Guides from the data
8 guides to how the ChatGPT and Claude app stores work, built on OpenApps data for October 13, 2026: ChatGPT shows one app order in every country, a home shelf is the top of its list, and most rank change is other apps arriving, not real moves.
- Guides
- 8
- Built on
- 10,803 listings48 countries
- Figures for
- Oct 13, 2026
How ChatGPT orders its app directory
ChatGPT's app directory has one global order: a country changes which apps appear, not where they rank. On October 13, 2026, Popular's top 9 is the same in all 7 countries with Popular data, and 1,066 of the 1,136 apps in a US top-100 list are listed in all 42 countries with data.
How to get on a ChatGPT home shelf
A ChatGPT home shelf is the top of a list, not a pick. On October 13, 2026, all 16 shelves were unbroken 9-app runs of their list: 13 start at #1, and Productivity, Developer Tools and Healthcare start lower because the top 6 apps of Popular are not repeated on category shelves.
What MCP tool design teaches: lessons from 7,777 MCP tools
Most MCP servers are small and annotate their tools, but few say what their tools return. Across our MCP dataset (the 425 open servers we track across every store, not only the 105 behind ChatGPT and Claude listings; 7,777 tools, October 13, 2026), the median server has 7 tools and 39% of tools declare an output schema.
Launch checklist for a ChatGPT app
Plan for weeks between creating a ChatGPT app and seeing it live: the 19 apps with a creation date that went live from Oct 7 to Oct 13, in our listing sample, took a median 32.5 days. In Finance and Healthcare, 15% and 13% of top-100 apps miss at least one country (October 13, 2026).
Claude connectors vs plugins vs skills
On Claude, a connector is a remote MCP server you connect once, a plugin is an installable bundle for Claude Code, and a skill is a folder of instructions a plugin can carry. On October 13, 2026, the directory lists 808 connectors, 132 desktop extensions and 3,252 plugins.
Why country availability matters
In ChatGPT, your country decides which apps exist for you, not how they rank. On October 13, 2026, 70 of the 1,136 apps in a US top-100 list are missing from at least one of the 42 countries with data; 32 are listed only in the US, and Ukraine misses the most apps (63).
How to read rank changes without fooling yourself
Most rank change is other apps arriving or leaving, not your app moving. In the 24 hours to October 13, 2026, 224 rows changed position in the top 100 of ChatGPT's ranked lists, yet by cohort rank not one ChatGPT app moved; in Claude's top 100s, 172 raw changes held 125 listings that really moved.
What the Apps SDK wave looks like
The ChatGPT directory grew on the Apps SDK: 5,609 of its 6,611 apps (85%) are Apps SDK apps on October 13, 2026. Counted by the week their id was created, they went from at most 4 a week before December 2025 to a peak of 311 in the week of Aug 31, 2026.