The present disclosure is directed toward systems and methods for ranking media effects. For example, systems and methods described herein enable a user to select and apply one or more media effects to a media communication such as a digital photograph or video. Systems and methods described herein identify and rank media effects based on characteristics associated with the user and the user's client-computing device. Furthermore, systems and methods described herein automatically present the top-ranked media effects to the user such that the user can easily select and apply one or more media effects that are tailored specifically to the user.