GUIDE
ASO tools for indie developers, compared
Prices and features checked · 6 min read
Written by one of the tools on this list, so read it accordingly: the numbers come from each vendor's own pricing page on 27 August 2026, and the "what it is for" column is our opinion, not theirs.
The list, side by side
| Tool | Entry price | Caps at entry | Free tier | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlaso | $29/mo | no app or keyword cap, 1 user | One full run, free | Deciding what to build, and tracking it after |
| Appfigures | $9.99/mo | 25 keywords, 5 apps | Yes, a real free plan | Your own downloads, revenue and ranks |
| App Radar | €69/mo | 2 apps, 500 keywords, 1 seat | Trial only, 7 days | Managing and optimising store listings |
| AppTweak | £79/mo | 500 keywords, 1 seat | Trial only, 7 days | Full ASO suite for teams and agencies |
| Sensor Tower | Not published | Quote-based | None listed | Market intelligence at company scale |
They are not competing for the same job
Most "best ASO tools" lists rank products as if they were interchangeable. They are not. Sort them by the question they answer and the choice gets easy:
- How is my app doing? Appfigures. It connects to your store account and reports the numbers only you can see. Nothing here replaces that.
- How do I rank higher for the terms I picked? A keyword suite: AppTweak, or App Radar if you also want to edit and publish the listing.
- What is happening in this market, defensibly, for a board? Sensor Tower, and a sales call.
- What should I build, or which niche should I enter? That is the gap this product was made for, and the one most suites leave alone.
What to actually check before paying
- What is metered. Keywords, apps and seats are three separate meters, and a tool that meters all three gets expensive quietly. Ask what happens at 300 keywords rather than 30.
- Whether the estimates are labelled. Downloads, revenue and search volume are modelled by everyone, including us. A tool that presents a model as a measurement is the one to distrust.
- Whether you can read the output before buying. A demo shows the UI. The output is what you are paying for.
- Whether the method is published. If a score cannot be argued with, it cannot be checked either. Ours is public in full.
Start with the free half
Before any of this: Apple gives away chart feeds, search results, review feeds and autocomplete, and App Store Connect covers your own app. The free ASO tools guide lists what that gets you and where it stops.
From us, free and with no account: one complete Scout run, all 25 categories across the US, UK and Turkey, and a keyword difficulty checker. Read the run first. If the ideas in it are not useful, no pricing table matters.
Questions
- What is the cheapest real ASO tool?
- Appfigures has a genuinely free plan and a $9.99 entry tier, though that tier tracks only 25 keywords. Atlaso starts at $29 with no keyword or app cap. Everything else on this list starts between €69 and £79 a month.
- Which ASO tool tells me what to build?
- That is a different job from keyword tracking, and most suites do not do it. Atlaso scores 25 categories across six storefronts for underserved openings and publishes one complete run free, so you can check the output before paying.
- Do I need a paid ASO tool at all?
- Not to start. Apple's chart feeds, search results, review feeds and autocomplete are public, and App Store Connect covers your own app. A paid tool buys history, scale and the joins between those sources.