Google Play App Monitor & Scraper — Ratings, Installs & Updates

For ASO teams, competitor-monitoring and app-market researchers who need a current app snapshot or compact change alerts. Normal mode returns one rich row per known app ID. Turn on onlyChangesSinceLastRun to persist a baseline across scheduled runs and emit only rating, ratings-count, install-band, update, price and developer-contact changes.

Pay-per-result: $0.001 per app — 1,000 apps = $1. Try it free with Apify's monthly platform credit.

Quick start (2 minutes)

1. Find an app on Google Play and copy its package id from the URL (e.g. com.spotify.music from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotify.music), or just paste the whole URL.
2. Open the Input tab and use this prefill (swap in your own apps):

{
  "appIds": ["com.spotify.music"],
  "maxItems": 5
}

3. Click Start. Export the resulting dataset to CSV/Excel/JSON, or pull it through the API shown below.

Use cases

• ASO teams tracking rating, install bucket and content rating for competitor apps over time.
• Competitor and market researchers building a comparison sheet across many apps in a category.
• Business-development teams collecting a developer's public contact info (email/website/ address, when Google publishes it) for outreach or partnership research.
• Pricing researchers tracking free/paid status, price and in-app purchase price ranges across a set of apps.

Monitor changes on a schedule + webhook

Monitor mode turns repeated snapshots into a compact event stream. The first run for each app/language/country watch saves a baseline and emits no billable changes. Later runs emit:

• rating_changed when the absolute score delta reaches ratingChangeThreshold (default 0.05)
• ratings_count_changed
• installs_band_changed
• updated when Google's published updated date or recentChanges text changes
• price_changed
• developer_contact_changed

Every monitor run also writes one free run_summary row.

Example scheduled input:

{
  "appIds": ["com.spotify.music", "com.whatsapp"],
  "language": "en",
  "country": "US",
  "onlyChangesSinceLastRun": true,
  "ratingChangeThreshold": 0.05,
  "stateStoreName": "competitor-app-watch",
  "maxItems": 100
}

A concrete recipe:

1. Run that input once to establish baselines.
2. In Apify Console → Schedules, run it daily at 09:00 (or your preferred cadence) with the same stateStoreName.
3. In Integrations → Webhooks, add an Actor run succeeded webhook to your endpoint or automation tool.
4. Have the receiver read the run's default dataset and route rows where eventType != "run_summary" to Slack/email/a database. Those are the change rows; the summary is diagnostic and free.

Example change row:

{
  "eventType": "rating_changed",
  "appId": "com.spotify.music",
  "title": "Spotify: Music and Podcasts",
  "previousScore": 4.28,
  "currentScore": 4.35,
  "scoreDelta": 0.07,
  "ratingChangeThreshold": 0.05,
  "observedAt": "2026-09-28T09:00:00.000Z"
}

Input

{
  "appIds": ["com.spotify.music"],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "language": "en",
  "country": "US"
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
appIds	string[]	required	1–500 Android package ids or Play Store details URLs
maxItems	integer	50	1–5000. Hard cap on apps delivered across the whole run
language	string	en	Play Store UI language code (hl), e.g. de, es
country	string	US	2-letter Play Store country code (gl), affects price/currency
onlyChangesSinceLastRun	boolean	false	Opt-in stateful monitoring. First run saves a baseline; later runs emit only change events.
stateStoreName	string	google-play-scraper-state	Named cross-run state store used only in monitor mode. Reuse it for the same watch.
ratingChangeThreshold	number	0.05	Monitor mode: minimum absolute score delta for rating_changed.

For most users, the only setting that matters is App ids.

Why there's no keyword search

https://play.google.com/robots.txt disallows /store/search outright — verified against the live file, with no wildcard exception for a query string. This Actor honours robots.txt on every request, so it does not perform Play Store keyword search at all: searchTerms is accepted in the input schema for forward compatibility but any non-empty value fails the run with an explanation. Find the package id for the app you want in your own browser (it's the id= value in the details URL) and pass that instead.

Google Play app data fields

Category	Fields
Identity	appId, url, title
Developer	developer, developerId, developerEmail, developerWebsite, developerAddress
Classification	category, genreId, contentRating
Pricing	price, currency, free, containsAds, offersIAP, iapPriceRange
Popularity	installsText, minInstalls, realInstalls
Ratings	score, ratingsCount, reviewsCount, histogram
Dates	released, updated
Content	summary, descriptionText, recentChanges
Media	icon, screenshots, video
Compatibility	version, androidVersion (usually null — see Limitations)
Freshness	scrapedAt, language, country

Missing values are returned as null. The Actor does not invent missing app data.

Google Play output example

Real output for com.spotify.music (trimmed — descriptionText runs to ~3000 characters and screenshots holds up to 5 URLs in the full row):

{
  "appId": "com.spotify.music",
  "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotify.music&hl=en&gl=US",
  "title": "Spotify: Music and Podcasts",
  "developer": "Spotify AB",
  "developerId": "6523013212965523194",
  "developerEmail": "support@spotify.com",
  "developerWebsite": "https://www.spotify.com",
  "developerAddress": "Regeringsgatan 19\n111 53 Stockholm\nSweden",
  "category": "Music & Audio",
  "genreId": "MUSIC_AND_AUDIO",
  "price": 0,
  "currency": "USD",
  "free": true,
  "containsAds": true,
  "offersIAP": true,
  "iapPriceRange": "$4.99 - $203.88 per item",
  "installsText": "1,000,000,000+",
  "minInstalls": 1000000000,
  "realInstalls": 3135692442,
  "score": 4.347309,
  "ratingsCount": 36380579,
  "reviewsCount": 1853986,
  "histogram": { "1": 3704002, "2": 1068685, "3": 1311103, "4": 3100952, "5": 27195814 },
  "contentRating": "Teen",
  "updated": "2026-09-25T08:00:14.000Z",
  "released": "2014-05-27T13:12:17.000Z",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-27T00:00:00.000Z",
  "language": "en",
  "country": "US"
}

Field	Value
developer / developerEmail	Spotify AB / support@spotify.com
score / ratingsCount	4.35 / 36,380,579
installsText / realInstalls	1,000,000,000+ / 3,135,692,442
free / containsAds / offersIAP	true / true / true
contentRating	Teen

Use it as a Google Play API

The Actor can be called from your own application through the Apify API. No Google account or Play Store login is required.

