A "second book" launched on exam day: Japanese social insurance labor consultant quiz app 秒トレ, riding on the one released six years ago
What it is A Japanese 社労士 (labor and social insurance law qualification) exam drill app: true/false quizzes on single sentences, spaced repetition on a forgetting curve, one-time purchase per subject, 10 subjects for 3,980 yen total, still usable next year's exam cycle.
Why it took off The same company's multiple-choice edition has 2020 ratings over 5,600 years. Candidates already use 秒トレ for multiple-choice and Ōhara for true/false. It launched the true/false edition on exam day, before results came out, and existing users simply moved over. The price is half of Ōhara's, and it's usable across exam years.
CHow you could follow it The product itself is hard to copy. What's worth taking is the playbook: in an exam where you already have users, split out a second product by question type that cross-promotes with the first, launch it timed to exam day, put the year into the name without changing the ID, and use one-time purchases plus cross-year use. To exploit its gap, make five-option original-question-style content and write out the law-change notes in detail.
- Data (updated daily) · first listed 2026-08-23 · Japan rating 479 · charted in 11-08 of 1 stores
iOS · best category chart rank · by store Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that dayiOS · rating count · Japan Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.
On Aug 23 2026, the 58th Japanese Social Insurance Labor Consultant exam opened. The same day, GINOAPPS, a small company in Okazaki, Aichi, launched 「社労士 択一式対策 秒トレ」 on the App Store. Two and a half months later it has 475 ratings, a 4.76-star average, and a best overall rank of #60 on the Japanese Education Top Grossing chart. It looks like a new app ramping up, but it's really a six-year-old quiz brand filling in the other half for its existing users. What you can learn is a playbook for licensed-exam apps; the product itself is hard to copy.
The day outside the exam hall
社労士 (Social Insurance Labor Consultant) is Japan's labor and social security licensed profession, and most candidates are working adults. The exam has two parts: multiple-choice (fill-in) and true/false (judge five options). In 2026 the pass rate was 9.3% (official figures compiled by STUDYing), and nine out of ten people have to sit for it again in the second or third year.
Oct 1 results come out, the people who failed start prepping for the 2027 exam and buying fresh question sets. GINOAPPS' new app landed right in that window: launched the day of the exam, named "2027 Annual Law Revision Compliance".
What it is
A quiz app that does one thing: it breaks each option of the true/false exam into a one-question, true-or-false judgment, a few seconds per question, with review scheduled automatically on a forgetting curve. The official site says 「択一式は 7 科目 70 問を 210 分で解く試験…『思い出す』のではなく『反射的に判断する』状態まで持っていく」.
Revenue comes from one-time purchases per subject: ¥380–580 for a single subject, ¥3,980 for all 10 subjects bundled, with no monthly fee. About 5% of each subject is free to try. Content you buy stays usable into the next exam year, and law-change updates are free (official site, 11-06).
What's interesting is that it went on sale when the content was only half done. The public version now covers 5 subjects (the Oct 24 1.2.0 edition just added 「労働一般常識」), and the official X account has teased 「健康保険法」 for early December, with the full set coming to about 2,400 questions. Anyone who bought the bundle upfront effectively prepaid for the remaining five subjects.
Where the ratings came from
Listed for 66 days by Oct 28, collecting 446 ratings, averaging nearly 7 a day; then two or three a day from Nov 6 to 472 (App Store Japan store). Most of the growth came in the first two months.
The App Store reviews make the traffic source clear. An Oct 14 three-star review opens with:
"Thanks to the multiple-choice format, which has been around since the 2027 edition, I'm currently using the free version."
Oct 3 another one: "We use both multiple-choice and select-type formats." Sep 14: "Just released, but it's just as easy to use as the select-type format."
The 「選択式」 is 「社労士 選択式対策 秒トレ」, launched by the same company in November 2020: 5,638 iOS ratings, 814 Google Play reviews, and about 58 on the Japan education Top Grossing chart. A social insurance labor consultant study blog was already writing in 2021 「選択式は秒トレ、択一式は大原トレ問」: fill-in-the-blank on 秒トレ, multiple choice on the Ohara Gakuen app. The new app fills the half of the study routine that was missing.
