Frequently Asked Questions

AppDrift is an app store optimization (ASO) tool for the App Store and Google Play. It tracks your keyword rankings every day, creates editable store screenshots, and drafts and translates your listing text with AI into 60+ languages. You review everything, and nothing is sent to a store until you choose to send it.

Indie developers and small studios who manage their own App Store and Google Play listings: preparing a launch or an update, tracking a set of keywords, refreshing screenshots or localizing a listing for new markets. It does not estimate other apps' downloads or revenue.

Free covers 1 app, 5 tracked keywords and 50 AI tokens once, with no credit card. Paid plans are Indie $29/month ($290/year), Studio $59/month ($590/year); Enterprise is by agreement. Eligible first subscriptions to Indie can start with a 7-day trial (card required). Studio is paid from day one, with no free trial. All plans use the same managed AI model; access and allowances depend on your plan. Your first subscription payment has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Add 1 app, track 5 keywords with daily updates, and use 50 one-time AI tokens for supported generation or translation. Manual screenshot editing and unlimited exports with free templates are free with an account. Pro collections have their own plan requirements. No credit card is needed for Free.

Start tracking with your public App Store or Google Play link. Connect App Store Connect with an API key or Google Play with a service account when a workflow needs account access. Store publishing requires a paid plan; Apple Search Performance also requires an eligible connected iOS app.

AppDrift metadata tests compare keyword rankings across consecutive variant periods. They are not randomized conversion experiments and do not prove that a metadata change caused a ranking change. Run native conversion experiments in the store console; Listing updates can keep manually recorded results alongside your changes.

No. Saving keeps your work in AppDrift. A private review approval applies to that review version. Copy reviewed changes into saved drafts, then use the appropriate store action to send them. App binaries still ship through your build tools and store consoles.

Paid plans offer private client review links for a specific listing update. The recipient can review and respond without sharing your account login. This does not add team seats or authorize a store submission.

No. AppDrift helps you prepare listings and inspect available data. Rank changes, imported reports and manually recorded experiment results do not by themselves establish a causal improvement in installs or revenue.

A free account includes 50 one-time AI tokens. Generation uses tokens; check the displayed cost before confirming. Additional tokens and paid plans are available. The separate description template tool works without an account and does not use AI.

Generation starts from your app brief and prepares new listing drafts. Translation starts from existing wording. Both need a review for factual accuracy, terminology and the target store’s limits.

Yes. Edit the draft before saving or sending it. Check that every feature, price, rating and benefit matches your actual app. Regeneration uses another request and its displayed token cost.

Yes. App Store and Google Play have different fields. Review the title, subtitle or short description, full description and any additional fields before using the draft. Apple’s keyword field is limited to 100 characters in every language.

Generated suggestions are wording ideas based on the request. They are not evidence of keyword demand, current competitor rankings or likely downloads. Supply relevant terms from your own research and check the finished text for readability.

No. Generation prepares an editable draft. Sending supported fields to a connected store is a separate action that requires an eligible paid plan and credentials. Review the destination and store status before confirming.

The separate public score checker reviews listing text returned by the store. Unavailable iOS subtitle and keyword fields are excluded. Its rule-based checklist is not a forecast of rankings or downloads, and it does not grade an unpublished generated draft.

AI uses your app context to prepare editable translation drafts. Review meaning, terminology and store field limits before sending them. Accuracy and performance are not guaranteed.

We support 60+ languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, Italian, and more.

Processing time depends on the selected fields, languages, provider and retries. The result remains a draft for your review.

Review generated text against each store field’s limit. The editor provides checks, but you may need to shorten or rewrite text before sending it.

Yes. You can set your brand voice preferences, and our AI will maintain that tone across all languages. You can also review and edit any translation before publishing.

Translation is charged in tokens per field per language: 1 token for the title, subtitle, keyword field, promotional text and release notes, 3 for the App Store description and 5 for the Google Play full description. Name, subtitle, keywords, description and promotional text for one App Store language cost 7 tokens. The free plan includes 50 tokens once; Indie adds 3,000 per monthly payment or 36,000 upfront per annual payment. Unused tokens roll over.

