Do App Ratings Affect Revenue? Rating Count vs Rating Score
TrendApps Research · updated September 11, 2026 · 59,282 apps
Apps with more than 100,000 ratings earn more than $1,000 a month 53.9% of the time. Apps with fewer than 100 ratings earn 3.6% of the time. Rating score matters far less: apps rated 4.5 stars or higher earn 25.5% of the time. Apps rated below 3.5 stars earn 11.8% of the time. Store revenue only; advertising income is not included, so ad-supported apps show as not earning here.
- 53.9%
- of apps with 100k+ ratings earn $1k+
- 3.6%
- of apps under 100 ratings earn $1k+
- 15×
- lift from rating count
- 2.2×
- lift from rating score
Rating count vs revenue
- Under 100 ratings18,566 · 39.2%
- 100 – 1k9,199 · 19.4%
- 1k – 10k8,634 · 18.2%
- 10k – 100k6,760 · 14.3%
- 100k+4,221 · 8.9%
Apps with fewer than 100 ratings earn more than $1,000 a month 3.6% of the time; between 1,000 and 10,000 ratings, 35.1%; above 100,000, 53.9%.
Every step up the ratings ladder roughly doubles the chance of earning until the curve flattens past 10,000. Ratings mark revenue rather than cause it — but the marker is public, so you can read a competitor's rating count and know, within a band, whether they make money.
Data table
| Ratings count | Apps | Earn $1k+/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Under 100 ratings | 18,566 | 3.6% |
| 100 – 1k | 9,199 | 16.5% |
| 1k – 10k | 8,634 | 35.1% |
| 10k – 100k | 6,760 | 47.7% |
| 100k+ | 4,221 | 53.9% |
Rating score vs revenue
- Below 3.5★6,898 · 14.6%
- 3.5 – 4.0★4,912 · 10.4%
- 4.0 – 4.5★11,944 · 25.2%
- 4.5★ and up23,626 · 49.9%
Apps rated below 3.5 stars earn 11.8% of the time; between 4.0 and 4.5 stars, 25.4%; at 4.5 and above, 25.5%.
Score saturates early: the jump from "below 3.5" to "above 4.0" is real, the jump from 4.0 to 4.5 is barely there. Chasing the last half star buys almost nothing; falling below 3.5 costs a lot.
Data table
| Star rating | Apps | Earn $1k+/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Below 3.5★ | 6,898 | 11.8% |
| 3.5 – 4.0★ | 4,912 | 17.2% |
| 4.0 – 4.5★ | 11,944 | 25.4% |
| 4.5★ and up | 23,626 | 25.5% |
Why volume beats score
Moving from the bottom to the top of the rating-count range multiplies the earning rate by 15×; the same move on the score range multiplies it by 2.2×.
The stores rank by engagement, and rating count is a direct function of installs; and a 4.3 with 40,000 ratings converts better than a 4.9 with 60. Work on the number of people who rate you, not on what they rate you.
Ratings by platform
On iOS, apps with more than 100,000 ratings earn 51.3% of the time; on Android the same band earns 55.6%.
Google Play prompts for ratings more aggressively, so each Android rating is worth slightly less as a signal. The shape is the same on both stores: a steep climb with volume, a shallow one with score.
What this means if you're building an app
Ask for ratings early and often, within the store guidelines, from users who just did something successful in your app. The difference between under-100 and over-1,000 ratings is an earning rate of 3.6% versus 35.1%.
Stop optimising the score once it is above 4.0; reply to the one-star reviews that describe real bugs and let the score follow. Use rating counts as competitive intelligence — every store page shows them.
Questions developers ask
How these numbers are computed
- An app counts as earning when its estimated monthly store revenue is above $1,000. Estimates below that sit at a floor of $1,000, so medians across all apps would be meaningless; every ratio on this page is the share of a segment above that floor.
- Revenue and downloads are estimates in bands ($5k–10k by $1k, $10k–100k by $10k, then by $100k and $1M). Medians among earners are the median band.
- Store revenue only — paid downloads and IAP (in-app purchases, including subscriptions). Advertising income is never included, so ad-supported apps show as not earning.
- Apps enter the catalogue from the US top charts, including Top Paid, so paid apps are over-represented. Ratios by monetization model are unaffected; overall ratios lean slightly paid.
- Delisted apps are excluded; unrated apps are excluded from rating charts. Recomputed after every crawl — last data point 2026-09-11, 59,282 active apps.
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