How do I evaluate whether my ASO agency is doing good work?

Look up the keywords they've recommended or submitted in a scoring tool. Are the popularity scores above 25? Are the difficulty scores achievable for your app's current rating count? Are there obvious cannibalization issues (the same word appearing in name, subtitle, and keyword field)? If you can verify the choices are data-grounded, you have reason to trust the process.

Can I use ASOGrade alongside an agency?

Yes. ASOGrade is specifically useful as an independent check on the shortlists and metadata an agency proposes. You're not running parallel keyword research workflows — you're spot-checking the agency's output against the same demand and difficulty data they should be using.

What should I look for when evaluating an ASO agency?

Ask what data sources they use for keyword demand and difficulty. Ask how they report on results (which keywords moved, by how much, what the install attribution shows). Ask whether they can show you past case studies for apps in your category with similar starting rating counts. The answers reveal whether their process is data-grounded or intuition-dressed-as-process.

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ASOGrade vs. Hiring an ASO Agency

When agency-managed ASO makes sense — and when it doesn't

Someone else is doing this for you.

Worth being able to check their shortlist yourself before it becomes your metadata for the next release.

Hiring an ASO agency or freelancer to manage your keyword research means outsourcing the process entirely — they run the research, write the metadata, submit the updates, and report results. For the right situation, this is genuinely valuable. For others, it creates dependency without the corresponding benefit.

The most important thing you can do with agency-managed ASO is understand their work well enough to evaluate it. Being able to check a shortlist they've proposed — looking up the demand and difficulty for each keyword they've recommended — is the minimum viable oversight for a decision that directly affects your app's organic growth.

What this approach does well

A good ASO agency brings category expertise, established research workflows, and the ability to run consistent update cycles without requiring your time. For indie developers who are product-focused and don't want to invest in learning ASO tooling, delegation is a legitimate choice.

Agencies also bring competitive intelligence across multiple clients in a category — they may have patterns across many apps in your space that inform what keyword strategies are working beyond your own data.

The practical value of agency management is highest for apps with significant revenue at stake (where the cost of a poor keyword choice is expensive) and for developers who genuinely lack the time or inclination to run the process themselves.

Where it falls short

ASO agency pricing starts at several hundred dollars per month for basic metadata management and runs much higher for comprehensive programs. At these price points, the economics require your app to be generating meaningful App Store revenue before the investment is justifiable.

There is also an information asymmetry problem: you're evaluating their work (the shortlist of recommended keywords, the proposed metadata) without being able to independently assess whether the choices are good. An agency that recommends high-popularity keywords they can't actually rank you for looks active while delivering poor outcomes.

Dependency is the third risk. If you outsource keyword research entirely, you lose the internal knowledge of what you've tried, why, and what worked. Bringing this capability back in-house later requires rebuilding from scratch.

Where ASOGrade fits

If you're currently using an ASO agency, ASOGrade gives you the ability to check their shortlist before it becomes your metadata for the next release. Look up the keywords they've proposed: are the popularity scores real? Are the difficulty scores winnable at your current rating count? This is the minimum viable oversight for delegated ASO.

If you're considering whether to hire an agency or manage ASO in-house, ASOGrade is the in-house option — a research tool that lets one person run the full keyword research workflow without agency overhead.

For apps where the research step is genuinely manageable in-house and the main constraint is tooling, ASOGrade at $8.25-14.99/month covers the research workflow at a fraction of agency retainer costs.

Frequently asked questions

How do I evaluate whether my ASO agency is doing good work?: Look up the keywords they've recommended or submitted in a scoring tool. Are the popularity scores above 25? Are the difficulty scores achievable for your app's current rating count? Are there obvious cannibalization issues (the same word appearing in name, subtitle, and keyword field)? If you can verify the choices are data-grounded, you have reason to trust the process.
Can I use ASOGrade alongside an agency?: Yes. ASOGrade is specifically useful as an independent check on the shortlists and metadata an agency proposes. You're not running parallel keyword research workflows — you're spot-checking the agency's output against the same demand and difficulty data they should be using.
What should I look for when evaluating an ASO agency?: Ask what data sources they use for keyword demand and difficulty. Ask how they report on results (which keywords moved, by how much, what the install attribution shows). Ask whether they can show you past case studies for apps in your category with similar starting rating counts. The answers reveal whether their process is data-grounded or intuition-dressed-as-process.

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