The best mobile app creative agency depends on where the creative will run, because "app creative" covers three different jobs. For paid social ads for a non-game app, Admiral Media covers the most formats and channels, and we at The Social Outline are the narrower specialist for consumer and subscription apps on Meta. For mobile games, including playable ads, Artstash Creative is the strongest fit here, with AppAgent close behind. For App Store and Google Play listing creative, Gummicube is the most store-focused, and Yodel Mobile and Phiture by Precis make store creative alongside paid ads. Moburst sells all of it under one roof.
We have already ranked agencies on the creative engine behind paid ads in our comparison of performance creative agencies for mobile apps. This page answers a broader question. A buyer searching for an app creative agency might need TikTok hooks, a playable demo or a new set of App Store screenshots, and those are bought from different kinds of company. So the agencies below are sorted by the surface they make creative for first, and ranked only against the ones doing the same job.
Our interest, stated up front. The Social Outline is one of the nine, so we would like you to choose us. We ranked ourselves second of four in the paid social group and the entry explains why, and we do not appear in the playables or store groups at all because we are not the right hire for either as a main job. Every fact about another company comes from that company's own website, checked on 1 October 2026. Where something is not published, the table says so.
The shortlist at a glance
"Not listed" means the format does not appear on the agency's own service pages. It does not prove the agency would refuse the work, only that it is not what they sell themselves on, which is usually the more useful fact.
| Agency | Built around | Paid social ads | Playables | Store creative | Vertical | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Admiral Media | Paid social ads | Yes: UGC, statics, motion, AI video | Not listed | Mentions store screenshots | Apps, games, ecommerce | AI video from €363 to €500 per ad, by batch |
| The Social Outline | Paid social ads | Yes: UGC, AI UGC, statics | No | Screenshots and listing rebuilds; no ASO | Consumer and subscription apps | From £1,500/mo incl. Meta management |
| Miri Growth | Paid social ads | Yes, built on its Creative Matrix | Not listed | Not listed | Games and apps (part of MSQ) | Not disclosed |
| Moburst | Full service | Yes: UGC, video production | Not listed | Yes: App Store assets, plus ASO | Apps and wider digital | Not disclosed |
| Artstash Creative | Game UA creative | Yes: UGC-style, live action, 2D/3D, game capture | Yes | Yes: App Store assets, preview trailers | Games (site now says apps and games) | Not disclosed |
| AppAgent | Game growth and creative | Yes: UGC, 2D, 3D, live action | Not listed | Yes: icons, screenshots, feature art | Games | Not disclosed |
| Gummicube | Store creative and ASO | No | No | Yes: icons, screenshots, previews, CPPs, testing | All app categories (division of Airship) | Not disclosed |
| Yodel Mobile | Store-led, with ads | Yes: static and video ad assets | Not listed | Yes: screenshots, previews, icons, in-app events, CPPs | Apps (part of NP Digital) | Not disclosed |
| Phiture by Precis | Store creative within a consultancy | Yes: 2D and 3D video for UA | Not listed | Yes: icons, screenshots, CPPs, A/B testing | Apps (part of Precis) | Not disclosed |
What a mobile app creative agency makes
A mobile app creative agency produces the assets that persuade someone to install an app. For most apps that happens in two places, an ad and then a store page, and for games there is often a third, a playable demo inside the ad. Each surface has its own rules, its own success metric and its own specialists.
| Surface | What gets made | Judged on | Platform limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid social ads | Video, UGC, statics and motion for Meta, TikTok and Google | Click-through, installs per thousand impressions, cost per trial | Meta specs per placement; volume and concept breadth matter |
| Playable ads | An interactive HTML5 demo plus a video, opening the store on tap | Engagement with the demo, then install rate | Meta: portrait, no external network calls, 5 MB maximum, a video alongside |
| Store listing | Icon, up to 10 screenshots, up to 3 previews of 30 seconds, promotional text | Product page conversion: views to downloads | Changes go through review; tests run through Apple and Google tools |
| Store variants | Up to 70 custom product pages on iOS, up to 50 custom store listings on Google Play | Conversion of the traffic sent to each variant | Each needs its own creative set and its own traffic source |
The store limits come from Apple's guidance on creating your product page and Google's Play Console help on custom store listings. The playable limits come from Meta's specifications for playable ad assets, which currently set a 5 MB maximum for an HTML5 file. Several widely read guides still quote an older 2 MB figure, a small reminder that platform rules move faster than the articles about them.
