Most free ASO advice hands you a pile of tools and leaves you to work out which one to open first. That is backwards. The problem is not that you lack tools. It is that you do not know which part of your listing is costing you installs, so you rewrite the description for the third time while the real damage sits in your title or your first screenshot.
Short answer: start by scoring your listing so you know what is actually broken, then use the free reports inside Google Play Console to find the words people really search, then A/B test the fix with the stores’ own free experiments. That whole loop costs nothing. The one thing free cannot give you is iOS keyword data, because Apple does not report it.
1. Find out what is broken first (free, no sign-up)
Fixing your listing before you know its weak spot is guesswork. The ReachFront ASO Score check gives you a score out of 100 and a grade, then breaks your listing into five areas so you can see which one is dragging you down:
- Metadata: is your title, subtitle, and short description doing real work?
- Keyword: does your listing actually target the term you think it does?
- Conversion: are your screenshots and icon built to turn a visit into an install?
- Readability: can a human skim it in five seconds?
- Trust: do your ratings, reviews, and developer signals reassure anyone?
You paste your store URL and get the score, the grade, and the category breakdown without signing up or entering a card. It works for both stores: there is a Google Play checker and an App Store checker. Signing in shows you the rest of the individual checks behind the score.
The value is not the number. It is knowing that your conversion score is 40 while your metadata is 85, because that tells you to stop touching your description and go fix your screenshots.
2. Find the words people actually type (Google Play Console)
Once you know what to fix, you need the real words. This is the best free data in ASO and it is already in your account. Go to Grow users > Store performance > Store analysis and break the data down by search term. You get three columns that matter:
- Visitors: how many people reached your listing from that term.
- Conversion rate: what share of them installed.
- Acquisitions: the installs themselves.
The conversion rate column is where the value hides. High visitors with a low conversion rate means you rank for a term but your listing is not delivering what that person expected. That is a listing problem, and your ASO score already told you which part to blame. Low visitors with a high conversion rate is the better problem: the people who find you love you, so work that term into your title and short description.
3. On iOS, you are flying blind (and free cannot fix it)
Here is what most free ASO lists get wrong, and it matters: Apple does not show you your search terms.
App Store Connect tells you how many downloads came from App Store Search versus App Store Browse versus referrers, plus impressions and conversion rate. That is genuinely useful for answering “is search working for me at all?” But it will never tell you which words those searchers typed, and no amount of digging will surface it, because Apple simply does not report it.
Free workaround: store search autocomplete. Start typing into App Store search and the dropdown shows real queries, roughly ordered by how often people search them. Type your category, your main feature, and the problem you solve, then type each letter of the alphabet after your main term (“budget app a”, “budget app b”) to force out the long tail. It is manual, and it gives you no difficulty and no volume, but these are words humans actually typed.
When guessing stops being good enough, ReachFront’s Keyword Research is built for this exact hole. It is an iOS tool and a Pro feature, and it gives you, for each candidate term:
- Difficulty and a difficulty tier, so you know whether you can realistically win it.
- Estimated demand. Worth being straight about this: Apple does not publish search volume, so nobody has real numbers for the App Store. This is an estimate blended from ranking popularity, breadth, and autocomplete signals, and we label it as an estimate rather than dressing it up as volume.
- The top apps ranking for that term, including where you currently sit among them.
That last one is the part free tools structurally cannot do, because the stores only ever show you your own app.
4. Test the fix for free (both stores)
Do not ship a listing change on a hunch. Both stores let you A/B test on live traffic at no cost, and no third party can offer this, because only the store can split its own traffic.
Google Play Store Listing Experiments tests up to three variants against your current listing, and you can run up to five localized experiments at once. Apple’s Product Page Optimization tests up to three treatments against your live page, one test at a time, for up to 90 days, and labels a treatment “Performing Better” or “Performing Worse” once it reaches 90% confidence.
Test your icon first. It is the smallest change with the biggest effect, because people see it before they read a single word. Then your first two screenshots. Do not start with your description, since most people never scroll that far.
5. Track it weekly
Watch your search terms in Play Console each week and re-run your ASO score after any real change. If a term is flat after a few weeks, it is probably too competitive for you right now. Go back to step one.
