The Indie Developer's ASO Stack: Everything You Need for Under $20/Month

Why You Do Not Need Sensor Tower: The Enterprise Trap

Enterprise ASO platforms like Sensor Tower, data.ai, and AppTweak are built for companies managing portfolios of 50 or more apps with million-dollar user acquisition budgets. Their feature lists are impressive: historical keyword rankings, download estimates across every country, ad intelligence, SDK analytics, cross-app portfolio management, and executive dashboards.

They also cost $400 to $800 per month for meaningful access. Some enterprise contracts run into the thousands.

For an indie developer with one to three apps generating a few hundred dollars a month, this pricing model makes zero financial sense. You are not just overpaying -- you are paying for capabilities that are irrelevant to your situation. Cross-app portfolio management does not matter when you have one app. SDK analytics do not matter when you are not running attribution. Ad intelligence does not matter when you have no ad budget.

The enterprise ASO trap works like this: you read a blog post (probably written by one of these companies) explaining that "serious" ASO requires comprehensive tooling. You sign up for a trial. The dashboard is overwhelming but looks professional. You convince yourself the investment will pay off. Three months later, you have spent $1,200 and used maybe 5 percent of the features. Your downloads have barely moved because the tool gave you data, not direction.

Here is the reality: a well-assembled stack of affordable and free tools will cover 90 percent of what an indie developer actually needs for ASO. The remaining 10 percent -- historical ranking data, market intelligence, competitor download estimates -- becomes relevant only when your app has enough traction to justify the investment. That threshold is typically 5,000 to 10,000 monthly downloads.

This guide builds that stack, piece by piece, for under $20 per month.

The $0 Tier: Free Tools That Actually Work

Before spending a cent, max out the free tools available to you. They cover more ground than most developers realize. We compiled a full list in our guide to the best free ASO tools in 2026 -- here are the ones that matter most for a daily workflow.

App Store Connect Analytics

Apple gives every developer a surprisingly capable analytics dashboard at no additional cost beyond the $99/year developer program fee.

The reports worth checking weekly: Sources shows you where your downloads come from (App Store Search, App Store Browse, Web Referrer, App Referrer). If 70 percent of your installs come from search, that tells you ASO is your most important growth lever. Impressions vs. Product Page Views shows your tap-through rate from search results. A low tap-through rate means your icon, title, or first screenshot is not compelling enough. Product Page Views vs. Downloads shows your conversion rate. A low conversion rate means your screenshots, description, or ratings are not convincing users to install.

Check these three numbers weekly. If impressions are growing but conversion is flat, your metadata needs work. If impressions are declining, your keyword rankings are slipping. These signals tell you exactly where to focus without any third-party tool.

The main limitation: Apple does not show you which specific keywords are driving your search impressions. You know search is important, but not which search terms are performing. That is where supplementary tools come in.

Google Play Console Insights

If you are on Android, Google gives you even more than Apple does.

The Play Console's Acquisition Reports show you which search terms are actually driving installs -- not just impressions, but the specific queries that led to downloads. This is keyword-level data that Apple charges third parties hundreds of dollars to estimate, and Google hands it to you for free.

Store Listing Experiments let you A/B test your icon, feature graphic, screenshots, short description, and full description. You create two variants, Google splits your traffic, and after enough data accumulates, it tells you which version converts better. This feature alone replaces a significant chunk of what enterprise tools offer, and it runs directly inside the Play Console.

The catch: A/B tests require meaningful traffic volume to reach statistical significance. If your app gets 20 page views per day, a test might take two to three months to produce a conclusive result. But it is still free, still valuable, and still worth running even at low traffic.

Manual Autocomplete Research

The App Store and Play Store search bars are keyword research tools hiding in plain sight. Type a partial query -- "budget tr" -- and the autocomplete suggestions reflect what real users are actually searching for right now.

The systematic approach: start with 5 to 10 seed terms that describe your app's core functionality. For each seed term, type it into the App Store search bar and record all autocomplete suggestions. Then try variations: add a space after the term, change the last word, try synonyms. In 20 minutes, you can build a list of 50 to 100 relevant keywords that real users search for.

Document everything in a spreadsheet. Include the seed term, the autocomplete suggestion, and a rough priority based on how closely it matches your app. This list becomes the foundation of your keyword strategy.

