6 Best Sensor Tower Alternatives for Indie Developers (2026)
The cheapest paid Sensor Tower alternative with full revenue and download lists is Trend Apps, at $9.99 a month with no sales call. Appfigures is the better pick if you also want reporting on your own apps. AppTweak is stronger when keyword research matters more than market data. Two names you will see on older lists, AppMagic and data.ai, are now owned by Sensor Tower, so they are no longer independent options.
We make Trend Apps, so it sits first on this list. The ranking below uses criteria you can check yourself, and every tool, ours included, gets a line on who should skip it.
How much does Sensor Tower cost?
Sensor Tower does not publish prices. It sells annual contracts through its sales team. Purchase data collected by Vendr puts the median buyer at about $75,000 a year across 40 purchases, with the cheapest recorded deal at $29,500. For a solo developer or a small studio, that is the reason to look elsewhere.
How we ranked these Sensor Tower alternatives
We compared each tool on the things an indie developer checks before paying:
| Tool | Starting price (public) | Free tier | Revenue and download estimates | iOS and Google Play | Sales call needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trend Apps | $9.99 per month | Yes: app pages and the top 5 rows of each chart | Yes | Yes (US storefronts) | No |
| Appfigures | $9.99 per month for own-app reporting | Yes, Starter (own apps) | Explorer plans from $599.99 per month; revenue and download search listed on Scale ($2,499.99) | Yes | No for own-app plans; Explorer through sales |
| AppTweak | About $79 per month billed yearly (ASO) | Yes, Market Intelligence Free (past-month estimates) | In Market Intelligence plans | Yes | No for standard plans |
| MobileAction | $15 per month (Lite) | Yes, for Apple Ads (up to $10k monthly spend) | Check the plan | iOS; check Google Play on the plan | No for standard plans |
| AppMagic | On request after a demo | Check the pricing page | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free route (Google Trends, store charts) | $0 | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Prices were read from each company's pricing page and recent third-party listings in October 2026. They change often, so check the linked pages before you buy.
1. Trend Apps: for finding small, growing niches on a budget
Trend Apps tracks 62,000+ iOS and Android apps and shows estimated monthly revenue, downloads and revenue per download for each one. The product is built around one question: which apps are earning real money while still being small? On its trending lists, Pro filters let you cap revenue so giant apps don't crowd out the niches an indie developer could enter.
- Price: $9.99 a month, cancel anytime. Without an account, every app page shows its revenue and download estimates and the top 5 rows of each chart show real numbers, so you can judge the data first.
- Strengths: public app pages with revenue and download estimates, ranking data refreshed daily, CSV export, and an MCP server for AI coding tools.
- Skip it if: you need keyword research or ASO tooling, or markets outside the US. Trend Apps covers US storefronts only today.
How the estimates are made, and where they are weakest, is on our methodology page. For a feature-by-feature comparison, see Trend Apps vs. Sensor Tower.
2. Appfigures: for reporting on your own apps plus market data
Appfigures started as a sales and reviews dashboard for your own apps, and that is still where it is cheapest. Its cheapest paid plan is $9.99 a month, according to its pricing page. Its Explorer plans for market data are listed from $599.99 a month, and finding apps by estimated downloads and revenue is listed on the Scale plan at $2,499.99 a month, according to its pricing page. According to Sonar, Explorer plans are sold through sales rather than a public checkout.
- Strengths: clean reporting across stores, a free Starter plan for your own apps, review monitoring and ASO keyword tracking in the middle tiers.
- Skip it if: market research is your main job. The plans that include competitor estimates cost far more than the entry price suggests.
3. AppTweak: for keyword research first, market data second
AppTweak is an ASO suite with a separate market intelligence product. Its Essential ASO plan is €79 a month billed yearly on its pricing page, and about $79 billed yearly or $99 billed monthly in US dollars according to a comparison that read the page in October 2026. ASO plans come with a 7-day trial. Competitor estimates sit in the Market Intelligence plans, which include a free plan with past-month download and revenue estimates.
- Strengths: keyword research and keyword difficulty, metadata tracking, and a free way to check one month of estimates for any app.