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("lukehunter/google-play-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "appIds": ["com.spotify.music"],
        "maxItems": 50,
    }
)

for app in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(app["title"], app["score"], app["installsText"])

Use Apify schedules for recurring app snapshots, and webhooks or integrations to send completed datasets into the rest of your workflow.

Pricing and cost control

This Actor uses pay per delivered app pricing.

Current configured rate: $0.001 per app delivered. Check the Apify Pricing tab for the latest published rate.

Apps delivered	Cost at $0.001/app
100	$0.10
1,000	$1.00
5,000	$5.00

There is no charge for merely starting a run, and a not-found app id (HTTP 404) is never charged. In monitor mode, only change rows use the existing app charge; the single run_summary row is free. maxItems caps billable rows (app rows in normal mode, change events in monitor mode).

Reliability and data quality

The Actor is designed to make data problems visible instead of hiding them.

• Two independent data sources are read on every page — Google's own embedded page data and the page's JSON-LD structured data — and cross-checked against each other for title, developer, score, ratingsCount, price, currency and free.
• If neither source can be parsed at all, the run fails loudly for that app instead of returning an empty-looking row.
• A not-found app id (HTTP 404) is reported per-app and never charged.
• Missing values are returned as null rather than guessed.
• Every outgoing request is checked against robots.txt in code before it is made; the Actor refuses to request a disallowed path.

Important limitations

• App ids only — no keyword search. See "Why there's no keyword search" above: play.google.com/robots.txt disallows /store/search.
• No individual reviews. Verified against real captured pages: Google Play's details page does not embed individual review text server-side — only the aggregate rating and star histogram. The individual reviews shown in a browser are filled in by a client-side request this Actor does not make (it would require the /_ batchexecute endpoint, which robots.txt disallows and this Actor refuses to call). This Actor does not implement full paginated review scraping.
• version and androidVersion are usually null. Most current Play Store listings no longer publish a static version/minimum-OS field (Google's redesigned page delivers per-device instead).
• video is rarely populated. Not every app publishes a promo video, and this field has not been observed populated against any real page used to build this Actor.
• developerEmail/developerWebsite/developerAddress are returned only when Google publishes them on the page as the developer's public business contact info; many apps do not show all three.
• Ratings, installs and pricing can change after the run. scrapedAt records the observation time.
• The Actor does not use CAPTCHA bypass, proxy rotation, credential capture, or impersonation. It identifies itself honestly and respects a 1-request-per-2-seconds pace.
• Public catalogue data only; no personal data beyond a developer's own published business contact info is collected.
• This is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Google LLC. Google Play is a trademark of its owner. You are responsible for using the data in accordance with applicable terms and laws.

FAQ

Can I search Google Play by keyword?

No. play.google.com/robots.txt disallows /store/search, and this Actor honours robots.txt for every request. Pass the app's package id or details URL instead — see "Why there's no keyword search".

Is it legal to scrape Google Play app data?

This Actor only collects public app data already shown on Google Play's own details pages: names, ratings, prices, and similar catalogue fields, plus a developer's own publicly published business contact info. It does not bypass any login, CAPTCHA, or paywall, and it honours robots.txt. It is an independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by Google LLC, and you are responsible for using the collected data in accordance with Google's terms of service and the laws that apply to you.

Does it return individual reviews?

No. Google Play's details page does not embed individual review text in the initial page load — only the aggregate rating and histogram are present server-side. See "Important limitations" above.

How do I find an app's package id?

Open the app on play.google.com. For a URL such as https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotify.music, the package id is com.spotify.music — you can paste the whole URL or just that id.

Does it work for apps in other countries/languages?

Yes — set language (hl) and country (gl) to affect the page's display language and price/currency. The app itself is the same regardless of these settings.

Related Actors

Other data tools from the same developer, built to the same standard: official or public sources, hard cost caps, and honest documentation of limits.

• Apple App Store Reviews Scraper: Apple App Store reviews for any iOS app, across countries, with rating, version and date.
• Spotify Scraper: play counts, monthly listeners and playlist track lists for any public Spotify artist, playlist, album or track.
• Walmart Category Scraper: product names, prices, was-prices and ratings from Walmart category pages.
• Shopify Product Monitor & Scraper: full product catalogues from any Shopify store, with prices, sale prices, variants and stock.
• Vinted Scraper: Vinted search results with prices, brands, sizes and favourites, across any Vinted country.
• AliExpress Search Scraper: AliExpress search results with prices, discounts, ratings and sold counts, by keyword.
• Hospital Price Transparency Enforcement Leads: hospitals with recent CMS price transparency warning notices, CAP requests and CMP notices.
• Hospital Ownership Change Radar: hospitals that just changed owner, with buyer, seller and effective date from CMS filings.