Frequently Asked Questions

ASO is the process of improving your mobile app's visibility in the App Store and Google Play search results. It includes optimizing your title, keywords, description, screenshots, and other metadata to rank higher and attract more downloads.

ASOZen is an ASO workflow platform for App Store and Google Play listings. It analyzes apps, scores controllable listing factors, researches keywords, compares competitors, audits screenshot creative, tracks saved apps, helps plan releases, and highlights market opportunities.

ASOZen supports both the Apple App Store (iOS) and Google Play Store (Android). You can analyze, compare, and track apps on either platform from a single dashboard.

No. ASOZen is a fully web-based platform. Just open it in your browser, search for any app, and you'll get your analysis instantly. No downloads, extensions, or plugins required.

Yes. You can run your first analysis without even creating an account. Free accounts include 3 full app audits per month, 10 keyword checks per month, up to 1 saved app, 1 tracked keyword with daily rank checks and a weekly digest, 1 AI generation total, full ASO scoring with prioritized fixes, keyword rank checks, competitor comparison, and Creative Audit preview only. Starter is for regular basic usage without free-plan friction: 10 analyses per day, 50 keyword analyses per month, up to 3 saved apps, daily automated tracking, 14-day recent changes, a basic weekly digest, competitor comparison, and 10 shared AI credits each month. Advanced workflow tools remain on Pro. Pro unlocks score history, keyword trend history, weekly tracking digests, recent changes, smart recommendations, bulk keyword scoring, the What-If Optimizer, Release Planner, Market Opportunities, Brand Safety reporting, CSV exports, and 50 shared AI credits each month for AI Metadata Writer and Creative Audit.

ASOZen uses Google sign-in as a fast, secure way to create your account. We only access your name and email address to identify your account. We do not access your Google Play console, app data, or any other Google services. You can also sign up with email and password instead.

No. ASOZen does not request or require access to your Google Play Console. All app data analyzed by ASOZen comes from publicly available store listings. Google sign-in is used solely for account authentication.

The ASO score is based on 6 weighted factors: Title optimization, Subtitle/Short Description, Full Description quality, Visual assets, Update freshness, and Metadata completeness. Each factor is scored individually and combined into an overall score out of 100.

Ratings and install counts are important indicators of app health, but they're not directly actionable metadata that you can optimize in a store listing update. ASOZen focuses on factors you can control. Ratings and installs are still displayed as contextual health indicators.

Some data isn't always available from store APIs. For example, iOS subtitle data may not be exposed publicly, and screenshot data may not always be retrievable. When a category is marked "unscored," ASOZen adjusts the score calculation to only account for available data, so your score remains fair.

ASOZen fetches live data from the App Store and Google Play every time you run an analysis. The data is as fresh as the stores provide it. Keyword ranking snapshots are saved daily for tracked apps.

The Creative Audit gives an overall score from 0 to 100, derived from seven best-practice checks (see below). Color and verdict map to the score:

• 70-100 Strong:the creative is doing its job. Conversion-ready with minor polish.
• 50-69 Fair:solid foundation, but mixed signals are leaving installs on the table.
• 30-49 Mixed:some shots work, others undercut them. Worth a focused rework.
• 0-29 Needs work:likely costing installs. Priority before other ASO work.

Verdict labels (used on the overall verdict, the first-three sequence, and each best-practice check):

• Strong / Excellent / Good:clearly above the bar on that dimension.
• Fair / Mixed:acceptable but inconsistent. Some signals dilute the message.
• Partial:the first-three sequence only partly works as a conversion story. Some shots support the arc; others feel disconnected or like a feature gallery rather than a guided pitch.
• Needs work:below the bar. Fix before pushing other ASO work.

Seven dimensions are scored 0-10. The note in each row is the AI\'s case-specific judgment for your app.

