ASO AgencyFood & lifestyle · US iPhone listing
Does their ASO suck?
Listing creative score · first three captured iPhone screenshots
5/10Fine. A dangerous place to stop.
Mealime has the ingredients for a useful story and serves them in the wrong order. Recipe, groceries, then meal plan. The visitor has to cook the explanation themselves.
Gab’s verdict · 5/10Gabriel Machuret
One storefront, one language and a dated capture. This is an independent editorial audit, not a client case study.
Gab’s take · Five criteria. Two points each.
The recipe and grouped grocery detail are useful. This is more than attractive food photography. The strongest selling point is the connection between the meals and the shopping, so make that connection obvious. Rebuild around choosing meals and producing the resulting shopping list. Use bigger selective crops and an outcome-led opening. The meal photography should attract attention while the workflow explains why to install.
Healthy recipes establish a relevant meal-choice benefit. The planning and grocery convenience are more specific advantages that should appear sooner.
Recipe detail and grouped groceries provide concrete utility.
Similar green frames and dense lists weaken visual variety.
Recipe, groceries, then planning reverses the useful workflow.
Food imagery and meal planning are not differentiated convincingly.
0: not earned · 1: useful but incomplete · 2: clearly demonstrated. Judged on the dated opening creative; public metadata provides context. These points assess creative execution, not private conversion or ranking performance. Read the scoring criteria · See all ten verdict levels
Inspect the numbered original, read the problem, then compare the proposed fix. The publisher’s creative stays unchanged.
What the visitor sees → what I’d change
Look at the original: The recipe card exposes timing, servings and cookware beside the finished dish.
Why I’m flagging it: The finished meal dominates while the planning advantage stays implicit.
Pair the dish with a specific meal-planning benefit and useful recipe detail.
What the visitor sees → what I’d change
Look at the original: The list groups ingredients and presents a shopping action.
Why I’m flagging it: Grouped groceries are useful, but their connection to chosen meals is missing.
Show selected meals feeding the grocery list with readable quantities.
What the visitor sees → what I’d change
Look at the original: The interface shows meal selection with visible access distinctions.
Why I’m flagging it: Planning is introduced after its shopping output.
Move meal selection earlier and make Pro-labelled access distinctions legible.
Proposed copy for discussion. These are not current listing fields or tested winners.
Observed listing
Meal Planner & Grocery List
Proposed alternative
Pick meals. Build your list.
Name 28/30 · Subtitle 28/30 charactersKeep the current descriptive name and make the subtitle explain the sequence from meal choice to shopping preparation.
The tradeoff: The proposed subtitle removes the explicit grocery-list phrase and may be less precise for shopping-related queries. Validate that discoverability trade before adopting action-led wording.
Read the sequence from top to bottom on mobile, left to right on desktop. These are message-layout sketches, not screens from Mealime or tested results.
Proposed headline
Put this in the frame: A current recipe with its real servings, estimated time and access context.
Why it earns the space: Make the choice concrete.
Proposed headline
Put this in the frame: The verified selection step using that same recipe and serving controls.
Why it earns the space: Show the input that shapes the shopping task.
Proposed headline
Put this in the frame: The resulting ingredient list with adjustments for items already owned.
Why it earns the space: Connect planning to groceries without implying the pictured recipe generates unrelated sample ingredients.
The test: Does showing meal selection before groceries improve understanding of the planning workflow and qualified acquisition? The sketch gives the designer a direction; the actual product and access conditions decide what can ship.
Bring the listing. I’ll help you decide what to keep, what to fix and what to test.
Observed competitor metadata
Organize your recipes
Paprika names recipe management and recipe organisation.
The lesson: Its metadata foregrounds keeping recipes. Mealime can clarify selection-to-shopping without assuming that all competing planners recommend meals in the same way.
Observed competitor metadata
Meal Planner & Grocery List
eMeals names healthy meal plans with the same meal-planner and grocery-list subtitle roles.
The lesson: The overlap is direct. Demonstrating the actual handoff is more useful than another generic planning promise.
Observed competitor metadata
Recipes, Macros & Grocery List
Eat This Much names meal planning with recipes, macros and groceries.
