AppsFlyer is the biggest name in mobile attribution. It's the tool that gets mentioned first in every "how to set up attribution" guide, the one VCs recognise on your tech stack slide, and the one that most performance marketing teams have used at some point.
It's also expensive, complex, and built for a type of app business that most developers don't run.
If you're reading this, you've probably looked at AppsFlyer's pricing, realised it doesn't make sense for your situation, and started searching for alternatives. Fair enough. There are good ones. But which tool fits depends entirely on what you're trying to do, how much traffic you have, and how much you're willing to spend.
This isn't a listicle padded with tools I haven't used. It's an honest breakdown of the real alternatives, ranked by the type of app business they suit best.
Why people leave AppsFlyer
Before looking at alternatives, it helps to understand what pushes people away. The reasons fall into a few buckets.
Cost. AppsFlyer's free tier (Zero plan) tracks up to 10,000 attributions per month with limited features. Once you need things like raw data exports, advanced fraud protection, or custom attribution windows, you're on a paid plan. Pricing scales with volume and isn't published, but expect to pay several hundred dollars a month at modest scale and significantly more as you grow. For a solo developer making £500/month from their app, spending £300/month on attribution is hard to justify.
Complexity. AppsFlyer is built for teams running campaigns across Meta, Google, TikTok, Snap, and a dozen smaller ad networks simultaneously. The dashboard reflects that. There are sections for SKAdNetwork conversion schemas, audience segmentation, fraud dashboards, cost aggregation from dozens of sources, and API integrations that require engineering time to configure. If you just want to know whether your Instagram influencer drove any sales, you'll spend hours getting set up for a question that should take minutes to answer.
Over-engineering for organic. AppsFlyer shines at paid attribution — connecting ad network spend to installs and downstream events. If your marketing is mostly organic (social posts, influencer partnerships, content marketing, word of mouth), AppsFlyer's strengths don't align with your needs. You're paying for ad network integrations you'll never use.
SDK weight. AppsFlyer's SDK isn't tiny. It adds to your binary size, requires configuration, and introduces another dependency to maintain. For developers who care about keeping their apps lean — or who use frameworks like Expo where native module management is already a headache — this matters.
None of these are criticisms of AppsFlyer as a product. It does what it's designed to do. The question is whether what it's designed to do is what you need.
The alternatives, ranked by use case
For indie developers and solo founders
LinkOwl
LinkOwl was built specifically for the gap AppsFlyer leaves: developers and small brands who need to know which marketing links drive purchases, without the enterprise overhead.
The model is different from most attribution tools. There's no monthly fee. You pay 5p per attributed purchase. If your marketing drives zero sales in a month, you pay nothing. If it drives 200 sales, you pay £10. The billing only kicks in once you've accumulated £5 in charges, so you're not being nickel-and-dimed on low volume.
Setup is straightforward. There's a Swift SDK and a React Native package (Expo compatible). You create tracked links in the dashboard, use them in your marketing, and purchase data flows in through RevenueCat or Superwall webhooks. The entire setup takes about 15 minutes if you already use one of those payment tools.
What it doesn't do: paid ad network integrations, SKAdNetwork conversion schemas, multi-touch attribution models, or audience segmentation. If you need those things, LinkOwl isn't the right tool. If you need to know which influencer or social post drove a paying customer, it handles that well.
Best for: Solo developers, vibe-coded apps, Expo/React Native projects, anyone doing organic and influencer marketing on a tight budget.
Linkrunner
Linkrunner occupies similar territory to LinkOwl but with a different pricing model. It charges per install tracked rather than per purchase, with pricing that starts around $0.007–$0.012 per install depending on your plan.
The difference matters more than it sounds. Per-install pricing means you pay regardless of whether those installs convert to paying users. If you're tracking 5,000 installs a month and 50 of them purchase, you're paying for attribution on 4,950 users who never generated revenue. With per-purchase pricing, you'd only pay for the 50 that matter.
Linkrunner does offer a solid dashboard and easy deep link setup. It's a reasonable choice if your primary concern is install attribution rather than purchase attribution — for example, if you're running a free app with ad-based monetisation where every install has roughly equal value.
Best for: Apps where installs themselves are the revenue event (ad-supported, high-volume free apps).
For small studios and growing teams
Singular
Singular combines attribution with cost aggregation, pulling your ad spend data from multiple networks into one place so you can calculate ROI across channels. It's less complex than AppsFlyer but still aimed at teams running paid campaigns.
Pricing isn't public and requires a sales conversation, but it's generally positioned as more affordable than AppsFlyer at equivalent scale. The free tier is limited but exists.
Singular makes sense when you've outgrown simple link tracking but aren't yet at the scale where AppsFlyer's full feature set is justified. The cost aggregation feature is genuinely useful if you're running paid campaigns across three or more platforms — it saves you from manually pulling spend data from each ad manager.
