ASO agency review · September 2026
RankMyApp was founded in São Paulo in 2015 by Leandro Scalise and has grown into the largest mobile intelligence company in Latin America, with more than 600 clients including Nike, Duolingo and Sephora. It is a platform business with managed services on top. The intelligence is real. What you need to know is how a platform-first company staffs, prices and reports the human part.
Thinking about hiring RankMyApp? Avoid. Let me explain the platform-first problem.
Gabriel Machuret · September 2026RankMyApp is the most significant ASO company in Latin America, and if you operate in Brazil or the wider region, you have almost certainly come across them. Founded in 2015, six hundred-plus clients, seventeen countries, big brand logos. They describe themselves as the first Brazilian company entirely focused on mobile intelligence and performance, and that word, intelligence, is the key to reading them correctly. RankMyApp is a data platform with services on top. It is not a consultancy with a tool on the side.
That order matters. A platform company earns from subscriptions, and subscriptions are worth most when they renew for years. Managed services exist to make the platform indispensable: someone from the vendor runs your ASO inside their dashboard, reports through their dashboard, and shows you results in their dashboard. Over time the reports, the keyword history and the review analytics all live somewhere you do not own. Leaving becomes expensive, not because the contract is punitive, but because the memory of your own store is inside their product.
Meanwhile the human work is priced as a feature. Managed ASO at a platform company is typically staffed by analysts trained on the tool, following a workflow the tool encourages: track keywords, flag movements, update metadata on a cadence, respond to reviews. Those are sensible tasks. They are not the same as a person who has read your category’s reviews, opened your five competitors, and formed an opinion about what your first screenshot should claim. Tool-led work drifts toward what the tool measures, which is rankings and ratings, and away from what you want, which is installs.
There is also the regional dimension. RankMyApp’s depth is Latin American storefronts, Portuguese and Spanish localisation, and the review dynamics of those markets. That is a real edge for a regional app. For an app whose main markets are the US, the UK or Germany, it is an edge you are paying for and not using, while the managed service applies the same workflow as everywhere else.
Compare that with hiring one consultant with no platform. I tear the listing down, rewrite it for your real markets, test one creative change, and hand the system over on a fixed date. I use whatever data source fits your markets, and when we finish, your team keeps the keyword map, the test log and a subscription they own, to a tool they chose. Nothing about the engagement is designed to keep you anywhere. The fee is fixed and ends, and a year later you are not looking at an export request.
In fairness: if your core markets are in Latin America and you want a platform with regional depth plus people who run it, RankMyApp is the obvious candidate and their scale there is unmatched. If you want independent judgment on your listing and ownership of your own store history, a platform-first vendor is the wrong shape. Send me their proposal and I will show you what the human work costs without the seat.
02 — RankMyApp vs one consultant
Same goal: more installs from search03 — Where a platform-plus-services fee actually goes
Typical agency economics · illustrative, not their booksThe intelligence product is the company. Its engineers, data pipelines and roadmap are on every managed invoice.
Managed services exist to win and keep seats. Their cost is a sales cost.
Your point of contact, running the dashboard and the export.
São Paulo and regional offices, tools, and the owners’ return.
The analyst actually changing your store, inside the platform. About a quarter.
04 — What ‘mobile intelligence’ says vs what your listing gets
Three things to translate before you signData about your store, your competitors and your reviews. Intelligence is an input. Someone still has to decide what the title says, and at a platform company that someone is an analyst following the tool’s workflow.
Data is not a decisionA platform number. Seats, not engagements. The managed service is applied across them with a workflow, because that is the only way six hundred accounts fit in one product.
Seats, not depthRun inside their dashboard, reported through their dashboard, remembered by their dashboard. The longer you stay, the more of your store’s history lives somewhere you do not own.
Your history, their product05 — Red flags in a platform-first proposal
If you see three, send it to me06 — Should you avoid RankMyApp?
Honest answer: depends who you are07 — Fair play — what RankMyApp genuinely does well
Credit where it is due07 — Before you sign
I will separate the service from the subscription, tell you what your listing needs in your actual markets, and quote it as a fixed fee. If a regional platform is the right call, I will say so.
08 — Objections
A data source is. A platform you are locked into is not. I use what fits your markets and hand your team a subscription they own.
For regional data, yes. For deciding what your listing should say, ask who on the team will form an opinion about your category and how many other accounts they hold.
I handle the strategy and the structure, and work with native copy where needed. If you need regional review management at scale, a platform is a fair option for that piece.
Yes. I compete for ASO work. That is why the argument is about platform-first economics, not competence, and why I have said clearly where they are the right choice.