How a locator app that's "the same as the free Find My, but $10 a week" squeezed into the top 60 of the US Lifestyle Top Grossing chart

In Oct 8, a US user gave Phone Tracker: Family Finder 1 stars with the one-word title "Scam!": "It can only locate my own phone, exactly like the free Find Mine, but it's $10 a week." That same month, the app sat at #54 to #74 on the US App Store Lifestyle Top Grossing chart. The product has nothing new, users are cursing it, and it's still making money. Below: what it is, how the money comes in, who it's competing with, and whether this playbook is worth copying.

An ad that says "FREE"

In Nov 4, a Facebook page called "Phone Tracker: Family Finder-TT" posted a vertical video with this caption:

Where are they right now? When your kids are out, your partner is traveling, or your parents are alone — not knowing is the hardest part.

Pages like this are usually just there to run ad creatives. On the page of the same developer's other app, the same video appears in several versions, which looks like creative testing. How people who came in through these ads felt is shown by a 1-star review from Oct 24:

Lies, lies and lies people. The add got me cause it said FREE but it's not!!!! ("The ad got me because it said FREE, but it's not!!!!")

Another, from Oct 27: "Trying to cancel can't find it" — trying to cancel, can't find where.

What it is

A family-and-friends location app: create a circle, see each member's live position, history, and battery level on a map, set places, and get push alerts when someone arrives or leaves. The official site findonephone.com says "Location, with consent": both sides must agree, and sharing can be paused. Features are almost identical to Life360.

The difference is pricing: no free version, you hit the paywall on open. In-app purchases on the App Store page (11-06):

The same product has two price points, suggesting online price testing. Someone also reported seeing $12.99 and $14.99 weekly subscriptions; unverified.

The developer account is a personal account named "博 毕" (inferred to be a small team in China). The app was released 2026 Sep 14, updated Nov 1 1.4.0, with release notes that just say "bugs fixed". The same account also has GardenVision, an AI garden design app released in September, and Rousewell, an alarm-plus-app-lock released in October, both rated 0 in the US store. Roughly one app a month, trying different categories; this one worked.

How big is it really?

Source: App Store US charts and ratings, 10-28 to 11-06.

Over nine days it picked up 133 ratings, a dozen or so a day; globally 223 ratings, average 4.1 (App Store page, 11-06). It charts only in the US Lifestyle category, never on the overall chart.

Reaching the top 60 of Lifestyle Top Grossing with a dozen ratings a day tells us two things: the bar in this category is low, and each paying user brings in a lot of money. The weekly subscription is $9.99; one person renewing four weeks is $40, so the first week probably covers the install cost (inferred). Actual revenue is not public, so it can't be calculated.

Here's how that 4.1 score was calculated. Of the 8 public reviews, 6 are 1 stars, and another 2 are 5 stars from two different accounts, Oct 18 and 20, with identical titles and body text: "Absolutely love the history and place alerts!" That's fake reviews.

How the money comes in

The chain is short:

1. Facebook / Instagram video ads that play on the anxiety of "not knowing where family is is the hardest part," with "FREE" in the copy. How many were run is unknown.
2. Stuffing its name with search terms. "Phone Tracker," "Family," and "Finder" are all terms people search, and the in-app product name is "Real Time Phone Locator," adding "locator." Many people search for Life360 and family locators, and long-tail apps capture that traffic. Whether it runs Apple Search Ads is unverified.
3. Paywall on open; without paying, you can barely use it.
4. High-priced weekly subscription plus price testing, with a cancellation path that's hard to find, which keeps renewal rates high.
5. Fake reviews to hold the average above 4 stars and block "Scam" and "False advertising."

It can't be found on TikTok, X, Reddit, or in media coverage, and there's no organic spread. It was driven by ads and monetization, not by the product.

Who it's competing with

This category was validated long ago and is already crowded:

From June to November 2026, at least 25 same-name, same-category locator apps have appeared on the App Store, and new ones were still being listed in November 4. Most have zero ratings. People are also running Facebook ads for similar apps on Google Play. In this batch of newcomers it sits in the second tier: smaller volume than Locato, but ranking higher on the grossing chart. It may be the price or the creatives; which one exactly can't be told.

If it were you

C The formula is worth learning, but copying it directly is not very worthwhile. The demand is real and the money is probably real too, but this slot already has the free Find My, the free-tier Life360, and over twenty copycats that arrived within half a year. The competition is on ad-buying cost and creatives; the barrier isn't the product.

Who it suits: small teams that already buy ads on Meta, can calculate their own payback period, and have a few apps to rotate through testing. For you, it's one more category to test.

Who it doesn't suit: indie devs who haven't run paid ads and are counting on organic store traffic, or anyone trying to build a better family locator product. The default comparison for users is two big free products, which makes it hard to get anyone to pay.

How to do it: don't enter the US slot, which is already packed. Port the same idea to languages and countries these apps haven't covered yet, and first check whether that country's Lifestyle Top Grossing chart has similar apps and how low the bar is. Or pick a narrower niche with the same anxiety, like lost elderly parents or kids' school pickup. Give away something genuinely useful before the paywall, such as letting people see a family member's location once for free. That would reduce "Scam" reviews and some of the takedown risk.

How to acquire users: follow its path, with vertical Facebook / Instagram videos telling a "not knowing where family is" story; put terms locals actually search into the name and in-app product names; run several price points on one product and test them online.

Window: there's no clear window, and copycats keep arriving every month. The real deadline is Apple's patience. Complaints cluster around "false advertising" and "can't get a refund"; if refund rates rise or review tightens, the account could be shut down entirely.

Signs you misread it: ① the app is still in the top 60 of Lifestyle Top Grossing one or two months from now and its rating keeps rising, which would mean this playbook holds up better than it looks and weekly renewals are better than expected; ② conversely, if it and Locato and LocateFamily get delisted or fall off the charts before year-end, Apple is cleaning up this category and the path is closed; ③ if your test shows that the cost of one install can't be recovered by a week of subscription, ads in this category are already too expensive.

Data and sources

App Store US Lifestyle charts and ratings, 2026-10-28 to 11-06; Apple lookup API, App Store page, in-app prices, privacy labels (11-06); public App Store US reviews; official site findonephone.com; posts on the Facebook page "Phone Tracker: Family Finder-TT" 11-04; App Store data for similar apps (11-06). Where it says "inferred" or "unverified", that is exactly what it is.