An "AI photo-to-video" app installed 10k times in 9 days: don't be fooled by the growth rate, it's the smallest of its kind
What it is An AI photo and video template tool on Android. Text-to-video, photo-to-dance video, AI portraits, and photo editing and cutout are bundled together, earning money through ads and in-app purchases.
Why it took off The product didn't take off on its own. The developer (a small shop repackaging tools) most likely bought install-and-rate campaigns in cheap regions like Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and the Philippines to pile up ratings and push up category charts. Reviews include people giving five stars with "I haven't tried it yet."
DHow you could approach it Don't follow it. If you really want to enter this category, build a single template that's trending right now, plug in an off-the-shelf video generation API, and test cost-per-install and first-day ad revenue with a small budget in cheap markets. Only add spend and rebrand once the numbers hold up.
- Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-10-11 · 11-07 installs 9,783
Android · Total installs worldwide Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.Android · Ratings count (cumulative) Data 2026-10-31 → 2026-11-07 (8 days, 8 observations)
LPix: AI Photo Video Generator went up on Google Play in Oct 11. For its first 18 days it barely got installed, then in Oct 30 it jumped by 1,435 installs in a single day, reaching 6 total by Nov 9,783. In percentage terms the growth is huge, but set against its peers it sits in the lowest tier. Below: where these 10k installs came from, how it makes money, and whether this category is worth following.
A five-star "I haven't tried it"
In Oct 29, Nigerian user ajewole victor gave it five stars on Play, with a single line in the review:
"l have not tried it." (I haven't tried it yet.)
Two days later, another user, Bernice A. N Ahorli, gave three stars: "I haven't tried it yet. Once I try it I can rate it more accurately." Other reviews that same week included "happy birthday to my daughter," "pp Gold 3.", and "MOUTARI MOUTARI" (Play reviews, Nigeria store, 11-06 scrape).
About twenty reviews contain readable text, nearly all of them one or two words like "good," "superb," or "wonderful app." Not one says what actually works well, and the developer hasn't replied to any of them. The names are mostly from Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and the Philippines. Rating an app before even opening it is the classic sign of incentivized installs (users earning points for installing from a task wall) or of a rating prompt that pops up the moment you open the app.
What it is
An AI photo and video template tool on Android, published by Imgori LLC. The feature list is a grab bag: text-to-video, photo-to-dance video, AI portraits, old photo restoration, cutout, slideshow editing, plus an "image compressor." The title and description are stuffed with search terms like "AI Video Generator," "Photo to Video," and "Video Editor." The package name is still the old com.templategenerator.aivideomaker, but the version number is already 7.0. My inference: an old shell was renamed and relisted.
Money comes from two sources: ads, and in-app purchases priced at $3.39–$59.99 (Play Store page, 11-06). The developer's website imgori.dev has an ad disclosure file listing AdMob, Meta, Pangle, Unity, AppLovin, Mintegral, and China's aggregation platform TopOn, seven or more ad networks in total. This is the standard setup for recouping costs through interstitial and rewarded video ads.
Where these 10k installs came from
| Date | Total installs | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 10-29 | 19 | – |
| 10-31 | 1,454 | 129 |
| 11-03 | 6,613 | 335 |
| 11-05 | 8,675 | 468 |
| 11-06 | 9,783 | 558 |
Google Play installs and ratings counts, 10-29 to 11-06. Third-party estimates (AppstoreSpy) show that from 10-11 to 10-29 it averaged only 1–2 installs a day, and from 10-30 on it averaged 1,000–1,700 a day.
It didn't grow gradually. A switch was flipped on one particular day. Several signs point to paid acquisition, bought in the cheapest-install regions:
- Ratings are abnormally high. 10-31 has one rating for every 11 installs (129 / 1,454 at 1), while 11-06 has one per 18. A normal utility app usually gets one per hundred or so installs (industry rule of thumb, not verified).
- 星级分布像被批量动过。2 星始终是 0;3 星一天之内从 41 跳到 140;11-06 商店页上 1 星和 3 星都是 113 个,数据库里同一天这两档也都是 128。真实用户打出来的分很难这么整齐。
- Only in cheap countries. The earliest and best-ranking chart was Nigeria's Video category Top Free, where it peaked at #186,11-02 on 10-29, then #63 at best; next came South Africa (#144–#165). From 11-05 on, Italy, Spain and Poland also got it into the #127–#195 range, which we infer is the start of paid acquisition in Europe. It never charted in overall or Top Grossing (Google Play data, as of 11-06).
