Is it against the rules to ask a user to change their review?

No — asking is allowed. A public developer reply inviting someone to take another look after you fix their issue is within both App Store and Google Play policy. It becomes a violation only if you attach a reward, demand a specific star rating, or selectively ask only happy users (review gating).

Can I offer a discount or free feature if they update their rating?

No. Both Apple and Google prohibit offering compensation for reviews or ratings. Tying any reward (refund, promo code, unlocked feature) to a rating change is incentivizing, and it can get your reply removed, your rating reset, or your app flagged. Ask for an honest reconsideration only.

Should I ask them to make it 5 stars specifically?

Better not to. Demanding a specific number pushes from inviting an honest re-look toward manufacturing a score, and it reads as transactional. Ask them to reconsider or take another look, and let them choose the rating. It's more compliant and more convincing.

Where do I ask — in the public reply or a private message?

The public developer reply. Both stores notify the reviewer when you respond, and the reply is the intended channel for reopening the conversation. A private ask isn't forbidden by itself, but it's easier for it to drift into incentivizing or one-to-one pressure, and it loses the goodwill a public reply shows other readers.

How much does asking actually raise my rating?

Google reported roughly a +0.7-star average increase for developers who respond (I/O 2019). Individual reviewers are about 6x more likely to raise their rating after a reply (Hassan et al., 4.5M reviews), and 38.7% of post-response rating changes were increases (McIlroy et al., 2017). It's a volume effect, so invite every fixable reviewer back.

What's the difference between asking and review gating?

Asking means inviting anyone you've helped to re-review honestly. Review gating means steering only your happy users toward the store while diverting unhappy ones to a private form, manufacturing a rating that doesn't reflect real sentiment. The first is fine; the second is a policy and FTC concern.

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GuideJul 8, 2026 · 8 min

Is It OK to Ask a User to Change Their Review After You Fix Their Issue?

Yes — a public reply inviting an honest re-look after you fix an issue is allowed, and it's how the rating lift happens. Here's the line you can't cross.

The Argus Team

Reply Argus

Yes — it's fine to ask, as long as you ask in the open and offer nothing for it. A public developer reply that says "this is fixed in v4.2.1, we'd be grateful if you'd take another look" is completely within the rules on both the App Store and Google Play, and it's the exact move that produces the rating lift the research keeps finding. What's *not* OK is paying, discounting, unlocking a feature, or otherwise dangling a reward in exchange for a better star. The wording is the difference between the intended mechanic and a policy violation.

So the question isn't really "am I allowed to ask." You are. The question is *how*, because a handful of well-meaning phrasings quietly cross into incentivizing or gating, and those can get replies removed, ratings reset, or an app flagged. Below: why the honest ask is legitimate, where the line sits, and the literal reply you can copy that stays on the right side of it.

Why is asking allowed at all?

Because the public reply *is* the feature. Both stores built the developer-response system specifically so you can address a reviewer in the open, and both notify the reviewer when you do: Google Play emails them your reply, and Apple surfaces your response with the option to update their review. The platforms are handing you a channel to reopen the conversation. Using that channel to say "we fixed the thing you flagged, take another look" is using it as designed, not gaming it.

The numbers back up why it works. Google announced at I/O 2019 that developers who respond to reviews see roughly a +0.7-star average increase over time. Hassan et al., studying 4.5 million reviews, found reviewers who received a developer response were about 6x more likely to raise their rating than those who didn't (about 4.4% versus 0.7%). And McIlroy et al. (IEEE 2017) found that when a rating changed after a developer replied, it went *up* 38.7% of the time. None of those studies measured bribery. They measured plain, public replies that gave people a reason to reconsider. That's the lever you're allowed to pull, and it's the one that actually moves the average. The full rating math is in [does replying to app reviews raise your rating](/blog/does-replying-to-app-reviews-raise-your-rating).

Where's the line? What crosses from "ask" into "violation"

The rule of thumb is simple: you may ask for an honest reconsideration; you may not buy one. The moment the ask is attached to a reward, or the moment you selectively steer only happy users toward the store, you've left the safe zone. Apple's App Store Review Guidelines and Google Play's Developer Program Policies both prohibit offering compensation for reviews or ratings, and both treat manipulated or incentivized ratings as grounds for removal. Here's what that looks like in practice.

Incentivizing — not OK. "Change your review to 5 stars and I'll refund you / send a promo code / unlock premium." Tying the rating to any reward is a direct violation on both stores, whether you offer it in the public reply or a private message. The compensation is the problem, not the channel.
Review gating — not OK. Routing your happy users to the store while quietly diverting unhappy ones to a private feedback form is review gating, and it's a policy and FTC concern because it manufactures a rating that doesn't reflect real sentiment. Asking *everyone* you helped to re-review is fine; asking only the people you expect to say something nice is not. We break down the specifics in [is review gating allowed](/blog/is-review-gating-allowed).
Buying or fabricating reviews — not OK. Paid review farms, employee reviews posing as customers, and bot ratings are the hardest line of all. If a competitor is doing it to you, that's a different fight — see [a competitor is leaving fake reviews](/blog/a-competitor-is-leaving-fake-reviews).
Pressuring or repeat-nagging — risky. One honest, public invitation to re-look is welcome. Chasing the same reviewer across email, in-app prompts, and support tickets to change a star reads as harassment and sours the exact goodwill you're trying to build.

