Short answer: the best ASO agency for your app is the one that can show you, before you sign, how it will find your keywords, change your listing and prove the result. Look for native expertise on both the App Store and Google Play, a written 90-day plan, disciplined A/B testing, real creative capacity and honest reporting against a baseline. Walk away from anyone who guarantees rankings or offers to “help with reviews”.
Table of Contents
This guide gives you the seven criteria that separate strong ASO agencies from weak ones in 2026, twelve questions to ask on the first call, and the red flags that should end the conversation.
About the author: This guide is written by the ASO team at Admiral Media, a mobile growth agency founded in 2019 that runs App Store Optimization for iOS and Android apps alongside Apple Ads and paid user acquisition. Admiral Media’s metadata work for NeuroNation grew App Store search downloads in Korea by 93%, and the agency is rated 4.9 on Clutch across 48 reviews.
What a good ASO agency actually does
App Store Optimization has two jobs: get your app found, and get it chosen. Discovery comes from keywords in your metadata, your category and, increasingly, from keyword-linked Custom Product Pages. Conversion comes from what people see first: icon, screenshots, preview video and ratings. A good agency works on both, measures both in App Store Connect and Play Console, and ties every change to a hypothesis.
In 2026 that job got harder. Apple now shows additional ads in App Store search results, where it says 65% of downloads start. Custom Product Pages can carry their own keywords and rank organically, with up to 70 per app. Apple announced new Creative Assets for the product page header and search results. Google Play replaced its store listing conversion rate with click-through rate. An agency that has not changed its playbook since 2024 is working with an outdated map.
Before you talk to any agency, run your listing through our free ASO Checker. It scores the basics in about 20 seconds, so you can judge whether an agency’s first recommendations make sense.
7 criteria for choosing an ASO agency in 2026
1. Native expertise on both stores
The App Store and Google Play index text differently. Apple uses a title, subtitle and a hidden keyword field; Google Play reads the title, short description and long description. Apple’s native A/B test is Product Page Optimization, while Custom Product Pages are targeted pages, not tests. Google Play has Store Listing Experiments and custom store listings. Ask the agency to explain these differences. If it cannot, it will treat both stores the same. Our Google Play ASO guide sets out the Play side in detail.
2. Up to date with platform changes
Ask what changed in the last twelve months and how it changed their work. A strong answer covers keyword-linked Custom Product Pages, the extra Apple Ads placements in search, Apple’s AI-generated App Store tags in the US, the new Creative Assets and Google Play’s switch to click-through rate. A weak answer is generic talk about “the algorithm”.
3. Real creative capacity
Most of the conversion upside sits in store creative, and creative is where most budgets run out. Find out who designs your screenshots, icons and videos, how many assets a month the fee includes, and how fast they can produce variants for tests and Custom Product Pages.
4. Testing discipline
Every test should start with a hypothesis, a primary metric and a check that your traffic can reach a result. Good agencies accept “inconclusive” as an answer and stop tests that cannot win. Be wary of anyone promising a winning test every week.
5. A connection to paid acquisition
Your store page converts paid traffic too. Agencies that also run Apple Ads and paid social can use paid keyword and creative data to decide what to test in the store, and they can build Custom Product Pages that serve both paid and organic search.
6. Category and market experience
A subscription fitness app and a mid-core game need different keywords, screenshots and tests. So do Germany and Korea. Ask for work in your category and your priority markets, and check that localisation means local keyword research, not translation.
7. Transparent pricing and reporting
You should know what you pay for: apps, stores, markets, assets and tests. Ask how reporting works, which baseline it uses and whether every change is shown to you before it goes live. Our ASO pricing guide shows how a transparent price list looks.
12 questions to ask an ASO agency before you sign
- Which of our keywords would you target first, and why those?
- What would you change on our listing in the first 30 days?
- How do you handle the differences between the App Store and Google Play?
- Do you use Product Page Optimization, Store Listing Experiments or Custom Product Pages, and when would you use each?
- How many creative assets and tests are included each month?
