Key takeaways
- App marketing splits into four buckets: pre-launch, ASO, paid acquisition and retention. Ad spend is the one that scales; the rest are mostly fixed.
- ASO has public price ranges: tools from $15 a month, audits $2,000 to $7,500, mid-market agencies $5,000 to $15,000 a month.
- AppTweak's 2025 median Apple Ads cost per install was $1.80 globally and $4.06 in the US, and the range by US category runs from $1.33 to $26.70.
- Google recommends a daily budget of at least 50 times your target cost per install, so a US-priced app needs about $200 a day to learn.
- Acquisition only pays back if users stay. RevenueCat's 2026 data shows 10.7% of hard-paywall users convert by day 35, against 2.1% for freemium.
- Set aside 10 to 20% as a contingency, and ask every provider what is not included in the fee.
What the video covers
- 0:00 Why app marketing costs surprise founders
- 1:10 Pre-launch: research, landing page, outreach
- 3:15 App store optimization
- 5:18 Paid user acquisition
- 7:06 Retention and engagement
- 8:30 Hidden costs
- 10:20 Budget allocation and a $10,000 example
- 13:01 DIY vs freelancer vs agency
What does app marketing cost, and where does the money go?
App marketing money goes into four buckets: pre-launch work, app store optimization, paid user acquisition, and retention and engagement. Pre-launch is mostly your time, plus small fixed fees such as Google's one-time US$25 Play developer registration. ASO has public price ranges, from $15 a month for a keyword tool to $5,000 to $15,000 a month for a mid-market agency. Paid acquisition is the bucket that scales with ambition, because you pay for each install: AppTweak's 2025 data puts the median Apple Ads cost per install at $1.80 globally and $4.06 in the US. Retention is the bucket that decides whether the first three pay back, since a user who leaves in a week never returns the acquisition cost. Only ASO and ad costs have public benchmarks we could check, so we quote those and tell you to ask for scope on the rest.
| Bucket | What it covers | Cost marker we could verify |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-launch | Research, landing page, waitlist, outreach | Mostly time. Google Play registration is a one-time US$25. |
| ASO | Keywords, store text, screenshots, tests | $15 a month tools to $5,000 to $15,000 a month agencies |
| Paid acquisition | Apple Ads, Google, Meta, TikTok | $1.80 global and $4.06 US median cost per install on Apple Ads |
| Retention | Onboarding, push, email, in-app messages | Priced per tool and per scope. We do not quote a number. |
Pre-launch deserves a short note. It is the cheapest stage and the one founders skip. Search the stores for the words your user would type, read what rivals say in their titles and subtitles, and build a simple page that collects emails. None of that needs a budget, and it gives you the words you will use later in your store listing.
How much does app store optimization cost?
ASO costs from about $15 a month for a keyword tool to $5,000 to $15,000 a month for a mid-market agency, with a one-time audit typically $2,000 to $7,500. AppFollow's cost guide lists boutique consultants and freelancers at $1,500 to $4,000 a month and enterprise firms at $15,000 to $50,000 a month. On the tool side, AppTweak starts at $79 a month for 500 keywords and MobileAction at $15 a month for 100 keywords. These ranges come from companies that sell ASO, so they are asking prices. The jobs are keyword research, store text, screenshots, tests, extra countries and reporting. A founder can do the first three alone in a weekend with the free dashboards from Apple and Google. The money buys what a weekend cannot: more countries, ongoing tests and custom product pages. We go through each line in our full guide, how much does ASO cost.
Creative is a cost that surprises people. AppFollow lists screenshot production at $300 to $1,500 through freelancers and $3,000 to $12,000 through agencies, and a creative-only package for one locale at $3,000 to $12,000. Ask whether screenshots are in the retainer or billed on top.
How much does paid user acquisition cost?