The referral links are confirmed:
- The old app and the website link to each other. The fill-in-the-blank product page says 「択一式対策のアプリもあります」 and links over; the new app's page has a side-by-side comparison table reading 「両方に不安がある方は、あわせてご利用ください」.
- Reviews and Q&A. agaroot's 「社労士勉強アプリおすすめ8選【2026年November最新】」 ranks 秒トレ #2; hatena blogs, note study guides, Chiebukuro answers and Instagram study accounts all recommend it. Most of these cover the fill-in-the-blank version, but the brand name is shared, so searching 「社労士 秒トレ」 returns both apps.
- Official X account @byoutore. Posts updates and reminders about law amendments. Its autumn 「資格受験生応援キャンペーン」 gift-card campaign drew about 800 entries, and a pinned post collects 「合格体験記」 and encourages users to write them on note and blogs. That is a small spend to build long-tail content.
- Store search. The title is packed with keywords, ranking #2 for 「社労士」 on the App Store. (Inferred that it picks up a lot of organic search; no search volume data.)
No evidence of paid acquisition found (unverified).
Same template, why didn't the others take off
GINOAPPS has 31 iOS apps, nearly all named 「〇〇 秒トレ」: electrical engineering, administrative scrivener, real estate, SME management consultant, career counselor… The older ones have one to nearly three thousand ratings each.
But the dozen or so it launched in 2026—QC certification, FP3, boiler engineer, refrigeration, care welfare worker, care manager, occupational health manager, drone, crane operator—have between 3 and 229 ratings after several months on the App Store Japan store (11-06). Same company, same interface, same forgetting-curve model. Put it on an exam without an existing user base, and it doesn't take off.
The social insurance labor consultant niche shows the same pattern. In 2026, a dozen or more quick Q&A apps with 「〜トレ」 names appeared (シャロトレ, 社労士トレ, サクトレ, シャロトレAI…), each with single-digit ratings.
So the 「quick Q&A + forgetting curve + one-time purchase」 format isn't why it worked. It worked because this exam already had over five thousand rated legacy users who were waiting for exactly this.
Who it's competing with
| Product | Scale (App Store Japan store) | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| 资格の大原 社労士トレ問2027 | 0 ratings, but #162 on the education Top Grossing chart | The app version of Ohara Gakuen's paper question bank. All 10 subjects cost about ¥7,250, nearly twice as much; a new app each year means buying again |
| Shakaroushi exam-prep study app (SAKURA LLC) | 816 ratings, listed 2021 years ago | Generic past-exam drills with no brand and no carryover between years |
| タテスタ社労士 (TAC) | 24 ratings, 2.96 stars | Tied to TAC textbooks, input-heavy, poor reviews |
| 社労士過去問ランド | Web, free | Often recommended on blogs, detailed explanations, but no offline mode and no review algorithm |
| a dozen-plus small apps launched in 2026 | 0–10 ratings | Mostly quick Q&A, no legacy users, no reputation |
The only phone drill apps with real scale are 秒トレ itself and Ohara Gakuen. 秒トレ's play is to undercut at half the price, with no repurchase across years, and take share from Ohara in multiple choice. Ohara's app reaches #0 on the chart with 162 ratings, which shows the category's bar for charting is low: a few hundred one-time purchases a month at ¥3,980 can get you on the list (inferred; monthly revenue estimated in the tens of thousands of yen, unverified).
What users are complaining about
- It needs the real exam format. The Oct 14 three-star review was blunt: multiple choice ultimately means practicing 「五肢択一」, and as soon as this appears they'll buy it. Breaking questions into single-sentence judgments doesn't suit everyone.
- The supplementary notes are too thin. Oct 11, one review gave three stars: the law-amendment note only says "2027 amendment effective April will change this wording," without saying how, and "the money spent is about the same as a question bank, and you still have to look things up yourself." The official X account later posted an update that added explanatory notes.
- Too few questions and small functional gaps. 「Even the subjects already available feel a bit thin」, 「when running multiple subjects you can only keep progress for one」, 「I want a remaining-question counter and a timed mode」.
