What app users complain about: 247,000 one- and two-star reviews
October 1, 2026 · data as of September 27, 2026
We sorted 247,263 one- and two-star App Store and Google Play reviews by what they complain about. Subscriptions and price lead in almost every genre; complaints about AI went from almost none to one in twenty.
The short version
- 27.1% of unhappy reviews complain about subscriptions, paywalls or price — the most common complaint overall, and the first in 20 of 25 genres.
- Complaints about AI went from 0.1% of low-star reviews in 2021 to 4.8% in 2026: from almost none to about one in twenty.
- Complaints about ads rose from 6.5% to 11.6%. In Word, Games, Racing, Puzzle they are the number one complaint, ahead of price.
- Crashes and bugs, the complaint developers fear most, come third overall at 8.9%.
What unhappy users complain about
Share of one- and two-star reviews that mention each subject, all genres together.
In their words
Real reviews, one per category, quoted as written.
Subscriptions, paywalls and price
“Subscription to scan & export PDFs is hilarious. Garbage.”
Ads
“Works very well, but the amount of ads make is almost impossible to use in a professional manor.”
Crashes and bugs
“Constantly crashing and doesn’t export files”
Login and account
“I have canceled my account with this company yet they still keep charging me. I have not been able to reach anyone to cancel this and they keep taking my money.”
AI quality
“I just want to open a PDF and not be slowed down by stupid AI recommendations to “summarize” a PDF of images. No one wants this and it’s a waste of space and energy.”
Customer support
“Horrible app, paid subscription, no customer service asst when app is malfunctioning.”
A bad update
“okay just updated with this latest update and I don't know what you all did I can't even do the basics developers go back to the basics stop trying to be fancy”
Lost data and sync
“Can not get documents to sync over multiple devices”
How it changed, 2021 to 2026
Share of each year's low-star reviews. Price has always led; AI and ads are what grew.
| Year | Reviews | Price | Ads | Bugs | Login | AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 1,850 | 33.1% | 6.5% | 12.4% | 7.5% | 0.1% |
| 2022 | 2,351 | 29.1% | 7.3% | 10.8% | 5.1% | 0.1% |
| 2023 | 3,844 | 29.1% | 7.7% | 10% | 7% | 0.7% |
| 2024 | 7,032 | 30% | 8.6% | 9.9% | 6.8% | 2.2% |
| 2025 | 17,217 | 30.2% | 8.9% | 10.3% | 6.4% | 2.4% |
| 2026 | 213,625 | 26.6% | 11.6% | 8.6% | 8.2% | 4.8% |
By genre: the top three complaints
Genres with at least 1,500 low-star reviews in the archive.
| Genre | 1st | 2nd | 3rd |
|---|---|---|---|
| Productivity | Subscriptions 19% | Crashes and bugs 9.2% | Login and account 7.2% |
| Photo & Video | Subscriptions 35.3% | AI quality 9.4% | Ads 9.2% |
| Utilities | Subscriptions 24.1% | Ads 11.5% | Crashes and bugs 8% |
| Finance | Subscriptions 36.2% | Login and account 22.1% | Customer support 7.7% |
| Health & Fitness | Subscriptions 38.7% | Crashes and bugs 10% | Login and account 7.4% |
| Business | Subscriptions 25.1% | Login and account 10.5% | Crashes and bugs 9% |
| Music | Subscriptions 26.4% | Ads 17.8% | Crashes and bugs 10.5% |
| Lifestyle | Subscriptions 23.2% | Crashes and bugs 10.8% | Login and account 8.4% |
| Social Networking | Subscriptions 24.5% | Login and account 15% | Ads 8.7% |
| Education | Subscriptions 33.1% | Ads 9.9% | Crashes and bugs 7.2% |
| Food & Drink | Subscriptions 27.5% | Customer support 9.3% | Login and account 9.2% |
| Entertainment | Subscriptions 21.8% | Ads 20.2% | Crashes and bugs 7.7% |
| Shopping | Subscriptions 18.6% | Login and account 12.6% | Crashes and bugs 10.3% |
| Graphics & Design | Subscriptions 37.8% | Ads 12.4% | Crashes and bugs 9.8% |
| Word | Ads 44.6% | Subscriptions 12.2% | Crashes and bugs 10.4% |
| Games | Ads 24.6% | Subscriptions 15.3% | Crashes and bugs 11.4% |
| Racing | Ads 20.9% | Subscriptions 16.7% | Crashes and bugs 15.1% |
| Simulation | Subscriptions 38.7% | Ads 19.1% | Crashes and bugs 10.4% |
| Medical | Subscriptions 27.2% | Ads 12.7% | Crashes and bugs 9.8% |
| Reference | Subscriptions 43.8% | Login and account 7.6% | Crashes and bugs 5.3% |
| Action | Subscriptions 21.6% | Crashes and bugs 10.8% | Ads 8.2% |
| Navigation | Subscriptions 8.3% | Crashes and bugs 4.2% | Ads 3.4% |
| Puzzle | Ads 43.9% | Subscriptions 14.5% | Crashes and bugs 6.8% |
| Sports | Subscriptions 17.3% | Ads 14.3% | Crashes and bugs 10.2% |
| Weather | Ads 26.5% | Subscriptions 17.9% | Crashes and bugs 10.5% |
What this means if you are building
Price is the complaint every category shares, and the easiest to answer: a real free tier, a trial that does not bill without warning, and a price shown before the paywall. In games, puzzles and word apps the opening is fewer and quieter ads. And anything with AI in it now draws its own complaints — about credits, quality and features that cannot be switched off.
To see what users complain about in a single app, use the free app review analyzer; for every niche at once, the complaints are on each niche in SideRadar.
Share a finding
Each as a card for X, LinkedIn or a slide, with the source on it.
27.1%
of one- and two-star app reviews are about subscriptions, paywalls or price
4.8%
of low-star app reviews mention AI in 2026, up from 0.1% in 2021
11.6%
of low-star app reviews complain about ads in 2026, up from 6.5% in 2021
20 of 25
app genres where price and subscriptions are the top complaint
Method and limits
- 247,263 one- and two-star reviews written between 2020-01-01 and 2026-09-27, from the leading apps of 812 App Store and Google Play niches in English-language storefronts (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland). The archive holds 884,088 reviews in all.
- Each review is sorted by the words it uses — “subscription”, “paywall”, “ads”, “crash”, “log in”, “customer service”, “latest update”, “AI” and their variants. A review can fall in several categories or in none — many complain in words no category catches — so the shares do not add up to 100%.
- The stores serve the newest reviews first, so recent years are far better covered than older ones (1,850 reviews in 2021 against 213,625 in 2026). Compare the years as shares, not counts, and treat 2021–2022 as a smaller sample.
- The apps are the leaders of niches SideRadar measures, not a random sample of every app; big consumer brands are over-represented because they lead many searches.
Using this data?
Free to quote and cite with a link to this page: https://sideradar.com/research/app-review-complaints