How Is the Google Play Store Rating Calculated?

Since 2019, the Google Play Store rating is not a simple lifetime average. It is recency-weighted — newer ratings count far more than old ones — and the rating shown to a given user reflects their device type, country, and Android version, so people see a rating relevant to how the app performs for them. A burst of recent positive ratings can lift your score quickly; a bad release can sink it just as fast. Here is what that means in practice.

Before 2019, Google Play used a cumulative lifetime average, so a strong early history made the rating almost impossible to move. Google changed the formula precisely because that punished apps that had improved and flattered apps that had gotten worse. Understanding the new model changes how you should think about ratings.

Recency weighting: recent reviews dominate

The current rating gives more weight to recent ratings than to old ones. This is the single most important fact for developers: your rating reflects how your app is doing now, not how it did at launch. Fix the things your recent reviewers complain about and the number responds within weeks — see how to improve your app store rating.

Device, country, and version awareness

Google Play can show different users a rating tuned to their context — their device type (phone, tablet, Wear, TV), country, and sometimes Android version. The goal is relevance: a tablet user sees how the app rates on tablets. For you, this means a problem isolated to one segment drags that segment’s rating without obviously moving your global average. Analyze reviews by country and device to find these pockets.

Ratings without reviews still count

Users can leave a star rating without writing any text. Those text-less ratings count toward your score but tell you nothing about why. That is why sentiment analysis of the reviews that do have text is your best signal for the cause behind a moving number.

What developers should take from this

• The next few weeks matter most. Recency weighting means recent ratings move the score. Win them.
• Regressions are expensive and visible fast. A bad release shows up quickly — see why your app rating dropped.
• Segments hide problems. A bad market or device can drag a slice of your rating invisibly.
• Prompt happy users after wins to keep a steady flow of recent positive ratings, using the official in-app review prompt.

How this compares to the App Store

Apple uses a similar recency-weighted, per-country approach but gives developers the option to reset the rating when shipping a new version. Google does not offer a reset. For the Apple side, see how the App Store rating is calculated. To put either store’s reviews to work, start with our Play Store review analyzer.