The limitation: autocomplete tells you what people search for, but not how many people search for it. High on the autocomplete list generally means higher volume, but you do not get exact numbers. For most indie apps, this level of precision is sufficient.

Competitor Browsing and Analysis

You can extract a remarkable amount of intelligence from simply studying your competitors' listings. No tool required -- just open the App Store or Play Store and start reading.

For each of your top 5 competitors, document: their title structure (brand only, or brand plus keywords), their subtitle or short description keywords, the themes and captions on their screenshots, their rating and review count, their last update date, and which languages they have localized to.

This takes about 15 minutes per competitor. After analyzing 5, you will have a clear picture of the competitive landscape: what keywords the category is targeting, what screenshot styles are common, what gaps exist, and where there might be opportunities to differentiate.

Create a simple spreadsheet with columns for each data point. Update it monthly. Over time, you will notice patterns -- competitors changing their keywords, new apps entering the category, screenshot trends evolving. This competitive intelligence costs nothing and informs every other ASO decision you make.

The $5-10 Tier: One Affordable Tool That Does the Heavy Lifting

Free tools cover the basics, but they leave a significant gap: you are doing everything manually, which is time-consuming and error-prone. At the $5 to $10 per month level, one well-chosen tool can automate the most tedious parts of ASO work.

What to Look for in a Budget ASO Tool

At this price range, your tool should do three things well:

Automated keyword research. Instead of spending 30 minutes on autocomplete probing, the tool should analyze your listing and your competitors' listings to identify keyword opportunities you are missing.

Competitor identification and analysis. Manually browsing competitors works, but an automated tool can find competitors you did not know existed and extract structured data from their listings for easy comparison.

Listing scoring. A numerical score that benchmarks your listing against competitors gives you a clear starting point and a way to measure improvement over time.

What to skip at this budget: historical keyword ranking data, download estimates, and ad intelligence. These are nice to have but not essential when you are below 10,000 monthly downloads.

StoreLit and Similar Budget Options

StoreLit uses a pay-per-use model: $5 per ASO audit with no monthly subscription. Each audit pulls live data from your competitors -- actual titles, descriptions, keyword strategies, and ratings scraped directly from the App Store -- and generates specific recommendations for your listing. You also get an ASO score that benchmarks your listing against the competition.

The advantage of pay-per-use for indie developers is obvious: you only pay when you need an audit. If you optimize your listing once and wait six weeks to re-evaluate, you spend $5 total over six weeks instead of $25 to $70 in monthly subscription fees for a tool you barely used.

The trade-off is that you do not get continuous monitoring. A subscription tool that costs $25 per month might track your keyword rankings daily, which is valuable if you are making frequent changes and need rapid feedback. For most indie developers who update their listing once a month, the pay-per-use model is a better fit.

Other budget-friendly options in this range include AppFollow's free tier for review monitoring and App Radar's free tier for basic keyword suggestions. For a broader overview of what is available at every price point, check our roundup of the best ASO tools for indie developers. The best approach is to use one paid tool for your core audit workflow and supplement with free tiers of other tools for specific needs.

The $10-20 Tier: Adding Screenshot Creation

Professional screenshots are the second-highest-impact ASO investment after keyword optimization. At the $10 to $20 per month level, you can add screenshot creation to your stack.

Dedicated Screenshot Tools vs. Figma Free

You have two paths here, and the right choice depends on your design skills and time constraints.

Dedicated screenshot tools like AppScreens, Screenshot Maker Pro, or StoreLit's Screenshot Studio offer app-store-specific templates, device frames, and batch export for multiple screen sizes. They are optimized for one job: producing App Store and Play Store screenshots quickly. The workflow is: pick a template, drop in your screenshots, edit the captions, export. Total time for a full set of 6 to 10 screenshots: 30 to 60 minutes.

Figma's free tier gives you unlimited design flexibility. You can create any layout you want with any visual style. The trade-off is that you start from a blank canvas. You need to source your own device frame mockups, set up the correct export dimensions for each device size, and manage the layout yourself. If you have design experience, Figma produces better results. If you do not, it takes 3 to 5 times longer and the results may still look amateur.

For most indie developers, the dedicated tool is the better choice. Your time is your scarcest resource, and the templates in purpose-built screenshot tools encode design best practices -- proper text sizing, balanced layouts, professional device frames -- that would take hours to recreate in Figma.