AppDrift combines your app context with store-autocomplete research to prepare editable listing translations. Review meaning, terminology and field lengths before publishing. We do not claim a specially trained proprietary model or guaranteed ranking improvement.

Yes. Review and edit generated translations before synchronizing them with connected store accounts. Check brand wording, product claims and terminology with a fluent reviewer for each target language.

Processing time depends on the request, provider and retries. Search and download outcomes are not guaranteed on a fixed schedule. Save a baseline, record when reviewed changes go live, and compare results after enough data has accumulated.

Yes. AppDrift supports listing translation for App Store and Google Play in 60+ languages. Both stores allow 30-character titles; subtitles, descriptions and other fields have separate rules. Check the final localized text in the target store.

Rankings are updated daily for free. You don’t need to spend tokens on daily updates — that happens automatically. You can also refresh by hand to see same-day positions: a manual refresh costs 1 token and updates all of one app’s tracked keywords.

Difficulty is an experimental 0–100 summary of sampled top-ten competition, using count strength (40%), star ratings (20%), title matches (20%) and publisher diversity (20%). These are AppDrift-authored weights, not a validated estimate of your chance to rank. Competitors’ private keyword fields are unavailable. Results may be cached. The legacy iOS popularity indicator uses competitor counts and result count; it is not Apple Ads popularity or measured search volume and shares an input with difficulty.

Yes, you can track any keyword in any of 60+ supported App Store and Google Play storefronts. You’ll see separate rankings for each storefront since search competition varies by market.

It means your app doesn’t rank in the top 200 App Store results for that keyword in the selected country. On Google Play the picture is different: public search only exposes about the top 30 results, so Android keywords outside that window show ‘Outside top 30’ — your app may still rank deeper, but users can’t scroll to it.

Your plan sets the ceiling: 5 tracked keywords on Free, 2,500 on Indie and 10,000 on Studio. Daily rank updates and difficulty/popularity scores are included for every tracked keyword at no token cost; a manual same-day refresh costs 1 token and updates all of one app’s tracked keywords.

Competitor Watch lets you add competitor apps and compare their metadata side-by-side with yours. You can see differences in titles, descriptions, keywords, language coverage, ratings, and ASO scores — helping you identify gaps and opportunities in your keyword and metadata strategy.

Use ranking data to find high-potential keywords (high popularity, low difficulty), identify competitors’ keywords, and monitor progress as you optimize your metadata. Combine keyword tracking with Competitor Watch to see what keywords competitors rank for that you’re missing.

Apple Search Performance reads the App Store Connect analytics reports Apple produces for your app every day: impressions from App Store search and browse, product page views, and first-time downloads and redownloads, by country. Apple does not share search terms through its API, so keyword positions come from AppDrift’s own daily rank checks. A new report request can take Apple 24–48 hours before the first report arrives, and missing values stay unavailable rather than estimated. The full view needs a paid plan and a connected App Store Connect key with the Admin role or Sales and Reports access.

Apple refused the analytics request for the connected key. The key’s role is one possible cause, not the only one. AppDrift shows Apple’s own message next to the error. Check the key’s role in App Store Connect under Users and Access → Integrations, then sync again. If the error continues, email support@appdrift.co and we’ll review Apple’s exact response with you.

Yes. Designing and exporting with free templates has no watermarks and requires no paid plan. You can try the editor without signing up; saving or exporting requires a free account. Collections marked Pro are available on Pro, Studio and Enterprise.

Yes. The AI screenshot generator turns your app brief and notes about 3–8 real app screens into an ordered story with editable captions and layouts. Sign in to generate for 5 AI tokens per successful campaign. You can review on a phone and save the campaign to your free account, then reopen that project on desktop to finish and export. Browser drafts stay on their original device until saved to your account. Manual editing and exports do not use tokens.

Yes. Choose Create → Zoom detail in the desktop editor, select your screenshot and pick the area to highlight. Use a card, circle, wide strip or square with 1–8× magnification, then adjust its border, shadow and placement. The detail stays editable as a separate image layer. A free account is required to save or export.