- Skip it if: you only want to know which niches make money. Full market data means paying for Market Intelligence on top of, or instead of, the ASO suite.
4. MobileAction: for Apple Ads and competitor keywords
MobileAction has a free plan for Apple Ads beginners (up to $10k in monthly ad spend), a Lite plan at $15 a month, Basic at $69 and Pro at $239. Its ASO plans include competitor keyword tracking.
- Strengths: Apple Ads tooling and competitor keyword visibility.
- Skip it if: you need download and revenue estimates across a whole category. Check which plan includes them before you buy.
5. AppMagic: now Sensor Tower's small-business product
AppMagic was the usual budget alternative, especially for games. In May 2026 Sensor Tower bought it and made it its dedicated offer for small and medium-sized businesses. Its pricing page asks you to request a demo, and pricing information follows from there.
- Strengths: deep games coverage and a long history of revenue and download estimates.
- Skip it if: you left Sensor Tower to get away from sales-led pricing, or you want a tool from a different company. More detail is in our AppMagic alternative comparison.
6. The free route: store charts, Google Trends and Reddit
You can get a rough picture without paying anything. App Store and Google Play top charts show what is moving. Google Trends shows whether interest in a niche is growing, and Reddit threads show what users complain about.
- Strengths: free, and good for forming a first idea.
- Skip it if: you need numbers. None of these sources gives you revenue or download estimates, so you can't tell a niche that barely earns from one that pays a full-time salary.
Which Sensor Tower alternatives are no longer independent?
Sensor Tower bought data.ai (formerly App Annie) in March 2024 and AppMagic in May 2026. Older "Sensor Tower alternatives" lists still put both near the top. If your goal is a different vendor or different pricing, neither counts as an alternative any more, because the data, the roadmap and the pricing decisions now sit with one company.
Do you need a sales call to buy these tools?
For Sensor Tower and AppMagic, yes: neither publishes prices, so you request a quote. Trend Apps, AppTweak and MobileAction show prices on their websites and let you sign up with a card for their standard plans; their enterprise tiers are quoted through sales. Appfigures sells its own-app plans online, but its Explorer market data plans go through sales. If avoiding sales calls and annual contracts is the main reason you are leaving Sensor Tower, stick to the self-serve tools.
Is there a free Sensor Tower alternative?
Yes, with limits. On Trend Apps, every app page shows its revenue and download estimates without an account, and the top 5 rows of each trending chart show real numbers. AppTweak's free Market Intelligence plan shows past-month estimates for any app. Appfigures has a free Starter plan for your own apps, and MobileAction has a free plan focused on Apple Ads. The free route above costs nothing but gives no revenue numbers. A free tier is enough to check whether a tool's data makes sense for your niche before you pay for it.
Which Sensor Tower alternative is best for ASO keyword research?
AppTweak and MobileAction. Both are built around keyword research, keyword difficulty and competitor keyword tracking, and both sell self-serve plans. Trend Apps does not do keyword research. Use it to pick the niche, then one of these two to pick the keywords.
Which Sensor Tower alternatives cover both iOS and Google Play?
Trend Apps, Appfigures, AppTweak and AppMagic cover both stores, and so do the free store charts. MobileAction is built around Apple Ads, so check its plan if you need Google Play. The bigger difference is storefronts: Trend Apps covers the United States App Store and Google Play only, while Appfigures, AppTweak and AppMagic cover many countries. If you are researching a market outside the US, that difference decides the pick.
How accurate are app revenue estimates?
No tool sees real revenue for apps it isn't connected to. Every product on this list estimates competitor revenue from rankings, download signals and other data. The estimates are tightest for large apps and loosest for small ones. That matters for indie research, because small apps are exactly the ones you are looking at. Use the numbers to compare niches, and treat an exact figure for a single small app as a range.
What do indie developers use instead of Sensor Tower?
A common setup is two tools, one for market research and one for ASO: Trend Apps or AppMagic to find a niche, then AppTweak or MobileAction for keywords once the app is close to launch. Our best ASO tools guide covers the second half of that setup.
Sources
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Trend Apps
An app market intelligence tool built for indie devs and vibe coders. We track 62,000+ iOS and Android apps daily and surface low-competition opportunities. About Trend Apps →