If it were you
Verdict: C. You can learn how a full exam app is run, but copying a labor consultant drill app isn't worth it here. The moat is six years of brand and thousands of legacy users, and even GINOAPPS' template fails to take off when moved to exams without them.
Who it fits: people who already have users in a certification exam: someone who has built one drill app, runs a study WeChat Official Account or blog, or is a teacher of the exam. If you already have a first product, this is about how to build the second.
Who it doesn't fit: anyone entering Japanese certification exams from scratch (question banks need legal knowledge and yearly amendment tracking, and candidates can tell when Japanese content is low quality); anyone hoping to use AI to batch-generate question banks for dozens of exams. The dozen or so AI-flavored new labor consultant apps from 2026 show where that leads.
How to do it:
- Split one exam into two apps by question format: the old one funnels users to the new one, and each earns its own sale;
- Launch on exam day or results day, put the year and 「法改正対応」 in the name, rename yearly without changing the app ID so ratings keep accumulating (Ohara changes its app every year, so its ratings restart from 0 each time);
- One-time purchase, still usable the next year, aimed at exams with low pass rates that people take several times;
- Selling the full set before the content is finished, promising the remaining subjects for free, pulling revenue forward;
- Leave a free trial for each subject.
- To take its gap: build the real 「五肢択一」 format and write the amendment notes in specifics.
How to acquire users: the first app's legacy users are the main source, with links between the website and app; then recruit candidates to write pass-experience posts and run giveaways like gift cards, letting reviews and blogs build search traffic for you. Put the exam name, question format and year in the store title.
How early to move: Japan's 2027 study season runs from the October results announcement to the August exam the following year. The earlier you launch, the more people buy a one-time pass; but for most readers this playbook doesn't depend on timing, and the next usable window is your own exam's test day or results day.
Signs this read is wrong: ① A few of the dozen or so apps GINOAPPS launched in 2026 reached over a thousand ratings within a year, meaning the template can grow without legacy users and entry is easier than described here; ② Ohara turns 社労士トレ問 into a carryover, discounted product, and 秒トレ's fill-in-the-blank rating growth stalls, meaning price was the main selling point; ③ 秒トレ ships a 五肢択一 version and still doesn't grow faster than it does now, meaning this category's ceiling is roughly its current volume.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one 社労士 選択式対策 秒トレ(同门) iOS 2020-11 5,636 iOS ratings, 814 Play reviews, #58 on the education Top Grossing chart The same-brand fill-in-the-blank version, a traffic source for it rather than a rival 資格の大原 社労士トレ問2027 iOS 2026-09 (new ID each year) 0 ratings but #162 on education Top Grossing; all 10 subjects about ¥7,250 App version of Ohara's paper multiple-choice question book, nearly twice the price, buying again each year; no forgetting-curve selling point 社労士｜試験対策学習アプリ(SAKURA LLC) iOS 2021-05 816 rating Unbranded generic past-exam drills, no carryover promise タテスタ社労士 (TAC) iOS 2024-10 24 ratings, 2.96 stars Tied to TAC textbooks, input-heavy, poor reviews D-Learning / オンスク.JP / STUDYing iOS 2017–2020 135 / 19 / 30k (general across certifications) Course platforms or generic quick Q&A, labor consultant is just one subject 社労士過去問ランド Web Early on Free, often recommended on blogs Free web past exams, no offline mode or review algorithm ChatGPT / Gemini Big-company features — Candidates use it to understand the statutes No structured question bank, no law-revision upkeep - Where users come from
- Verified Migrating existing users from the old app: the official site links from its select-type page to the choose-one page; the App Store 'customers also bought' cross-links both; a review says 「選択式でお世話になり…択一式が登場」
- Verified Timed to the exam cycle: launched on 2026-08-23, the day of the 58th Social Insurance Labor Consultant exam; results come out 10-01, starting a new study season
- Verified Official X account @byoutore: 3,577 posts; autumn book-card giveaway with about 800 entries; pinned call for pass-experience write-ups
- Verified SEO / review articles: agaroot's 2026-11-pick roundup ranks it #8 ... 2; also hatena, arsenal-sr, kotora, note, Chiebukuro, Instagram
- Inferred Store search: titles stuffed with keywords; in iTunes search for 「社労士」 it ranks #2
- Inferred Paid ads: no evidence found
社労士 択一式対策 秒トレ(iOS 6797410355)为什么能跑出来
Developer: GINOAPPS LLC. (合同会社GINOAPPS, Okazaki City, Aichi; corporate number 6180303004402). Listed 2026-08-23, Education category, free download with per-subject one-time purchases. Research date 2026-11-06.