The editor includes presets for iPhone, iPad and Android phones and tablets. Choose your target sizes in the export dialog and preview each layout before downloading.

Yes. Select your device sizes and languages, then download the screenshot set together in a ZIP file. Check text wrapping and device placement in each size before exporting.

Yes. On a paid plan, save your project and connect your iOS app with a draft version. Choose your app and device sizes, then upload the screenshot set to App Store Connect in one click. This replaces the selected draft screenshot sets; it does not submit or publish your app. For Google Play, export the set and upload it manually in Play Console.

The screenshot editor requires a desktop or laptop. You can browse this page on mobile, then open the editor on a larger screen to create your screenshots.

You can edit captions for each language yourself. AI translation costs one token per target language for the whole design set. Review the translated captions and layout before exporting. A paid plan is not required if your account has enough tokens.

It sends reviewed listing text and supported localizations to your connected App Store Connect or Google Play account. App binaries are delivered through your existing build tools and store submission process.

Store publishing is included in the paid plans, Indie and Studio. You can prepare drafts on Free with the included AI tokens, then compare plans before using paid store actions. Creating an account does not send any changes.

Paid plans can upload a saved screenshot set to an App Store Connect draft after setup. This replaces the selected draft screenshot sets and does not submit or publish the app. For Google Play, export the artwork and upload it in Play Console.

Check product claims, language, required fields, character limits and screenshot layouts. AppDrift provides preparation tools, but passing a text check is not store approval. Apple and Google control their review and publication processes.

No. An accepted store write is a response from the store API. It does not confirm the complete listing is public. Review the store status and available public observations before treating an update as published.

Use App Store Connect or Google Play Console for binary submission, release scheduling and phased binary rollouts. AppDrift focuses on preparing and sending listing updates.

Add your app and create a saved listing version. Open Store listing → Listing updates, choose that version and its original language, then add the languages and saved screenshot projects you want to work on. Preparing an update is free.

Preparing and editing an update is free. Translation shows its token cost before you confirm. Approved wording, batch screenshot refresh, private client review links, store reports, native experiment records and outcome comparisons require paid access or an eligible trial. Pro screenshot collections have their own access requirements; a subscription does not unlock every collection automatically.

No. Save changes keeps your work in AppDrift. Copy changes to drafts applies reviewed text to your saved listing and screenshot drafts. Sending supported listing fields to a connected store is a separate action in the version editor. Screenshot images are edited, exported or uploaded separately in the screenshot editor.

Yes, when it is an exact approved match for the same app, source text, field, language and relevant context. That match is reused without an AI call or token charge. Changed or unmatched text needs a fresh review and, if you request AI translation, a new quote.

In the screenshot editor, open Refresh screenshots and map new image files to existing screenshot layers. AppDrift remembers mappings for later updates while preserving the campaign layout. Review the replacements before export. Separate Zoom detail layers keep their own image sources and must be updated separately.

No. Start with editing, translation and review. After a store update, add supported Apple Downloads or Google acquisition reports when you have them. Missing data stays unavailable. Native experiment results are records you enter yourself; AppDrift does not launch those experiments or independently verify their results.

The Figma plugin is in development — join the waitlist on the Figma integration page to hear when it ships. Today, export your frames from Figma and drop them into the free screenshot editor at appdrift.co/screenshot-generator; every device size and batch export already work there.

The plan is for the AI to fit translated text within your existing design constraints — when a translation runs longer than the original it will rework the wording to keep the layout intact. Until the plugin ships, translated text is edited in the screenshot editor.

Text layers, components, auto layouts, images, vectors, and frames are the target scope for the first release.

Yes — that works today in the screenshot editor: export correctly sized screenshots for every required device size on both stores in one click, free and without watermarks.

Yes. The Free plan doesn’t expire. It includes the screenshot editor with free templates (unlimited exports, no watermarks), 1 app, 5 tracked keywords with daily ranks and 50 AI tokens once. Indie ($29/month) adds 10 apps, 2,500 tracked keywords, 3,000 AI tokens per monthly payment, store publishing, store monitoring, metadata A/B testing and Pro screenshot collections.