The exact mechanism (task-wall incentivized installs, low-cost cost-per-install deals, or Google app promotion ads) can't be confirmed from the outside, so "paid acquisition" is an inference I'd rate as moderately high confidence. Searching TikTok for "LPix AI" returns only content for other apps like PixVerse and PixAI; X shows no mentions in the last 30 days; the only web presence is auto-generated aggregator pages on AppBrain and Softonic. There are no creators, no media coverage, and no content.
Who's behind it
Imgori LLC's registered address is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a common registered-agent address that many overseas teams use to set up US companies. Support email is Gmail. The website is a template-based landing page, and the sample app on it uses the package name com.ikram.expensemanager, meaning the template was copied over wholesale from elsewhere.
The company has four or five other apps: a pregnancy tracker, Baby Tracker (launched in July, 427k installs); a Live TV app (AppBrain reports 1M+); and a game crosshair tool. It builds whatever is trending, then reskins and relaunches, which is typical of a tool shop. The team's country has not been verified.
Who it's competing with
AI photo-to-video, dance effects and AI portraits are among the most crowded categories on Google Play. Figures from Google Play, as of 11-06:
| Competitors | Launched | Scale | Compared with alternatives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mistmere: AI Photo Video Maker | 2026-10-16 | 235k, +230k in 7 days | Launched 5 days later with the same features, growing about 25× as fast, #1 on Mexico's Photography free chart |
| Nexus - AI Video Generator | 2026-03 | 12.4M, +1.85M in 7 days | A leading copycat shop; the same company also runs Lynix (9.06M) |
| Vidix - AI Photo Video Generator | 2025-11 | 30.2M | Nearly identical name and features, an earlier version that grew big first |
| AI Video Generator(Butter Soft) | 2026-01 | 1.65M | #22 on the same chart in Nigeria |
| PixVerse | 2024-09 | 79.6M | A genuine player with its own models, one of the sources of the template model |
| CapCut, Canva, Picsart | Legacy product | Hundreds of millions to 2B | The editor already ships AI video built in. CapCut ranks 1 on the same Nigeria chart. |
| Google Photos "photo to video" | 2025 | Built into the system | Free |
LPix is indistinguishable from these in features, name, and screenshots. It only got noticed because it started from 19, which makes the percentage look good.
If it were you
D. Know it exists, but don't follow it. This app is just the first step of the workshop playbook: register a US company as a shell, reskin an old package, buy thousands of launch installs in Nigeria and the Philippines to build ratings and push the category chart, then earn back the cost through seven ad networks. And it's doing that smaller than its peers. The ones worth studying are Mistmere from the same period, or Nexus and Vidix, which have reached ten million installs.
Who it's for: teams already mass-producing Android utilities, with several developer accounts, who have run incentivized install or app promotion ads, and who know exactly what each install costs and what each user earns in ad revenue. For them this isn't a new opportunity, it's routine.
Who it's not for: people who can only code and have never run ads; people counting on organic installs and word of mouth (there's almost no word of mouth in this category, and none of LPix's twenty-some reviews mention the product); people trying to build a subscription business in Europe or the US (that's territory held by PixVerse, CapCut, and big companies' free features).
How to build it: if you must enter this category, don't build a big bundle of "text-to-video + portrait + cutout + compression." Pick one template that is currently going viral on social media in one specific country (a certain dance effect, a certain holiday portrait style), plug in an off-the-shelf video generation API, ship it in one to two weeks, and put the paywall after the result is shown.
How to acquire users: start by buying installs in one cheap market with a small budget, and watch only three numbers: cost per install, day-one ad revenue, and in-app purchase conversion. If ad revenue doesn't cover the buy, stop. If it does, reskin and expand. Swap the store title's keywords to the local template terms people are searching for in each country.
When is the window: there's no fixed deadline. The window follows template popularity, and a single effect usually runs hot for a few weeks. The faster big companies make the same features free inside their photo apps and editors, the thinner this shell becomes.
What would show you got it wrong: ① LPix stops buying installs over the next few weeks and drops off the Nigeria chart. That would mean even small-budget launches can barely break even, which confirms the read. ② The reverse: it starts appearing on the video charts or any top-grossing chart in the US, UK, or Germany. That would mean it found a template that pays back, and it's worth revisiting. ③ A new account like Mistmere is still gaining 200k a week. That would mean the category's paid acquisition money hasn't run out, and teams with media-buying capacity still have room.
