Satellites scan a plot, 500 lira a go: an app built by one person in Turkey's treasure-hunting scene

In Turkey, a large group of people spend weekends with metal detectors searching hillsides for "define" (buried treasure, antiquities). In that circle, paying someone to "scan a plot by satellite" was already a paid service. An individual developer turned it into a self-serve app: draw a plot, get a report in a minute, first one free, then 559 lira per scan. Since launch 6 weeks ago it has been installed 15k times. It charts only in Turkey, but its Top Grossing rank stays far above its Top Free rank. Below: what it actually sells, where the money comes from, the other side of the reviews, and whether the playbook works in another country.

Two reviews, one feature

In Oct 24, someone in Turkey's App Store gave it 5 stars: "For years we've wanted to know what's in our land. Every analysis is done. Thank you."

Four days later, on Oct 28, another person gave it 1 stars under the title "A complete money trap": "We ran a land analysis. The map showed precious metals, structures, and water, but the field survey found nothing at all."

These two reviews are about the same app: Arazi Tarama: Land Scan AI (arazi tarama, Turkish for 'area scan / land scan'). It hit Google Play in Sep 2026 21, reached iOS in Oct 22, and the iOS seller is a single person: Kasim Yilmaz.

What it actually is

The official site's headline reads: "Pick your land on the map. Within minutes, mineral traces, groundwater, waterways, and hills appear on your 3D map. When you survey on site, your phone becomes a metal detector."

The flow has three steps: draw the plot on the map (or enter an address or coordinates), wait about a minute for satellite data processing, then results appear as numbered markers on the map, each with a score and one of three probability levels: VAR (found), OLASI (likely), or ZAYIF SİNYAL (weak signal). The report covers several categories: precious-metal traces, groundwater, buried-structure traces, void/cave traces, and "areas where multiple signals overlap," plus agricultural suitability and distance to the nearest active fault.

All the data is public: ESA Sentinel-2, Copernicus elevation models at 30-meter resolution, Esri satellite imagery, the USGS earthquake catalog, and geological maps. The interpretation uses Google Gemini, written in plain Turkish, and you can ask follow-up questions.

Around "after you find something" there's a whole set of features: navigate to the exact coordinates of a finding; a "field scan" using the phone's magnetometer that builds a heatmap square by square (the official site says small objects are a few centimeters away and large metal objects 10–30 centimeters away); photograph carvings on stones and get AI to tell you "what they mean in folk treasure-hunting tradition" (first use free); "ask an expert"; and a community.

Officially it's a land-analysis tool, but reviews make clear who the users are: "A really great app for treasure hunters! 🪙⛏️ People into gold and treasure research will love it." (App Store, 10-23)

How many people use it

Put the two numbers side by side: the number of analyses is roughly the same as the number of registered users, which means most people only used that one free analysis. But its Top Grossing rank is 80 to 90 spots higher than its Top Free rank, so a small share of payers is paying a lot. Its neighbors on the Top Grossing chart are VPNs, cleaner apps, and "who viewed my profile" apps. It's the only narrow, single-purpose tool there.

Revenue isn't public. Going by its rank in the mid-thirties on Turkey's TOOLS Top Grossing, a rough guess is somewhere between a few thousand and $10-20K a month (an estimate, no direct data).

How the money comes in

No subscription. You buy credits, which don't expire:

Source: arazitarama.com, 11-01. The in-app purchase range on Google Play is $2.99–$99.99.

The key line is in the official FAQ: "In the free analysis, the location of finds is shown with locked markers. One analysis credit unlocks all of them." In other words, the free report tells you "there's a signal on this land" but not where it is. For someone who already believes there's something in the ground, that's a hard step not to pay for.

Two other details: rescanning the same plot doesn't cost credits again (which reduces the feeling of being ripped off), and the site has a dedicated section, "Why analyses cost money," explaining that each one involves downloading satellite scenes, running servers, and paying for AI.

Why now, and why this one

The demand is already there, and people are paying. Search "arazi tarama" on TikTok and the top results are almost all videos from metal detector dealers; one video of a ground-penetrating 3D imager hit 1.04M views. "uydudan yer baktırma" (having someone check land from satellite imagery) is a manual service sold through DMs, and one account's video got 240k views. Someone is also selling similar automated analysis software for 20,000 lira a year (per the YouTube video description). There's no education market to build; it just moves an existing paid behavior into an app, at a price one order of magnitude below both the hardware and the human service.