The lesson: Macro-led intent is more explicit there. Do not stretch Mealime’s generic healthy wording into a verified nutrition-prescription claim.
Intent candidates grounded in the listing—not fabricated search-volume or difficulty scores.
Visitor’s job: Choose meals before deciding what to buy.
Evidence: The name and third screenshot identify planning and selection.
Decision: Make the plan-to-list mechanism explicit; research frequency without assuming every user plans a full week.
Visitor’s job: Turn selected dishes into a practical shopping checklist.
Evidence: The subtitle and second still directly show groceries and quantities.
Decision: Verify quantity combination, serving changes and owned ingredients before describing automation in detail.
Visitor’s job: Find an appealing dish with usable cooking instructions.
Evidence: The opening shows a named meal and cooking tabs.
Decision: Use recipe-fit language rather than guaranteed health, allergy safety, cost or cooking-time outcomes.
The unseen keyword field may already cover some of these terms. Build an evidence-backed keyword shortlist before making a metadata change.
Three 2021–2026 accounts were selected for plan-to-list value, changing a plan and the distinction between built-in and imported recipes. They are not a representative savings, nutrition or satisfaction sample. Personal health outcomes, old prices and allergy-related expectations are not adopted as product guarantees.
Sample: 3 selected accounts from 8 displayed reviews. Dates: 5 April 2021–9 January 2026. No sentiment percentage is calculated.
11 August 2025 · 5/5 stars
“grocery list”
An August 2025 reviewer valued choosing meals and getting a grocery list, including adding household items.
What I’d investigate: Use the described workflow as a research lead; personal weight, variety and convenience claims are not typical outcome evidence.
Listing review source · Review ID 130041099495 April 2021 · 5/5 stars
“grocery list reset”
An April 2021 reviewer liked planning but wanted to add meals without resetting the list and found some recipes more involved than expected.
What I’d investigate: Verify current plan-edit behaviour. The historical request and a friend’s allergy experience do not establish current limitations or dietary safety.
Listing review source · Review ID 71870030869 January 2026 · 5/5 stars
“imported a recipe”
A January 2026 Pro user praised shopping and cooking steps but said website recipe import had not worked for them.
What I’d investigate: Retain the failure alongside the praise, and verify import separately. Their stated price, paid access and substitution observations do not define today’s free plan.
Listing review source · Review ID 13611610966A displayed review can be old, unusually positive or internally inconsistent with its star rating. These accounts suggest questions; they do not establish current defects or typical customer experience. Use the Review Research Desk to keep evidence and interpretation separate.
The finished meal dominates while the planning advantage stays implicit.
Deliverable: Pair the dish with a specific meal-planning benefit and useful recipe detail.
Creative brief and current-product checkGrouped groceries are useful, but their connection to chosen meals is missing.
Deliverable: Show selected meals feeding the supported grocery list with readable quantities.
Creative brief and current-product checkPlanning is introduced after its shopping output.
Deliverable: Move meal selection earlier and make Pro-labelled access distinctions legible.
Creative brief and current-product checkDoes showing meal selection before groceries improve understanding of the planning workflow and qualified acquisition?
Check Apple’s current product page optimization guidance and custom product page guidance before configuring a test. Write your experiment brief.
1–3: thumbs down · 4–6: thumbs up and down · 7–10: thumbs up
The basics need a serious rethink.
Too many obvious things have been left unfinished.
There is a useful product here. The listing needs to show it.
Some basics work, but the opening wastes attention and under-explains the benefit.
There is usable creative here, but too much of the sales argument is left to the visitor.
Real strengths, undermined by meaningful gaps in the opening story or execution.
A clear, useful demonstration with specific refinements still needed.
The main promise is clear and supported. Refinement matters more than reinvention.
Clear positioning, thoughtful choices and very few loose ends.
An unusually clear, convincing storefront worth learning from.
An editorial verdict on the captured storefront, not a measured ASO score or an assessment of an agency’s private work.
No private analytics, search-rank dataset or internal keyword field was supplied. Review quotations are short excerpts; explanations are our summaries. App names and screenshots belong to their respective owners. We are not affiliated with Mealime. Read our editorial methodology.
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