The practical consequence is that the skills barely overlap. Paid social creative is a volume and concept game, judged within days on whether people stop scrolling. Playables are a small software build. Store creative is a slower discipline of icons, screenshot sequences and preview videos that go through app review, judged on the share of page visitors who download. An agency that is excellent at one can be ordinary at the others.
The gap between the ad and the store page
Here is the part most comparisons leave out. For an app, the ad and the store page are one conversion path. Someone taps an ad because of a specific promise, then lands on a product page built months earlier for everyone, and has to find that promise again before they download. When the ad maker and the store designer are different suppliers, nobody is usually responsible for whether the two match.
Apple's own numbers show what is at stake. On its custom product pages page, Apple says developers see a 2.5 percentage point increase in conversion on average when referring people to a custom product page, against a 1.6% average conversion rate on default product pages. That is Apple's average across developers, not a forecast for your app, and the traffic sent to a custom page is usually better targeted to begin with. But the direction is clear: a store page that continues the ad's message converts better than one that does not.
Apple lets you publish up to 70 custom product pages, each with its own screenshots, app previews, promotional text, URL and optional deep link. Google Play allows up to 50 custom store listings, which can be targeted by country, by URL or to a specific Google Ads app campaign. Apple lists social media ads as one place to use a custom page's URL, and TikTok documents support for iOS custom product pages in its own ads help centre. How each ad platform routes an app install ad to a specific page varies, so confirm it in your own account before planning a page per ad angle.
Apple's product page optimisation tool is the other half of the story. It tests up to three alternative versions of your icon, screenshots and previews against your current page. One of Apple's own published examples is worth knowing: a developer expected that adding an app preview video as the first asset would lift conversion, and the original page without the video won. Store creative opinions, including an agency's, are hypotheses until they are tested.
What this means when hiring: if you buy ads from one agency and store creative from another, write down which of them owns message match. If you buy both from one agency, ask to see the ad and the store page side by side for a past client.
Paid social ad creative for non-game apps
Ranked on depth of paid social creative for consumer and subscription apps: range of formats, evidence from non-game apps, and whether the people making the ads see the performance data.
1. Admiral Media
Admiral concepts and produces UGC, statics, motion and AI-assisted formats for apps, games and ecommerce, and states that its designers read the same dashboards as its media buyers. Its creative page says every batch starts from hooks and angles pulled from account data, store reviews and community language, and that one team carries an idea "from a TikTok hook to a Meta static to a store screenshot". It is the only paid social specialist here that publishes prices: its AI Creative Factory runs at €10,000 for 20 videos, €16,000 for 40 and €29,000 for 80, which works out at €500 down to €363 per video ad. It reports €500M+ in ad spend managed and says the AI Creative Factory cut Fastic's cost per result by 70%.
Best for: apps that want paid social creative across Meta, TikTok and Google from the team that buys the media. Wrong choice for: a team that only wants store creative, or one whose budget does not stretch to batch-based production.
2. The Social Outline
We make performance creative for consumer and subscription apps: real creator UGC, AI UGC and static ads, planned with the TSO Creative Framework, which maps concepts across psychological dimensions rather than producing visual variations of one idea. We run the Meta account the creative is tested in. Our static service also covers App Store screenshots and listing rebuilds, because the same research that finds a winning ad angle usually tells you what the first screenshot should say. The Steps & Beasts case study is the clearest example of working past the ad: creative testing, AI UGC and onboarding redesigns together lifted revenue 145% and active subscriptions 118%.
Why second rather than first: we are deliberately narrower than Admiral. We work on Meta only, we do not make playables or long motion pieces, and we do not do app store optimisation in the sense of keywords, metadata and store testing programmes. Pricing is published, from £1,500 a month on the pricing page, covering creative and Meta management together.
Best for: subscription apps where Meta is the main channel and the constraint is ads that keep working as spend rises. Wrong choice for: games, multi-channel programmes, or a team that needs a full ASO partner.
3. Miri Growth
Miri describes its creative work around a Creative Matrix built from eight years of testing across genres, verticals and markets, with winners moved into structured testing and monthly insight in place of long decks. It is part of the MSQ group. Its featured creative case studies are three games (Angry Birds Journey, Trailmix, N3twork) and one lifestyle app, so the non-game evidence is thinner than the games evidence.
