MobileAction alternatives compared for ASO and Apple Ads

MobileAction still wins the cheapest self-serve ASO card on its own pricing page: Lite at $15 per month billed monthly, or $12.5 per month billed yearly, verified on 15 Sep 2026. The same page still prints a $0 Apple Ads CMP floor with a $10,000 monthly ad-spend cap. Teams searching for MobileAction alternatives usually want a documented Cursor MCP on a self-serve ASO plan, denser keyword research than Lite's 100 keywords, or live store charts that are not tied to a tracked keyword list. AppTweak wins store-keyword ASO. Applyra and Sonar win cheap ASO plus an npm MCP package. Appfigures wins indie analytics. Trends MCP wins live App Store Top Free, App Store Top Paid, and Google Play boards through one remote HTTP server, and does not replace a keyword rank tracker.

Which alternative matches the job that made you search?

Keep MobileAction when Apple Ads campaign management and organic ASO need to sit in one vendor, or when the printed Lite floor is the budget. Switch when the missing piece is a paste-ready Cursor block on a self-serve ASO SKU, a keyword database that starts at 500 tracked terms, or a live top-chart feed that does not consume ASO keyword slots.

App Radar still sells ASO execution from €69 per month and €58 on the yearly column (500 keywords, 7-day trial) on appradar.com/pricing (accessed 15 Sep 2026). API access is Enterprise-only. No public Cursor JSON. The same page says prices were last updated February 2024, names GPT-4 on review replies in one block, and GPT-5 on the comparison grid.

What MobileAction still prices that the others do not

The ASO Intelligence yearly toggle on mobileaction.co/pricing still prints 2 MONTHS SAVED! next to Lite $15 / $12.5, Basic $69 / $59 (marked MOST POPULAR), and Pro $239 / $199. Lite is 100 keywords, 5 apps and 3 competitors per app, 3 month history, 1 seat, 15 total competitor tracking. Basic is 500 keywords, 8 apps, 10 competitors per app, 6-month history, 1 seat, 80 total competitor tracking. Pro is 1500 keywords, 10 apps, 15 competitors per app, 12-month history, 3 seats, 150 total competitor tracking. Enterprise is quote: 20 apps, unlimited competitors per app, unlimited seats, SSO, dedicated CSM, and 40+ ad networks on that card's paid-keyword and creative insights list.

The banner math is not uniform. Lite at $12.5 × 12 = $150 versus $180 monthly is exactly two Lite months. Pro at $199 × 12 = $2,388 versus $2,868 monthly is $480 off, against two Pro months at $478. Basic at $59 × 12 = $708 versus $828 monthly is $120 off, which is less than two Basic months at $138. Cite the printed $59, not a flat two months free on Basic.

Trial copy on that page disagrees with itself. Every ASO card, including Lite, shows Start Free 7-Day Trial. The FAQ names a 7-day trial for ASO Basic and ASO Pro only, plus a 3-day trial for Market Intelligence Pro, and omits Lite. One free trial per product with the same billing information; a second trial on the same card is an instant charge. Onboarding and training stay Enterprise-only. Refund FAQ: 72 hours on a forgotten first payment, then none.

Terms of service (accessed 15 Sep 2026) print two Last updated lines, 03/12/2024 and 18/02/2025, and repeat that all payments of Fees are non-refundable, with late interest at 1.5% per month or the legal max. That conflicts with the 72-hour first-payment refund on the pricing FAQ. Fees are in United States dollars.

Apple Ads CMP still has a Free $0 card ($10,000 monthly ad spend, 1 seat, 20+ automation templates, 8+ MMP integrations) and an Enterprise quote card marked MOST POPULAR on that module. Ad Intelligence, Search Ads Intelligence, CPP Intelligence, API Solutions, and managed services stay quote-only.

MCP is not on Lite, Basic, or Pro. The 14 Aug 2026 product post Bring App Store and Apple Ads intelligence into your AI agent with the MobileAction MCP server says the server is available to all API customers, uses the same key and credit balance as REST, and is a separate product from the MobileAction platform. Setup step 2: the account manager sends the endpoint URL. Named clients: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini. Cursor is not named. Docs.mobileaction.co's MCP hub repeats that Claude / ChatGPT / Gemini list. Credit examples on the API intro still include Daily Keyword Rankings 50 and App Search 1. GET-style public Cursor JSON is not on that hub.

SKU-level MobileAction cards are also on https://www.trendsmcp.ai/blog/mobileaction-pricing.

How Cursor MCP configs actually differ

The ASO MCP story is five dialects, not one "add a server" step. MobileAction still has no public Cursor snippet on the pages fetched 15 Sep 2026. The others do, and they do not match.