Bottom line
This isn't a new product that built traction from zero. It's an niche qualification-exam app brand, 「秒トレ」, that has been running for 6 years, and on exam day it gave its existing users a 'second book'. The select-type version (launched 2020 years ago, iOS rating 5,636) brought its installed base, official-site SEO, the X account and review articles straight over, and the per-subject one-time pricing with free use carried into the following year shows strong willingness to pay in this exam crowd. The differentiation (drilling with true/false single-statement checks, a forgetting curve, free law-revision updates) is real, but the main reason it took off is brand and existing-user migration plus good timing on the exam cycle, not a new product idea.
1. Data
- Rating: iOS Japan store 472 (our database appstore.app_profile, 2026-11-06); iTunes lookup the same day gives 475, average 4.76. Daily from our data: 10-28 446 → 11-06 472,10 days +26, averaging 2–3 per day (app_day). Over the 66 days since launch to 10-28 it accumulated 446, about 6.8/day. It was faster early on, so the volume was concentrated in the first two months after launch.
- Top Grossing: best rank in Japan's Education Top Grossing was #60 (app_profile.best_cat_rank). Its sibling select-type app reached #58, 7 days +33 rating; Daihara Gakuen's new 「社労士トレ問2027」 has a 0 rating yet charted at #162 (in this category, a high unit price alone is enough to chart).
- Pricing (official site byoutore.com/byoutore/sharoushi-takuitsu/): single subject ¥380–580, all 10 subjects in one bundle ¥3,980, one-time purchase with no monthly fee; about 5% of each subject is free; buying the bundle makes later-added subjects free; purchased subjects stay usable the following year, with free law-revision updates. Note: the recall card's 「280 yen / 2,980 yen」 prices are for the select-type version, not this one.
- Content progress: 5 subjects are public (latest version 1.2.0,2026-10-24 plus 「労働一般常識」). The official X preview says 「健康保険法」 arrives in early December; once complete, the 10 subjects come to about 2,400 questions. So it started selling while only half the content existed, collecting money through a preorder-style bundle.
2. Competitors
The same thing = mobile drilling / choose-one practice for the Social Insurance Labor Consultant exam. Searching 「社労士」 on iOS Japan (iTunes Search + our database, 2026-11-06):
| Product | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 社労士 選択式対策 秒トレ(同门) | iOS/Android | 2020-11 | iOS 5,636 rating, Play 814 reviews; Education Top Grossing 58 | The same brand's select-type (fill-in) version; the choose-one version is its sibling, with existing users migrating directly |
| 資格の大原 社労士トレ問2027 | iOS/Android | This ID 2026-09-10 (a new ID every year) | iOS 0 rating but Top Grossing #162; ¥650–800 per subject, about ¥7,250 for all 10 subjects (moalicense.jp) | The app version of Ōhara Gakuen's paper "Choose-one" training problem sets, about 2,500 questions; nearly twice the price and you have to rebuy it every year when the new app comes out |
| 社労士｜試験対策学習アプリ(SAKURA LLC) | iOS | 2021-05 | 816 rating | General past-paper drilling, unbranded, with no forgetting-curve selling point |
| Tategsta Social Insurance Labor Consultant (TAC materials) | iOS/web | 2024-10 | 24 ratings, 2.96 stars | Tied to TAC's 「みんなが欲しかった」 textbook; leans on input, poor reviews |
| D-Learning / オンスク.JP / STUDYing | iOS | 2017–2020 | 135 / 19 / 30k (STUDYing is a general course covering all qualifications) | Course platforms or general-purpose Q&A; Social Insurance Labor Consultant is just one of many subjects |
| 社労士過去問ランド | Web | Early on | Free, often recommended on blogs (yurupapablog.com) | Free web-based past papers with detailed explanations; no offline use, no review algorithm |
| A batch of small apps launched in the past 2026 years | iOS | 2026-01~10 | Dozen-plus apps including シャロトレ, 社労士トレ, サクトレ, シャロトレAI, マチモン, 社労士勉強くん, スキガク, all rated 0–10 | Mostly individuals or small companies (likely AI-generated question banks) doing Q&A, with no installed base and no reputation |
| Big-company features | — | — | No dedicated feature; candidates use ChatGPT/Gemini to understand statutes (mentioned in Chiebukuro posts) | No structured question bank |
Takeaway: the niche has long-established big schools (Daihara, TAC) and many small new apps from the past 2026 years, but the only mobile drilling apps with real scale are 秒トレ itself and Daihara. New entrants have all flopped (single-digit ratings), suggesting the barrier here is brand and reputation, not features.
