App Store & Google Play Tracker: Version, Price & Rank Changes

Track selected iOS and Android apps by country for version, price and rating changes. Charts cover only Apple's Top Free/Top Paid top 100; review tracking is App Store only. Google Play charts/reviews, keyword rankings and ASO analysis are not included.

With monitoring enabled, the first run establishes a baseline. Unchanged apps have no app-row charge, but start and applicable run costs still apply. Review rows have their own event charge. Data comes from Apple's public lookup/chart feeds and public Google Play app pages. Reviewer names and profiles are not collected.

What it tracks

Event (changes)	Meaning	diff fields
VERSION_CHANGE	New app version (Google Play apps that show "varies with device" are detected by their update date)	version, lastUpdated
PRICE_CHANGE	Price or currency changed in that country's store	price (with changePct), currency
RATING_CHANGE	Average rating moved by at least your threshold (default 0.05 stars) since the last reported value	ratingAverage (with change), ratingCount
RANK_CHANGE	Position in Apple's official top-100 chart (Top Free / Top Paid, per country) moved by at least your threshold, or the app entered or left the top 100	rank:top-free, rank:top-paid
NEW_REVIEWS	At least N new App Store reviews since the last run (optional)	newReviews (count, averageRating)
REMOVED	The store no longer has the app in that country (reported when it is missing in two runs in a row, so one empty store answer is not a false alarm)	-

changeType is NEW (first time seen), CHANGED, REMOVED, or SNAPSHOT when monitoring is off. One row per app, store and country; several events can sit in one row ("changes": ["VERSION_CHANGE", "RATING_CHANGE"]) and the old value is always in diff.

Quick start

1. Put apps in App Store apps (389801252 or an apps.apple.com link) and/or Google Play apps (com.instagram.android or a play.google.com link).
2. Pick Countries (default United States).
3. Run once: every app comes back as NEW, that is your baseline.
4. Schedule the Actor daily (or hourly). From then on you get rows only when something changed.

You want	Set
A competitor release alert	their apps, Only new or changed apps on, schedule daily
Price changes of paid apps in 5 countries	the apps, 5 Countries
Chart position of your apps	Top charts to watch Top Free
Every new app that enters the top 20	Top charts to watch + Also track the top N apps 20
New reviews to read or forward	Customer reviews Summary + each review as a row
A full snapshot every time	turn Only new or changed apps off

Output example

{
  "recordType": "app",
  "id": "ios:389801252:us",
  "store": "ios",
  "appId": "389801252",
  "bundleId": "com.burbn.instagram",
  "country": "us",
  "name": "Instagram",
  "developer": "Instagram, Inc.",
  "category": "Photo & Video",
  "version": "450.1.0",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-10-06T12:29:07Z",
  "price": 0,
  "currency": "USD",
  "isFree": true,
  "ratingAverage": 4.69,
  "ratingCount": 29575931,
  "ranks": { "top-free": 20 },
  "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252",
  "changeType": "CHANGED",
  "changes": ["VERSION_CHANGE", "RANK_CHANGE"],
  "diff": {
    "version": { "from": "449.0.0", "to": "450.1.0" },
    "lastUpdated": { "from": "2026-09-29T10:02:11Z", "to": "2026-10-06T12:29:07Z" },
    "rank:top-free": { "from": 31, "to": 20, "change": -11 }
  },
  "firstSeenAt": "2026-09-01T06:00:12Z"
}

Fields per app: name, developer, category, version, releaseNotes, lastUpdated, releasedAt, price, currency, isFree, ratingAverage, ratingCount, contentRating, minOsVersion, sizeBytes (App Store), installs (Google Play band such as 500,000,000+), ranks, url.

A review row (recordType: "review"): appName, appId, country, reviewId, rating, title, text, appVersion, updatedAt. No author.

The run's key-value store also holds APPS (one line per app and country: found / not found / blocked / failed) and HEALTH (requests, blocked responses, empty-field ratios, format alerts).

How each store is read

• App Store: Apple's official iTunes Lookup API (up to 50 apps per request and country), Apple's official Top Charts feed (rss.marketingtools.apple.com, top 100 Free and Paid) and, if you turn reviews on, Apple's public customer-review feed (the 50 most recent reviews per country, rating, title, text, version and date only).
• Google Play: the public app page (play.google.com/store/apps/details) in English, one request per app and country. Version, rating, rating count, price, install band, category, release notes and update date.
• Requests go out one at a time with a pause between them (App Store lookups stay under Apple's documented ~20 calls per minute), with an honest DatasmithLab-Scraper user agent. The Actor only requests URLs allowed by the stores' robots.txt.
• No proxy is used by default. If a store ever blocks the request, the run stops reading that store, reports it in APPS / HEALTH and keeps the other store going. You can add a proxy in the input; it is used only after a block.

Limits (read this first)

• No keyword search or ASO keyword ranks. Both stores' search URLs are excluded by their robots.txt, so you give the apps (ids or links) yourself.
• No Google Play reviews and no Google Play charts. Google's robots.txt forbids both. Play apps are tracked by version, rating, price, install band and update date.
• Charts are Apple's top 100 Top Free and Top Paid per country. Apple's official feed has no Top Grossing list and no per-category charts.
• Google Play version can be empty for apps that ship different builds per device (for example Instagram). Those are tracked by lastUpdated.
• The first run only sets the review starting point (no old reviews are charged); review rows start with the next run.
• Reviews cover Apple's 50 most recent reviews per app and country, not the full history. Run often enough (daily is plenty for most apps).
• A rating change is reported when the average moves at least your threshold since the last reported value, so slow drifts add up instead of being lost.
• A store page redesign can break the Google Play reader. The HEALTH report shows empty-field ratios and formatAlerts, and the run logs a warning.

Pricing

FREE-tier event rates checked on 11 October 2026 (FREE is the tier name, not a free run):

• apify-actor-start: $0.005 per event.
• app-snapshot: $0.002 per event.
• review: $0.0005 per event.

Start event count depends on memory: one per GB, minimum one. Zero output can still incur start and applicable run costs. Row prices do not guarantee the total invoice. Store pricing is authoritative; rates and tier discounts may change.

Pay per event:

• Actor start: $0.005 per run.
• App row: $0.002 per new, changed or removed app row ($2 per 1,000).
• Review row: $0.0005 per review row (only if you ask for reviews as rows).

Unchanged apps have no app-row event charge. An app that did not change is not returned and not charged. Check 200 apps daily and you pay only for the few rows that changed, plus the start.

FAQ

Why does the first run return everything? It is the baseline. Every app is NEW once; after that only changes.

Is the tracking memory shared between my tasks? It is shared by this Actor in your account, per app and country. The same app tracked in two tasks is compared against the same last-reported values.

Why no rank for my Google Play app? Google offers no chart feed that its robots.txt allows. Use the App Store charts for iOS apps.

Does it collect personal data? No. App rows are public store listing data (the developer's public store name is included, never contact details). Review rows have no reviewer name or profile.

How do I find an App Store id? It is the number after id in the app's link: apps.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252.