AppTweak help article 16191512 (updated this week, accessed 15 Sep 2026) puts this in ~/.cursor/mcp.json and then prompts a browser login:

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

The same article's ChatGPT description still says an API token from Lite, Pro, Power, or Enterprise is required. The OAuth path above says no token to copy. Cite both. Opening https://developers.apptweak.com/mcp in a browser on 15 Sep 2026 returned that the URL can only be accessed with an MCP client. API yearly cards on the pricing page still print MCP Access on Lite ($166 /Mo, $1,990 billed annually, 200K credits, extras $83 per 100K), Pro ($249 /Mo, $2,990, 500K, extras $50 per 100K), and Power ($833 /Mo, $9,990, 3M, extras $28 per 100K).

Applyra, paid plan only, is local stdio. npm @applyra/mcp-server 1.4.2 on 15 Sep 2026. Twenty tools. MIT licensed.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "applyra": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@applyra/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "APPLYRA_API_KEY": "your_api_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Sonar publishes both a hosted URL and a local package. Indie is $19/month or $15.75/month billed annually, 10 apps, 2,500 keywords, REST 1,000 req/day, 7-day trial (trysonar.app, accessed 15 Sep 2026). MCP docs say 53 tools on the package, 52 on the hosted endpoint because filesystem screenshot export is local-only, then the Claude Desktop section says 31 sonar_* tools will appear in the tool picker. Do not flatten those three counts. npm @sonarapp/mcp 0.9.0. Cursor local:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sonar": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@sonarapp/mcp"],
      "env": { "SONAR_API_KEY": "aso_your_key_here" }
    }
  }
}

Hosted config on the same page uses "url": "https://trysonar.app/mcp" plus a Bearer header, with no transport field. Keys start with aso_. Free mode without a key: app search, lookup, ASO score, keyword extraction, and keyword suggestions on a shared 30 requests/day per IP, and keyword metrics at 5 keywords/day. New accounts get 50 free credits. Prepaid packs from $10.

Appfigures stays on the CLI. npm @appfigures/cli 3.0.0. Connect monthly is $9.99 with 0 Keywords; yearly Connect is $7.99 with 25 Keywords and 0 Competitors. Monitor is $44.99 / $35.99 yearly, 100 keywords. Optimize monthly is $149.99 with 0 Competitors; yearly Optimize is $119.99 with 1 Competitors. Do not flatten Connect to 25 keywords or Optimize to one competitor. Header: Save 20%. Extra apps: 5 then $1.99 each. MCP is npx -y @appfigures/cli mcp, optional APPFIGURES_API_KEY, no remote url.

Trends MCP is the remote HTTP option for live boards, not keyword difficulty scores. Docs.md Cursor block (accessed 15 Sep 2026):

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

The homepage copy-config for the same host omits "transport": "http". Windsurf uses serverUrl rather than Cursor's url plus transport. Setup details also live on https://www.trendsmcp.ai/mcp-server-for-cursor. HTML /pricing JSON-LD still lists Free 0, Starter 19, Pro 49, Business 199. Yearly cards print Starter $16 / month ($192 billed annually), Pro $39 / $468, Business $159 / $1,910, with a 2 months free yearly toggle. Keyword alerts: Starter 10, Pro 50, Business 250. History on the HTML cards: Free 90 days and top 10 with a 24h delay; Starter 1 year and top 25; Pro 2+ years and top 100; Business full archive. pricing.md on 15 Sep 2026 still lists only requests and the $19 / $49 / $199 monthly grid, and omits those depth caps.

HTML FAQ: one successful API or MCP call equals one request. docs.md: MCP get_top_trends costs 1 credit per 10 requested rows, max 10 credits per call; REST is one request per call. HTML trial FAQ: card collected at checkout, not charged until day 8. Yearly cards print "$192/year after day 7". Do not pick one metering rule or one trial day and ignore the other.

When live store charts beat a tracked keyword list

A MobileAction Lite login tracks 100 keywords. That is the right object if the question is "where does this app sit for fitness tracker tomorrow." It is the wrong object if the question is "which free iOS apps moved on the top chart," because that board is not a keyword the account chose to track.

Trends MCP get_top_trends takes exactly one type. App Store Top Free, App Store Top Paid, and Google Play are live store boards. Default limit is 25, min 1, max 200, offset default 0. Sort rank_change with window 1d, 3d, 7d, 14d, or 30d (default 30d) returns climbers against a prior snapshot. Country codes apply to Google Trends, YouTube Trending, TikTok hashtag boards, and X (Twitter) Trending, not to those App Store / Google Play types. For an individual Android app's history, get_growth / get_time_series use source app downloads or app rankings with an Android bundle ID such as com.openai.chatgpt. An iOS App Store numeric ID is the wrong keyword on those sources.

