Your App Store holiday art can say "sale." It can't say the price

The rule, in one paragraph

On October 16, 2026, Apple added guideline 2.3.14 to its App Review Guidelines. It covers creative assets, the new marketing images and videos that can appear across the App Store, including the product page header and search results. Apple says they must relate to your app's content and functionality or your overall brand, follow the standard metadata rules, and be appropriate for all audiences. They shouldn't include inappropriate content, references to other apps meant to mislead, unverifiable product claims, or specific or discounted pricing.

According to PPC Land, Apple previewed the format at WWDC on June 8 and published best practices and templates on August 5. That guidance said creative assets can carry a brand, a seasonal offer or new content, and that they'd show up in product page headers, App Store search results, custom product pages, In-App Events and Apple Ads. It was scheduled to launch with iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 this fall. What changed on October 16 is that the core rules moved into App Review itself. PPC Land's reading is that a breach is now grounds for rejection rather than a missed recommendation.

The timing matters because the first creative assets most teams make will be holiday ones. So here are five lines a team might draft, and what we'd change. These are our examples, not Apple-approved copy. Apple's review is the final word.

Before and after: price and discount lines

Before: "50% off the annual plan." PPC Land uses almost exactly this line as its example of what isn't permitted. A discount percentage is discounted pricing.

After: "Our biggest offer of the year is here." The seasonal offer is still the headline. The number lives inside the app, on the paywall or in the subscription screen, where you can show it accurately and update it.

Before: "Premium, now $1.99 a month." A specific price is out, whether or not it's a discount. It's also the kind of number that varies by country and changes when you run a test.

After: "Try Premium free for your first week." Careful here. If the trial terms differ by region or plan, a specific promise can turn into an unverifiable claim. Write what's true everywhere the asset appears, or keep it general: "Premium has a holiday offer."

Say what's happening. Leave the number for the screen where people decide to pay.

Before and after: claims and comparisons

Before: "The #1 budgeting app." Number one by what measure, where, and as of when? This is the kind of line the rule calls an unverifiable product claim. Unless you can point to a source that reviewers can check, it's a risk.

After: "Plan the holidays without going over." It says what the app does. It doesn't need proof.

Before: "Better than [competitor] for holiday gifts." References to other apps are out if they're meant to mislead, and a comparison in a search result is easy for a reviewer to read that way.

After: "Every gift, every budget, one list." Talk about your app. Let the screenshots do the comparing.

Before and after: audience and tone

Before: a moody holiday scene from your mature-rated game. Guideline 2.3.14 says creative assets must be appropriate for all audiences. Guideline 2.3.8, the older metadata rule, says icons, screenshots and previews must meet a 4+ age rating even if the app is rated higher, and 2.3.14 also requires following standard metadata guidelines. Plan art that would be fine on a family's iPad.

After: the same world, in daylight, with a seasonal event front and center. You can still show the brand and the event. You just pick the scene that works for everyone who might see the search result.

How to plan the holiday asset work

A few habits make this easier.

Write the copy before the art. Most of the risky lines start as text overlays. Agree the words first, check them against the rule, then brief the designer.

Keep a short list of banned patterns. Prices, percentages, "#1," "best," other apps' names. Share it with whoever drafts campaigns, including agencies.

Leave room for review. Apple's August guidance said creative assets would launch with iOS 27 this fall, and every team will want theirs live before the holidays. Build in time for a rejection and a second try.

Keep the offer in the app accurate. If the asset says there's a holiday offer, make sure the paywall shows it on the day the asset goes live, in every region where it runs. An asset that promises an offer the user can't find is its own kind of misleading.

Decide who checks. Someone who knows the guidelines should look at every asset before it's submitted. It doesn't need to be a lawyer, just someone who reads the rule and the best practices carefully. Give them the power to send an asset back without a debate.

Where this leaves the campaign

It also changes how paid campaigns are built. PPC Land points out that custom product pages already let advertisers match a landing page to a keyword, and creative assets carry that matching into the search result itself, under rules that are now part of App Review. For teams that run Apple Ads, that means the same no-price rule applies to the creative people see when they search. A "20% off" overlay that works in a social ad can't simply be reused here.

The practical answer is to make two versions of each campaign from the start: one with the offer and price for channels that allow it, and one for the App Store that names the season and the offer without numbers. Doing that at the briefing stage costs a few minutes. Doing it after a rejection costs days, in the weeks when they matter most.

None of this stops a strong holiday campaign. It moves the price from the first thing people see to the moment they're ready to buy, and it rewards copy that says plainly what the app does.

If you're planning App Store assets, a paywall update or the release that ships them together, our mobile applications team can help you get it right before review season. Talk to us.

Related work: Spin Market.