What does the ASO score check?
Thirteen things Apple's public data shows about a listing, in four groups worth 100 points together. Each one comes from a sentence in Apple's own guidance: the product page guide, the search guide, the screenshot specifications, the App Review Guidelines and the Human Interface Guidelines on app icons and ratings.
| Check | Points | How the points are given | Left out when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name and description | 35 | ||
| Name length | 5 | 30 characters or fewer, Apple's limit | Always runs |
| A name of its own | 7 | 7 if no other live app has the same name or brand, 3 if one shares the brand or is a letter or two off, 0 if one has the same name | Apple's search didn't answer |
| First sentence | 9 | 9 for 150 characters or fewer (our estimate of what shows before "more"), 3 if longer | Always runs |
| Paragraph and feature list | 8 | 4 for at least 300 characters (our line), 4 for a list of two or more lines | Always runs |
| No prices in the description | 3 | 3 if no price is written in it | Always runs |
| No keyword lines in the description | 3 | 3 if no line is a list of search terms or hashtags | Always runs |
| Screenshots and icon | 25 | ||
| Screenshots | 15 | 5 for each of the first three, the ones Apple can show in search results | Always runs |
| iPad screenshots | 5 | 5 for at least one | The app doesn't run natively on iPad |
| Icon corners | 5 | 5 if the corners are left square for iOS to round | The icon couldn't be read |
| Ratings | 25 | ||
| Number of ratings | 10 | 10 for 10 or more (our line), 5 for 1 to 9 | Always runs |
| Average rating | 15 | 15 from 4.5, 10 from 4.0, 5 from 3.0 (our lines) | Fewer than 10 ratings |
| Updates | 15 | ||
| Last update | 8 | 8 within a year (our line), 4 within three years (Apple's line for possible removal) | Apple gave no date |
| What's New | 7 | 7 if it names a change, 3 if it only says something like "Bug fixes" | It's the app's first version |
Where Apple gives a rule but no number, the line is ours and the table says so. Apple says the first sentence of a description matters most, for example, but doesn't say how long it can be. 150 characters is our estimate of what shows before "more".
How is the score worked out?
Points earned, divided by points possible, times 100. If a check can't run, it's left out of both sides, and the result tells you which ones. Until an app has 10 ratings, one review can swing its average, so those 15 points come off the possible total instead of counting for or against it. An app that doesn't run on iPad isn't asked for iPad screenshots.
The result opens with what to fix first: the checks that lost the most points, each with one line on what to do.
How does a made-up listing score?
Take a made-up app called "Pebble: Daily Habit Tracker". Another live app is called "Pebble", the first sentence runs to 166 characters, it has two screenshots, four ratings that average 5.0, and What's New says "Bug fixes and improvements." Everything else follows Apple's guidance, and it doesn't run on iPad.
It earns 56 points out of a possible 80 (the iPad check and the average are left out), so it scores 70. The first three fixes are the first sentence (6 points), a third screenshot (5) and more ratings (5). Shorten one sentence and add one screenshot, and it's at 84.
Why doesn't it predict my App Store rank?
Because nobody outside Apple can. Apple says search looks at text relevance, from your name, subtitle, keywords and primary category, and at what people do, like downloads, ratings and reviews. It doesn't say how much each one counts. A tool that turns that into a rank or a "visibility" number is guessing.
So this score measures one thing: how closely the parts of your listing we can see follow what Apple asks for. A high score won't promise a rank, and a low one points to fixes Apple itself suggests.
What can't it see?
- Subtitle. Not in Apple's public data. Count it with the character counter.
- Keywords. Private to App Store Connect, so no outside tool can read them. Check yours with the keyword checker.
- Promotional text. Not in Apple's public data. Count it with the character counter.
- App previews. Videos aren't in Apple's public data. Check a video with the preview checker.
- In-app purchases. Not in Apple's public data.
- What the screenshots show. The score counts them. Only a person can judge them.
- Other countries. Only the country in your link is read. A US link shows the US listing and US ratings.
- Rank, views and downloads. Only App Store Connect has them. This score doesn't predict any of them.
The icon test only notices corners that were rounded before export and filled with one flat colour. If the fill matches the icon's edges, it can't tell. The icon checker shows your own file on a Home Screen.
Does it store anything?
No. Your browser asks Apple's public lookup and search services directly, and reads the icon from Apple's servers. Nothing goes to our server, and nothing is saved.
Apple's guidance checked October 23, 2026. To see the same listing as a plain checklist with no score, use the listing checker.