• Message hierarchy:whether each screenshot leads with a clear primary message before secondary detail. The eye should land on the headline first, supporting UI second.
• Caption readability:whether overlaid text is large enough, contrasts well, and is concise enough to read at store browsing thumbnail size.
• Focus and clutter:whether the creative spotlights one idea per shot or tries to show too much at once.
• Visual consistency:whether the screenshots feel like one coherent set: shared typography, color palette, device frame, and layout grid.
• Feature to benefit framing:whether captions describe what the user gets (the benefit) instead of what the app technically does (the feature).
• Screenshot sequence:whether the first three screenshots form a coherent value prop → workflow → proof arc, rather than a random gallery.
• Platform fit:whether the visuals match the design conventions and audience expectations of this app store and category.

How urgent it is to add a preview video for this specific app, given category, motion fit, and current creative gaps.

• High:a preview video would materially lift conversion. Build one as part of the next creative refresh.
• Medium:a video would help but is not the most important fix. Schedule after higher-priority screenshot work.
• Low:a video might add some lift but the screenshot story is the main conversion driver here.
• Optional:a video is not essential for this app type. Skip unless the team already has assets.

For each screenshot, the Creative Audit guesses the role it appears to be playing in the conversion arc: value proposition, workflow, proof point, social proof, feature spotlight, and similar. This is a guess, not ground truth. Use it as a prompt to ask "is this the role I intended for this slot?" If the guess matches your intent, the shot is doing its job; if it does not, the shot is probably being read differently than you expected.

Keyword Analysis helps you research app keywords, review traffic and difficulty, check ranking positions, and track saved keywords over time. Free includes limited keyword analysis, Starter adds more monthly checks and history, and Pro adds the larger keyword workflow with bulk checks and exports.

Choose any two apps and ASOZen will generate a side-by-side comparison of their ASO scores, keyword strategies, metadata quality, and visual assets. It highlights where each app is stronger and suggests opportunities.

Pro users can export keyword tables, analysis results, and competitor comparisons as CSV files for use in spreadsheets or reports.

The AI Metadata Writer generates optimized titles, subtitles, and descriptions for your app using AI. Choose a tone, add target keywords, and get multiple ranked variants scored against our ASO rubric - ready to copy into your store listing. Free users get 1 AI Writer credit per month, Starter includes 10 credits, and Pro unlocks 50 credits per month.

Niche Scanner helps you validate a new app idea or compare a saved existing app against a target niche. It uses public storefront signals, ASOZen keyword estimates, competitor metadata, ratings, update freshness, niche velocity, and your ASOZen history when available. Niche Scanner is a Pro feature: Starter includes 3 scans and existing-app mode, and Pro includes 30 scans plus multi-market and auto-market scans. It does not guarantee success or claim exact Apple or Google search volume.

Every scan looks at four kinds of public signal: estimated demand (search interest from ASOZen keyword estimates, not exact store search volume), competition (how crowded and well-optimized the visible competitors are), reachability (whether there are realistic keyword openings a new or repositioned app could rank for), and signal confidence (how much usable, agreeing keyword data the scan gathered).

The Opportunity score (0-100) is a relative blend of these signals. A higher score means stronger estimated demand paired with more reachable openings and lighter competition. It is not a market-size figure, a download forecast, or a revenue estimate, and two niches with the same score can differ in absolute size.

Each scan is labeled High, Medium, or Low confidence based on how much keyword data was available and how consistent the signals were. Low confidence does not mean a bad idea; it means the public data was thin, so the estimate is less certain.

The scanner does not use exact Apple or Google search volume (those numbers are private to each developer account), does not measure real downloads, conversion, or revenue, and does not guarantee that a high-scoring niche will succeed. Use a strong score as a reason to look closer, then validate with customer conversations, a landing-page test, or a small launch before committing build time.

The Shortlist tab lets you save the niche scans you care about, compare up to six shortlisted scans side by side, reopen saved scan reports, and rerun them later. A fresh rerun updates the scan with current market data; a locked rerun keeps the original scan context so you can check how the same idea changed over time.

Velocity alerts flag shortlisted or saved niches when ASOZen detects a real shift from not-opening to opening compared with a prior comparable scan. Alerts appear in the Shortlist tab, can be marked read or dismissed, and eligible alerts can also be sent by email. They depend on historical scan snapshots, so the first scan usually creates the baseline rather than an alert.

