Ratings vs. reviews
An app rating is the 1–5 star score a user gives an app. An app review is a rating with written text. Both stores let people rate without writing anything, so ratings far outnumber app reviews. The stores show the average rating and the number of ratings on the product page and in search results.
How ratings are calculated
- Apple App Store: the rating is calculated per country storefront from all ratings in that country. A user in France sees the French average, not a global one. When you release a new version, you can choose to reset the rating; the reviews stay visible, but the average starts again.
- Google Play: the rating gives more weight to recent ratings, so it reacts faster to a good or bad update. Users see a rating that reflects their own country and device type, so a phone user and a tablet user can see different numbers for the same app.
This is why your rating in App Store Connect or the Play Console can differ from what a friend in another country sees.
Why ratings matter
- Conversion. The star average is one of the first things people see, often before the screenshots. Moving from 3.9 to 4.4 stars can noticeably lift your app store conversion rate.
- Ranking. Ratings are among the quality signals in app store ranking, next to downloads, engagement and relevance.
- Trust in ads and featuring. A low rating makes paid installs more expensive and featuring less likely.
How to get more ratings
Most satisfied users never rate an app unless asked. Both platforms offer an in-app review prompt that lets users rate without leaving the app. Apple limits how often it appears (at most three times per user in 365 days) and Google applies its own quota, so the timing matters:
- ask after a success (a finished workout, a sent invoice, a completed level),
- never on first launch or right after an error,
- don't ask users who just contacted support with a problem.
How to improve your app rating
- Fix what low ratings complain about. Read the text of reviews, not just the stars, and count the themes.
- Reply to unhappy users with a developer response. Users can update their rating after a helpful reply. Templates: how to respond to App Store reviews, or a quick first draft with the review reply generator.
- Catch bad releases early. A broken update shows up in ratings within hours; a phased release limits the damage.
- Watch for unusual spikes such as review bombing, and report reviews that break store rules.
- Consider a rating reset (iOS only) after a major release that fixes the reasons behind a low rating.
What is a good app rating?
Many users treat 4 stars as the line between "fine" and "risky", and top apps in most categories sit well above it. More useful than any absolute target is the comparison with the apps you compete with in search results, and the trend after each release. The free app rating calculator shows how many new 5-star ratings it takes to get from your current average to a target.
Example
An app with 4.7 stars from 12,000 ratings ships a broken login. Within two days, dozens of one-star ratings arrive and the Google Play rating, which weighs recent ratings more, drops first. Spotting them early with app review monitoring means the fix ships in a day, the replies go out the same afternoon, and the dip stays a dip.