Best for: teams that want a structured testing method and the backing of a larger group. Wrong choice for: a buyer who needs several published non-game app results before signing.
4. Moburst
Moburst is a full-service agency whose services page lists ASO, UGC, video production from 3D animation to TikTok content, and a separate App Store Assets service, alongside media and analytics. That makes it one of the few companies here selling ad creative and store creative under one roof. It ranks fourth in this group only because creative is one of many services rather than the core of the business, which matters if creative is your main problem.
Best for: larger brands that want ad creative, store creative and ASO from one supplier. Wrong choice for: a small team that needs a dedicated creative strategist rather than a broad account team.
Game creative, including playable ads
Both agencies in this group are built for game studios. We have kept them separate because a games portfolio says little about selling a subscription, and because playables are mostly a games format. Our notes on what is working in mobile gaming creative cover the games side in more detail.
1. Artstash Creative
Artstash is the only agency in this comparison that lists playable ads on its own site, alongside trailers, CGI, UGC and statics, produced channel-natively for Meta, Google, TikTok and AppLovin. Its trailer service includes App Store preview videos and its production service includes App Store assets. It publishes agency-wide capacity of 400 net new concepts a month and names EA, Activision Blizzard, SEGA and Square Enix among past clients. One change worth noting: its homepage title now reads "Mobile App & Game UA Creative Agency", but every featured project on that page is a game and its services page describes it as a mobile game marketing agency.
Best for: game studios that need playables, trailers and UA creative from one team. Wrong choice for: a subscription app looking for published non-game results.
2. AppAgent
AppAgent leads with strategy: every engagement starts with its GamePlan diagnostic, after which clients either run the plan themselves or hire AppAgent's Creative or Growth programme. The Creative programme covers ideation, production, localisation and testing of UA and store creatives, with 2D, 3D, UGC and live action video plus icons, screenshots and feature art. Its homepage describes it as a growth and creative partner for mobile game publishers, and playables are not listed on its creative pages.
Best for: game teams that want strategy before production, and ad creative and store creative planned together. Wrong choice for: non-game apps, or a team that only wants production capacity.
App Store and Google Play creative
Ranked on how central store creative is to the business, and on whether it comes with a testing method rather than just design.
1. Gummicube
Gummicube is an app store optimisation company, now a division of Airship Group according to its own footer. Its creative service covers icons, screenshots, feature graphics, preview videos and custom product pages for the App Store, Google Play and Amazon Appstore, backed by its own testing technology (DATACUBE and Splitcube) and app focus groups that test icons, screenshots and titles before launch. It also manages Apple Ads and Google Ads alongside ASO. It does not make social ads.
Best for: apps whose store page converts poorly, or that rely heavily on search. Wrong choice for: anyone whose problem is the ad rather than the listing.
2. Yodel Mobile
Yodel Mobile is a London app agency, now part of NP Digital, whose Creative Studio makes both sides of the path: app store screenshots, preview videos, icons, in-app events, promotional content and custom product pages, plus static and video ad assets. It reports performance through its own Creative Advantage dashboards, which it says draw on more than 10,000 campaigns.
Best for: apps that want store creative and ad creative from one team with ASO behind it. Wrong choice for: a team that needs high-volume social video and UGC above all.
3. Phiture by Precis
Phiture's Art and Creative service starts with a creative audit of the store presence, then designs icons, screenshots and custom product pages and runs creative A/B tests. It also produces 2D and 3D video for user acquisition and writes store copy. Creative is one of five services inside a wider growth consultancy that was acquired by the Precis group in 2026.
Best for: larger apps buying store creative as part of a wider growth programme. Wrong choice for: a small team that wants one creative deliverable without a consultancy engagement.
One company we left out of the ranking on purpose: SplitMetrics is software first, with store testing and Apple Ads products and a managed services arm. It is worth knowing about if you want to run store tests yourself, but it is not an agency in the same sense as the three above.
Which surface is your bottleneck?
