Choosing who does your ASO

ASO agency, ASO tool or ASO agent: what each costs and who does the work

An ASO agency usually costs $2,500 to $10,000 or more a month on a retainer that runs at least 3 to 6 months, and its team does the keyword research, metadata, creative testing and reporting for you, while a self-serve ASO tool starts around $69 a month but leaves every change to you.

Hire your ASO Agent See pricing

No credit cardFree tier with 200 AI creditsCancel anytime

$2,500+

A month, the low end of agency retainers

3 to 6

Months most agencies ask you to commit

$19

A month for Forvibe's ASO Agent

The short answer

A freelance ASO consultant sits between the two, typically charging $1,500 to $4,000 for a one-off audit, metadata refresh or strategic review, after which the ongoing work is yours again. An ASO agent is the fourth option: software that does the recurring work itself, every day in the markets that matter to the app, and asks before it changes anything. An agency is the better choice when an app has the store traffic to finish real tests, needs creative and brand work across many markets or on Google Play, and the team wants people accountable for the results; for an app with little traffic, at least one agency's own pricing page says to start with a one-time audit instead of a monthly retainer. Forvibe's ASO Agent costs $19 a month on Indie Dev or $49 on Startup and works on the App Store in 2 or 5 markets of your choice, out of the 40 countries Forvibe tracks: it changes keywords and wording, adds listing languages, builds custom product pages and replies to reviews on both stores, measures each change at 7 and 28 days, and leaves submitting app versions to a person.

The symptoms of picking the wrong kind of ASO help

A monthly retainer for an app with a few hundred store visitors a day, paying for experiments its traffic can never finish.

An ASO tool subscription whose dashboard nobody has opened since the first week, so rankings are tracked carefully and never acted on.

A one-off audit that produced a good keyword list, applied once and never revisited while competitors kept changing their listings.

A burst of listing changes before a launch, and nobody checking a month later which of them moved rank or conversion.

The work ASO involves on the App Store, whoever does it

App Store search reads an app's title, subtitle, keyword field and category, and weighs how people respond to the listing. So ASO is recurring work across keywords, wording, screenshots, tests and reviews, market by market, and each result takes weeks to read.

Text decides what you rank for: Search matches the title, subtitle, keywords and primary category. The keyword field holds 100 characters.
Behavior decides how high: Downloads, ratings and reviews also shape search results, so conversion and reviews are part of ASO.
A page for each audience: Up to 70 custom product pages per app, each with keywords of its own, reviewed without an app update.
Tests take weeks: A product page test runs for up to 90 days, and Apple calls a result at 90% confidence.
Reviews keep coming: You can answer any review, whenever it was written, and Apple tells the reviewer you did.
Every language is its own work: Custom product pages and test treatments are set up per localization, so each language you sell in adds to the list.

Read the full explanation

Apple describes App Store search as matching on text relevance, meaning the app's title, subtitle, keywords and primary category, and on user behavior such as downloads, ratings and reviews. The keyword field holds 100 characters of comma-separated terms, words already in the name, subtitle or category are wasted there, and promotional text does not affect search ranking at all. That makes ASO two jobs that never finish. One is choosing the words: which searches an app can realistically rank for in each country, and how to fit them into a title, a subtitle and a 100-character field. The other is conversion: screenshots, previews and reviews that turn a search result into a download, because downloads and ratings feed back into rank. Apple gives that second job its own tools. Up to 70 custom product pages per app can each carry their own screenshots, previews, promotional text and keywords, reach people through their own link or search, and go to review independently of an app update. Product page optimization tests up to three versions of the default page for up to 90 days and calls a result once a treatment reaches 90% confidence. Reviews keep arriving, and Apple lets developers answer any of them, whenever it was written, with the reviewer notified of the reply. Custom product pages and test treatments are set up per localization, and what people search for differs from one country to the next, so the work multiplies with each market an app sells in, and each change takes weeks to show what it did. The choice between an agency, a freelancer, a tool and an agent is a choice about who does that recurring work, how often, and at what price: an agency's team does it on its own schedule, a freelancer does a round of it once, a tool hands you the data to do it yourself, and an agent does the routine part daily and asks before it acts.

