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News apps: screenshot design benchmarks

How News apps design their App Store screenshots — theme, caption position, background colours, screenshot counts, caption length — measured from 3063 listings by LaunchShots.

45%
use a light theme across the set
light 45%mixed 28%dark 27%
31%
put the caption above the phone
above 31%below 23%overlay 18%no caption 27%
5.6
screenshots per listing on average · 19% use 8 or more
3.49
average App Store rating of the analysed apps
9
words per screenshot caption (from 305 OCR'd captions) · 6% ALL CAPS · 11% say "you"
Background colours
white 48%blue 17%black 10%red 6%light grey 4%

Based on 3,063 analysed listings in News. Updated continuously as new apps are analysed. How we measure →

Analysed News listings

X
dark · caption top · 9 shots
Reddit
mixed · caption none · 6 shots
Nextdoor: Neighborhood Network
mixed · caption none · 10 shots
CNN: Live & Breaking News
dark · caption none · 10 shots
NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts
light · caption top · 9 shots
SmartNews: Breaking News
light · caption none · 4 shots
BBC News - UK & World Stories
mixed · caption none · 6 shots
Clubhouse
mixed · caption none · 5 shots
NYTimes: US and Global News
mixed · caption top · 10 shots
Washington Post
mixed · caption top · 9 shots
CNBC: Stock Market & Business
dark · caption overlay · 7 shots
FOX News: US & World Headlines
mixed · caption none · 4 shots

How to read this

If you're designing screenshots for a News app, this is the field you're competing in. A dark theme is the majority choice here, so going the other way is a deliberate way to stand out in search results — where your first screenshot sits next to competitors'. 31% put the caption above the phone; the caption is read first either way, but above-the-phone keeps the text in the thumbnail crop the App Store shows in search. The average listing uses 5.6 screenshots — Apple allows 10, and only 19% use 8 or more, so the later slots are mostly uncontested space for feature depth. Open any listing above to see its exact colours and load them into the editor with one click.

Design yours against the benchmark

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