Guide — pricing · September 2026
ASO agency pricing: what it costs, where it goes, and what you should pay instead
Every ASO agency quotes a monthly number and almost none of them explain what it contains. After fifteen years auditing the output of agencies on four continents, I can. This guide lays out real retainer ranges by tier and country, breaks down where a typical fee actually goes, and shows what the same work costs when you pay for it once.
The short answer
An ASO agency retainer in 2026 runs from about $1,500 a month at an offshore package shop to $15,000 a month at a US or Israeli performance agency. Multiply by twelve, because that is the term you will actually sign, and the range is $18,000 to $180,000 a year. Of that, based on typical agency economics, roughly a quarter reaches the person changing your listing. The rest funds sales, account management, offices, platforms and margin.
The same listing work, done once by an experienced consultant on a fixed scope, costs in the region of $9,500. It is not cheaper because the work is worse. It is cheaper because nothing on the invoice is a salary that never touches your store.
Retainer ranges by tier
| Tier | Typical monthly fee | 12-month total | Who you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise performance agency (US, Israel, London network) | $8,000–$15,000 | $96,000–$180,000 | A strategist on a roster, behind an account manager, inside a media business |
| Mid-market specialist agency (US, UK, Germany, Spain) | $4,000–$8,000 | $48,000–$96,000 | A named ASO specialist, an account manager, a monthly deck |
| Regional boutique (Spain, Netherlands, Canada, Australia) | $3,000–$6,000 | $36,000–$72,000 | Founder oversight, a small team, regional depth |
| Offshore package (India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Philippines) | $200–$2,500 | $2,400–$30,000 | A template run by a junior, sometimes with install ‘boosts’ |
| One consultant, fixed scope | None | ≈ $9,500 once | The person on the call, on every deliverable, then a handover |
These are typical market rates, not quotes from any named company. Individual agencies sit above or below their tier, and the country pages on this site give local ranges in local currency.
Where the retainer actually goes
Agencies do not publish their cost structure, but the shape of it is not a secret to anyone who has worked inside one. A typical mid-market ASO retainer breaks down roughly like this.
| Line | Share of fee | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| New business and marketing | 12–18% | The sales team, the awards, the conference stand, the directory profiles that recruited you |
| Office, tools and overhead | 15–22% | Rent, software seats, and at platform agencies the engineers maintaining the product |
| Account management | 18–20% | Your point of contact. Runs the call, writes the recap, forwards requests |
| Margin | 15–20% | The owners’ return, or the parent group’s |
| Hands on your listing | 22–32% | The specialist and designer actually changing your store |
The last line is the only one that moves installs. Everything above it is the cost of being an agency, and it is on your invoice whether or not anything ships this month.
Why monthly is the wrong unit
The stores do not respond in monthly increments. A rewritten title and a tested first screenshot produce a ranking shift over two to six weeks, and then the listing needs to be left alone so you can read the result. A retainer bills the quiet at the same rate as the change. Agencies fill the quiet with monitoring, dashboards, ‘ongoing optimisation’ and monthly keyword refreshes, all of which are activity and very little of which is work.
The practical consequence: month two of a retainer contains the rewrite, month three contains the test, and months four to twelve contain the report. You pay the same for all of them.
The hidden lines
- Discovery and strategy phases billed at the full monthly rate before any change ships. Common in Germany, the UK and Canada. A one-week teardown does the same job.
- Platform subscriptions required alongside a managed service. Common at tool-owned agencies. You are being onboarded, not just hired.
- Percentage-of-spend fees for Apple Search Ads bundled with organic work. The organic fee looks small because the margin is in the spend.
- Minimum terms of six to twelve months. Longer than the stores take to respond to any single change.
- Install ‘boosts’ quietly included in offshore packages to hit ranking guarantees. The cheapest line on the market once you count your developer account.
What a fixed fee buys
A fixed-scope engagement with one consultant contains four things: a teardown of your listing against five competitors in the markets your installs come from; a rewrite of the title, subtitle, keyword field and creative order, handed over ready to paste; one controlled creative test, measured on conversion; and a handover of the keyword map, the test log and the reasoning so your team can run the next round. The price is agreed up front and does not recur. If the honest answer is that your listing is fine and your product is the problem, you hear that on the first call.
How to compare a quote
- Multiply the monthly fee by the minimum term. That is the number you are agreeing to.
- Ask what ships in month five. If the answer is monitoring and a report, you are paying for the quiet.
- Ask who, by name, writes the title and subtitle, and how many other accounts they hold.
- Ask what your team knows how to do on its own when the contract ends.
- Send me the proposal. I will mark which lines are work, which are overhead, and what the work costs once.
This guide is part of a set: the honest case against hiring an ASO agency, a plain explanation of what ASO services really are, reviews of every named agency, and the country-by-country guide.
Objections
“Is a cheaper retainer better value?” +
Only if month five contains work. A cheap subscription to waiting is still a subscription to waiting, and the cheapest packages often include install boosts that cost you the account.
“Why is a fixed fee not just a smaller retainer?” +
Because it ends. The incentive is to finish and hand over, not to stay. And it buys the one thing a retainer cannot afford at any tier: someone thinking about your category for three weeks.
“Do enterprise agencies deliver more for the higher fee?” +
They deliver a deeper bench and more process. Most of the extra fee funds the account layer, the platform and the offices, not more hours on your listing.
“What should a startup with a small budget do?” +
Fix the listing once, properly, and learn to run it. That is cheaper over a year than any retainer, including the offshore ones, and it leaves you with the skill.
Stop funding
someone else’s
office.
A limited number of engagements at a time, in one language: what we change, when it ships, what it costs. If an agency is the better fit for you, I will say so on the first call.
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