AppTweak alternatives for ASO teams in 2026

AppTweak remains the self-serve pick for App Store Optimization keyword work: daily rank, Apple Search Popularity, difficulty, and a store API agents can call. The cheaper published floors on 13 Sep 2026 sit below Essential. MobileAction Lite is $15 per month billed monthly ($12.5 billed yearly). Appfigures Connect is $9.99 per month ($7.99 on the yearly card). Sensor Tower still has no public SKU. Trends MCP wins live App Store Top Free, App Store Top Paid, and Google Play boards through get_top_trends, plus Android bundle IDs on app downloads and app rankings. It does not estimate keyword volume or organic installs. Match the row to the job. There is no single winner.

Which alternative wins each AppTweak job?

AppTweak wins keyword ASO and a documented store API. Sensor Tower wins enterprise modeled downloads and ads intel with quote-only pricing. MobileAction wins the cheapest self-serve ASO card plus Apple Ads. Appfigures wins the cheapest analytics floor. Trends MCP wins live store charts inside Cursor, not metadata worksheets.

AppTweak is the tool most searchers mean by "ASO platform." The ASO Intelligence cards still print a 7-day free trial and cancel-anytime on Essential, Grow, and Grow Plus. Keyword caps on those cards are 500, 1,500, and 3,000. That is the product Sensor Tower, MobileAction, and Appfigures are compared against in G2-style roundups.

Sensor Tower's public pricing page is a demo form. Modules named on that page include Mobile App, Digital Advertising, Audience, Web Insights, Video Game Insights, Playliner, Gen AI, and MCP Server. No dollar table. Teams that need Pathmatics-style ads or modeled downloads stay on a sales cycle.

MobileAction's ASO Intelligence grid is the lowest self-serve ASO ladder that still prints keyword, app, and seat caps. Lite: 100 keywords, 5 apps, 3 competitors per app, 1 seat, 3 months of history. Basic: 500 keywords, 8 apps, 10 competitors per app, 1 seat, 6-month history. Pro: 1,500 keywords, 10 apps, 15 competitors per app, 3 seats, 12-month history. Apple Ads Free is $0 with a $10,000 monthly ad-spend cap. API Solutions and MCP are quote-only on that page, not bundled into Lite, Basic, or Pro.

Appfigures Connect is cheaper than MobileAction Lite if the job is linked-store analytics. The monthly Connect card on this fetch lists 0 Keywords. The yearly Connect card lists 25 Keywords. Those two cards disagree, so both numbers belong in the shortlist. Monitor is $44.99 monthly / $35.99 yearly with 100 keywords. Optimize is $149.99 / $119.99 with 500 keywords. Boost is $599.99 / $449.99. Amplify is $1,399.99 / $999.99. Header copy still says Save 20%. Market Intel Scout is $599.99, Pathfinder $1,249.99, Scale $2,499.99. Explore is quote-only.

Trends MCP is in this set for a different job: live ranked boards, not keyword worksheets. The matching landing pages are App Store trends and Google Play vs App Store top charts. A prior SKU walkthrough lives at AppTweak pricing.

What does AppTweak cost on 13 Sep 2026?

The ASO Intelligence yearly toggle is the number most comparison posts quote. Essential prints $79 per month ($949 billed annually). Grow prints $299 ($3,590). Grow Plus prints $549 ($6,590). The same cards carry monthly attributes of $99, $359, and $659. The page header still says Save 2 months. Each of those three cards starts a 7-day free trial.

API is a separate ladder. Lite: $166 per month on the yearly toggle ($1,990 billed annually), monthly attribute $199, 200K credits per month, extras $83 per 100K on the yearly attribute ($100 monthly). Pro: $249 / $2,990, monthly $299, 500K credits, extras $50 per 100K yearly ($60 monthly). Power: $833 / $9,990, monthly $999, 3M credits, extras $28 per 100K yearly ($33 monthly). Lite also prints Get 20K free credits next to the 7-day trial.

Help Center article 6051203 (updated over a week before this fetch) still prices extra packs at $40, $30, and $20 per 25,000 credits on Lite, Pro, and Power. That is $160, $120, and $80 per 100K. The live cards disagree. Checkout math should follow the live card; the help table is the older pack price.

Campaign Manager still prints a $25,000 monthly ad-spend line (the page also writes 25.000). Above that spend, the public grid is not a full dollar SKU. App Reviews Manager Small is $83 / $990 yearly (monthly attribute $99). Market Intelligence Explore is $658 / $7,900 (monthly $790). Those modules are adjacent, not replacements for Essential.

How do the Cursor MCP configs differ?

Four install dialects, not one JSON blob with the host swapped. AppTweak now documents two hosts on the same week. Developer docs still use npx mcp-remote plus an X-Apptweak-Key header against https://developers.apptweak.com/mcp. Help article 16191512 (updated this week) points Cursor at OAuth on https://app.apptweak.com/api/mcp with no API token in the file. The ChatGPT connector description on that same article still says an API token from an API plan is required. Both paths were live on this fetch.

AppTweak, API-key path (developer docs, Cursor ~/.cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apptweak api": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://developers.apptweak.com/mcp",
        "--header",
        "X-Apptweak-Key: ${APPTWEAK_API_KEY}"
      ],
      "env": {
        "APPTWEAK_API_KEY": "YOUR-API-TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

AppTweak, OAuth path (help 16191512, Cursor):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apptweak-api": {
      "url": "https://app.apptweak.com/api/mcp"
    }
  }
}

MobileAction hosts https://mcp.mobileaction.co/mcp and authenticates by appending ?token=YOUR-API-TOKEN. The setup page says the token comes from a Customer Success Manager and that anyone with the link can query the account. Docs walk through Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini CLI. Cursor is not named on that setup page. MCP draws the same credits as REST. It is not included on ASO Lite, Basic, or Pro.