The Sweet Spot Configuration

The optimal $15 to $20 per month stack combines one ASO analysis tool with one screenshot creation tool.

If you prioritize speed: Use a template-based screenshot tool ($10 to $15/month) plus periodic pay-per-use ASO audits ($5 per audit). This gets you professional screenshots in under an hour and data-backed keyword recommendations whenever you need them.

If you prioritize quality and flexibility: Use StoreLit's Screenshot Studio (included free with your account) for canvas-based screenshot creation with real device frames and AI-generated captions, plus the $5 ASO audit for keyword analysis. Total cost: $5 per audit cycle, and you get a professional screenshot editor at no additional cost.

Either configuration keeps you well under $20 per month and covers the two highest-impact ASO activities: keyword optimization and visual optimization.

The Complete Stack Mapped to ASO Workflow

Tools are useless without a workflow. Here is how to use your budget stack through each phase of the ASO process.

Research Phase: Finding Keywords and Competitors

Step 1: Start with free autocomplete probing. Spend 20 minutes generating a raw keyword list from App Store and Play Store search suggestions. Aim for 50 to 100 terms.

Step 2: Run a competitor analysis using your budget tool or manual browsing. Identify your top 5 to 10 competitors and document their keyword strategies.

Step 3: Validate your keyword list using an ASO audit. The audit will identify which keywords you should prioritize based on competition level, relevance to your app, and your realistic chance of ranking. It will also surface keywords you missed.

Step 4: Prioritize. You have 160 characters on iOS (title + subtitle + keyword field). Pick the keywords that offer the best combination of relevance, search volume (based on autocomplete position), and achievable competition. Drop everything else.

Total time: 1 to 2 hours. Cost: $0 to $5.

Optimize Phase: Writing Metadata

With your prioritized keyword list in hand, write your listing metadata:

Title (30 chars): Your brand name plus your single highest-priority keyword. Keep it readable.

Subtitle (30 chars, iOS) or Short Description (80 chars, Android): Secondary keywords that complement the title. No duplicates.

Keyword field (100 chars, iOS only): Remaining keywords, comma-separated, no spaces, no duplicates from title or subtitle.

Description: Open with a compelling problem-solution statement in the first 3 lines. Integrate remaining keywords naturally throughout.

Character counting is critical. Your budget ASO tool likely includes character counters and will flag when you exceed limits. If not, a simple text editor with character count works. Do not submit without verifying every field is within limits -- Apple will reject your submission otherwise, and the turnaround time for re-review wastes days.

Total time: 30 to 60 minutes. Cost: $0.

Design Phase: Creating Screenshots

Step 1: Plan your screenshot sequence before opening any tool. Decide what each screenshot will communicate: screenshot 1 is your core value proposition, screenshots 2 through 4 show key features with benefit captions, screenshot 5 includes social proof.

Step 2: Capture your app's UI for each planned screenshot. Use the simulator or a real device. Pick screens that look visually appealing and clearly demonstrate the feature you want to highlight.

Step 3: Open your screenshot tool. Select a device frame (match the device sizes Apple and Google require). Drop in your captures, add captions, adjust colors and fonts to match your brand, and export.

Step 4: Export for all required sizes. Apple requires screenshots for multiple device sizes (6.7-inch, 6.5-inch, etc.). Batch export features in dedicated tools handle this automatically. In Figma, you would need to resize each variant manually.

Total time: 1 to 2 hours. Cost: $0 to $15 depending on your tool.

Publish Phase: Pushing Changes Live

Getting your optimized listing live is straightforward but has timing considerations.

If you are pushing a metadata-only change (keywords, description, screenshots) without an app update, Apple typically reviews these within 24 to 48 hours. If you are submitting alongside an app update, the review timeline is 1 to 3 days on average.

Coordinate keyword changes with app updates when possible. The algorithm appears to re-index more thoroughly when a new version is submitted. If you are making a significant keyword strategy change, bundle it with your next app update.

On Google Play, changes go live almost immediately, and you can use Store Listing Experiments to A/B test changes before committing. Take advantage of this -- test your new screenshots against the old ones and only keep the variant that converts better.

Total time: 15 to 30 minutes. Cost: $0.

Track Phase: Measuring Results

After publishing changes, set up your tracking baseline using the free analytics dashboards.