"Please change it to 5 stars" is a subtle trap

Even with no reward attached, demanding a *specific* rating ("make it 5 stars") pushes past inviting an honest re-look and toward manufacturing a score. Ask them to reconsider or take another look, and let them pick the number. It's more compliant, and it reads as sincere instead of transactional, which is what actually earns the edit.

The reply that asks the right way

Here's the whole thing in one message. Notice what it does: names the exact bug in the reviewer's own words, states the version that fixed it, and then invites another look. It never demands one, and it attaches no incentive. This is the compliant ask, and it's also just the most effective one.

App kept logging me out every time I switched networks. Lost my cart twice. Frustrating.

Getting logged out every time you switched networks — and losing your cart for it — was a real bug on our side, not you doing anything wrong. We tracked it to the session handler and shipped the fix in v4.2.1, which is live now. If you get a chance to update and it's holding up for you, we'd be grateful if you'd take another look at your review. Either way, thank you for flagging it — it's how we caught it. — Priya

That reply offers nothing but the fix and a polite invitation. It doesn't name a star count, doesn't promise a reward, and doesn't beg. Srisopha et al. (EASE 2021) found the strongest predictors of a reply actually working were, in order, matching the length of the review, addressing its specific content, replying while it's still timely, and politeness, which is exactly what this reply does. If you want the full turnaround structure for the ugly one-stars, it's in [how to respond to negative app reviews](/blog/how-to-respond-to-negative-app-reviews), and the reader's-eye view of why this lands is in [what happens when a developer replies to your review](/blog/what-happens-when-a-developer-replies-to-your-review).

The public reply and the in-app prompt are two different tools

Asking someone to *edit* an existing review happens in your public developer reply. Asking for a *new* review happens through the platform's native in-app prompt (Apple's SKStoreReviewController / Google's In-App Review API), which you can't customize, pre-screen, or incentivize. Don't confuse the two. Timing and etiquette for the new-review prompt are their own topic in [in-app review prompt best practices](/blog/in-app-review-prompt-best-practices).

Character limits, so your ask actually fits

The invitation costs you words, and on Google Play words are tight. The developer reply there is capped at a hard 350 characters, so the ask has to be lean: name the fix, invite the re-look, done. Apple publishes no official limit; community testing suggests a few thousand characters, so you have more room on iOS, but a shorter reply still lands better regardless of the ceiling. If you're writing for both stores, write to the 350-character discipline and you'll never get truncated.

Doing this at scale without crossing the line

One thoughtful re-look invitation is easy. The hard part is doing it for every fixable review, in the reviewer's own language, quickly enough that the fix is still fresh in their mind. And it means doing it the exact week a bad update triggers a spike of one-stars, when your inbox is buried and the temptation to copy-paste a generic "please update your rating" is strongest. A generic ask is the one most likely to slip toward the pushy, incentive-adjacent phrasings that get you flagged.

This is the seam [ReplyArgus](/features) is built for. It watches your App Store and Google Play reviews in one inbox and drafts each reply in the reviewer's own language (100+ languages, both directions), grounded in your past approved replies and an auto-ingested knowledge base of your store listing, so the draft references the actual fix and the actual feature instead of a hollow "we value your feedback." Every draft is yours to approve before it publishes, so the compliant, no-incentive framing stays consistent even when a hundred reviews land at once and you're doing this solo. The [solo-dev workflow](/blog/reply-to-app-reviews-solo-dev) shows how that holds up during a spike.

Start free — Argus drafts a compliant re-look reply in minutes

Connect a store and ReplyArgus surfaces every review you've since fixed, then drafts an on-brand reply in the reviewer's language that names the fix and invites another look — no incentives, no gating, no star-count demands. You approve in one click; the reviewer gets the notification. Free plan, no card: [start free](/signup).

Frequently asked

Is it against the rules to ask a user to change their review?: No — asking is allowed. A public developer reply inviting someone to take another look after you fix their issue is within both App Store and Google Play policy. It becomes a violation only if you attach a reward, demand a specific star rating, or selectively ask only happy users (review gating).
Can I offer a discount or free feature if they update their rating?: No. Both Apple and Google prohibit offering compensation for reviews or ratings. Tying any reward (refund, promo code, unlocked feature) to a rating change is incentivizing, and it can get your reply removed, your rating reset, or your app flagged. Ask for an honest reconsideration only.
Should I ask them to make it 5 stars specifically?: Better not to. Demanding a specific number pushes from inviting an honest re-look toward manufacturing a score, and it reads as transactional. Ask them to reconsider or take another look, and let them choose the rating. It's more compliant and more convincing.
Where do I ask — in the public reply or a private message?: The public developer reply. Both stores notify the reviewer when you respond, and the reply is the intended channel for reopening the conversation. A private ask isn't forbidden by itself, but it's easier for it to drift into incentivizing or one-to-one pressure, and it loses the goodwill a public reply shows other readers.
How much does asking actually raise my rating?: Google reported roughly a +0.7-star average increase for developers who respond (I/O 2019). Individual reviewers are about 6x more likely to raise their rating after a reply (Hassan et al., 4.5M reviews), and 38.7% of post-response rating changes were increases (McIlroy et al., 2017). It's a volume effect, so invite every fixable reviewer back.
What's the difference between asking and review gating?: Asking means inviting anyone you've helped to re-review honestly. Review gating means steering only your happy users toward the store while diverting unhappy ones to a private form, manufacturing a rating that doesn't reflect real sentiment. The first is fine; the second is a policy and FTC concern.

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