How to drop your app rating from 4.2 to 3.3

I just realized that I spend more time on users who are loud and not willing to pay, rather than paying customers.

This is a mistake every founder makes over and over until it finally sinks in.¹ There's an inverse linear relationship between how much you charge and the number of headaches.

Said less eloquently, screw the cheap bastards. You are under no obligation to be everybody's friend and in fact, you're doing your true fans a disservice if you focus on the loud, entitled users who aren't even paying you (much).

So focus disproportionately on your very best users. The true fans. The ones who are highly price-inelastic, who appreciate your contribution, and value your work.

It'll take a while but eventually, you'll learn that the people who're whining are akin to people that show up at a comedy movie complaining that it's not a horror. It's just not for them. Those people can move on. Focus diligently on the people you wish to serve.

EDIT: Noticed I didn't actually answer your Q. You can respond to the bad reviews if you're worried that it might create a negative perception of your product. Alternatively, you could just put all your resources toward improving your product s.t. it's terrific for your users and you start growing by word of mouth. That's what I'd do personally.

NOTES
¹ I still make this mistake as well. Can't remember a time where I didn't regret it.

I know the difficulty, last year I launched my app as a free app to get some early feedback and help take it in a valuable direction. A few months later I was closer to quality where I felt good about monetising and people were really enjoying it.

I have a free trial, and after that you can also keep using the free features ad inifinitum. When I first introduced the premium tier I only moved very little to it (to avoid bad review flood), with the plan being to add features to it going forward.

Idea (for me) was to keep growing the overall user base and over time persuade them to move up, and if they don't, that's fine as well as long as they like the app and tell their friends about it.

Completely agree that bad reviews suck and getting kind emails and compliments from users is the best ever, I suppose ultimately your gonna have to deal with both if you want to get the latter. Can't please everyone right?

If they are only complaing about price, ignore them. Or, if possible and if you app doesn't already have it, add a trial period for the paid features so they can see the value in paying for the Pro version.

If they have legit complains about missing features, and it's not a special use case where only one or few users will want/need it, then you could consider adding the feature when you have the resources to do so. Then you can reply saying that the feature now exists in the Pro version. If not them, at least it will be an incentive for new people who discover your app to get the paid version.

ALl the best!

I have been using React native for mobile app. We came with an approach to go from 4.1 to 4.9 using the following:

1. Use Crashlytics tools, and solve most accurated ones. This will give the user an app free crashes.
2. Use a performance tool, interaction user experience, to make the app as smooth as possible.
3. add analytic tool, so you know when the user start liking and returning to your app. ask them to review there.

COuld you please tell me how do you sell lifetime license?
As far as I know in Appstore the the longest is yearly subscription.

Had a similar thing happen with my game release, though in my case it was because I didn't sufficiently communicate that it was limited, and they were shocked when the limits hit.

On responding to the bad reviews: It's nearly impossible to make someone accept that something that they USED to get for free is now going to cost them money. I've been on both sides of this; when I was a teen, I was using a service that was free for a while, and when it started to charge money I felt angry about it. Was it rational? No. But I suspect that's what you're up against.

Ideally when you make a change to restrict features, you would grandfather the current users. If you've got someone complaining, you could tell them that, since they were a long time loyal user, you can offer them a lifetime subscription to features that were previously free.

You're effectively bribing them to change their review, which sucks. And they're effectively extorting you to get free things. So if you CAN ignore them, that's probably the better path. In that case, your response to individual reviews could simply be an apology that you can't afford to offer those features for free any more. Not that the reviewer will care, but when I see a reasonable, even response from the app developer to an unreasonable review, it makes me feel better about getting the app.

Just a few thoughts. Good luck with the situation!

that's interesting. What you're saying is more ammunition for me in my self conflict on whether to make my game free or paid to download. It seems like going free to download is a way to invite bad ratings form people who will only give a cursory glance at the app / game.

have you thought about releasing it twice - as free and pro versions? That way you can have two separate ratings.

hi, i read some reviews and the people say that the app stop working, check on the anr and vitals of the console you have reports there you need update the app

Typing Hero is a Text Expander and Macro app for Android. When limiting the free version to 10 Snippets, I also unlock most Premium features. So, they basically can try things out.

There is no free trial, but there is money-back guarantee if they purchase annual subscription or lifetime license.

Thank you for the suggestion @ksp. Maybe ignoring, or responding with an emotionless response will be better moving forward.