Paid acquisition is the biggest and most variable bucket, and install prices differ by a factor of more than ten between markets and categories. AppTweak's 2025 Apple Ads data shows a global median cost per tap of $0.92 and a median cost per install of $1.80, against $1.91 and $4.06 in the US. By US category, the cost per install ran from $1.33 for Shopping to $26.70 for Sports. Adapty's 2026 analysis of more than a million ad groups found a US cost per tap of $1.58 and a cost per download of $2.51, with a global median country cost per download of $0.51. Those are subscription-app figures, so a game or a finance app can differ. Whatever the price, the system needs room to learn: Google recommends a daily budget of at least 50 times your target cost per install. At the US median that is 50 x $4.06, about $203 a day.
| Measure (Apple Ads, 2025) | Global median | US median |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per tap | $0.92 | $1.91 |
| Cost per install | $1.80 | $4.06 |
| Conversion rate on search results ads | 56% | 55% |
Apple Ads is a good place to start because people are already searching. Advanced charges per tap, and its pricing page lists no minimum budget, so you can begin small. But a small budget teaches you less, and you should judge a campaign by users still active a week later, not by installs alone. Meta, TikTok and Google follow the same logic with different prices, and we do not quote them here because we could not check a primary source for them.
What do retention and engagement cost, and do they pay back?
Retention work decides whether acquisition ever pays back, so it belongs in the budget from the start. The tools are push notifications, in-app messages, email and onboarding changes, and their prices depend on the vendor and your user count, so we do not quote one. What we can show is why it matters. RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026 covers more than 115,000 apps and reports a median day-35 download-to-paid conversion of 10.7% for hard-paywall apps and 2.1% for freemium apps. Its companion insights page reports that one-year retention for converted users is 27% for hard paywalls and 28% for freemium, and that lower-priced apps have a 36% median one-year retention against 23% for higher-priced apps. The lesson: what you charge and how the first week feels change the value of each install more than a small saving on the ad price.
If you pay $4.06 for an install and few users reach the point where they pay or come back, the install price is not your problem. In our experience the fix is often cheap: a shorter onboarding, a better first-session prompt, an email on day two. Spend there before you raise ad budgets.
What hidden costs break an app marketing budget?
Most overspend comes from items the quote did not list: ad testing and creative, extra countries, tool subscriptions, and contract terms. Ads need new creative on a regular basis, and AppFollow's ranges show that screenshot production alone can run $300 to $1,500 through a freelancer and up to $12,000 through an agency. Every extra country repeats the keyword, text and creative work, and Phiture says retainers depend on scope, the number of markets and the amount of creative work. Tools renew monthly: the ASO tools above run from $15 to $249 a month on the plans we checked. Contract terms matter too. Admiral Media's page says its retainers have a six-month initial term. Before you sign anything, ask what is included, what is billed on top, and how long you are committed. Keep 10 to 20% of the budget unallocated as a contingency, a rule of thumb we use rather than a published benchmark.
Ask five questions of any provider: are ASO tools included, how many creative pieces and revisions are in the fee, is ad testing separate from ad spend, who owns the ad and store accounts, and what happens at the end of the term. The answers matter more than the headline price.
How should you split an app marketing budget?
Start with your biggest leak, split the money 70/20/10 between proven, new and experimental, and add contingency before you spend anything. The 70/20/10 idea is a rule of thumb, not a statistic: about 70% on what already works, 20% on new channels or creative, and 10% on experiments. For a new app, the first dollars usually go to ASO and paid acquisition, because those create the first traction. Scale in phases: test small, keep what works, then raise spend. A founder who wants maximum downloads from $10,000 might split it as in the table below. This is an illustration, not a benchmark, and your own numbers should replace ours as soon as you have data. At the 2025 US median cost per install of $4.06, $7,000 of ads buys roughly 1,700 installs. At the global median of $1.80 it buys roughly 3,900.
