AppDrift vs Sonar comparison: a flat-price keyword tracker for indie developers versus an all-in-one ASO platform with AI metadata, translation, publishing and Apple keyword data

Prices and plan limits were checked on trysonar.app/pricing and appdrift.co/pricing on September 10, 2026. Disclosure: AppDrift is our product.

Short answer: Sonar is the tracker to buy when the keyword list is the job. For $19 a month (or $15.75 billed annually) it follows 2,500 keywords across 10 apps on both stores, with an API and a CLI, and no per-country or per-seat pricing. AppDrift is the tool to buy when the listing is the job: it researches, writes, translates into 60+ languages, screenshots, monitors and publishes, from $9.99 a month, and it is the only one of the two that shows Apple's own impressions and conversion per search term. Sonar's ceiling is that it stops at analysis. AppDrift's ceiling is its keyword cap: 50 on Basic, 500 on Pro.

Quick Comparison Table

Capability	Sonar	AppDrift
Entry price	$19/month ($15.75/month billed annually)	$9.99/month ($99/year)
Free plan	No; 7-day trial and 50 free API credits	Yes: 1 app, 5 keywords forever, 50 AI tokens, unlimited screenshot exports
Tracked keywords on entry plan	2,500	50 (Pro $19.99: 500 · Studio $39.99: 1,500)
Apps on entry plan	10	5 (Pro: 20 · Studio: 50)
Stores	App Store + Google Play	App Store + Google Play
Keyword difficulty	Yes	Yes, 0-100 difficulty + popularity beside every keyword, on the free plan too
Competitor analysis	Yes	3 / 10 / 25 competitors by plan; competitor rank tracking on Studio
AI metadata generation	No	Yes
Translation	No	Yes, 60+ languages with per-market keyword research
Screenshot generator	No	Yes, free and unlimited
Publish to the stores	No	Yes
Apple per-keyword impressions, TTR, conversion, retention, revenue	No	Yes, synced daily from App Store Connect on paid plans
Store monitoring and alerts	No	Yes
API / CLI / MCP	REST API (1,000 requests/day) + CLI on Indie; pay-as-you-go credits from $10	REST API from Basic + appdrift-mcp on npm
Team seats	1 on Indie; 5 on Agency ($99)	Single account

What Is Sonar?

Sonar is a newer ASO tool built for indie developers who felt priced out of AppTweak and Sensor Tower. Its pitch is a flat rate with a large allowance: the Indie plan is $19 a month, or $15.75 a month billed annually, for 10 apps and 2,500 tracked keywords on both the App Store and Google Play. The Agency plan at $99 a month raises that to 50 apps, 10,000 keywords and five seats, with portfolio roll-ups and white-label reports.

What you get is keyword research with difficulty scores, daily rank tracking, competitor keyword and rank comparison, and a developer surface most trackers lack at this price: a REST API with 1,000 requests a day, a command-line client, and pay-as-you-go API credits from $10 with 50 free on signup. Sonar's own comparison pages put it between the cheap trackers and the AppTweak tier, which is a fair place to put it.

What Sonar does not do is anything after the analysis. It does not write metadata, translate it, make screenshots, monitor your listing for changes, or publish to either store. It also cannot see Apple's per-keyword conversion data; no third-party tool can. Its pricing page does not state country coverage per plan, so ask before you rely on a specific storefront.

What Is AppDrift?

AppDrift is an all-in-one ASO platform for indie developers and small studios: keyword tracking with a difficulty score beside every term, AI metadata generation that regenerates until the copy fits the character limits, translation into 60+ languages on live per-market keyword research, a free screenshot generator, store monitoring with alerts, weekly action plans, and one-click publishing to App Store Connect and Google Play.

The feature that separates it from any tracker is Apple Search Performance. Since August 2026, AppDrift syncs App Store Connect Analytics daily and shows impressions, tap-through rate, conversion rate, retention cohorts and revenue per acquisition search term for your own app, joined to your tracked ranks, at no token cost on paid plans. It needs an App Store Connect key with the Admin or Sales and Reports role, and the data is your own app's only.

AppDrift's limits: AI actions are metered in tokens (500 a month on Basic, 3,000 on Pro, 8,000 on Studio; a full generation costs 7 tokens per language on iOS and 8 on Android). Tracked keywords are capped at 5 on Free, 50 on Basic, 500 on Pro and 1,500 on Studio. Competitor rank tracking is a Studio feature. Google Play rank checks see roughly the top 30 results. There is no Apple Search Ads campaign management.