What each option costs and who does the work

Option	What it costs	What you get	Who makes the changes	Better when
ASO agency	$2,500 to $10,000+ a month for most retainers, $7,000 to $15,000+ for full-service specialists. Admiral Media starts at €2,900 a month for one app in one market, plus €1,500 a month per extra market or language. Most agencies ask for 3 to 6 months.	A team doing keyword research, metadata, creative testing and conversion reporting	The agency's team, with your sign-off	You have the traffic to finish tests, many markets, creative and brand work or Google Play to cover, and want people accountable for results
Freelance ASO consultant	$1,500 to $4,000 for a one-off audit, metadata refresh or strategic review. Some bill by the hour instead.	An expert's plan and a refreshed listing, once	The consultant during the project, then you	You want one expert review and have the time to keep the listing up afterwards
Self-serve ASO tool	From about $69 a month for entry-level tools, up to hundreds a month for advanced suites, plus your own hours	Keyword data, rank tracking and competitor monitoring	You, every time	Someone on your team knows ASO and has hours every week to act on the data
ASO agent (Forvibe)	$19 a month on Indie Dev or $49 on Startup, $190 or $490 a year	Daily keyword, wording, language, custom product page and review reply work, each change measured at 7 and 28 days	The agent: after your approval in Ask first, or on its own in Full auto once you have approved that kind of change. You submit app versions	You're an indie developer or a small team on the App Store and want the daily work done for the price of a tool

Agency, freelancer and tool prices as published by the two agencies below, checked on 20 October 2026. Admiral Media lists its own prices as of September 2026; AppAgent's figures are its 2026 guide to market rates. Agencies quote per app, store and market, so a real proposal can differ.

How to choose between an agency, a freelancer, a tool and an agent

Start from your store traffic
Tests and conversion work need visitors. If your product page sees little traffic, a monthly retainer pays for experiments that can't finish, which is why Admiral Media, itself an agency, tells apps with little traffic to start with an audit.
Count the markets and languages
Every country has its own searches and its own listing. Admiral Media adds €1,500 a month for each extra market or language, tools price by tracked keywords and countries, and Forvibe's ASO Agent covers 2 markets on Indie Dev and 5 on Startup.
Decide who will make the changes
A tool is only worth the hours someone puts into it. If nobody on the team will open it every week, you are paying for data, not for ASO.
List what needs a person
Brand positioning, app preview videos, Google Play listings and paid campaigns still need people. If those are most of the job, an agency or a freelancer fits better than software. Forvibe's ASO Agent works on App Store listings, custom product pages and review replies.
Compare a year, not a month
Six months of a $2,500 retainer is $15,000 before the first renewal. A $69 tool is $828 a year plus your hours. Forvibe's ASO Agent is $190 a year on Indie Dev and $490 on Startup.
Ask how each change is measured
Rank and conversion take weeks to settle, so a change with no check at a fixed time afterwards is a guess. Whoever does the work should say when and how they measure it. Forvibe's ASO Agent checks every change at 7 and 28 days.

Questions, answered

Most ASO agency retainers run $2,500 to $10,000 or more a month, and full-service specialist agencies charge $7,000 to $15,000 or more, according to AppAgent's 2026 pricing guide. Admiral Media publishes a starting price of €2,900 a month for one app in one market, plus €1,500 a month for each extra market or language. A one-off audit costs $2,000 to $7,000 by AppAgent's figures, or €2,500 at Admiral Media. Most agencies ask for a commitment of 3 to 6 months.

AppAgent puts a freelancer's one-off audit, metadata refresh or strategic review at roughly $1,500 to $4,000. Some consultants bill by the hour instead, usually when they advise an in-house team. After the project, keeping the listing up is your job again.

Usually not at the start. Admiral Media's own pricing page tells apps with little store traffic to begin with a one-time audit and a metadata update rather than a monthly retainer, because the traffic can't power the experiments a retainer pays for. An agency starts to pay off when the app has steady traffic, several markets and real creative work to do.

When the work is mostly judgment and creative: brand positioning, app preview videos, large creative tests across many markets, Google Play listings, or ASO coordinated with paid campaigns. Also when you want named people accountable for results. An ASO agent is better at the recurring part, daily rank checks, keyword and wording changes, new languages, custom product pages and review replies, at a small fraction of the price.

An ASO tool collects data, keyword popularity, ranks and competitors, and leaves every change to you. An ASO agent reads the same data and acts on it: it proposes or makes listing changes, measures them, and uses the result to pick the next change. Forvibe has both: ASO Studio is the tool, and the ASO Agent acts on it every day.

It doesn't submit app versions: it writes its changes into the version being prepared, and a person adds the build and submits it. It doesn't change Google Play listings; on Google Play it replies to reviews. It doesn't run Apple Ads campaigns, and it never applies a product page test's winner, which a person does in App Store Connect.

How Forvibe does this