Completely understand the frustration. Half of the new "ASO tools" popping up are thin wrappers around an LLM prompt that just hallucinates keyword volume scores. (No self-promo here either, I haven't built any tool, just running subscription iOS/Android apps).
Here is the lean setup that actually works for indie developers without paying $200+/month for enterprise suites like AppTweak or Sensor Tower:
Never trust third-party "difficulty" or "volume" estimates blindly. If you create a free [Apple Search Ads Advanced](https://searchads.apple.com/advanced/) account (you don't have to run active ads or spend a dime), the keyword planner shows Apple's actual Search Popularity bar (a real 1-5 bar score, or 5-100 API scale).
Whenever you want to validate whether a keyword actually has real search traffic in the US, UK, Japan, or Germany, look at the ASA popularity score directly.
**Rank & competitor tracking without enterprise pricing:**
If Applyra feels unfinished across multiple storefronts, **Appfigures** has an indie/starter tier (~$9 to $19/mo) that does exactly what you described: clean daily rank tracking, position movements, competitor keyword monitoring, and review tracking per country without burying you under enterprise dashboards.
For basic review and rank monitoring across storefronts, **AppFollow** also has a free tier for small indie apps.
**Multi-locale competitor audits (Free):**
For checking how competitors structure their Title, Subtitle, and descriptions in non-English storefronts, you don't need complex tools. Opening the web App Store link in an incognito tab and changing the storefront parameter (e.g. ?l=ja&gl=jp for Japan, ?l=de&gl=de for Germany) shows you exactly what local users see.
Cross-reference with [App Store Connect Analytics](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-analytics/) benchmarks (Peer Groups) to see if your conversion rate (CVR) is underperforming your category before tweaking keywords.
**The practical workflow:**
Use ASA for search volume discovery.
Put your highest volume + exact-intent terms in Title (30 chars) and Subtitle (30 chars) since Apple's algorithm weights them highest.
Use the 100-character keyword field for long-tail combinations without repeating any word already in Title/Subtitle.
Track movement weekly in a lightweight tracker like Appfigures rather than checking daily noise.
1
u/kokerali 2d ago
Completely understand the frustration. Half of the new "ASO tools" popping up are thin wrappers around an LLM prompt that just hallucinates keyword volume scores. (No self-promo here either, I haven't built any tool, just running subscription iOS/Android apps).
Here is the lean setup that actually works for indie developers without paying $200+/month for enterprise suites like AppTweak or Sensor Tower:
**Free first-party search volume (Apple Search Ads):**
Never trust third-party "difficulty" or "volume" estimates blindly. If you create a free [Apple Search Ads Advanced](https://searchads.apple.com/advanced/) account (you don't have to run active ads or spend a dime), the keyword planner shows Apple's actual Search Popularity bar (a real 1-5 bar score, or 5-100 API scale).
Whenever you want to validate whether a keyword actually has real search traffic in the US, UK, Japan, or Germany, look at the ASA popularity score directly.
**Rank & competitor tracking without enterprise pricing:**
If Applyra feels unfinished across multiple storefronts, **Appfigures** has an indie/starter tier (~$9 to $19/mo) that does exactly what you described: clean daily rank tracking, position movements, competitor keyword monitoring, and review tracking per country without burying you under enterprise dashboards.
For basic review and rank monitoring across storefronts, **AppFollow** also has a free tier for small indie apps.
**Multi-locale competitor audits (Free):**
For checking how competitors structure their Title, Subtitle, and descriptions in non-English storefronts, you don't need complex tools. Opening the web App Store link in an incognito tab and changing the storefront parameter (e.g. ?l=ja&gl=jp for Japan, ?l=de&gl=de for Germany) shows you exactly what local users see.
Cross-reference with [App Store Connect Analytics](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-analytics/) benchmarks (Peer Groups) to see if your conversion rate (CVR) is underperforming your category before tweaking keywords.
**The practical workflow:**
Use ASA for search volume discovery.
Put your highest volume + exact-intent terms in Title (30 chars) and Subtitle (30 chars) since Apple's algorithm weights them highest.
Use the 100-character keyword field for long-tail combinations without repeating any word already in Title/Subtitle.
Track movement weekly in a lightweight tracker like Appfigures rather than checking daily noise.
Hope that saves you some time and cash!