The best ASO tool for each job
Eight picks, verified prices, and the person each one is wrong for.
The short answer
There is no single best ASO tool. Which one is right turns on four things: whether you ship on Android too, whether anyone else needs to log in, whether your bill should grow with your research, and whether you need keyword history from before you started.
- One developer, App Store onlyASO Studio
- No budget at allAppFollow
- A marketing team on both storesAppTweak
- Your own downloads and revenueAppfigures
- Sizing a market you do not ship in yetSensor Tower
- Apple Search Ads alongside organicMobileAction
- Wiring ASO into scripts and AI agentsSonar
- An agency with a roster of client appsApp Radar
One dot per tool, all 18 of them, counted from the same verified table the comparison pages use. Four questions cut this market further than any feature list does.
The picks
Eight jobs, and the tool that wins each one.
Not a leaderboard. These are eight different questions, and the answer changes completely depending on which one you are asking.
- 01
Best for
One developer, App Store only
ASO StudioASO Studiothis site
$59.99a year, everything included
ASO Studio is the best ASO tool for a solo iOS developer: one flat yearly price, no cap on apps or keywords, and a native Mac app that keeps your research on your own machine.
Most of this tier is good, and what separates them is what happens as your research grows. Nearly all of them meter something, keywords, apps or seats, so the bill moves every time you look at a new term. This one meters nothing, and its MCP server runs as a socket on your Mac, so an AI agent can read your keywords without any of it leaving the machine.
Not for you ifApp Store only, with no Google Play and none planned. One person per licence, so there is nothing to share with a colleague. And it never reads your App Store Connect sales data, so your own revenue is not in it. If any of those three matter, buy something else on this page.
Runner-upAstro, the same idea in a different reading, also a Mac app and also Apple only.
Full disclosure: this is the site you are on. It wins one of the eight jobs here and loses the other seven, which is the honest count.
- 02
Best for
No budget at all
AppFollowAppFollow
FreeASO from $19 a month, Team $599
AppFollow has the most generous free plan in App Store Optimization: two apps and twenty keywords a month, permanently, with no card.
Free plans in this category are usually a trial wearing a different name. AppFollow's is a real plan that does not expire, and Applyra's runs it close at one app and five keywords. AppDrift and FoxData both publish open ASO calculators you can use with no account at all.
Not for you ifTwenty keywords a month runs out inside a week of real research, and AppFollow's centre of gravity is review management rather than keyword work. Treat the free plan as a way to find out whether you need a paid one.
Runner-upApplyra, whose free plan is smaller but whose paid step up is the cheapest on the page.
ASO Studio's free tool is the App Rating checker, which scores any App Store app out of 100 against the leaders in its own category with no account. It is a one-shot audit, not keyword tracking.
- 03
Best for
A marketing team on both stores
AppTweakAppTweak
$949a year on Essential, up to $549 a month
AppTweak is the best ASO tool for a marketing team: seats, both app stores, ad and creative intelligence, and up to two years of keyword history that predates your account.
Everything in the indie tier assumes one person at one Mac. AppTweak assumes a department, with shared reporting, alerting into Slack, and backdated history, which is the single thing no new tool can manufacture for you at any price.
Not for you ifThe entry plan caps keywords and ships one seat, and the value only appears once several people are logged in. For one developer it is the wrong shape of bill by an order of magnitude.
Runner-upApp Radar, which tiers on apps, keywords, competitors and seats together and quotes in euros.
- 04
Best for
Your own downloads and revenue
AppfiguresAppfigures
$9.99a month on Connect, keyword tools from $149.99
Appfigures connects to App Store Connect and Google Play and reports your real installs, revenue and subscription metrics, rather than estimating them.
Every tool on this page models a competitor's numbers from public signals, because Apple publishes none of them to anyone. Appfigures does that too, but it is also the one that reads your own account, so the figures for your app are Apple's own rather than a model's.
Not for you ifThe keyword tooling most people arrive for sits well above the entry plan. Budget for the Optimize tier, not for the headline figure on the pricing page.
Runner-upASO.dev, which automates against the App Store Connect API rather than reporting on it.
- 05
Best for
Sizing a market you do not ship in yet
Sensor TowerSensor Tower
Not publishedcustom annual contract
Sensor Tower holds the download and revenue estimate set the rest of the industry quotes, with the category and country depth to match.
When a news story cites an app's revenue, that figure usually started here. For sizing a market, building a deck or researching a category before you commit to it, nothing in the indie tier is a substitute.
Not for you ifNo published price, no self-serve sign-up, no free tier. It is an annual contract with a salesperson attached, and the answer to how much is a call.
Runner-upFoxData, which sells a similar shape of intelligence in separately priced products.
- 06
Best for
Apple Search Ads alongside organic
MobileActionMobileAction
$15a month on ASO Lite, Pro $239
MobileAction puts Apple Search Ads campaign management in the same account as the keyword research feeding it.
Paid and organic App Store search run on the same terms, so the useful thing is one tool that reads both at once. Ads products are MobileAction's centre rather than a bolt-on, and the ASO side starts cheap enough to try first.
Not for you ifThe keyword depth people actually compare it on sits a couple of tiers above the entry plan, so the price you start at is not the price you end up paying.
Runner-upSplitMetrics Optimize, if creative and store-page testing matters more to you than the keyword side.
A connected Apple Search Ads account is also the one source of unestimated demand data Apple hands out. ASO Studio reads it too, at no extra cost, if you connect one.