- How do you decide whether our traffic can support a test?
- What access do you need to App Store Connect and Play Console?
- What baseline will you measure against, and what does the monthly report show?
- Who will actually work on our account, and how senior are they?
- How do you use Apple Ads or other paid data in ASO decisions?
- Can you show a case in our category with dates and before/after numbers?
- What is the term, and what happens if a test or change does not work?
Red flags when hiring an ASO agency
- Guaranteed rankings or installs. Nobody controls the store algorithms, and rankings for irrelevant keywords are easy to buy and worthless.
- Help with reviews. Buying, incentivising or seeding reviews breaks Apple’s and Google’s rules and can get your app removed.
- Keyword stuffing. Titles crammed with keywords can be rejected in review and hurt conversion.
- A tool login sold as a service. Keyword data is useful, but you are paying for decisions, copy and creative.
- Changes without approval. Every metadata and creative change should be shown to you before it goes live.
- Case studies without dates or denominators. “+300%” means nothing without the period, the metric and the starting point.
- A long contract with no written plan. Ask for the 90-day deliverables before you sign.
In-house, tool or agency?
ASO tools give you keyword and competitor data, but they do not decide what to change or produce the creative. An in-house ASO lead works well if you can hire and keep one and give them design support. An agency makes sense when you need someone to own the strategy, write the metadata, produce store creative and run tests every month without adding headcount. Many teams combine the two: an in-house owner with an agency for creative and testing, or an agency audit and workshop to train the in-house team.
What an ASO agency costs
Most agencies price ASO per app and per market, with extra charges for creative production and additional programs. At Admiral Media, managed ASO starts from €2,900 per month for one app on both stores in one market, with €1,500 per month for each additional market and a €2,500 one-time audit option. The ASO pricing guide explains what drives cost and includes a calculator.
Case study: NeuroNation, +93% search downloads in Korea
NeuroNation, a brain training app, ranked low or not at all for its top keywords in the Korean App Store, and Hangul makes keyword work hard for non-native speakers. Admiral Media’s ASO team researched Korean search terms, analysed competitors and rewrote the App Store title, subtitle and keyword field. The NeuroNation Korea case study reports 93.10% growth in search downloads and 43.95% growth in search impressions from that metadata work. It shows why localisation has to start with local keyword research.
How Admiral Media approaches ASO
We run ASO as part of a performance team. One senior ASO specialist owns your keywords, metadata, store creative and native A/B tests on both stores, and connects them to your Apple Ads and paid social data. Creative for tests and Custom Product Pages comes from our AI Creative Factory. Every engagement starts with a written 90-day plan, every change needs your approval, and every month ends with a report and a ranked backlog. See how our App Store Optimization service works.
Frequently asked questions
What does an ASO agency do?
An ASO agency improves how often your app is found and chosen on the App Store and Google Play. It researches keywords, writes metadata, produces and tests store creative such as icons and screenshots, builds Custom Product Pages and reports results against a baseline in App Store Connect and Play Console.
How much does an ASO agency cost?
Most agencies price per app and per market. At Admiral Media, managed ASO starts from €2,900 per month for one app on both stores in one market, plus €1,500 per month for each additional market. A one-time ASO audit costs €2,500.
How long does it take an ASO agency to show results?
Metadata changes usually take a few weeks to show in rankings and search downloads. Creative tests need enough traffic to reach a result, often two to six weeks per test. A good agency sets the first milestones in a written 90-day plan.
Can an ASO agency guarantee top rankings?
No. Nobody controls the App Store or Google Play algorithms. An agency that guarantees rankings is either targeting irrelevant keywords or using tactics that break store rules.
What should a monthly ASO report include?
What shipped, what moved against the agreed baseline, test results with sample sizes, keyword rankings for target terms, conversion by traffic source and a ranked backlog for the next month. On Google Play, reports should use the new click-through metrics introduced in mid-2026.
Talk to a senior ASO specialist
Share your App Store or Google Play link and the markets you care about. We will tell you what we would fix first and what it would cost.
Book a meeting →
