Organic Installs are app downloads that come from unpaid discovery — search, charts, browse, featuring, and referrals — rather than from paid advertising.
Organic installs are the prize ASO is built to grow. They cost nothing per download, and because the rankings and featuring that produce them persist, they compound: visibility you earn keeps delivering installs long after the work that created it. Apple and Google both distinguish organic from paid in their analytics, and the ratio matters — a healthy app grows organic installs over time so it isn't wholly dependent on ad spend that stops the moment the budget does.
Organic and paid aren't separate worlds, though. Paid campaigns drive install velocity that can lift organic rankings (the "halo effect"), and a strong organic base lowers blended acquisition cost. The strategic goal is a rising organic share: the same growth, at a structurally lower cost, driven by a listing that ranks and converts on its own merits.
Example
After three months of keyword and conversion work, an app's organic installs grow from 30% to 55% of total downloads — the same growth at a far lower blended cost per install. Aim for a rising organic share over time so growth doesn't stop the moment ad budget does.