TL;DR. Editing the keyword field, subtitle, description, screenshots, or Custom Product Pages in App Store Connect requires the Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, or Marketing role. The Developer role — the one most engineers already have — cannot touch any of that; it’s read-only on app metadata even though it can upload builds. If you’re handing ASO work to a contractor, freelancer, or agency, the Marketing role is the one built for exactly that: it edits metadata but can’t submit versions, change pricing, or touch TestFlight, and it can be scoped to a single app.
Most indie teams set up App Store Connect access once, at launch, and never look at it again. That’s fine until the day someone new needs to change the keyword field before a submission and discovers their account can’t do it — usually the same day the change was supposed to ship.
Which App Store Connect role can edit the keyword field and subtitle?
Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, and Marketing are the four roles Apple lists as required to view and edit app information — the page that holds your app name, subtitle, keywords, and company name. Apple’s own help documentation states this requirement identically across the App Information page, localization, Custom Product Pages, and app tags: “Required role: Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, or Marketing.”
That’s the full list. No other role in App Store Connect can open that page and save a change to it.
Can a teammate with the Developer role change ASO metadata?
No. The Developer role — the one assigned to whoever writes the code and uploads builds — has read-only access to app details. It can push a build to TestFlight and, in some cases, submit a version for review when no new binary is attached, but it cannot edit the keyword field, subtitle, description, or screenshots.
This trips people up because it runs backwards from intuition: the role with the most technical access to your app has none of the access needed to change what makes it discoverable. If your keyword field hasn’t been touched since launch and the person responsible only has the Developer role, that’s the reason, not an oversight on their part.
Do I need to give an ASO contractor Admin access to do their job?
No — that’s over-provisioning, and it’s avoidable. The Marketing role covers exactly the surface ASO work touches: app metadata, screenshots, Custom Product Pages, promotional artwork, and requesting promo codes. It cannot submit versions for App Review, upload builds, change pricing and availability, or manage TestFlight.
It’s also the one role in that four-role list that Apple designed with external collaborators in mind — Apple’s own description notes Marketing users are the ones contacted if the app is considered for editorial featuring, which is a marketing-side conversation, not an engineering one.
There’s one setting to get right when you add someone under Marketing: App Manager, Developer, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Support are the roles that support per-app restriction, so you can scope a contractor to exactly one app in a multi-app account. Admin and Finance can’t be restricted this way — they always see every app on the team. And if you separately grant a Marketing user access to analytics reports, that grant itself unlocks visibility into every app, even if their role access was scoped to one. If you want a contractor locked to a single app, leave reports access off.
What this means for your next submission
If a keyword change, a new subtitle, or updated screenshots need to go out and the person making them only holds the Developer role, the change won’t save — not because of a bug, but because the role was never permitted to make it. Check this before it costs you a submission cycle, not after:
- Open Users and Access in App Store Connect.
- Find whoever is actually responsible for keywords, subtitle, description, and screenshots.
- Confirm they hold Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, or Marketing — Developer will not work, no matter how senior they are technically.
- For an outside contractor or agency, grant Marketing scoped to the specific app, and leave reports access off unless they need it.
None of this changes when the edit actually reaches the App Store — a keyword field or subtitle change still only goes live with a new version release, same as always. Role access only determines who’s allowed to make the edit in the first place.