3. Growth tactics (where users come from)
- Existing-app migration / existing-user migration (confirmed): the official site's select-type page states 「択一式対策のアプリもあります」 and links over; the App Store 'customers also bought' section cross-links both apps (see-all pages on apps.apple.com, Netherlands/Spain stores); review quotes: 「選択式でお世話になり、2027年度版から択一式が登場し…」「択一式、選択式ともに利用させていただいております」. Installed base: select-type iOS 5,636 + Play 814; the series self-reports 「累計1MDL」 (official X bio, official site).
- Timed to the exam cycle (confirmed): launch date 2026-08-23 was exactly the day of the 58th Social Insurance Labor Consultant exam (sharosi-siken.or.jp); results on 10-01 (pass rate 9.3%, studying.jp). Those who failed, about 9 people, start studying again for the next 2027 years right then, which is when they buy new materials. The app name literally says 「2027年度 法改正対応」.
- Official X account @byoutore (confirmed): 3,577 posts; announces updates and law-change notices; the 「秋の資格受験生応援キャンペーン」 gave away book cards, about 800 entries; a pinned 「合格体験シェア企画」 encourages users to write pass-experience posts on note / blogs. That is deliberately generating UGC and long-tail SEO.
- SEO / review articles (confirmed): agaroot's 「社労士勉強アプリおすすめ8選【2026年November最新】」 ranks 秒トレ #2; arsenal-sr.com, goukakuget.hatenadiary, kotora.jp, yurupapablog, note study-method posts, Chiebukuro answers and Instagram study accounts all recommend 「秒トレ」. Most of these write about the select-type version, but the brand name is the same, so searching 「社労士 秒トレ」 returns both apps.
- Store search (inferred): the title is stuffed with keywords, "社労士 択一式対策 … 2027 edition, law revisions included," and it ranks #2 for "社労士" searches (iTunes Search result order).
- Paid ads: no evidence found (unverified; our ad library doesn't track it).
4. Why it took off
- Direct migration of an existing brand: the select-type version has been around 6 years with 5,600+ ratings and an average of 4.67, and in the Social Insurance Labor Consultant community it's nearly consensus that 「選択式は秒トレ」 (goukakuget blog wrote 「選択式は秒トレ、択一式は大原トレ問」 2021 years ago). The choose-one version fills the other half users explicitly asked for.
- Fills a clearly stated user gap: candidates were combining 「秒トレ for select-type + Daihara トレ問 for choose-one」; 秒トレ takes share from Daihara's choose-one at half the price (¥3,980 vs about ¥7,250).
- Timing: launched on exam day, just before the new study season after results; strongest in the first two months (about 6.8/day), now down to 2–3/day.
- Pricing fits the audience: Social Insurance Labor Consultant candidates are working adults who put tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yen into one qualification, so ¥3,980 one-time is 'cheaper than a single question book'; 「still usable next year」 speaks directly to the pain of a pass rate under 10% and people sitting the exam for several years.
- Preorder-style bundle: selling the full set while only half the content is out, with later subjects free and 「buy early, practice early」, pulls revenue forward.
- Keeps updating based on feedback: a review complained that the supplementary explanations were too thin, and the official X quickly posted an update adding them; users feel they're being looked after, rating 4.76.
