Google Play ratings explained: score, votes and stars

What the average rating really measures, why the number of votes matters, and how to read a star breakdown.

The average

The score on a Google Play listing is the average of all ratings, weighted towards recent ones. A score of 4.6 with ten million ratings is a very different signal from 4.9 with forty.

The number of votes

Use the vote count as a confidence level. Below a few hundred ratings an average can swing with a handful of new votes; above a hundred thousand it barely moves.

The breakdown

curl -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY" "https://apksushi.com/api/v1/app?id=com.duolingo"

rating.histogram holds five numbers, from one star to five. A healthy app has most votes at five stars and a thin tail. A U shape, many fives and many ones, means a split audience: loved by some, broken for others.

Reviews

rating.reviews counts written reviews. A high share of reviews among ratings often comes with strong feelings, in either direction.