App Store & Google Play Rating Drop Alerts - Slack, Discord or webhook

Know within hours when your app's rating drops, angry 1-star reviews pile up, a new release is rated worse than the old one, or a competitor overtakes you. Schedule it hourly or daily: it remembers the last run and alerts only on what changed. Works for Apple App Store, Google Play and Steam, no login and no API key.

What it watches

Alert	Fires when
rating-drop	the store rating is lower than at the previous run by your threshold (default 0.10 stars)
recent-rating-drop	the average of the newest reviews fell by 0.5 stars or more (catches a bad release days before the headline rating moves)
negative-spike	the share of 1-2 star reviews among the newest reviews jumped by 15 points or more
one-star-burst	5 or more new 1-star reviews arrived since the last run
version-regression	the newest app version averages half a star worse than older versions in the same sample (at least 5 reviews each), or Apple's current-version rating is clearly below the overall one
competitor-overtook / overtook-competitor	a competitor you listed passes you in rating (or you pass them)

Every threshold is an input and can be turned off (set to 0 where allowed). The first run is a baseline (status: "BASELINE"): it stores the readings and raises no alerts.

Notifications

Add a Slack webhook, a Discord webhook and/or a generic webhook URL (JSON, works with Zapier, Make, n8n). Messages list each alert and the latest 1-star review text, so the person who reads it knows what to look for. You can also use Apify's own integrations/webhooks on run success. No notification is sent when nothing alerts.

Output

One row per checked app (type: "app-check"), your apps first, alerts first:

{ "status": "ALERT", "store": "apple", "appName": "WhatsApp Messenger", "rating": 4.68, "previousRating": 5.08,
  "ratingDelta": -0.4, "ratingCount": 18705662, "newRatingsSinceLastRun": 1340, "sampleSize": 100,
  "sampleAverage": 3.52, "negativePercent": 32, "newOneStarSinceLastRun": 27, "version": "26.38.74",
  "versionRating": { "version": "26.38.74", "n": 100, "avg": 3.52, "baselineAvg": null },
  "competitors": [ { "appName": "Telegram Messenger", "rating": 4.01, "ratingGap": 0.67, "status": "you-lead" } ],
  "alerts": [ { "code": "rating-drop", "message": "WhatsApp Messenger: store rating fell 5.08 -> 4.68 (-0.4)." } ],
  "worstRecentReviews": [ { "rating": 1, "text": "...", "date": "2026-10-03T..." } ],
  "history": [ { "at": "2026-10-03T20:19:00Z", "rating": 4.68, "ratingCount": 18705662 } ] }

A SUMMARY record in the key-value store lists the alerts by type, and history in each row lets you chart the rating over time.

Input

Field	Default	Meaning
apps	WhatsApp (Apple + Google Play)	Your apps: store URLs, Apple ids, Play package names, Steam appids
competitors	Telegram	Rivals compared on the same store. They are checked (and billed as app checks) but never raise alerts of their own
reviewSample	100	Newest reviews read per app per run
country, language	us, english	Storefront ratings differ per country
ratingDropAlert, recentRatingDropAlert, negativeSpikePoints, newOneStarAlert, versionRegressionDrop	10, 50, 15, 5, 50	Thresholds (stars in hundredths: 10 = 0.10)
slackWebhookUrl, discordWebhookUrl, webhookUrl	empty	Where alerts go
onlyAlerts	false	Output only apps with alerts
stateStoreName	app-review-alerts-state	Memory between runs; use one name per monitoring job

Scheduling: create a Task with your apps and thresholds, then add a schedule (for example every 6 hours: 0 */6 * * *). Use a different stateStoreName per Task.

Use cases

• Release watch: the first hours after you ship, recent-rating-drop and version-regression show whether the update hurt.
• Support triage: the alert carries the newest 1-star text; pair it with reviews-theme-analyzer for the full list of complaints.
• Competitor tracking: get told when a rival passes you or loses ground.
• Agencies and publishers: one Task per client app, alerts into the client's Slack.

Pipeline: app-review-alerts (alert) -> app-reviews-scraper (pull the reviews behind the alert) -> reviews-theme-analyzer (what are they complaining about).

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.002 per app checked (app-checked, charged only when the app was read successfully, competitors included) and $0.01 per alerting app (rating-alert, one per app per run however many alert types fired). Watching one app against two competitors costs $0.006 per run when quiet, so about $0.024 a day at every-6-hours. Apps that could not be read are free.

FAQ

Why does the headline rating barely move? The store rating is a lifetime average; for big apps it moves in hundredths. That is why the recent-reviews checks exist, and why ratingDropAlert defaults to 0.10 stars.

How is "new since last run" counted? By review date, from the newest reviews it reads (reviewSample). If more than that many reviews arrive between runs, the count is capped at the sample size - run more often or raise reviewSample.

Steam? Supported: rating is the overall recommendation score on a 5-star scale, reviews are recommended (5) or not (1). Steam has no app version, so no version checks.

What if a store rate-limits? The run retries with back-off and falls back to Apify's datacenter proxy automatically.

Does it send email? Not directly. Use Slack, Discord or a webhook, or Apify's email integration on the run.

Feedback: open an issue on the Actor page, and a quick review on the Store page helps other app teams find it.

Related Actors

app-reviews-scraper (full review export, filters, only-new mode) - reviews-theme-analyzer (top complaints and praise from reviews).