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Data from the Google Play store page, install counts and charts (2026-10-29 to 11-06), Play review text (Nigeria, Italy, and Spain storefronts, scraped 11-06), AppstoreSpy daily install estimates, the imgori.dev website and ad declaration file, and the developer pages on AppBrain and AppGoblin. Anything marked "inferred" or "unverified" is an inference.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Mistmere: AI Photo Video Maker(Funkedenic) Android 2026-10-16 235k installs, 7 days +230k Launched almost at the same time with the same features. Its buy volume is roughly 25 times LPix's. Nexus - AI Video Generator(DQL TechLab) Android 2026-03-24 12.4M installs, +1.85M in 7 days A leading workshop in the same niche that has already reached scale Vidix - AI Photo Video Generator(Supercool Labs) Android 2025-11-27 30.2M installs Nearly the same name and features, and an earlier version that grew bigger AI Video Generator(Butter Soft) Android 2026-01-26 1.65M installs, ranked #22 on the Nigeria chart On the same Nigeria video category chart, ranked far higher PixVerse Android 2024-09-25 79.6M installs, near the top of several countries' top-grossing charts A proper product with its own model and one of the sources of the template approach CapCut / Canva / Picsart Big-company features Legacy product Hundreds of millions to 2B installs The big companies' editors already have AI video built in. CapCut ranks #1 on the same Nigeria chart. Google Photos photo to video Big-company features 2025 System-level (unverified) Free, built in - Where users come from
- Inferred Buying installs in emerging markets (incentivized installs or low-CPI campaigns): 10-30 installs jumped in a step; the first chart it entered and its best-ranking storefront were both Nigeria; reviewer names cluster in West Africa, South Africa, and the Philippines; the rating count is 8.9%→5.7% of installs; reviews include "I have not tried it" and "I didn't try it yet"; the 2-star count has gone up and down while 0,5 stars stayed the same
- Confirmed Ad mediation aggregation (for recouping costs): imgori.dev/app-ads.txt lists AdMob, Meta, Pangle, Unity, AppLovin, Mintegral, and TopOn; the store page says it contains ads
- Inferred Store search ASO: the title and description are stuffed with search terms like AI Video Generator, Photo to Video, and Video Editor; reskinned from an old templategenerator package
- Inferred Paid ads (Meta / Google / TikTok): none found in our three ad libraries. The libraries only track products on their watchlists, so finding nothing doesn't mean nothing was run.
LPix: AI Photo Video Generator (Imgori LLC): why it managed to take off
- Channel: Google Play, package name
com.templategenerator.aivideomaker, category Video Players & Editors - Developer: Imgori LLC (registered address 1209 Mountain Road Pl NE Ste N, Albuquerque, NM. This is a common registered-agent address in New Mexico that many overseas teams use to register US LLCs. The support email is a Gmail address: [email protected])
- Store launch 2026-10-11; updated to version 10-28 on 7.0; the page shows "contains ads, contains in-app purchases," with IAP priced at $3.39–$59.99
- Research date 2026-11-06
Bottom line
It didn't really "take off" on its own. It's a reskinned "AI photo/video template" tool from a small workshop that monetizes through ads. The jump in the data (starting 10-30, about 10k installs over 9 days) most likely came from launch installs the developer paid for. The sources cluster in cheap-install regions like Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and the Philippines, and the ratings-to-installs ratio is unusually high, with reviews from people who rated the app after "not trying it yet." Compared with peers it's also much smaller: Mistmere, in the same category over the same period, gained 230k in 7 days.
1. Data (from our googleplay database, 2026-10-29 to 11-06)
| Date | Total installs | Score | Star distribution [1★, 2★, 3★, 4★, 5★] |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-29 | 19 | — | — |
| 10-31 | 1,454 | 129 | [21,0,0,0,107] |
| 11-02 | 1,454 | 309 | [61,0,0,30,216] |
| 11-03 | 6,613 | 335 | [74,0,0,37,223] |
| 11-05 | 8,675 | 468 | [93,0,140,46,187] |
| 11-06 | 9,783 | 558 | [128,0,128,42,257] |
- AppstoreSpy estimate (app_day_ext): from launch on 10-11 to 10-29, the app averaged only 1–2 installs a day. On 10-30 it jumped by +1,435, then ran 1,000–1,700 a day afterward. In other words, for nearly three weeks after launch almost nobody installed it, then 10-30 volume switched on suddenly. This was not gradual organic growth.