An Agentic Coding Prompt is a structured prompt you can give to a coding agent such as Codex, Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, Bolt, or Lovable. For new ideas it describes what to build and avoid. For existing apps it describes what to improve without rebuilding from scratch.

Creative Audit reviews your screenshots with app context in mind. It checks value proposition clarity, screenshot sequence quality, readability, feature-to-benefit framing, and whether an app preview video is actually worth recommending for that app type. You can audit the published listing and also upload candidate drafts to audit before shipping, with a side-by-side comparison between the two. Creative Audit uses the shared AI credit pool: Starter includes 10 credits per month and Pro includes 50 credits per month for AI Metadata Writer and Creative Audit.

Yes. In the Creative Audit panel, the Audit a draft set section lets you upload up to 10 candidate screenshots (PNG, JPEG, or WebP, 4 MB each). Drag the thumbnails to set the sequence, then run the audit. The draft is scored against the same rubric as the published listing.

Once both audits exist, the Show side-by-side button opens a comparison view with the score delta, strengths and issues for each set, and a per-check best-practice table so you can see exactly where the draft beats or loses to the live listing.

A draft audit costs the same 5 AI credits as a published audit, and the weekly free trial does not apply to draft audits.

On your device only. Uploaded drafts are kept in your browser using IndexedDB so they survive page refreshes and let you come back to a draft set without re-uploading. The audit text result is also cached locally in localStorage.

What we do not do: upload your drafts to our servers, persist them to disk, log their contents, or store them in any cloud bucket. The only time the bytes leave your device is during the audit request itself, where they are sent to the AI provider and dropped immediately after the response.

Clicking Discard drafts removes both the screenshots and the cached audit result from your browser. Clearing your browser's site data also removes them. Switching to a different app shows that app's own drafts (or none, if you have not uploaded any for it).

The What-If Optimizer (Pro) lets you test changes to your title, subtitle, description, and screenshot count before publishing. It instantly rescores your listing so you can see how proposed edits would affect your ASO score.

The Requirements Checker validates your listing against Apple and Google's store guidelines - character limits, required fields, visual assets, and compliance items. Each check is marked as pass, fail, or needs manual review, so you know exactly what to fix before submitting.

Score History is included on Starter and Pro. Free gives you the current ASO score and prioritized fixes for each analysis, while Starter and Pro add trend views so you can measure whether updates are improving the listing over time.

Market Opportunities (Pro) scans your keyword rankings across 36 countries and regions to find markets where your app has untapped potential. Choose from preset regions like Europe, APAC, MENA, or Africa, or pick individual countries to analyze.

The Tracked apps page lets you save apps to a personal library for quick access and tracking. Free users can save up to 1 app, Starter users can save up to 3 apps, and Pro users can save up to 10. Free includes daily tracking for 1 keyword with 7-day recent changes and a weekly digest; Starter adds full keyword tracking, 14-day recent changes, and a basic weekly digest; Pro adds the fuller tracking workflow with richer change signals.

Use Free for occasional spot-checks: score an app, see the top fixes, research a handful of keywords each month, and keep daily tracking on one keyword. Upgrade when you need to track more keywords, history, and the full workflow. Free accounts include 3 full app audits per month, 10 keyword checks per month, up to 1 saved app, 1 tracked keyword with daily rank checks and a weekly digest, 1 AI generation total, full ASO scoring with prioritized fixes, keyword rank checks, competitor comparison, and Creative Audit preview only. No credit card required.

Use Starter if Free is too tight and you need regular basic checks, but not Pro tools like Market Opportunities, Release Planner, What-If Optimizer, or CSV export. Starter is for regular basic usage without free-plan friction: 10 analyses per day, 50 keyword analyses per month, up to 3 saved apps, daily automated tracking, 14-day recent changes, a basic weekly digest, competitor comparison, and 10 shared AI credits each month. Advanced workflow tools remain on Pro. See the Pricing page for full details.