Do ads hurt app ratings? What negative reviews say about in-app ads
Ads pay a few dollars per 1,000 views. In 8,693 negative App Store reviews, 168 complaints target ads and 104 come from users who paid to remove them.
In-app advertising in Apple's ecosystem reached $151 billion in 2025, according to an Apple-commissioned study published on June 4, 2026. For an indie app, the share of that money is small and paid per thousand views. The cost shows up elsewhere: in 1-star reviews. We went through the recurring complaints from our three App Store studies (17,581 reviews collected, 8,693 negative reviews read) and counted every one about ads.
Key findings:
- 168 complaints are about third-party ads: 64 about intrusive ads in the free version, 104 from users who paid to remove ads and still see them.
- Budget apps carry most of it: 135 of the 168, and 90 for Pocket Expense alone.
- Another 255 complaints target upsell pop-ups and house promotions that users call "ads", even when no ad network is involved.
- The counterpoint: 156 complaints in three fitness apps come from users, often teenagers or students, who would rather have ads or a free version than pay.
- A US interstitial earned about $14 per 1,000 views in Q4 2024, according to vendor data. One bad ad placement can cost more than that in ratings.
What an ad pays
No ad network publishes official eCPM tables (revenue per 1,000 impressions). The public figures come from mediation vendors, and they vary by country, platform, format and season. Treat them as rough ranges, not as expected earnings.
| Source and date | Format | Market | eCPM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Appodeal, Q4 2024, via Adapty | Interstitial | US | $14.32 iOS, $14.08 Android |
| Appodeal, Q4 2024 | Interstitial | UK | $10.38 iOS, $8.49 Android |
| Appodeal, Q4 2024 | Interstitial | Canada | $7.21 iOS, $8.64 Android |
| Appodeal, Q4 2024 | Interstitial | Australia | $6.88 iOS, $6.65 Android |
| Playio, 2026 benchmarks | Interstitial | US | $9.64 iOS, $10.11 Android |
| Playio, 2026 benchmarks | Rewarded video | US | $19.63 iOS, $16.49 Android |
Three caveats. Q4 is the holiday quarter, not a yearly average. Playio does not publish its method and its data comes from games. And a small budget or habit app with users in mixed countries will rarely get the top US rate on every view.
An illustration, not a forecast: 1,000 daily US users who each see two interstitials make 2,000 impressions, or about $28.64 a day at the Appodeal Q4 2024 iOS rate, if every view is filled at that rate. For scale, RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026 (March 12, 2026) puts the median subscription app at about $72 a month one year after launch. More in how much indie apps make.
What ads cost in reviews
| App | Niche | Intrusive ads (free version) | Paid, still sees ads | Upsell pop-ups called "ads" |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pocket Expense 6 | Budget | 40 | 50 | – |
| Checkbook: Account Tracker | Budget | 13 | 32 | – |
| GetHabit: Easy Habit Tracker | Habits | 11 | – | – |
| Fitness Point Pro | Fitness | – | 22 | – |
| Do Habits: Get It Done | Habits | – | – | 170 |
| Fabulous: Daily Habit Tracker | Habits | – | – | 65 |
| Rocket Money | Budget | – | – | 12 |
| MoneyCoach | Budget | – | – | 8 |
| Total | 64 | 104 | 255 |
Ads in the middle of a task (64 complaints)
The complaints are about where ads appear: full-screen or video ads on every launch or every new entry, sometimes with no close button. In Pocket Expense (40 complaints), the ad fires when users log an expense, the one action the app exists for. Our budget app study covers this app in detail.
Every time you try to enter an expense an ad pops up and you have to wait for it to finish
The video adds have no way to close them.
Checkbook: Account Tracker (13) shows the same pattern; GetHabit (11) loses users in minutes.
They pop up while you're typing, constantly. And now, I can't even close the ad.
Too many ads. Ridiculous. Deleted after 3 minutes of use.
Paid to remove ads, still seeing them (104 complaints)
This is the angriest group. Users bought a lifetime, Pro or ad-free version, then saw ads come back after an update, a reinstall, a renewal or a new phone. Pocket Expense has 50 complaints, Checkbook: Account Tracker 32. In Fitness Point Pro (22), ads arrived together with a switch to a subscription that locked features buyers had already paid for.
paying for premium to be ad free for several years now and all of a sudden I’m getting ads again
I just bought pro and it doesn't do anything. I'm still getting ads.
even though I paid for the Pro app I’m now having ads pushed on me
To the user, an ad after payment is a broken promise, not a bug, like charges after cancelling.
