Can You Pay for App Reviews? What Stores Allow

Can you pay for app reviews?

No. Google Play and the Apple App Store both prohibit paying for, rewarding, or faking ratings and reviews, whether you pay the reviewer directly, give them in-app currency, or hire a service to do it. The penalties range from rejected updates to the app being taken down, the developer account being suspended, or expulsion from Apple’s developer program. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission’s rule on fake reviews adds legal risk on top of the store policies.

That still leaves a lot you can pay for: installs, real use of your app, and goals reached inside it. And you can ask existing users for a rating through the official review prompts, for free. Below are the actual store rules in their own words, where the line sits, and how to grow ratings without putting your listing at risk.

What Google Play’s policy says

Google Play’s developer policy on User Ratings, Reviews, and Installs opens with a clear rule:

The policy lists common violations, including:

• “Asking users to rate your app while offering an incentive”, with the example of a notification offering a discount in exchange for a high rating.
• “Repeatedly submitting ratings posing as users to influence an app’s placement on Google Play.”
• Submitting or encouraging reviews that contain affiliate links, coupons, game codes, email addresses, or links to other sites or apps.

Its summary of dos and don’ts is just as direct: “Don’t offer rewards or incentives for ratings or reviews” and “Don’t use automated services to inflate installs or ratings.”

Google’s guide to the Play In-App Review API adds a rule on how you ask: your app should not ask the user any questions before or while showing the rating card, including “Do you like the app?” or “Would you rate this app 5 stars”. In other words, you cannot filter out unhappy users first and send only happy ones to the store.

Enforcement follows Google Play’s standard process: an update can be rejected, an app can be removed, and egregious or repeated violations can lead to suspension, which counts as a strike against the developer account.

What Apple’s App Review Guidelines say

Apple addresses reviews in several places. The introduction to section 3, Business, is the strongest statement:

Three more rules fill in the detail:

• 3.2.2 (x): “Apps must not force users to rate the app, review the app, download other apps, or other store-related actions in order to access functionality, content, or use of the app. Apps may otherwise incentivize users to take specific actions within apps (e.g. completing a level, watching an ad).”
• 5.6.1 App Store Reviews: “Use the provided API to prompt users to review your app; this functionality allows customers to provide an App Store rating and review without the inconvenience of leaving your app, and we will disallow custom review prompts.”
• 5.6.3 Discovery Fraud: “Manipulating any element of the App Store customer experience such as charts, search, reviews, or referrals to your app erodes customer trust and is not permitted.”

Note the word “filtered” in section 3. Like Google, Apple treats review gating, where only happy users are sent to the store, as manipulation. Apple’s StoreKit documentation also says the system shows the review prompt to a user at most three times within a 365-day period, so the moment you choose matters.

These quotes reflect the App Review Guidelines as last updated on June 8, 2026. Both stores revise their policies regularly, so check the current text before you plan a campaign.

The legal side: the FTC rule on fake reviews

In August 2024 the US Federal Trade Commission announced a final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials, codified at 16 CFR Part 465. Among other things, it:

• Prohibits providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, positive or negative, whether that condition is stated outright or implied.
• Prohibits buying or selling fake reviews, and disseminating reviews a business knew or should have known were fake.
• Prohibits buying or selling fake indicators of social media influence, such as bot-generated followers or views.
• Lets the FTC seek civil penalties against knowing violators.

The FTC rule targets sentiment-conditioned and fake reviews. The app stores go further and forbid incentives for ratings and reviews of any kind. So even a “neutral” offer such as “leave any review for 100 coins” breaks store policy. This is general information, not legal advice. Other countries have their own consumer protection rules.

What is allowed and what is not

Rewarded installs sit close to the line, so check the details. Google Play forbids apps whose main function is rewarding users for installing other apps, and Apple forbids forcing users to download other apps to use yours. Rewarding users for trying your own app and reaching a goal in it, through a third-party rewarded channel, is a common form of advertising. Incentivized traffic explained covers when it fits.

Sharklio does not accept review tasks

Every Sharklio campaign is reviewed by our team before it goes live, and tasks that break the rules of the platform they send users to are rejected at that review. That includes any campaign that asks users to leave a review or a rating, on an app store, a map listing, a review site, or anywhere else, whatever the wording.

The second task pays for real use of the app and gives you something you can check. Some of those users will later rate the app on their own, through your normal in-app prompt, which is exactly how the stores want ratings to arrive. Do not time a review prompt to fire as part of a paid task, and do not mention ratings in the instructions. Write instructions that pass review has more good and bad examples.

How to get more app reviews without paying for them

This is the part you control, and it compounds: every fix and every well-timed prompt keeps working for as long as the app is live.

1. Use the official prompts. SKStoreReviewController or RequestReviewAction on iOS, and the Play In-App Review API on Android. They let users rate without leaving the app.
2. Pick the right moment. After a success, such as a finished level, a completed order, or a streak, never during onboarding or right after an error. Both stores limit how often the prompt appears, and Google’s guidance says not to trigger it from a button, because it may not show once the user’s quota is used.
3. Fix what reviews complain about, then say so in your replies and release notes. Some reviewers update their rating when the problem is gone.
4. Reply to reviews politely and specifically, without asking for a higher rating. Google advises exactly that.
5. Grow real usage. More active users means more organic ratings. How to get app installs covers the organic and paid options, and App retention benchmarks shows how to check that new users stay.
6. Localize your store page and app. Users in your target countries can only rate an app well if they can understand it.

Frequently asked questions