Before shortlisting, find out where people are dropping. Your ad platform shows how many people tap; App Store Connect's App Analytics shows product page views and downloads; your subscription data shows how many installs start a trial. Read across all three.
| What you see | Likely surface | Who to hire |
|---|---|---|
| Low click-through and few installs per thousand impressions, store conversion healthy | The ad | A paid social creative agency |
| Ads get the tap, but store page views turn into downloads poorly | The store page | A store creative specialist, or custom product pages matched to your ads |
| Conversion collapses only on traffic from specific ads | The handover between them | Whoever makes the ads, with responsibility for message match |
| Installs are fine but few start a trial | Onboarding and paywall | Not a creative agency on its own |
The last row matters most for subscription apps. If installs are healthy but trials are not, the problem sits in onboarding and the paywall, and no amount of new creative fixes it on its own. Check your rate against the install-to-trial benchmarks before briefing anyone.
What to ask an app creative agency, by surface
- For ad creative: how many distinct concepts, not assets, will we test each month? Ten edits of one idea are one concept. Our piece on creative diversity versus volume explains why that distinction drives results on Meta.
- For ad creative: who sees the performance data? If the people making the ads never see cost per trial, the next batch is a guess.
- For playables: who builds and maintains the code? A playable is a small piece of software that has to meet each network's specifications, so ask who fixes it when it is rejected.
- For store creative: how will changes be tested? Expect a plan that uses Apple's product page optimisation or Google Play's store listing experiments, not a redesign judged on taste.
- For both: who owns message match? Ask to see a past client's ad next to the store page it sent traffic to.
- For everything: who owns the source files? It should be you, in writing.
Our guide to hiring a performance creative agency goes through the selection process in more depth, and the creative refresh calculator estimates how many new ads your spend level needs each month.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best creative agency for a mobile app?
It depends on where the creative will run. For paid social ads for a non-game app, Admiral Media covers the most formats and channels, and The Social Outline is the narrower specialist for consumer and subscription apps on Meta. For mobile games, including playable ads, Artstash Creative is the strongest fit in this comparison. For App Store and Google Play listing creative, Gummicube is the most store-focused, with Yodel Mobile and Phiture by Precis covering store creative alongside paid ads.
What does a mobile app creative agency make?
Three different kinds of asset, usually. Paid social ads: video, UGC, statics and motion for Meta, TikTok and Google. Playable ads: interactive HTML5 demos, used mostly by games on ad networks and Meta. And store creative: the icon, screenshots, preview videos and custom product pages on the App Store and Google Play. Few agencies are equally strong at all three, so it is worth asking which one an agency is actually built around.
Do subscription apps need playable ads?
Rarely as a first priority. Playables suit products whose value can be shown in a few seconds of interaction, which is why games dominate the format. A subscription app's value usually depends on a habit or an outcome that takes days to show, so video, UGC and statics that make the promise clearly tend to be the better first investment. A playable can still work for an app with a tactile core interaction, and it is worth testing once the main formats are stable.
What are App Store custom product pages?
Custom product pages are extra versions of an App Store product page with different screenshots, app previews and promotional text, each with its own URL. Apple allows up to 70 per app and says developers see a 2.5 percentage point increase in conversion on average when referring people to one, against a 1.6% average on default product pages. Google Play's equivalent, custom store listings, allows up to 50.
Should the same agency make my ads and my App Store screenshots?
Not necessarily, but someone has to own the match between them. A person who taps an ad promising one thing and lands on a store page selling another is less likely to install. If one agency makes the ads and another makes the store creative, give one of them, or someone in-house, explicit responsibility for keeping the promise consistent from ad to store page to onboarding.
How much does a mobile app creative agency cost?
Most agencies in this comparison do not publish prices. Admiral Media publishes AI video production batches at €10,000 for 20 videos, €16,000 for 40 and €29,000 for 80, which is €500 down to €363 per video ad, with media management scoped separately. The Social Outline publishes monthly fees from £1,500, covering creative and Meta account management. The rest scope engagements individually.
Choose by surface, then by agency
"Best app creative agency" only has an answer once you know which surface is failing. Game studios needing playables, apps with a weak store page and subscription apps whose ads have stopped working need three different kinds of partner, and the most expensive mistake in this category is hiring an excellent one for the wrong surface. Whichever you choose, make one person responsible for the promise staying the same from ad to store page to onboarding.
If your app is a consumer or subscription app and the problem is Meta ads that fatigue faster than you can replace them, that is the job our performance creative team does. You can apply to work with us, and if one of the other eight is the better fit, we will say so.