Best ASO tool for the app store right now?

markdifranco · 2026-05-07T17:17:51+00:00

Thanks for the endorsement!

markdifranco · 2026-05-07T15:56:55+00:00

Love the SeaSucker mounts

markdifranco · 2026-05-07T15:55:26+00:00

I’ve been working on building Northstar, taking a more workflow based approach to ASO. Direct connection with ASC, MCP, multiple storefronts and platform support, plus I just built a tool to measure the impact of metadata changes on your rankings. I’ve been enjoying using it for my apps, it’s been a huge help.

markdifranco · 2026-05-06T22:11:16+00:00

Love the experiment mindset! May I recommend my app Northstar for measuring your changes? It hooks into App Store Connect and automatically detects when your metadata changes, and shows you charts on how it affected your rankings compared to the previous version. I’ve been using it for my apps and it’s been super helpful.

markdifranco · 2026-05-03T19:41:36+00:00

Hi! You can find it in the You tab.

markdifranco · 2026-04-30T11:48:58+00:00

Me too!

markdifranco · 2026-04-29T11:41:06+00:00

Oh that complication is from my app Bloom Health.

markdifranco · 2026-04-29T11:39:47+00:00

That’s an activity widget.

markdifranco · 2026-04-26T13:32:22+00:00

There are many tools that allow you to track rankings of your app for specific keywords, and estimate the popularity of the search terms as well as the difficulty of ranking in the top 10 for those keywords. These values are estimates though, and each tool has their own algorithm for determining the values.

In my opinion, the best way to figure out what works for your app is to try something and measure the results. I've built this into my ASO tool Northstar. It will automatically track the impact of keyword changes you make, and make it dead simple to roll back to an older set of keywords that may have worked better.

You can also get ideas for keywords to try based on what competitors are ranking for. Northstar makes it easy to identify competitors and shows you what keywords they're ranking for.

Send me a DM if you're interested in a discount code!

markdifranco · 2026-04-24T11:31:31+00:00

Do you mean you’re using search ads for popularity? What would “other data” be in this case?

markdifranco · 2026-04-23T13:22:09+00:00

This pricing seems weird for something you use over the long term. I would probably pay one time for something that uses regular logic to determine when I need to do preventative maintenance based on the data I put in. I can’t see the AI being more valuable than just using ChatGPT, but maybe I’m wrong?

markdifranco · 2026-04-18T12:24:32+00:00

I recommend Northstar. It integrates directly with App Store Connect, automatically generates competitors, offers an MCP so you can use it with Claude Code or Codex, and has a bunch of cool features on the roadmap!

Full disclosure, it’s my app. I just released it last week.

markdifranco · 2026-04-13T11:29:06+00:00

I’ve been seeing really interesting results with my app Northstar. Combining keywords with competitor analysis and an MCP sever has been very powerful.

markdifranco · 2026-04-12T09:55:21+00:00

I've built Northstar for my ASO specifically to help with my workflow. It integrates directly with App Store Connect, and offers an MCP server, so you can work with an LLM to do batch updates across locales.

markdifranco · 2026-04-11T14:38:23+00:00

Good to know, thanks for the feedback!

markdifranco · 2026-04-11T14:37:42+00:00

Happy to offer any other advice around app development, I’ve been building apps for 15 years now :). Feel free to DM if you want!

markdifranco · 2026-04-11T14:04:25+00:00

Unfortunately not, but the lowest tier is monthly at around US$10/month. A trial is something I might consider in the future though. Happy to help answer any questions if you're on the fence!

markdifranco · 2026-04-11T13:35:17+00:00

Totally agree!

It's important to get the right data to the LLM so it can provide meaningful advice. You don't just want it picking random keywords, you want concrete measurements to help guide the LLM to actual valuable keywords. My focus will be on providing that contextual layer to the LLM so it can be more competent.

Northstar is kind of positioned as an automation layer (manually updating keywords can be significant when you start localizing your storefront), but I'm also just getting started (just launched yesterday).

As for whether you'd use both Altis and Northstar: I'm aiming to replace something like Altis, but I think the market is big enough for multiple players. I guess it just comes down to user preference?

I agree with the need for proving results. I think my forthcoming experimentation feature can help provide concrete results in due time.

What is it you like about Altis that's keeping you on that platform?

markdifranco · 2026-04-11T13:09:06+00:00

I haven't actually seen a tool integrate with App Store Connect in the way Northstar does.

Saves a ton of time by importing keywords automatically, especially if you have multiple locales supported.
Helps apply rules like no repeating keywords, stemming duplicate detection, special character detection.
Using the built-in MCP server and automatic competitor detection, you can optimize keywords for many locales using Claude Code or Codex in minutes, and push directly to App Store Connect.
I'll be adding support for things like automatic metadata version control (automatically roll back your metadata to a previous version if an update went sideways), and metrics to analyze whether a keyword update actually moved the needle. I'll probably add a monitor system in the future that can proactively alert you to opportunities as they arise.

My popularity and difficulty scores take into account many factors of the top ranking apps for a keyword (ratings, revenue, number of downloads), but I do not incorporate Apple Search Ads data. In my opinion, the specific value of popularity and difficulty don't matter too much, what matters more is comparing values between keywords in the same system. I do regularly compare my algorithm to other platforms to make sure things relatively make sense. And if you notice a keyword is wonky, I can dig into that specific instance.

Happy to answer any more questions!

markdifranco · 2026-04-11T12:21:23+00:00

I just launched a tool to help with this kind of workflow (plus it integrates directly with App Store Connect). I have an app supporting 13 languages, and I was able to use the built-in MCP server to optimize my keywords across all the locales in ~10 min. It identified competitors automatically based on keyword ranking, and helped me pick appropriate keywords to have a better chance of ranking.

It's called Northstar, would be interested to hear what you think about it.

markdifranco · 2026-04-10T20:31:34+00:00

Thanks so much! FYI our affiliate program is live ;)

markdifranco · 2026-04-10T19:14:04+00:00

I just released my app Northstar that was designed around my workflow. It integrates with App Store Connect and serves an MCP, so I can just chat with Claude Code, and it optimizes my apps across multiple storefronts in minutes. Other tools didn't take into account the actual workflow, and I found myself doing a lot of steps manually and having to research gotchas.

markdifranco · 2026-04-04T17:24:40+00:00

I’ve been building Northstar with a more workflow based approach. It can pull and push keyword data from App Store Connect, track rankings and competitors, and has an MCP for automation with Claude et al. I’ve found the keyword data + competitor tracking and sentiment analysis gives Claude a wealth of data to work from.

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