- 07
Best for
Wiring ASO into scripts and AI agents
SonarSonar
$189a year on Indie, Agency $99 a month
Sonar ships a REST API, a CLI and an MCP server at its indie price, which is the widest automation surface published at this end of the market.
Most ASO tools put an API one tier above the plan you were going to buy, or do not publish one at all. Sonar gives you all three, so an agent, a cron job and a build script can read the same data without an upgrade.
Not for you ifIt is a hosted web app, so everything your agent reads travels through someone else's servers. If that is the objection, the answer is a local server rather than a bigger plan.
Runner-upASO Studio, whose MCP server is narrower but runs as a socket on your own Mac that only your account can read.
- 08
Best for
An agency with a roster of client apps
App RadarApp Radar
€690a year on Essentials, up to €299 a month
App Radar tiers on apps, keywords, competitors and seats at once, which is the combination a client roster actually grows on.
Agencies break the pricing model of most of these tools, because they add apps and people in the same month. App Radar prices for both together, and Sonar's Agency plan does the same thing at a lower ceiling if the roster is small.
Not for you ifPrices are quoted in euros, the trial is seven days and it asks for a card up front. Work the figure out in your own currency before you commit to a year of it.
Runner-upGummicube, if you would rather hand the work to an agency than run one.
How these were picked
Five things decided every one of them.
None of them is a feature. Features are where these tools look most alike; the things below are where they actually differ.
- 01
A price you can actually read
Every figure on this site was read off the vendor's own page and carries the date it was checked. Three of the eighteen publish nothing at all, and that is recorded as a fact rather than filled in with a guess.
If a roundup quotes a price with no date on it, assume it is stale.
- 02
What the bill does when your research grows
Per-keyword and per-app tiers charge you more for doing more of the work you bought the tool to do. Flat pricing does not. That gap is small in month one and decides the whole thing by month twelve.
Price the plan you will be on in a year, not the one you sign up for.
- 03
Whether the estimates admit to being estimates
Apple publishes no App Store search volume and no download figures, to anyone. Every demand and revenue number in every tool here is modelled from public signals, and the trustworthy ones say so on the screen.
A tool presenting a modelled figure as Apple's own is telling you something about itself.
- 04
Which stores, and who else logs in
These two questions eliminate more of the list than every feature comparison put together. Android support rules out three tools immediately, and team seats are most of what the mid-market tier is really selling.
Answer both before you read a single feature table.
- 05
What you get without paying
A permanent free plan, a card-free trial, a seven-day trial that wants a card, and open calculators with no account are four different offers. Only two of them let you find out whether the tool is any good before you commit.
A free plan that expires is a trial, whatever the pricing page calls it.
Where these numbers come from.Every figure on this page was read off the vendor’s own pricing page on August 21, 2026 and is linked to its source in the full table. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the page says so rather than estimating. Nobody here pays to be listed and there are no affiliate links on this site.
What is the best ASO tool?
It depends on four things, and any page that names one winner without asking them is selling you something.
For one developer working the App Store on a Mac, ASO Studio: $59.99 a year with no cap on apps or keywords. For a marketing team across both stores, AppTweak. For a genuinely free plan, AppFollow. For your own downloads and revenue rather than estimates of them, Appfigures. For sizing a market, Sensor Tower.
The four questions that decide it are whether you ship on Android as well as iOS, whether anyone else needs to log in, whether your bill should move when your research does, and whether you need keyword history from before you started tracking.
What is the best free ASO tool?
AppFollow publishes the most generous free plan: two apps and twenty keywords a month, permanently, with no card. Applyra's free plan covers one app and five keywords. AppDrift and FoxData both offer open ASO calculators with no account at all, and ASO Studio's App Rating checker scores any App Store app out of 100 with no sign-up. None of these will carry a serious keyword programme, but all of them will tell you whether you need to pay for one.
Which ASO tool is best for indie developers?
The indie tier runs from free to about $250 a year and several of the tools in it are good. The distinction that matters is metering: most charge by keywords, apps or seats, so the bill grows with your research. ASO Studio and Astro are both flat-priced Mac apps for the App Store only, Applyra and AppDrift both have permanent free plans covering both stores, and Sonar is the one with a full API at that price.
Why does every list of the best ASO tools name a different winner?
Because most of them are published by one of the tools, or by an affiliate paid per signup. Read whose site a roundup is on before you read the ranking. This page is on a vendor's site too: ASO Studio is one of the eighteen tools here, and it is named for one of the eight jobs, the one it is built for.
How much should an ASO tool cost?
The published range is about $9 a month at the bottom to $549 a month at the top, with three vendors publishing nothing and quoting per customer. A solo developer has no reason to spend more than a couple of hundred dollars a year, and the jump to four figures buys team seats, Android, ad intelligence and backdated history rather than better keyword data.
Do ASO tools show real App Store search volume?
No, and none of them can. Apple publishes no search-volume figures for the App Store, so every popularity or demand number in every tool is modelled from public signals such as how readily the store surfaces a term, how many apps compete for it and how large those apps are. The one exception is Apple Search Ads, which hands connected advertisers Apple's own 1 to 100 search popularity for a term.
Do I need an ASO tool at all?
Not to start. You can check demand and competition by hand in the App Store itself, one term at a time. A tool earns its price once you are comparing dozens of terms and want them scored the same way every time, and the first time it stops you spending your app name on a keyword nobody searches it has usually paid for itself.
One of the eight
If you are the first one, this is the site you want.
One developer, App Store only, on a Mac. $59.99/yr a year, unlimited apps and keywords, and a free App Rating check that needs no account at all.