What ChatGPT plugin should I build? Where the directory is crowded, and where it’s still open

How many plugins are in the ChatGPT directory?

The directory lists nearly 10,000 plugins: nearly 9,000 apps and about 1,100 Codex plugins. Around 250 new ones go public every day.

The pace keeps rising. Makers created more than five times as many plugins in October as they did in January.

For a new plugin, that means more neighbours every week. The good news: most of them pile into the same few places.

Which categories are the most crowded?

Two categories hold 4 in 10 plugins: Productivity (about 2,300) and Business & Operations (about 1,600). Other holds about fewer than 1 in 10.

The same categories also grow fastest. Productivity, Business & Operations, Developer Tools, Finance, Education & Research, Creativity and Data & Analytics each added more than 100 plugins in the past week. Scientific Research have fewer than 60 plugins each.

A big category isn’t a problem by itself. Category pages follow the directory’s own order, which you can’t do much about. In search, your listing’s words count, so what matters is how many plugins compete for the words your users type.

Which niches have the most plugins?

Group plugins by what they do and the crowding gets clearer. These niches each have 110 plugins or more with the niche in their name or tagline:

SEO and marketing leads, and new ones keep coming: 92 in the last month. Video is close behind.

In a niche like this, a generic name puts you in a line of look-alikes. The plugins that rank describe one job in plain words.

Which niches are still open?

Some everyday needs still have only a handful of plugins:

Fewer plugins means fewer rivals for every search in that niche. Before you build, check that people want it:

1. Search the directory for the words your users would type. If a search returns two or three plugins, the top spot is within reach.
2. Ask ChatGPT for the task in a normal sentence and see which plugin, if any, it suggests.
3. Look at who already ranks. A niche led by small or abandoned plugins is easier to take than one led by a big brand.

Who publishes dozens of plugins?

About 2 in 10 plugins come from publishers with more than one listing, and a few publish at a scale no single maker can match:

• Widget has about 70 small utilities: calculators, timers, puzzles, horoscopes.
• One solo developer lists more than 50 general AI tools, from résumé builders to logo makers.

These catalogs tend to fill the broad, easy niches first: calculators, generic writing and design helpers, horoscopes. Competing with them on breadth is a losing game. Competing on depth works: one job, done properly, described in the words people search.

How do I stand out in a crowded niche?

Directory search leans on two fields: the plugin’s name and its tagline. More than 6 in 10 plugins in a search’s top 10 have the search term in one of them.

• Name the job, not the brand. “Invoice Maker for Freelancers” matches more searches than a made-up word.
• Go narrower than the niche. “Real-estate listing writer” has far fewer rivals than “real estate”.
• Use the tagline for a second phrase people search, instead of repeating the name.
• Fill in the listing. Starter prompts and screenshots are what people see once they find you, and they decide whether they install. OpenAI counts installs and active use toward ranking.

The full playbook is in why a plugin isn’t showing up in search.

How do I claim an open niche?

In a quiet niche, the first plugin with the right words in its name tends to keep the top spot. Over a week, the #1 result stays the same in most searches, while fewer than 1 in 10 searches keep the same top 10.

• Put the niche word in your name on day one. Every week without it is a week someone else can take the spot.
• Cover the two or three phrases people use for the task: “recipe”, “meal plan”, “what to cook”.
• Watch your position every week. When a newcomer shows up, you’ll see it before you lose traffic.

Plugins Radar tracks this for you: how to track rankings and competitors.

Does a crowded directory matter inside ChatGPT?

It matters less than you’d think. When ChatGPT looks for a plugin in a conversation, it returns a small, steady set: about 190 different plugins came back across more than 490 in-chat searches, out of nearly 10,000 listed.

So the directory is where people browse and compare. In chat, ChatGPT favors plugins that people already install and keep using. How in-chat suggestions work.