What Happened to App Annie and data.ai — and What to Use Instead in 2026
App Annie became data.ai in 2022. Sensor Tower bought it in 2024 and retired the brand. Full timeline, plus 5 budget alternatives with verified prices.
App Annie no longer exists as a product. The company rebranded to data.ai on 16 February 2022. Two years later, Sensor Tower acquired data.ai in March 2024; the price was never disclosed. The platform was then folded into Sensor Tower, and by 2026 the data.ai brand was retired — the old site now shows an acquisition notice, per a February 2026 review by Strataigize. If you were a data.ai user and cannot justify an enterprise contract — reported Sensor Tower deals run $30,000–$150,000 a year, according to procurement platform Vendr (accessed August 2026) — there are self-serve tools with published pricing from $0 to about $300 a month. Five verified options below.
The short version
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2010 | App Annie founded by Bertrand Schmitt (Forbes) |
| Sep 2021 | SEC charges App Annie and Schmitt with securities fraud; $10.3M combined penalties (SEC) |
| Feb 2022 | App Annie rebrands to data.ai (PR Newswire) |
| Mar 2024 | Sensor Tower acquires data.ai; terms undisclosed (TechCrunch) |
| 2024–2025 | Platforms run in parallel, then consolidate (Sensor Tower, PocketGamer.biz) |
| 2026 | data.ai brand retired; capabilities absorbed into Sensor Tower modules (Strataigize) |
App Annie, 2010–2022
App Annie was the default source for app download and revenue estimates for most of a decade. It raised over $157 million in venture funding along the way, per TechCrunch.
The record has one large asterisk. In September 2021 the SEC charged App Annie and founder Bertrand Schmitt with securities fraud — the agency's first enforcement action against an alternative data provider. The SEC found the company misled app developers about how their confidential analytics data would be used, then sold manipulated estimates to trading firms. App Annie paid $10 million. Schmitt paid $300,000.
Five months later the company rebranded. On 16 February 2022, under new CEO Theodore Krantz, App Annie became data.ai, pitching itself as a "Unified Data AI" company and announcing a mobile-plus-web reseller deal with Similarweb (PR Newswire, VentureBeat).
The Sensor Tower acquisition, March 2024
Sensor Tower announced the acquisition on 18 March 2024. Financial terms were not disclosed. TechCrunch reported that Bain Capital provided debt financing for the deal, that data.ai had roughly $100 million in annual recurring revenue and about 400 staff, and that layoffs would follow. The scale was never confirmed; PocketGamer.biz reported rumors of up to half the data.ai team, and that staff were told the price paid for common stock was below the exercise price of their options.
The stated plan was to run both platforms in parallel, then unify. That is what happened.
What happened to the products
Per Strataigize's February 2026 review, data.ai's metrics were folded into Sensor Tower through 2025 and the brand was retired: Intelligence mapped to Sensor Tower's App Performance Insights, Game IQ to Sensor Tower's own Game IQ, advertising research to App Advertising Insights and Pathmatics. The free ConnectPlus product disappeared with the platform.
Pricing stayed enterprise. Sensor Tower publishes no list prices; Vendr's data (accessed August 2026) shows a median contract of $75,000 a year. That is the gap this article addresses.
What former data.ai users can use in 2026
All prices below are from vendor pricing pages, as listed in August 2026. One caveat up front: none of these replicates data.ai's full market-estimate panel at these price points. They cover ASO, app analytics, review management, and competitor tracking — which for most indie teams was the part of data.ai actually used.
| Tool | Entry paid plan | With annual billing | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|
| Appfigures | Connect, $9.99/mo | $7.99/mo | Free tier |
| MobileAction | Lite, $15/mo | $12.50/mo | 7-day trial; free Apple Ads CMP |
| AppFollow | ASO, $19/mo billed yearly | — | Free plan, 2 apps |
| ASOMobile | Indie, $59/mo | $47/mo | Free plan, 20 keywords |
| AppTweak | Essential, $79/mo | $949/yr | 7-day trial |
Appfigures — cheapest consolidated analytics
Own-app analytics plus ASO. Plans run from Connect at $9.99/mo up to Amplify at $1,399.99/mo (2,500 tracked keywords), with a free tier below that. Apps beyond the included five cost $1.99 each.
MobileAction — ASO plus Apple Ads
Lite at $15/mo is one of the cheapest paid entries in the category. Basic is $69/mo, Pro $239/mo. The Apple Ads campaign-management product has a free tier; ad intelligence is quote-based.
AppFollow — reviews first
Review management and monitoring with unlimited users on every plan; billing scales by apps and features. ASO plan at $19/mo billed yearly, Essential at $179/mo ($129 billed yearly), Team at $599/mo ($425 billed yearly), per AppFollow's own plan guide.
ASOMobile — keyword volume per dollar
Indie at $59/mo covers 500 keywords and 5 apps; Pro at $119/mo covers 1,500 keywords. A genuine free plan (20 keywords, 2 apps) and a 3-day trial.
AppTweak — closest to an intelligence tool
ASO intelligence with competitor data. Essential at $79/mo ($949/yr, 500 keywords, 6 months history), Grow at $299/mo, Grow Plus at $549/mo with 24 months of history. Market-intelligence depth beyond that is enterprise, by quote.
Where Kintsu fits
Kintsu is a mobile-app intelligence platform in private beta, built for indie developers and small studios. It combines analytics across App Store Connect, Google Play, and ad networks with ASO keyword tools, AI-assisted review management, store screenshot generation, and competitor monitoring in one product. There are 100 founding seats; details at thekintsu.com.
Sources
- https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/app-annie-is-now-dataai---the-1st-unified-data-ai-company-301483417.html
- https://venturebeat.com/ai/app-annie-becomes-data-ai-to-be-the-unified-data-standard
- https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021-176
- https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/18/app-analytics-firm-sensor-tower-acquires-rival-data-ai/
- https://sensortower.com/blog/data-ai-joins-sensor-tower
- https://www.pocketgamer.biz/why-sensor-tower-acquired-dataai/
- https://www.strataigize.com/insights/data-ai-app-annie-features-pricing-use-cases/
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2017/04/06/bertrand-schmitt-builds-app-annie-to-be-the-guide-to-the-app-universe/
- https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/sensor-tower
- https://appfigures.com/pricing
- https://www.apptweak.com/en/pricing
- https://www.mobileaction.co/pricing/
- https://asomobile.net/en/pricing/
- https://appfollow.io/blog/new-plans-at-appfollow-and-how-to-choose-the-right-one
Questions, answered.
Is data.ai still available?
No. Sensor Tower acquired data.ai in March 2024, ran the platforms in parallel, then folded data.ai's capabilities into its own modules. By 2026 the brand was retired and the data.ai site shows an acquisition notice.
How much did Sensor Tower pay for data.ai?
The price was never disclosed. TechCrunch reported that Bain Capital provided debt financing and that data.ai had roughly $100 million in annual recurring revenue at the time of the deal.
What is the cheapest App Annie / data.ai alternative in 2026?
For paid plans: Appfigures Connect at $9.99/mo and MobileAction Lite at $15/mo, as listed on their pricing pages in August 2026. Appfigures, AppFollow, and ASOMobile also offer free tiers.
What happened to data.ai's free ConnectPlus product?
It was discontinued when the platform was absorbed into Sensor Tower, per Strataigize's February 2026 review. Sensor Tower itself publishes no self-serve pricing.