Appfigures ships a local stdio server, not a remote URL. npm @appfigures/cli 3.0.0:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "appfigures": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@appfigures/cli", "mcp"],
      "env": { "APPFIGURES_API_KEY": "YOUR-TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Trends MCP is remote HTTP with an explicit transport key. Cursor:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trends-mcp": {
      "url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
      "transport": "http",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Claude.ai connectors use a second Trends MCP host with OAuth. That host is not interchangeable with api.trendsmcp.ai. AppTweak's OAuth host is likewise not interchangeable with developers.apptweak.com/mcp. Copy the dialect that matches the client.

Can Trends MCP replace AppTweak for keyword rank?

No. AppTweak's ASO product is daily keyword rank, Apple-sourced volume on iOS, estimated volume on Google Play, difficulty, chance, and (from Grow up) organic installs. Trends MCP does not return those fields. What it does return, on every plan, is live get_top_trends boards including App Store Top Free, App Store Top Paid, and Google Play, plus keyword-source history for Android bundle IDs on app downloads and app rankings. Default limit is 25, max 200. HTML Free boards are top 10 with a 24-hour lag and 90 days of history. docs.md still describes about 5 years of weekly series with no plan split. The HTML caps are the ones that apply to a Free key; docs.md is the tool contract.

HTML paid cards on 13 Sep 2026: Starter $19 / 1,000 requests (yearly $16 per month, $192 billed, "after day 7"). Pro $49 / 5,000 (yearly $39 / $468). Business $199 / 25,000 (yearly $159 / $1,910). The yearly toggle copy says 2 months free. Keyword alerts: Starter 10, Pro 50, Business 250. HTML FAQ on that page says one successful API or MCP call equals one request. pricing.md and docs.md meter MCP get_top_trends at 1 credit per 10 requested rows, max 10 credits per call; REST is 1 request per call. Trial FAQ says the card is not charged until day 8. Fine print on the yearly Starter card says $192/year after day 7.

Source counts on Trends MCP pages still disagree, so this post does not flatten them. HTML pricing cards say 35+ data sources. The FAQ on the same page says 40+. The homepage hero says 35+; the get_top_trends marketing card says 21 platforms. docs.md and llms.txt list 16 keyword sources including python plus 24 live feeds, including all four by Category boards. data-sources.md lists 16 keyword sources and 20 live feeds and omits those four boards. The HTML data-sources page on this fetch prints "36 sources," then "Fifteen keyword sources and twenty-one live trending feeds," then "Keyword sources 16" and "Live feeds 24," and later "83 data sources." Official category names for the by-Category feeds still live in docs.md, which points at /data-sources for those names.

Live counters on this run also disagreed: homepage 11,132,105 API calls served; /pricing 11,161,293; /data-sources 11,161,174. Treat them as marketing ticks, not a single audited total.

FAQ

Is AppTweak worth $79 a month for ASO?

Essential at $79 per month on the yearly toggle is the right buy when the team needs 500 tracked keywords, daily rank, and Apple Search Popularity without waiting on a sales call. Grow at $299 adds organic installs and related Grow+ worksheets. If the job is linked-store analytics only, Appfigures Connect at $9.99 undercuts that floor. If the job is live top charts inside an IDE, Trends MCP Free at $0 is the trial.

What is the cheapest AppTweak alternative with public pricing?

MobileAction Lite at $15 monthly is the cheapest self-serve ASO card that still prints a keyword cap (100). Appfigures Connect at $9.99 is cheaper if analytics is enough; the monthly card lists 0 Keywords, the yearly card lists 25. Sensor Tower is not cheaper on a public grid because there is no grid. Trends MCP Free is $0 for 100 requests, with HTML board depth capped at top 10.

Does AppTweak work in Cursor without an API key?

Help article 16191512 says yes, via OAuth on https://app.apptweak.com/api/mcp, with a browser login on first use. Developer docs still publish the mcp-remote plus X-Apptweak-Key path against developers.apptweak.com/mcp. The ChatGPT connector blurb on the OAuth article still mentions an API token from Lite, Pro, Power, or Enterprise. Teams should test the host their admin actually added.

Can Trends MCP replace AppTweak for keyword research?

No. Trends MCP will show whether an app is climbing the live App Store or Google Play board, and it will show Android download and rank history when the caller passes a bundle ID. It will not score keyword difficulty or organic installs. Keep AppTweak, MobileAction, or Appfigures for metadata. Add Trends MCP when the agent also needs Google, TikTok, Reddit, or Amazon boards from one MCP.

Does Sensor Tower publish AppTweak-style plan cards?

Not on 13 Sep 2026. The pricing page customizes plans per customer and routes through a demo. MCP is named as a module. No public Cursor JSON or list price appeared on that page. Compare published floors (AppTweak Essential, MobileAction Lite, Appfigures Connect, Trends MCP Free) only against vendors that print them.

Sources (accessed 13 Sep 2026): AppTweak pricing; AppTweak MCP (developer docs); AppTweak help 16191512 and 6051203; MobileAction pricing; MobileAction MCP setup; Appfigures pricing; npm @appfigures/cli 3.0.0; Sensor Tower pricing; Trends MCP pricing HTML, pricing.md, docs.md, data-sources.md, llms.txt, and homepage HTML.