Your own upsells count as ads (255 complaints)
Users do not separate an ad network from your own promotions. Do Habits has 120 complaints about an upgrade offer with a countdown on every launch, and 50 about promotions for the developer's other apps shown to paying users. Fabulous has 65 about ads for its own products on the home screen.
they make you dismiss an add EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. you open it now
so many advertisements for their own products at the top of the screen before you get to your goals
The counterpoint: "rather have ads" (156 complaints)
156 complaints come from users who refuse to pay for a workout app, many of them young or students, and ask for a free version or ads instead: Fitness Coach (110), StrongHer (30) and GetFit (16). Our fitness app study shows the same audience hitting a paywall before the first workout.
rather have ads then have to pay just to do a few jumping jacks
Why can’t u just make it free and make money off ad revenue
Part of the audience accepts ads. Placement, frequency and broken ad-free purchases are what trigger the 1-star review.
How to run ads without the 1-star reviews
Formats and frequency
- No interstitial on launch and none during the core action (logging an expense, checking a habit). Show it after a task is finished, if at all.
- Always a close button. Ads that cannot be closed come up in both Pocket Expense and Checkbook.
- Cap frequency. "Every time" is the phrase that comes back most in these complaints.
- Prefer rewarded video: the user chooses to watch, and it has the highest eCPM in the table above.
- Count your own pop-ups. An upgrade offer on every launch is an ad to the user.
Pricing the "remove ads" purchase
Sell it as a one-time, non-consumable purchase, and say on the button exactly what it removes. If a subscription unlocks features, keep "no ads" as a separate, permanent purchase, so buyers are not moved to a subscription later. The trade-offs are covered in subscription vs one-time purchase.
Keeping it working across updates and devices
- Check the ad-free entitlement from the store's transaction history on each launch, not from a local flag that a reinstall erases.
- Add a visible Restore purchases button.
- Before each release, test the update path with an account that bought ad-free in an old version.
- Never change what an earlier purchase includes. Pocket Expense and Checkbook show what follows.
Hybrid: ads plus subscription
RevenueCat's 2026 report gives a median download-to-paid rate of 2.1% for freemium apps versus 10.7% for hard paywalls. In a freemium app, almost no one pays. Light, well-placed ads earn something from the rest, and the subscription removes ads and unlocks features. The Fitness Coach complaints show demand for this among users who cannot pay. If you want to see which monetization complaints dominate a niche before you choose, that is what Grumpi reports rank.
Method
- Data: the recurring complaint groups from our three studies (habit trackers, budget apps, fitness apps), built from 17,581 App Store reviews collected and 8,693 negative (1–3★) reviews read. The full process is in how to find app ideas in negative reviews.
- Counting: we read each group description and kept those clearly about in-app ads. Counts are the sum of complaints in those groups. One review can contain several complaints.
- Excluded: complaints where "ads" means marketing, such as "the ads say it's free" (345 complaints across Rocket Money, 30 Day Fitness, Fitness Coach, GetFit and StrongHer). They are about misleading acquisition, not in-app ads.
- Limits: only recurring groups are counted, so these numbers are a floor. Reviews over-represent unhappy users; the counts show how often a problem is raised, not how many users have it. eCPM figures are vendor data, not our own.
FAQ
Do ads hurt app ratings?
Badly placed ones do. In our data, 168 complaints target third-party ads, mostly ads on launch or during the main task, and ads shown to users who paid to remove them. Ads placed after a task, with a close button and a frequency cap, do not show up in these complaints.
How much do apps make from ads?
Vendor data puts a US interstitial at about $14 per 1,000 views on iOS in Q4 2024 (Appodeal, via Adapty), and lower in other countries. Real revenue depends on audience size, country mix, format and fill rate, so treat any figure as a range.
Should I offer a "remove ads" purchase?
Yes, but make it permanent and reliable. 104 complaints come from users who paid and still saw ads after an update or a phone change. Check the entitlement from the store and add a restore button.
Do users prefer ads or a subscription?
Some do prefer ads. 156 complaints in three fitness apps ask for a free version or ads instead of a subscription, often from teenagers and students, 110 of them in Fitness Coach. A hybrid model, free with light ads and a paid tier without them, serves both groups.