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ASO Audit: What It Includes, What It Costs, and When Your App Needs One

By William Souef · 2026-10-13 · 7 min read

An ASO audit is a structured review of everything that decides whether people find your app in the App Store and tap "Get": keywords, metadata, visuals, ratings and conversion. Done well, it ends with a short list of changes you can ship this week. Done badly, it's a 40-page PDF of generic advice. Here's how to tell the difference.

Signs your app needs an ASO audit

• Downloads are flat even though the product keeps improving.
• You rank for your brand name and almost nothing else.
• Your metadata was written on launch day and never touched again.
• Page views are decent but few people install: a conversion problem.
• You're about to spend on ads and want the store page to convert first.
• You launched in one country and want to grow in others.

What a complete ASO audit includes

Keyword research and positioning

Which phrases people actually search to find an app like yours, how popular each one is, how hard it is to rank for, and who holds the top spots. The goal is a realistic keyword set: phrases with demand that a young app can win.

Metadata review

Name, subtitle and keyword field, checked against that research. Common issues: a brand-only name, a subtitle describing features instead of outcomes, words repeated across fields, and a keyword field wasting characters on spaces or plurals.

Visual conversion

Icon, the first screenshots and the app preview, judged the way users see them: tiny, in a search result, next to competitors. Does the first screenshot state the promise in a glance?

Competitor benchmark

What the top apps for your keywords do with their metadata and visuals, and where they leave gaps you can use.

Ratings and reviews

How many, how recent, what they complain about, and whether your rating prompt fires at the right moment. In one of my own apps I found it never fired at all.

Localisation

Which storefronts you're missing. Even in English, the US, UK, Canada and Australia have separate metadata, which means extra keyword space for free.

What you should get at the end

Not a report to admire. A good ASO audit gives you:

1. A ready-to-paste new name, subtitle and keyword field.
2. A target keyword list with the reasoning behind each choice.
3. Concrete screenshot changes, in priority order.
4. A list of storefronts to localise, with the metadata for each.
5. What to measure after shipping, and when to review it.

How much an ASO audit costs

Prices vary a lot depending on who does it and how deep it goes:

Option	Typical scope	What to watch
Automated tools	Scores and keyword suggestions	No judgment, no rewrite, easy to misread
Freelance consultant	Research, rewrite, visual review	Check they've grown apps of their own
Agency	Audit plus ongoing management	Retainers, junior staff on the account

For reference, my ASO Express Audit starts at €490 and is delivered in three business days, with the new metadata written for you.

Can you do it yourself?

Yes, if you have time and a keyword tool. Start with the checklist in Why is my app not getting downloads? and the ASO playbook for indie apps. An outside audit is worth it when you're too close to the product to see how strangers describe it, which is most founders, including me on my own apps.