- The store page (read via Jina for 2026-11-06) shows 5K+ downloads, 3.8 stars, and 602 ratings, but only about 20 reviews contain text.
- Charts: it has only been on category free charts. On Nigeria's Video Players free chart, 10-29 it ranked #186, with a best of #63 (11-02). From 11-01 in South Africa it sat between #144 and #165; from 11-05 Italy, Spain, and Poland also entered at #127–#195. It has never charted on the overall or top-grossing charts (library chart_rank).
- The same developer also has Baby Tracker: Pregnancy App in the library (launched 2026-07-16, 427k cumulative installs, +45k over 7 days). AppBrain and AppGoblin list 4–5 apps under its name, including Live TV - TV Shows & Movies (AppBrain reports 1M+) and Crosshair: Custom Aim & Scope. The website imgori.dev uses a templated landing page, and the sample app linked on it has the package name
com.ikram.expensemanager.
2. Competitors
The niche is "AI photo-to-video / template effects / AI portraits," one of the most crowded categories on Google Play, mostly mass-produced by workshops from Vietnam, India, Pakistan, and Chinese tool makers going global. All figures come from the library's googleplay app_profile, as of 2026-11-06.
| Competitors | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from LPix |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mistmere: AI Photo Video Maker(Funkedenic) | Android | 2026-10-16 | 235k installs, +230k over 7 days, #1 on Mexico's Photography free chart | Launched almost at the same time. Its install ramp is about 25 times LPix's, and its buy volume is in a different league. |
| Nexus - AI Video Generator(DQL TechLab) | Android | 2026-03-24 | 12.4M, +1.85M in 7 days | A leading copycat shop; the same company also runs Lynix (9.06M) |
| Vidix - AI Photo Video Generator(Supercool Labs) | Android | 2025-11-27 | 30.2M, 7 days +700k | Nearly the same name and features, and an earlier version that grew bigger |
| Framly - AI Photo Video Maker(NXL AI Solutions) | Android | 2026-05-14 | 4.71M | Same product |
| AI Video Generator(Butter Soft) | Android | 2026-01-26 | 1.65M, #22 on the Nigeria chart | On the same Nigeria video category chart, ranked much higher |
| AI Video Generator - AI Photo(Kayle AI Solution) | Android | 2026-03-27 | 2.59M, #45 on the Nigeria chart | Same product |
| PixVerse (official app) | Android / iOS / web | 2024-09 | 79.6M, near the top of several countries' Photography top-grossing charts | The real thing with its own model, and one of the sources of the template approach |
| CapCut / Canva / Picsart | Android / iOS | Legacy product | Hundreds of millions to 2B installs | The big companies' editors already have AI video built in. CapCut ranks #1 on the same Nigeria chart. |
| Google Photos "photo to video" | Big-company features | 2025 years | System-level (exact volume unverified) | Free, built in |
Bottom line: dozens of similar products exist. LPix has no recognizable difference in features, name, or screenshots, and in scale it sits at the bottom tier of its peers.
3. Growth tactics: where users come from
- Buying installs in cheap regions (most likely incentivized installs, possibly low-CPI campaigns): medium-high confidence, no direct evidence.
- The growth came in steps: before 10-29 it averaged 1–2 installs a day, then on 10-30 it jumped by +1,435 (AppstoreSpy estimate / library app_day).
- Geography: about 20 English reviews are visible, and the names are almost all from West Africa, southern Africa, and the Philippines, such as Kehinde Daniel Bamitogba, IWOWARI Kuroghoekigha, Gifty Duvor, Bernice A. N Ahorli, Asonwabise Khonto, OUBAIDU MOUTARI, Edgar Calabia, and Priscilla Estanislao. The first chart it entered and its best-ranking storefront were also both Nigeria (library chart_rank).
- The ratings-to-installs ratio is unusual: 10-31 is 129/1,454 ≈ 8.9%, and 11-06 is 558/9,783 ≈ 5.7%. Typical utility apps usually sit around 1% (an industry rule of thumb, unverified).
- Review content: "l have not tried it." (5 stars), "I didn't try it yet. After trying i can rate better," "happy birthday to my daughter," "pp Gold 3.," "MOUTARI MOUTARI." The texts are very short and unrelated to the product. This is a classic sign of task-wall or incentivized users (install, then rate) or a rating prompt that fires on first open.
