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How to track your Steam wishlists (and what moved them)

, founder of NextWishlist · Updated · 3 min read

Dailywishlist reports in Steamworks, for the previous dayValve, Steamworks
72 hwindow for UTM conversions, logged-in visitorsValve rule
Nightlyreading of your wishlists by NextWishlistNextWishlist
On this page
  1. Where Steamworks shows your wishlists
  2. See what brought each wishlist
  3. Track your pace against benchmarks
  4. Estimating another game's wishlists
  5. What Steamworks doesn't do for you
  6. Track your wishlists with NextWishlist

Short answerSteamworks shows your wishlist additions, purchases and deletions every day, by country, and its UTM analytics show which links brought them within 72 hours. A Steam wishlist tracker such as NextWishlist reads both every night and compares your pace with similar games.

Your total wishlists only tell you that something happened. To market a game, you need to know what moved them, and how your pace compares with games like yours. Here is what Steamworks gives you, what it doesn't, and how to follow it every day.

01Where Steamworks shows your wishlists

  • The wishlist report, on your app's page in the Sales & Activation Reports: additions, purchases and deletions by players who have your game wishlisted. It's updated daily for the previous day.
  • By country: the regional sales report shows your wishlists by region and country.
  • Wishlist emails: "View detailed wishlist breakdown" lists the emails Steam sent in the period (launch, discounts, demo).
  • Traffic from those emails: Marketing & Visibility, Traffic Breakdown, on your app's landing page.

02See what brought each wishlist

Steam's UTM analytics are the only way to tie wishlists to a post, a video or a newsletter: give each link its own tag, and Steamworks counts the wishlists made within 72 hours of a click by logged-in visitors. Conversions are final 4 days after the visit. Everything about building those links is in Steam UTM links.

store.steampowered.com/app/1234560/Your game's Steam page?utm_source=redditWhere the link lives&utm_campaign=demo-launchThe moment, or the creator
Anatomy of a Steam UTM link: Steamworks counts the visits and, for logged-in visitors, the wishlists made within 72 hours.

Valve is clear about predictions: there's no formula to accurately predict sales from wishlists. Public benchmarks give ranges (wishlists to sales).

03Track your pace against benchmarks

  • First two weeks of a new page: above 150 wishlists is a good sign.
  • Weekly pace after that: Bronze 0 to 40 a week, Silver 15 to 120, Gold 100 to 700 (public developer surveys).
  • Spikes: festivals, a demo, a creator video, a discount of 20% or more. A spike with no known cause is worth investigating.

04Estimating another game's wishlists

Wishlists are private, but a game's Steam followers are public, and practitioners estimate about 10 wishlists per follower, 7 to 20 depending on genre. Details in Steam followers to wishlists, and the most followed upcoming games of each genre in our free top upcoming Steam games list.

05What Steamworks doesn't do for you

  • It doesn't put your wishlists next to your posts, your Steam events and your page changes on one timeline.
  • It doesn't compare your pace with games that share your tags.
  • It doesn't tell you what to do next.

06Track your wishlists with NextWishlist

NextWishlist is a Steam wishlist tracker and marketing coach for indie developers. It reads your wishlists every night through Valve's official Steamworks API, with a read-only key you create and can revoke, brings in your UTM report through a browser extension or a CSV, and lines everything up with your posts and page changes. Each morning you see what moved your wishlists, where you stand against games like yours, and what to do next. It's in private beta: join the waitlist.

NextWishlist in 1 min 42: the daily report, your niche, the calendar and your own AI, on the sample game Nebula Drift.

How to track your Steam wishlists (and what moved them): quick answers

Where can I see my Steam wishlists?

In Steamworks, on your app's page in the Sales & Activation Reports: additions, purchases and deletions, updated daily for the previous day, plus a breakdown by country in the regional report.

How do I know where my Steam wishlists come from?

With Steam's UTM analytics: tag each link you share, and Steamworks shows the wishlists made within 72 hours of a click by logged-in visitors.

Can I see how many wishlists another game has?

Not directly: wishlists are private. Practitioners estimate about 10 wishlists per public Steam follower, between 7 and 20 depending on the genre.

Is there a Steam wishlist tracker?

Steamworks shows your own totals. NextWishlist, in private beta, tracks them every night with a read-only Steamworks key, links them to your posts and tracking links, and compares your pace with similar games.

What's the best Steam wishlist tracker?

Steamworks is the source of truth, for free. NextWishlist, in private beta, is a Steam wishlist tracker that reads it every night with a read-only key, explains what moved your wishlists and compares your pace with similar games.

Sources

Valve's rules can change: the official Steamworks page always wins. Practitioner benchmarks are surveys of developers, given as ranges.

NextWishlist

The Steam marketing tool for indie developers.

Wishlist tracking, comparison with similar upcoming games, your page and demo checked against Valve's rules, and a daily plan that ties it together. In private beta.

Join the private beta