App Store Screenshot Fonts That Actually Convert (and 5 to Avoid)

When the App Store user scrolls past your thumbnail at 200px wide, the only thing they read is your headline. The font choice for those 4-8 words matters more than every other typography decision in your app combined.

What works at 200px

Three font families dominate the App Store top 100 in 2026:

Bold grotesque display sans

Heavy weight (700-900), tight tracking, geometric letterforms. Reads as confident and modern. Best for utility apps, productivity, fitness, finance.

• Inter Black / Inter Tight Black — free, ubiquitous, hard to mess up
• Söhne Heavy — premium, used by Notion, Linear
• Geist Bold (Vercel) — free, modern grotesque
• Neue Haas Grotesk Display 95 — classic, expensive

Editorial display serif

High-contrast (thick stems, fine hairlines), large tracking, italic accent. Reads as luxury / editorial. Best for premium apps, AI tools, creator tools, journaling, mindfulness.

• Fraunces Display Black — free, on Google Fonts
• Canela Deck — premium, used by Stripe, Substack
• Tiempos Headline — premium
• Playfair Display Black — free, slightly dated but works

Rounded display sans

Soft corners, friendly. Reads as approachable / playful. Best for consumer apps, kids, social, food, travel.

• SF Pro Rounded Black — Apple, free, on iOS
• Clash Display Bold — free
• Circular Bold — premium
• Figtree Black — free

Five fonts to avoid in 2026

1. Comic Sans / Comic Neue — even ironically. Reads as joke or amateur.
2. Helvetica Bold — generic, exhausted, signals 'I picked the system default'.
3. Times New Roman — looks like a Word doc.
4. Papyrus, Brush Script, Curlz — never. Apple App Review will flag.
5. Anything that looks 'gamer / cyber / metaverse' (Orbitron, Audiowide, etc) — dates instantly.

The two-font pairing rule

Top-chart screenshots almost always use exactly two font families:

• Primary — the headline (one of the three families above)
• Accent — the emphasis word, in the italic of the same family

Three or more fonts on a single shot reads as inconsistent / template-y. Two fonts done well looks editorial.

Size + tracking starting points

For a 1290×2796 canvas (iPhone 6.7"):

• Headline: 96-104pt, line-height 0.95-1.0
• Tracking: -1% to 0% (slightly tight reads modern; positive reads dated)
• Accent word: same size + 12-15% scale bump for the emphasis word
• Subhead (if present): 45-55% of headline size, regular weight