How Many Wishlists Before Launch on Steam? A Realistic Breakdown

"How many wishlists do I need before launch?" is one of the most common questions in indie game development, and the honest answer is that Valve doesn't set a number. What you can do is turn your wishlist count into a realistic sales range, using published benchmarks, and decide whether that range covers what your launch needs to achieve.

This guide separates what Valve actually says from community rules of thumb, then shows you how to work backwards from a goal.

What Valve says about wishlists (and what it doesn't)

Valve's own documentation is more modest about wishlists than many forum threads are. Three points matter most:

• Wishlists are not an algorithm factor. Valve's visibility documentation says wishlists "are not a factor" in a game's algorithmic visibility, with "a few exceptions like the Popular Upcoming tab."
• Wishlists are an email list. According to Valve's wishlist documentation, everyone who has your game wishlisted is emailed when it launches (including an Early Access launch) and again when it leaves Early Access.
• There is no minimum. Valve states that Steam doesn't require a minimum number of wishlists before showing your game.

So the famous "7,000 wishlists" figure you'll see in developer communities is not a Valve rule. Valve doesn't publish how Popular Upcoming is calculated, so treat any specific threshold as an estimate.

How many sales do wishlists turn into?

The most useful public benchmark comes from GameDiscoverCo's developer surveys. They measure total first-week sales (wishlist conversions plus organic purchases) divided by the number of wishlists at launch.

Survey	Median first-week sales per launch wishlist	Notes
GameDiscoverCo, 2024 (100+ games launched since 2020)	0.2x (0.17x for games with more than 10,000 wishlists)	Results are "all over the place"; six games sold more than 1x their wishlists in week one
GameDiscoverCo, 2020 (about 50 games)	0.2x (average 0.36x)	Individual results ranged from about 0.05x to more than 1x

In plain terms: at the median, 10,000 launch wishlists have meant roughly 2,000 first-week sales. But the spread is huge. The same 10,000 wishlists could mean a few hundred sales or well over 10,000, depending on genre, price, reviews, and how fresh those wishlists are.

Turning wishlists into a planning range

Instead of chasing a magic number, translate your wishlists into a low, middle and high scenario. The table below uses the published median (0.2x) plus a cautious and an optimistic multiplier. The low and high values are planning assumptions, not benchmarks.

Wishlists at launch	Cautious (0.1x)	Median (0.2x)	Optimistic (0.4x)
1,000	~100 sales	~200 sales	~400 sales
5,000	~500 sales	~1,000 sales	~2,000 sales
10,000	~1,000 sales	~2,000 sales	~4,000 sales
25,000	~2,500 sales	~5,000 sales	~10,000 sales

You can run your own numbers, with your own assumptions, in the free Steam wishlist calculator.

Working backwards from your revenue goal

A wishlist target only makes sense next to a money target. Here is a simple way to set one:

1. Pick a first-week revenue goal. For example, enough to cover three months of team costs.
2. Estimate what you keep per copy. Steam's standard revenue share is 30% on a game's first $10 million in sales (reported here). Sales taxes, refunds, regional pricing and any launch discount reduce your take further. Many developers plan with "roughly half the headline price" as a cautious assumption. Test that assumption rather than treating it as a fact.
3. Divide the goal by your take per copy to get first-week sales needed.
4. Divide those sales by your conversion assumption to get the wishlists needed.

Worked example (hypothetical): a $14.99 game, a $15,000 first-week goal, and about $7.50 kept per copy means roughly 2,000 first-week sales. At the 0.2x median, that points to about 10,000 launch wishlists. At a cautious 0.1x, it would take about 20,000.

The Steam revenue calculator lets you change each assumption and see the break-even point.

Why fresh wishlists matter more than old ones

A wishlist count doesn't tell you how interested those players still are. Someone who wishlisted your game three years ago may have forgotten it; someone who added it during last month's festival probably hasn't. GameDiscoverCo's data shows conversion varies widely between games with similar totals, which is why many developers watch recent daily wishlist additions as closely as the total.

Two practical habits help:

• Log your daily wishlist additions from Steamworks next to what you did that day (a festival, a trailer, a creator video). You'll learn which channels actually work for your game.
• Time your launch after a visibility moment, such as a festival or a demo update, so your wishlists are recent when the launch email goes out.

How to fix stagnant wishlists before you launch

If daily additions have flattened, check your store page before buying more traffic. Visitors who don't wishlist usually stop at one of four places:

1. The capsule. If players can't read your title or tell your genre at small sizes, they never click. Test it on a realistic shelf with the Steam Shelf Simulator, or compare two versions with a free capsule A/B test.
2. The short description. It should say what the player does, not just the story setup. Check it with the short description checker.
3. The first screenshots and trailer. Lead with gameplay. Run your images through the screenshot checker.
4. The tags. Wrong or vague tags put your game in front of the wrong players. Review them with the Steam tag analyzer.

Then plan your next visibility moment. If you haven't used it yet, Steam Next Fest is a one-time opportunity; our Next Fest prep timeline walks through the deadlines.

Wishlists before launch: FAQ

Is 7,000 wishlists the minimum for a successful Steam launch?

No. Valve publishes no wishlist minimum or threshold. The 7,000 figure is a community estimate, mostly linked to the Popular Upcoming list, whose rules Valve doesn't publish.

How many sales will 10,000 wishlists bring?

At GameDiscoverCo's published median of about 0.2x, roughly 2,000 sales in the first week. Real results vary widely, from a few hundred to more than 10,000.

Do wishlists affect the Steam algorithm?

Mostly not. Valve says wishlists are not a factor in algorithmic visibility, with exceptions such as the Popular Upcoming tab. Their main job is the launch and discount emails.

Sources

• Valve: Visibility on Steam
• Valve: Wishlists
• GameDiscoverCo: The state of Steam wishlist conversions (April 2024)
• Game Developer / Simon Carless: The new wishlists-to-first-week-sales expectations (2020)
• TechCrunch: Valve changes revenue-sharing tiers on Steam

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• Steam Launch
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