Features Compared

Keyword tracking and research

On volume, Sonar wins clearly: 2,500 keywords for $19 against AppDrift's 500 for $19.99. On what each keyword tells you, AppDrift adds two things. First, every tracked keyword carries a 0-100 difficulty score and a popularity score from the current top-ranking apps, the same scorer behind the free difficulty checker, so you can size a term before spending a slot on it. Second, on the App Store with a paid plan, the tracking view shows Apple's own impressions, tap-through and conversion for that exact search term. A rank tells you where you are; Apple's number tells you whether it matters.

What happens after the research

Sonar ends where the spreadsheet begins. AppDrift produces the title, subtitle, keyword field, description, promotional text and release notes for a market in under a minute, keeps every generation so it can be reused for the next version, translates the listing into 60+ languages with live autocomplete research per market, and pushes the result to both stores through your own credentials. In a scoring of 123 real listings, 94% graded D on localization; that is the part of the job a tracker cannot help with.

Monitoring

AppDrift watches your listing and your competitors' and fires alerts on metadata changes, rating drops and rank regressions, and its weekly action plan turns the data into a short to-do list. Sonar has no monitoring layer.

Developer access

Sonar's API and CLI on the entry plan are a real advantage for developers who want raw rank data in their own scripts, and its pay-as-you-go credits let you use the API without a subscription. AppDrift has API access from Basic and publishes appdrift-mcp, which exposes difficulty, rank checks, ASO scoring and metadata generation to Claude Desktop, Cursor and other MCP clients.

Pricing Compared

Plan	Sonar	AppDrift
Free	7-day trial; 50 free API credits	1 app, 5 keywords forever, 50 AI tokens, screenshots, ASO score
Under $10	-	Basic $9.99: 5 apps, 50 keywords, 500 tokens, every paid feature
About $19	Indie $19 ($15.75 annual): 10 apps, 2,500 keywords, API, CLI	Pro $19.99 ($199/year): 20 apps, 500 keywords, 3,000 tokens
$39.99	-	Studio: 50 apps, 1,500 keywords, 8,000 tokens, competitor rank tracking
$99	Agency: 50 apps, 10,000 keywords, 5 seats, white-label reports	-

At the $19 mark the two products are priced identically and sell different things: Sonar sells five times the keywords; AppDrift sells the writing, translation, screenshots, monitoring, publishing and Apple data. Below $19, only AppDrift has a plan. Above it, only Sonar has an agency tier with seats.

Who Should Pick Which

Pick Sonar if

You track thousands of keywords across a portfolio and the count is the constraint
You write and localize metadata yourself or with an agency
You want an API and CLI on the entry plan, or pay-as-you-go API access with no subscription
You run a small agency and need seats and white-label reports

Pick AppDrift if

You need the listing written, translated and published, not only measured
Your app is on the App Store and you want Apple's per-keyword conversion next to your ranks
You want alerts when a competitor changes their title or your rating drops
You want a free plan that tracks keywords forever and a free screenshot editor
One app's real keyword targets fit in 50 or 500 slots, which for most indie apps they do

Can You Use Both?

Yes, and for a portfolio it is a reasonable pairing: Sonar as the wide net for rank data, AppDrift for producing and shipping the listing and reading Apple's numbers on the keywords that matter. The combined cost is $28.99 a month. A single-app developer will usually find one of the two covers the job.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Sonar or AppDrift better for an indie developer?

For tracking a large list across several apps, Sonar. For writing, translating and publishing the listing, and for Apple's own per-keyword data, AppDrift.

Does Sonar write or translate app store metadata?

No. Sonar is a research, tracking and competitor tool. AppDrift generates, translates, screenshots and publishes.

How many keywords can each track?

Sonar: 2,500 on Indie ($19), 10,000 on Agency ($99). AppDrift: 5 free forever, 50 on Basic, 500 on Pro, 1,500 on Studio.

Which has an API?

Both. Sonar: REST API (1,000 requests a day) and CLI on Indie, plus pay-as-you-go credits. AppDrift: API access from Basic and the appdrift-mcp server.

Which shows Apple's own keyword data?

Only AppDrift, on paid plans, for your own app, synced daily from App Store Connect Analytics.

Conclusion

Sonar is the best flat-price keyword tracker for indie developers in 2026 if you do the rest of the job elsewhere. AppDrift is the tool for the rest of the job, and the only one of the two that can measure a change against Apple's own search-term numbers. Try AppDrift's free plan and Sonar's trial side by side for a week; whichever screen you keep returning to is the one to pay for. See also AppDrift vs Applyra, AppDrift vs Astro and the 22 best ASO tools compared.

References

Sonar Pricing (checked September 10, 2026)
AppDrift Pricing
What App Store Connect now shows per search keyword
How much App Store rankings move day to day (13,220 observations)

Sonar ASO

AppDrift vs Sonar: Keyword Tracker or ASO Workflow? (2026 Comparison)