Weekly metrics to record: Total impressions, search impressions, product page views, conversion rate (page views to downloads), total downloads, and current rating.

What constitutes a meaningful change: ASO changes typically take 2 to 4 weeks to fully impact rankings. Do not panic if impressions dip in the first few days -- the algorithm is re-indexing your listing. Wait for the full cycle before evaluating.

How to attribute changes: If you changed one thing (say, your keywords), you can attribute any change in search impressions to that modification. If you changed multiple things simultaneously, you cannot isolate which change caused the effect. This is why single-variable changes are preferred.

Total time: 5 minutes per week. Cost: $0.

Weekly ASO Routine With This Stack (30 Minutes/Week)

The 30-Minute Weekly Checklist

Consistency matters more than intensity. A 30-minute weekly routine will outperform a 5-hour monthly binge every time. Here is the breakdown:

5 minutes: Check analytics dashboards. Open App Store Connect and/or Google Play Console. Record your key metrics in your tracking spreadsheet. Note any significant changes from the previous week. If impressions dropped by more than 20 percent, investigate immediately.

10 minutes: Monitor competitor changes. Spot-check 2 to 3 competitors. Have they changed their title, subtitle, or screenshots recently? If a competitor suddenly jumps in rankings, check what they changed -- you might learn something. If a new app enters your category's top results, add it to your monitoring list.

10 minutes: Plan and execute listing tweaks. Based on what you learned from analytics and competitor monitoring, make one small improvement. Swap a low-performing keyword. Adjust a screenshot caption. Tweak your subtitle. One change per week keeps your listing evolving without overwhelming you.

5 minutes: Review responses. Check for new reviews. Respond to any negative reviews constructively. Thank users who leave positive feedback if the platform allows. This takes minimal time but builds a responsive developer reputation.

Monthly Deep Dives (2 Hours/Month)

Once a month, invest two focused hours in a deeper analysis:

Run a full ASO audit (using your budget tool or manually). Compare your current listing against competitors. Identify new keyword opportunities that have emerged since your last audit.

Research new keywords. Markets evolve. New competitors enter. Seasonal trends shift. Spend 30 minutes on autocomplete probing for fresh terms.

Evaluate screenshots. Review your conversion rate. If it has declined or plateaued, consider testing new captions, new layouts, or updated social proof elements.

Plan next update cycle. Decide what changes to make in the coming month. Write out the specific modifications so you can execute them during your weekly 10-minute windows.

This monthly rhythm keeps your ASO strategy active without consuming your development time.

What You Are Missing vs. Enterprise Tools (And Why It Does Not Matter Yet)

Features You Are Skipping

Let us be honest about what the budget stack does not include:

Historical keyword ranking data. Enterprise tools track your position for every keyword daily, showing trends over weeks and months. Without this, you rely on periodic manual checks and impression trends as a proxy.

Download estimates for competitors. Sensor Tower can estimate how many downloads a competing app gets per day. Your budget stack cannot, so you are using review counts and rating velocity as rough proxies.

Ad intelligence. Enterprise tools show you which competitors are running paid campaigns and what creative they are using. Irrelevant if you are not running ads yourself.

SDK analytics. Which SDKs competitors use, what tech stack powers their apps. Interesting but has zero impact on ASO.

Cross-app portfolio management. Dashboards for managing 50 or more apps simultaneously. You have one to three apps.

The One Thing That Matters More Than Tools

At the indie stage, execution frequency beats tool sophistication every single time.

Consider two indie developers. Developer A pays $400/month for Sensor Tower but only checks it once a quarter to justify the expense. Developer B pays $15/month for a budget stack and checks analytics weekly, updates keywords monthly, and refreshes screenshots quarterly.

Developer B will outperform Developer A on downloads every time. Not because their tools are better, but because they are actually using them. The tool is a means to an end. The end is consistent, data-informed iteration on your store listing. A $15 tool you use weekly is worth 10 times more than a $400 tool you check quarterly.

There are countless examples of indie apps that reached the top 100 in their category with nothing more than App Store Connect analytics, manual keyword research, and Canva for screenshots. They did not have better data. They just paid attention more consistently.