What each free tool actually gives you
Tool What it gives you What it cannot do ReachFront ASO Score check Score, grade, 5 weak-area categories, both stores, no sign-up Checks your listing, not the market Play Console search terms Real terms, visitors, conversion rate Android only, your app only Store Listing Experiments 3 variants on live traffic, 5 localized at once Android only Product Page Optimization 3 treatments, 90 days, 90% confidence calls iOS only, one test at a time App Store Connect analytics Search vs browse, impressions, conversion rate Never shows your search terms Autocomplete Real phrasing, long tail ideas No difficulty, no volume Google Trends Whether interest is rising or dying Web search, not app store search
The whole free loop, in order
Check your listing to find the weak area. Find the real terms in Play Console, or autocomplete on iOS. Test the change with the stores’ free experiments. Track your terms weekly, then go again. Total cost: nothing.
Where free runs out
Being honest about the ceiling saves you frustration.
- iOS keyword data does not exist for free. Half your market, no terms, no volume from anyone. This is the hard wall.
- The stores only show you your own app. Play Console is brilliant about your traffic and blind about everyone else’s, so you cannot see what you are losing or to whom.
- No difficulty scores. Autocomplete tells you a phrase gets searched. It does not tell you whether you can beat the apps already ranking for it, so you can burn a month on a word you were never going to win.
- Manual and slow. Fine for ten keywords. Painful for a hundred. Impossible across countries.
That is the point where paying starts to make sense, and not a moment before. Run the free loop first. Most apps have enough broken in their listing that the free version pays for itself several times over before difficulty scores are your bottleneck.
Common questions
1. How do I check my ASO for free?
Run your store URL through the ReachFront ASO Score check. It returns a score out of 100, a grade, and a breakdown across five areas (metadata, keyword, conversion, readability, and trust) so you know which part of your listing to fix first. It covers both Google Play and the App Store, and you see your score and category breakdown without signing up.
2. What is the best free ASO tool?
For finding out what to fix, a free listing score check like ReachFront’s, because it points at your weakest area instead of leaving you to guess. For keyword data, the Google Play Console search terms breakdown under Grow users > Store performance > Store analysis, which is the only free source showing the real words people typed before reaching your listing.
3. Can I see my App Store search terms for free?
No. App Store Connect shows downloads attributed to App Store Search as a source, but Apple does not report the individual search terms behind them. This is the biggest blind spot in free iOS ASO. Closing it needs a keyword tool such as ReachFront’s Keyword Research, which is iOS-focused and gives difficulty, estimated demand, and the top apps ranking for each term.
4. Is A/B testing my app listing free?
Yes, on both stores. Google Play Store Listing Experiments tests up to three variants against your current listing, and Apple’s Product Page Optimization tests up to three treatments for up to 90 days, flagging a winner at 90% confidence. Both run on real store traffic at no cost.
5. Are free ASO tools good enough for a new app?
Yes, for a first app. Free covers a listing score check, real search terms on Android, A/B testing on both stores, and keyword ideas from autocomplete. The gaps appear later, when you need keyword difficulty, competitor rankings, or any iOS keyword data at all.
6. Does anyone have real App Store search volume?
No. Apple does not publish search volume, so any App Store “volume” figure from any tool is an estimate built from other signals. ReachFront’s Keyword Research reports estimated demand and labels it as an estimate rather than presenting it as a real search count.
7. When should I pay for an ASO tool?
When the free ceiling starts costing you: you need keyword difficulty, you want the terms and rankings of competitors, you need iOS keyword data, or you are managing several apps or countries. Until then, the free loop above will find you more wins than you have time to ship.
Start with the thing you can do in two minutes
Paste your store URL into the free ReachFront ASO Score check and look at which of the five categories scores worst. That single number tells you where to spend your week. Then open Play Console, go to Grow users > Store performance > Store analysis, break it down by search term, and see what people actually typed to find you. Most developers have never looked at either.
Fix the weak area, test it with the store’s own experiment tool, and check the score again. That is a complete ASO loop and it costs nothing.