Should you build your own NicheMaps?
Find mobile niches already making money via live ad spend, IAP, and growth signals
You can build a personal watchlist that checks a handful of store listings and ad-library pages, but NicheMaps' value is a continuously refreshed catalog of millions of iOS/Android apps with ad-status, IAP, velocity, and creative evidence you cannot rebuild in one sitting.
ENOriginal research content in English. Original prompt preserved in English.
Build me a local competitor-app watchlist, the one slice of NicheMaps worth building solo. Requirements:
- Node 22 + TypeScript + SQLite + a tiny localhost UI (Vite + React is fine).
- apps.json lists up to 25 apps with platform (ios|android), store id, and optional advertiser name.
- `npm run refresh` fetches public store listing fields (title, rating, ratings count, free/paid, last updated) via the facundoolano google-play-scraper / app-store-scraper libraries. Respect rate limits; sleep between requests.
- For each app, store deep links to Google Ads Transparency and Meta Ad Library search URLs (domain or advertiser name). Do not pretend you have store-wide ad-running bitmaps.
- Optional: with PLAYWRIGHT=1, open those two URLs headlessly and save a dated HTML snapshot plus a count of creatives mentioning the app name. Expect blocks; document proxy/env needs and fail soft.
- SQLite tables: apps, snapshots, creative_checks. Keep full history.
- Localhost dashboard: table of watched apps, sparkline of ratings-count delta, last creative-check time, and buttons to open the transparency URLs.
- Secrets in .env only (.env.example shipped). No accounts, no cloud, no telemetry.
- Out of scope: crawling the whole store, IAP detection at scale, "apps advertising now" filters, and niche ranking across categories. That dataset is the subscription.
- README: setup, refresh cron example, honest statement that NicheMaps is a proprietary multi-store + ad-library index and this replaces a personal watchlist, not the catalog.The prompt opens pre-filled in your agent. Review it before running.
What would building your own look like?
Track a small list of competitor apps, pull public store metadata, open their Google Ads Transparency and Meta Ad Library pages, and note which creatives are still running.
What you will need
- App Store / Play public listing access
- Google Ads Transparency Center
- Meta Ad Library
- SQLite or local JSON storage
- optional residential proxy if scraping at volume
They pay for the dataset and the joins, not the UI. Knowing which niches are buying ads right now across millions of apps is the product; a DIY watchlist only covers apps you already know to check.
x5M+ app catalog with searchable filters
xlive ad-running status across the whole store
xIAP and install/rating velocity joins
xaggregated Google and Meta creative history
xworking-niche discovery at market scale
How much does NicheMaps cost?
- Monthly billing
- $25.99/mo$25.99/mo
- Per year
- $312/yr$312/yr
- Annual billing
- $240/yr23% cheaper than paying monthly
- On a Brazilian card, with 3.5% IOF
- R$136/moR$1,254/yr
Saved to My list. You will see a notice on this site when the price changes.
You complete the purchase on NicheMaps’s site. Vibe Radar does not handle payments.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | What is included |
|---|---|---|---|
| free | $0/workspace | $0/workspace | Full app catalog and metadata, installs, ratings, growth and filters; 1 ad-running app emailed per day; ad-status signals and creatives excluded |
| premium | $25.99/workspace≈ $25.99 | $19.99/workspace≈ $19.99 | Full catalog plus ad-status filtering, live Google and Meta creatives, sustained-spend/niche-velocity views, and CSV-ready tables; no numeric query/export cap published |
Free tierFull catalog browsing/search and app metadata; 1 ad-running app emailed daily; no access to catalog-wide ad status or ad creatives
Billing termsmonthly + annual; monthly has 20% off first month and an extra 7 days; separate 7-day card-required trial; cancel via Stripe
Additional costsThe 7-day trial keeps a card on file and converts to paid unless canceled; the $20.79 monthly headline is only the first month, with renewals at $25.99.
verified 2026-08-12 · source ↗
Is it cheaper to build or buy NicheMaps?
Adjust the numbers: hours to build, your hourly rate, running costs and the subscription price.
Over 24 months, subscribing is cheaper.
Starting hours estimated from the analysis (closest consolation build: one sitting). Does not price what you give up (support, integrations, security).
Can I rebuild NicheMaps?
Not really. NicheMaps’s value is not the code: Consolation prompt covers a personal competitor watchlist only. See the honest breakdown above.
How much does NicheMaps cost?
NicheMaps costs about $25.99/mo (Premium, checked 10/20/2026), which is $240 per year.
What do I lose by replacing NicheMaps?
Honestly: 5M+ app catalog with searchable filters; live ad-running status across the whole store; IAP and install/rating velocity joins; aggregated Google and Meta creative history; working-niche discovery at market scale. If any of those are load-bearing for you, keep paying.
Is there an open-source alternative to NicheMaps?
Yes: google-play-scraper (Node library for public Play Store listing metadata; does not provide ad-status or creatives), app-store-scraper (Node library for public App Store listing metadata; same consolation-layer limits). Using prior art is also vibecoding; the prompt is for when you want it exactly your way.