Best for: Small studios spending £1,000–£10,000/month on paid ads across multiple platforms.
Tenjin
Tenjin focuses on gaming and offers a free attribution tier that's more generous than most competitors. The trade-off is that the product is clearly designed around the mobile gaming monetisation model (ads + IAP), so if you're building a SaaS app or a subscription product, some features won't translate well.
For game developers specifically, Tenjin is worth serious consideration. It handles ad revenue attribution (connecting installs to the ad revenue those users generate), which is a feature most general-purpose attribution tools either don't offer or charge extra for.
Best for: Mobile game developers, especially those monetising through a mix of ads and in-app purchases.
For teams that need enterprise features but not enterprise pricing
Adjust
Adjust is AppsFlyer's closest direct competitor and the most common alternative for teams that genuinely need enterprise-grade attribution. It offers essentially the same core feature set: deep linking, SKAdNetwork support, fraud prevention, audience builder, and integrations with all major ad networks.
Pricing starts around $500/month for the basic plan. Like AppsFlyer, it scales with volume and the useful features are behind higher tiers. The difference is mostly in the details — dashboard UX, specific integrations, support quality, and how fraud prevention works under the hood.
If you're leaving AppsFlyer because of cost, Adjust probably won't save you much. If you're leaving because of specific technical issues, dashboard frustrations, or support quality, Adjust is the obvious lateral move.
Best for: Teams currently using AppsFlyer who want a comparable product with a different vendor.
Branch
Branch is primarily a deep linking platform that also does attribution. If your main need is sophisticated deep links (deferred deep linking, contextual deep links that carry data through the install process, cross-platform routing), Branch is genuinely best-in-class.
The attribution is capable but it's not the primary product. Branch's strength is getting users to the right place in your app after they click a link, with attribution data captured as a side effect of that routing.
The free tier is generous for deep linking. Attribution features and more advanced analytics require paid plans, and pricing requires a sales call.
Best for: Apps that need advanced deep linking first and attribution second. Particularly useful for e-commerce apps where you want a shared link to open directly to a specific product page.
Kochava
Kochava is the attribution tool you probably haven't heard of unless you've been in the space for a while. It's enterprise-grade, with a strong reputation for data accuracy and privacy compliance. It also has a free tier (Free App Analytics) that provides basic attribution for apps under a certain volume threshold.
The free tier is genuinely useful for smaller apps and includes features that other enterprise tools lock behind paid plans. If you want to test enterprise-grade attribution without commitment, Kochava's free offering is worth looking at.
The paid tiers are comparable to AppsFlyer and Adjust in pricing. Kochava tends to win on flexibility — it offers more control over attribution logic, data access, and reporting configuration — but requires more technical setup to take advantage of that flexibility.
Best for: Data-focused teams that want granular control over attribution logic. Also worth a look for the free tier alone.
How to decide
The decision tree is simpler than the market makes it seem.
Are you spending less than £500/month on marketing, mostly organic? Use a lightweight tool. You need tracked links and purchase data, not ad network postbacks. LinkOwl or Linkrunner will cover it.
Are you spending £500–5,000/month on paid ads across 2–3 platforms? Look at Singular or Tenjin. You need cost aggregation and basic fraud detection. The enterprise tools are overkill but simple link tracking isn't enough.
Are you spending over £5,000/month on paid ads across multiple networks? You're in enterprise territory. AppsFlyer, Adjust, Branch, or Kochava. At this spend level, the tool cost is a small percentage of your ad budget and the fraud prevention alone probably pays for itself.
Are you a mobile game developer? Check Tenjin first. The ad revenue attribution is a differentiator that matters for your monetisation model.
Do you need deep linking more than attribution? Branch. It does both, but the deep linking is the real product.
The pricing reality
Here's the uncomfortable truth: most developers start with AppsFlyer because it's the name they see everywhere, not because they've compared options. By the time they realise it's more than they need, they've already built their tracking around it and switching feels painful.
If you're starting fresh, match the tool to your actual situation rather than your aspirational one. You can always migrate to a bigger platform when your app's revenue justifies it. Starting with a £300/month attribution tool when your app makes £200/month is backwards — you're spending more to measure your marketing than the marketing itself generates.
Start with a tool that costs less than 5% of your marketing-attributed revenue. If your attribution tool costs more than that, it's not a measurement expense — it's a loss.
Final thought
AppsFlyer is a good product in the same way a lorry is a good vehicle. If you need to haul 20 tonnes across the country, brilliant. If you need to drive to the shops, you want something smaller.
Pick the tool that matches the size of your problem today. You can always upgrade when the problem gets bigger.