5. Differentiation, and whether that's why it took off
- Product-wise: all 「true/false single-statement」 drills (breaking five-option choose-one into single-item reflex practice), forgetting-curve auto-scheduling, bold keywords you can tap to Google, offline use, per-subject one-time purchases, free law-revision updates usable across years, and about 5% of every subject free to try.
- Versus Daihara: the content isn't from a major school's textbook, but it costs about half, doesn't need rebuying year to year, and has a stronger review algorithm. Versus new small apps: it has 6 years of law-revision upkeep as a track record.
- Differentiation is not the main reason. Functionally, single-statement Q&A plus spaced review is something anyone can build; the dozen-plus new apps from the past 2026 years are this same format and still got no users. It took off because of the 「秒トレ」 brand, the select-type existing users, and the exam cycle; differentiation's role is retention and willingness to pay. There's also counter-evidence: a review says some people only buy if the format is 「五肢択一」, showing single-statement true/false isn't what everyone wants.
6. How many people have seen it
- Revenue isn't public (no founder revenue posts found; not on TrustMRR).
- Well known within its circle: Japanese SEO reviews, Chiebukuro, note and Instagram all mention it, and the series self-reports 1M downloads; but no media coverage, and no major X accounts write about it (x-radar found 0 results for 「秒トレ」 over the last 90 days).
- Copycats: over the past 2026 years a wave of new Social Insurance Labor Consultant apps have appeared, many with 「〜トレ」 in the name (シャロトレ, 社労士トレ, サクトレ, シャロトレAI), but all sit at 0–3 ratings, so it's hard to say they're copying it; they look more like part of the AI question-bank wave.
- Verdict: it's spreading in a small circle. It's well known among Social Insurance Labor Consultant candidates but barely noticed by anyone building products.
7. What to borrow
- The 「秒トレ」 template: a question-bank app framework + forgetting curve + per-subject one-time purchase, replicated across 30 Japanese qualification exams (31 apps on the iOS developer page; about 15 new ones in 2026 years: FP3, QC, boiler, refrigeration, hygiene manager, nursing care, care manager, drone, crane...). The bigger ones (Social Insurance Labor Consultant, administrative scrivener, real estate broker, electrical engineer) carry the revenue; the small exams are the long tail.
- One exam split by question format into two apps, using the old app to funnel users into the new one, with each collecting money once.
- Launch date set to exam day / results day; the app name carries the year and 「法改正対応」, renamed each year without changing the ID, so ratings keep accumulating (compare Daihara, which issues a new ID every year and starts over from 0 ratings).
- Usable across years + free law-revision updates, aimed at exams with low pass rates that people sit for many years.
- Book-card giveaways plus encouraging users to write pass-experience posts: low-cost SEO content.
8. Still unclear
- Actual downloads and revenue (Apple doesn't disclose; the 60-place Top Grossing finish is a low bar in Japan's Education category; estimated monthly revenue is in the hundreds of thousands of yen, unverified).
- Whether it runs Apple Search Ads or other paid ads (not checked).
- The Play version's install count wasn't retrieved.
- "Cumulative 1 MDL" covers the whole series combined; the basis is unclear.
- How many ratings came from the in-app rating prompt (likely, not verified).
Sources
- App Store lookup / Search(itunes.apple.com,2026-11-06,jp)
- Our database appstore.app_profile / app_day (2026-10-28~11-06)
- Official site byoutore.com/byoutore/sharoushi-takuitsu/, byoutore.com/byoutore/sharoushi/
- Official X x.com/byoutore
- Exam schedule www.sharosi-siken.or.jp/; pass rate studying.jp/sharoushi/about-more/goukakuhappyou.html
- Reviews www.agaroot.jp/sharo/column/learning-apps/, goukakuget.hatenadiary.com/entry/2021/04/13/075517, arsenal-sr.com/sharoushi-review-byoutore/, moalicense.jp/sharoshi/text_appli.htm, yurupapablog.com/past-questions/
- Company registration lawplayer.com/jp/company/6180303004402
- Play developer page play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=GINOAPPS+LLC