Live-feed labels are case-sensitive. docs.md and llms.txt list 24 live feeds, including four by Category boards (Google Trends, TikTok Trending Hashtags, Amazon Best Sellers, Substack). data-sources.md on 15 Sep 2026 still lists 20 live feeds and omits all four by Category types. HTML /data-sources prints 36 sources. One call., then Fifteen keyword sources and twenty-one live trending feeds, then chips Keyword sources 16 / Live feeds 24, then 83 data sources across 5 categories. Homepage hero copy still says 35+ platforms in one place and 40+ sources in FAQ. HTML /pricing heading is 30+ data sources; the pricing FAQ says 40+. MCP get_top_trends schema lists 24 feeds. Do not flatten those counts. Board-level pages that stay useful after this post: https://www.trendsmcp.ai/app-store-trends and https://www.trendsmcp.ai/google-play-vs-app-store-top-charts.

Sensor Tower remains the quote-only download and revenue layer. The pricing page is still a demo form with no public SKU (accessed 15 Sep 2026). It is not a $15 ASO alternative.

Applyra Unlimited at $9.99/month undercuts MobileAction Lite on tracked-keyword count, with a permanent free plan (1 app, 5 keywords, 1 competitor, 7 days of history, no card) and a fair-use note behind "unlimited." REST is the one published cap: 10,000 requests per month. MCP is paid-only. Sonar Indie at $19 sits next to Trends MCP Starter at $19, but the products are not substitutes: Sonar scores keywords and tracks ranks; Trends MCP returns live boards and multi-source growth.

FAQ

Is there a cheaper ASO desk than MobileAction Lite?

Yes, if the job is tracked keywords rather than Apple Ads. Applyra Unlimited is $9.99/month or $99.99/year with unlimited apps, keywords, and competitors on both stores, subject to fair use, verified 15 Sep 2026. Appfigures Connect is $9.99 monthly but prints 0 Keywords on that toggle; yearly Connect is $7.99 with 25 Keywords. MobileAction Lite remains the cheapest ASO card that also sits next to a $0 Apple Ads CMP floor.

Does MobileAction MCP work in Cursor the way AppTweak and Sonar do?

Not from the public pages fetched 15 Sep 2026. The 14 Aug 2026 MobileAction post and the docs MCP hub name Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, say the account manager sends the endpoint URL, and keep MCP on API Solutions. AppTweak publishes a Cursor url block. Sonar and Applyra publish npx Cursor JSON. Trends MCP publishes a remote HTTP Cursor block. Those are the paste-ready options.

Can Trends MCP replace MobileAction for keyword rank tracking?

No. Trends MCP does not sell a 100-keyword or 500-keyword tracker with volume and difficulty scores. It returns live App Store Top Free, App Store Top Paid, and Google Play boards, Android download and ranking history by bundle ID, and other live feeds. Keep MobileAction, AppTweak, Applyra, or Sonar for tracked-keyword ASO. Add Trends MCP when the agent also needs those live boards.

How do AppTweak and Appfigures self-serve floors compare to MobileAction Basic?

AppTweak Essential on the yearly toggle is $79 /Mo ($949 billed annually), 500 keywords, 1 seat, 6 months of history, 7-day trial. That is the same 500-keyword band as MobileAction Basic at $69 / $59 yearly, with a higher printed ASO floor. Appfigures Monitor at $44.99 / $35.99 yearly tracks 100 keywords, in Basic's neighborhood on keywords and below it on dollars, without MobileAction's Apple Ads CMP Free card.

Do Sensor Tower and App Radar belong on a MobileAction shortlist?

Sensor Tower belongs when the buyer needs quote-only download, revenue, and advertising intel. There is still no public dollar grid. App Radar belongs when the buyer wants listing execution (metadata push, review replies) more than an MCP. Self-serve from €69 / €58 yearly, API on Enterprise only, prices last marked updated February 2024. Neither one is a documented Cursor MCP on a $15 ASO SKU.

Sources (all accessed 15 Sep 2026 unless noted): mobileaction.co/pricing; mobileaction.co/blog/mobileaction-mcp-server (published 14 Aug 2026); mobileaction.co/terms-of-service; docs.mobileaction.co; apptweak.com/en/pricing; AppTweak help 16191512; appfigures.com/pricing; applyra.io/pricing; applyra.io/features/mcp-server; trysonar.app; trysonar.app/docs/mcp; appradar.com/pricing; app.sensortower.com/pricing; Trends MCP HTML /pricing, homepage, /data-sources, pricing.md, docs.md, data-sources.md, llms.txt; npm @applyra/mcp-server 1.4.2, @sonarapp/mcp 0.9.0, @appfigures/cli 3.0.0.