1-star review cost calculator

How many 1-star reviews your app gets each month, what they are likely about, and how many 5-star ratings it takes to win back your average. Free, no signup; it runs in your browser.

Sample and method

• Sample: 29,785 one-star reviews of 273 App Store and Google Play listings from 227 brands (out of 76,521 reviews of 274 listings), posted 25 Oct 2025 – 24 Oct 2026 in the United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada, Australia and Ireland.
• Method: 10 complaint themes matched by published keyword patterns, no AI; a hand check found 55 of 60 matches on topic. Themes overlap.
• Sector default: if you leave the 1-star share empty, the calculator uses the share of all reviews that were one-star for that sector in the study (for example Banks & payments 37.1%, Health 21.2%). Your app can differ a lot.
• Rating maths: 5-star ratings needed = N × (T − R) ÷ (5 − T); 5-star ratings that cancel one 1-star = (R − 1) ÷ (5 − R). Stores weight recent ratings in different ways, so the displayed rating can move differently.
• Money: the € figure is only your own cost per review times the count. It is an upper bound you set, not a measured loss.

Full data, per-app tables and the CSV: What people complain about in 1-star app reviews (2026 study).

Next steps

See what your users actually complain about with the free app review analysis tool (top 3 themes in the latest reviews, no signup). Then answer them: how to reply to 1-star App Store reviews, or use the reply templates.

FAQ

How many 5-star ratings does it take to make up for one 1-star rating?

It depends on your current average R: one 1-star is cancelled by (R − 1) ÷ (5 − R) five-star ratings. At 4.0 that is 3, at 4.5 it is 7, at 4.8 it is 19. The calculator does this for your numbers.

How many 5-star ratings do I need to raise my app rating?

With N ratings at average R, reaching target T takes N × (T − R) ÷ (5 − T) new 5-star ratings, assuming every new rating is 5 stars. Real ratings are mixed, so treat it as a minimum.

Where do the sector and theme numbers come from?

From the Revunda study of 29,785 one-star reviews of 273 App Store and Google Play listings (227 brands), posted 25 Oct 2025 – 24 Oct 2026 in six English-language storefronts. Themes were matched by keyword pattern, not AI; a hand check found 55 of 60 matches on topic.

Is my data sent anywhere?

No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser; nothing you type leaves the page.

Why do the theme counts not add up to my total?

A review can match several themes, and 59.4% of one-star reviews in the study matched none of the 10 themes. The counts are estimates for each theme on its own.