When to Upgrade: Signals That You Have Outgrown the Budget Stack

Growth Signals That Justify More Spending

Watch for these milestones. When you hit them, the budget stack starts limiting you:

5,000+ monthly downloads consistently. At this volume, keyword ranking changes have a meaningful revenue impact. Historical tracking becomes worth the investment because you can directly correlate ranking movements with revenue changes.

Managing 5+ apps. When your portfolio grows, the manual overhead of the budget stack multiplies. A subscription tool that covers all your apps in one dashboard saves hours per week.

Expanding to 10+ locales. Localized keyword research for 10 or more markets is extremely time-consuming to do manually. Tools with multi-locale keyword databases become a significant time-saver.

ASO becomes a primary growth channel. When you are spending 5 or more hours per week on ASO, the time savings from better tools pay for themselves. The calculus changes from "can I afford this tool?" to "can I afford not to have it?"

The Upgrade Path

$0 to $20/month (current stack): Free analytics + budget ASO tool + screenshot creation. Covers keyword research, competitor analysis, listing optimization, and visual creation.

$20 to $50/month: Add a dedicated keyword tracking tool. AppFollow's paid tier or App Radar's mid-tier give you ongoing keyword monitoring without the full enterprise price. This tier makes sense when you need continuous feedback on ranking changes.

$50 to $150/month: Mid-tier platforms like AppTweak. You get historical data, better keyword difficulty estimates, multi-locale research tools, and more comprehensive competitor monitoring. Our detailed Sensor Tower vs AppTweak comparison breaks down exactly what you get at each price point. This tier makes sense when your app generates $500+ per month and ASO improvements have a clear revenue impact.

$150+/month: Enterprise tools. Sensor Tower, data.ai. Full market intelligence, ad analytics, and cross-portfolio management. This tier makes sense when your app or app portfolio generates thousands per month and you have dedicated time (or a team member) for ASO.

Monthly Cost Comparison Table

Budget Stack vs. Mid-Tier vs. Enterprise

The budget stack covers keyword research, competitor analysis, screenshot creation, and A/B testing. The mid-tier adds automated tracking and better localization tools. The enterprise tier adds market intelligence, download estimates, and portfolio management.

For an indie developer below 10,000 monthly downloads, the marginal value of moving from budget to mid-tier is small. The jump from doing nothing to having a budget stack is enormous.

ROI Calculation: Cost Per Incremental Download

The Math Behind ASO Investment

Here is a framework to evaluate whether your ASO spending is worth it.

Suppose your budget stack costs $15 per month (one ASO audit at $5 plus a screenshot tool at $10). After optimizing your listing based on the audit, your organic downloads increase by 200 per month. Your cost per incremental organic download is $15 divided by 200, which equals $0.075.

Compare that to paid acquisition. The average cost per install via Apple Search Ads ranges from $1.00 to $3.00 depending on category and competition. Facebook and Google app install campaigns typically run $0.50 to $2.00 per install.

At $0.075 per incremental organic download, your budget ASO stack delivers 7 to 40 times better return than paid acquisition. And unlike paid ads, which stop delivering the moment you stop paying, ASO improvements compound. The keywords you optimize today continue driving downloads next month and the month after.

Even a conservative scenario -- $15/month investment yielding 50 additional downloads -- produces a cost per download of $0.30. That still beats paid acquisition in most categories, and those 50 extra downloads contribute to your ranking, which drives additional organic impressions, which drive more downloads. The compounding effect makes ASO the highest-ROI marketing channel available to indie developers.

Making the Case for ASO Spending

If you are hesitant to spend anything on ASO, consider what you already spend to keep your app alive:

• Apple Developer Program: $99/year ($8.25/month)
• Domain and hosting for your website: $5 to $15/month
• Design tools (Figma, Sketch, etc.): $0 to $13/month
• Backend services (hosting, databases): $0 to $25/month

These are table stakes. You spend them without question because your app cannot exist without them.

Now consider that 65 percent of your potential users will find your app (or not) through App Store search. The store listing is arguably the single most important piece of marketing for your app, and $5 to $20 per month to optimize it is the smallest line item on the list above.

Most indie developers spend more on coffee in a week than they spend on ASO in a month. That ratio is backwards. A single well-executed ASO audit that improves your keyword strategy could drive more downloads than months of social media posting. The return on that $5 to $20 investment is not just good -- it is the best marketing ROI you will find as an indie developer.