| Line (illustration, $10,000) | Amount | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Paid acquisition | $7,000 | Apple Ads, Google, Meta or TikTok, with creative variants |
| ASO | $1,000 | Tool, audit or creative refresh |
| Influencers or creators | $1,000 | Micro creators and user-made content |
| Content and social | $500 | Posts and short video to support the store page |
| Analytics and testing | $500 | Attribution and ad tests, so you can tell what worked |
The choice of who does the work is a trade between money and time. Doing it yourself is the cheapest and slowest, and teaches you the most, but you pay in hours and in early mistakes. A freelancer is cheaper than an agency and good for one job, such as ASO, but you manage them and quality varies. An agency gives you a team and reporting at a higher price. For ASO the published monthly ranges are $1,500 to $4,000 for freelancers and $5,000 to $15,000 for mid-market agencies. We do not quote a general agency fee, because we could not verify one across all four buckets.
What we see across 300+ apps
We have been building and marketing apps since 2015, with 300+ apps shipped and 52M+ installs behind them. The budget mistake we see most is putting the money in the wrong order. Founders spend on ads first, find the cost per install is high, and conclude that marketing is too expensive. The expensive part is usually the page the ads point to, or the first week after install.
So we budget in the order of the funnel: store page and tracking first, then paid tests, then scale, with retention work running alongside. Tracking comes before spend, so that you can tell which dollar did what. And we keep the ad and store accounts in the client's name, so the history stays with the app.
For a plan sized to your stage, see our app marketing budget guide or our app marketing services.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I budget for app marketing?
It depends on stage and goal, so we do not give one number. Start from your cost per install: Google recommends a daily budget of at least 50 times your target cost per install for app campaigns, which is about $203 a day at the 2025 US Apple Ads median of $4.06. Add ASO and a 10 to 20% contingency.
How much does it cost to get an app install?
AppTweak's 2025 data puts the median Apple Ads cost per install at $1.80 globally and $4.06 in the US. By US category it ranged from $1.33 for Shopping to $26.70 for Sports. Other channels differ, so test your own.
How much does an ASO agency cost?
AppFollow's published ranges are $1,500 to $4,000 a month for boutique consultants and freelancers, $5,000 to $15,000 for mid-market agencies, and $15,000 to $50,000 or more for enterprise firms. A one-time audit typically costs $2,000 to $7,500.
Can I market my app with no budget?
Yes, for a start. You can do keyword research, write your store listing, build a waitlist page and run the built-in store tests for the price of your time. Paid acquisition is where money becomes necessary, because installs are bought one by one.
What hidden costs should I watch for?
Creative production, extra countries, tool subscriptions, ad testing and contract terms. Ask what is included and what is billed on top. Keep 10 to 20% of the budget as contingency.
Is it better to hire a freelancer or an agency?
A freelancer suits one job, such as ASO, and costs less, but you manage the work. An agency gives you a team, reporting and several channels at a higher price. Choose by the number of jobs and how much time you have to manage them.
Related
- App marketing budget guide
- App marketing agency cost
- CPI benchmarks
- App user acquisition cost
- How much does ASO cost? (video)
- App marketing services
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Book a strategy callSources
- Apple Ads benchmarks, AppTweak, 2025 data
- Apple Ads benchmarks 2026: CPT, TTR, CPA, and more across 90 countries, by Dalibor Vasic, Adapty, updated 13 July 2026
- Create an app campaign: budget and bidding (Google Ads Help), Google
- How Advanced pricing works, Apple Ads Help
- App store optimization cost, by Olivia Doboaca, AppFollow, updated 2026
- AppTweak pricing, AppTweak, checked October 2026
- MobileAction pricing, MobileAction, checked October 2026
- State of Subscription Apps 2026, RevenueCat
- State of Subscription Apps 2026 insights, RevenueCat
- Create a Play Console developer account (Play Console Help), Google
- ASO agency pricing, Admiral Media, March 2026
- How to choose an ASO agency, Phiture, 3 June 2026