- The star distribution is abnormal: the 2-star count has stayed at 0; the 5-star count fell from 216 to 223, then 206, then 187, and climbed back to 257; 3-star ratings jumped from 41 to 140 in a single day. It looks like ratings are being filtered or rolled back by Google, or a batch of ratings came in at once.
- Italy, Spain, and Poland only entered the chart from 11-05, which suggests Europe may have been added to the buy later (unverified).
- Ad mediation aggregation, used to recoup costs (confirmed). imgori.dev/app-ads.txt lists AdMob (2 pubs), Meta Audience Network (3), Pangle, Unity, AppLovin, Mintegral, TopOn (a Chinese aggregation platform), and a string of resellers. The money comes back mainly through interstitial and rewarded video ads, with in-app purchases ($3.39–$59.99 in credits or subscriptions) as extra revenue.
- App Store / ASO (inferred). The title and description are stuffed with search terms like "AI Video Generator", "Photo to Video", "Video Editor", "Photo Editor", "Compress Photos", and the package name keeps the old templategenerator while the brand is now LPix. At this install count, though, organic search contributes very little.
- Channels we could not find: our Meta, Google, and TikTok ad libraries have neither this package name nor Imgori (those libraries only track products on our list, so a miss does not mean no spend). Searching "LPix AI" on TikTok only returns other apps' content like PixVerse and PixAI. On X (x-radar, last 30 days) there are zero mentions. Online there are only auto-generated aggregator pages like AppBrain, Softonic, and AppGoblin, with no press or creator coverage.
4. Why it took off
- Why users show up now: AI photo-to-video, dance effects, and portrait templates have had steady demand in emerging markets for 2025–2026, and CPI is cheap there. LPix was built to ride that wave by wrapping existing templates.
- Where installs come from: most likely the developer bought launch volume in places like Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and the Philippines, aiming to push up category charts and build ratings.
- Why people stay or pay: there is no evidence of good retention. The 3.8-star and 1-star shares are rising (21 → 128), and no review mentions anything specific that works well. Revenue most likely comes mainly from ad impressions, not subscriptions.
5. Differentiation
There is no identifiable differentiation. The feature list is a grab bag of "text-to-video + image-to-video + portraits + enhancement + cutout + slideshow editing + image compression," and dozens of same-named, same-function apps exist in this category. The package name templategenerator plus version 7.0 suggests it is a reskinned old shell. It is surfacing only because the base is tiny, so the 7-day growth percentage looks dramatic. That is not because the product is different.
6. How many people have seen it
Almost nobody knows about it. No revenue is public, and there is no press, X coverage, or TikTok content. But "nobody knows it" does not mean "the opportunity is still open." The category is already crowded, and Vidix, Nexus, and Mistmere above are what this business actually looks like when it works.
7. What others can borrow
- The standard playbook for this kind of workshop: register a US LLC as a shell, reskin an old package into a trending category, buy a few thousand launch installs in cheap markets like Nigeria, South Africa, and the Philippines, build ratings and push category charts, then recoup with multi-network ad mediation and in-app coins, and decide whether to scale into Europe and the US based on the data. LPix stopped at step one.
- If you want to study one that actually ran, Mistmere (Funkedenic, listed 10-16, +7k in 230 days) is more worth your time, since it was live at the same time.
8. Still unclear
- Whether the launch came from incentivized installs (offerwalls), low-CPI buying, or Google UAC: no direct evidence from ad creatives or ad platforms was obtained.
- Retention and revenue are completely unknown. Whether the in-app purchases are subscriptions or coins was also not verified by actually opening the app.
- We did not verify which team is behind Imgori. The
com.ikrampackage name in the site's template and the TopOn aggregation are only leads. - Only about 20 reviews are visible, so the regional read relies mainly on reviewer names.
Sources
- Library googleplay: app_snap, app_day, app_day_ext (AppstoreSpy estimate), chart_rank, app, developer, app_profile (2026-11-06 queries)
- Store page play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.templategenerator.… (read via Jina on 2026-11-06); reviews pulled with google-play-scraper (us / ng / gh / it stores)
- imgori.dev/, imgori.dev/app-ads.txt
- www.appbrain.com/dev/Imgori+LLC/ (search snippet), www.appgoblin.info/developers/Imgori+LLC
- Libraries metaads / googleads / tiktokads: no hits. TikHub search for "LPix AI": nothing relevant. x-radar search for "LPix": 0 results