which means a US listing and a German listing can carry entirely different videos, or the same video with re-recorded captions. Most indie teams that bother with video at all only produce one language and let it serve every storefront — which is fine as a starting point, since a muted, caption-light demo of a gesture or animation reads fine across languages. Where it breaks down is text-heavy previews: a caption-driven walkthrough in English on a Japanese storefront reads as unfinished, not international. If your video leans on captions to carry the story, that's the one place localization actually matters more than the video itself.

Where it's actually worth the effort

Video pays off hardest for apps where the value is in motion: a swipe gesture, a live camera filter, a drag-and-drop editor, an animation that a static frame can't convey. If your core loop is a screen full of text and numbers — a budgeting app, a notes app — a well-designed screenshot set usually communicates the same value in less production time, and screenshots are what render in search results before anyone opens the listing at all.

That's the honest tradeoff: screenshots are still the higher-leverage asset for most indie apps, and they're what we'd tell you to fix first. Video is the next investment once your screenshot set is solid and your app has something that genuinely moves.

ShotCanvas handles the screenshot side either way — 26 templates, AI-composed layouts, and pixel-exact export for every App Store and Google Play slot, or a direct publish to both stores. Get that set right first; the video is easier once it exists.