Middlemen in this scene have bad reputations, so the app packages itself the opposite way. Manual "satellite land scans" are often called scams. TikTok has accounts dedicated to exposing them, and in 8 one posted a video titled "Finding treasure by satellite is a scam." Arazi Tarama fills its pages with "scientific, transparent, legal": every data source is listed, results are stated only as probabilities, it says outright "Arazi Tarama is not a magic wand," and it cites Turkey's Law No. 2863 on cultural heritage and the mining authority MAPEG's rules, clarifying that the app does not replace any excavation permit. Add the "serious" features like agriculture and earthquake data, and it can be listed as a tool and pass review, while users feel they're buying a report rather than a fortune-teller's reading.

The name is the search term. "Arazi Tarama" is the common term in this scene, so the app uses it directly, and there aren't many similar apps. The official TikTok account has only 78 followers and 10 videos, with the best one at 729 views (a "satellite analysis" of Göbeklitepe, 10-08). The Facebook page has about 140 followers. None of that could bring in 15k installs. So the main traffic is most likely store search (inferred; no keyword ranking data). The Facebook page shows "500+ people talking about this," with engagement well above follower count, which suggests it may be boosting posts (inferred; I didn't find it in the ad library).

One person, 6 weeks, fast iteration. 9-21 on Android, 10-20 added phone metal detection, 10-22 on iOS, and the 10-31 version added 2.1.8 3D terrain. Everything is built on public data and Gemini, with no data collection of their own.

Who it's competing with

I didn't see a clear copycat. The most notable is VeldScan: launched in July, in English, aimed at a global audience. It shows the same playbook can be rebuilt in another language, and it also shows how shallow the moat is.

The other side

Of 8 written iOS reviews, 3 are 1-star. One is the opening "found nothing in the field." Another, titled "Money trap": "How can you see precious metals and water from satellite? Don't fall for this scam." A third: "Free first scan is fine, but this price is too high. Charging is okay, just don't overdo it." (App Store Turkey, 10-28 to 11-01)

This is a structural problem for this kind of product. The report says "maybe there's something," and when users dig, there usually isn't. It gets past review by staying with probabilities and legal disclaimers, but that doesn't stop bad reviews or refunds. It's plausible (inferred) that the store could pull it as misleading, or that Turkish authorities could link it to illegal digging.

If it were you

B. The opportunity is real: a small circle where people already pay, but where middlemen have bad reputations. Public data plus a language model can produce a self-serve report that feels like a serious tool. One person got it to the mid-thirties on Turkey's tools Top Grossing in 6 weeks. The weak points are equally clear: the results can't hold up to field checks, the reputation and removal risk hangs over it, and the data and models are available to anyone, so there's no moat.

Who it suits: a small team of 1–2 people who understand a market with a strong treasure- or mineral-hunting culture and can write "insider talk" in the native language. You'd need map and remote-sensing skills (Sentinel-2 and DEM data are free), and you'd have to be comfortable running a business in a gray zone.

Who it's not for: anyone aiming at the global English market (VeldScan is already there, and English has no local treasure-hunting scene like this); anyone who can't stomach the "nothing on the ground" complaints; anyone counting on subscriptions. This is low-frequency, high-ticket demand: people use it a few times a year.

How to build it: copy the structure: claim the plot → one-minute report → three-tier probability → first scan free but the location locked → sell credits per scan, with rescans of the same plot free. Build out the part after "you've found something": navigate to the spot, scan on-site with the phone magnetometer, identify inscriptions and coins, add community, so people have a reason to buy again. Put the data sources and the legal disclaimer front and center. That's both your ticket through app review and your edge against being lumped in with scams.

Which market to switch to: places where treasure hunting and "there's something underground" beliefs run deep, and nobody has a local-language version yet. Think the Arabic-speaking world, Iran, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Latin America's treasure communities (this is inference; I haven't verified whether similar apps exist in each). Or switch the need: well-drilling, fishing spots, site selection, the same kind of thing where people already pay someone to look.

How to get users: use the generic search terms the local community uses for the app name; post videos on TikTok / Facebook treasure-hunting groups in that country showing "satellite analysis of a famous site"; Facebook post promotion is more likely the real source than organic content.

When to move before it's too late: the window depends on two things: when English apps like VeldScan go multilingual, and when app stores start cracking down on this kind of feature. I'd suggest launching in one market before Q1 of year 2027.

Signs you've misread it: ① Arazi Tarama falls out of the top 100 Turkish Top Grossing chart in the next month or two, meaning paying users aren't sticking; ② it or VeldScan gets pulled from the stores; ③ the share of negative reviews keeps rising and the average rating drops below 3; ④ in your chosen market, searching the store for the local term for "area scan" already shows two or three local-language competitors at the top.