Steam Wishlist Conversion
Turn your launch wishlist count into a sales projection across week 1, month 1, and year 1, based on real indie conversion benchmarks.
Your wishlist count the day you release
Week 1
$21K
2K copies
Month 1
$52K
4K copies
Year 1
$105K
8K copies
Standard · 15% week-1 conversion · net revenue after Steam's 30% cut · Year 1 ≈ week 1 × 5
Estimates only. Real conversion varies wildly (10–20×, not 10–20%) with genre, launch marketing, discounts, and how long wishlists sat before release.
How wishlist conversion works
When you hit release, Steam emails and push-notifies everyone who wishlisted your game. It is the single most valuable marketing beat in its life. Data gathered by Jake Birkett and GameDiscoverCo suggests roughly 10–25% of those launch wishlists convert to sales in the first week. From there, a widely-cited rule of thumb is that first-year sales land near five times your first-week sales.
// The formula
week_1_sales ≈ wishlists × conversion
month_1_sales ≈ week_1_sales × 2.5
year_1_sales ≈ week_1_sales × 5
net_revenue = sales × price × 0.70
// conversion: 15–25% · 0.70 = after Steam's 30% cutConservative
Premium-priced or niche games, older wishlists that cooled off before launch, or a quiet release with little launch-day marketing. A realistic floor for most first-time indie launches.
Standard
A solid launch with fresh wishlists, a Next Fest beat, and the automatic launch email doing its job. The most commonly cited week-1 conversion for indie games on Steam.
Optimistic
Hot, recently-added wishlists, a launch discount, and strong press or creator coverage stacking on top of the wishlist email. Achievable, but don't bank your budget on it.
Know your projection. Now grow the wishlist.
LaunchQuest matches your game to the YouTube creators who covered similar titles, ranked by relevance, ready for outreach.
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