App Store Subscription Billing Complaints: 2026 Dataset

Across 1,979 of the highest-grossing and highest-selling apps on the US App Store, we sampled the most recent 1–2★ reviews and counted what people were actually angry about. 27% of them were about billing — being charged after canceling, trials converting without notice, amounts that did not match what was advertised — rather than about the app's features or quality.

168,6071–2★ reviews sampled

44,920about billing (27%)

1,979apps covered

Method

Took the top-grossing and top-paid charts for 10 US App Store categories — Productivity, Utilities, Business, Health & Fitness, Education, Finance, Photo & Video, Lifestyle, Food & Drink and Travel — giving 1,979 distinct apps.
Pulled the most recent public customer reviews for each app and kept those rated 1 or 2 stars: 168,607 reviews across 1,818 apps that had reviews available.
Counted a review as a billing complaint when it mentions charges, refunds, cancellation, trials, auto-renewal or disputed amounts. Sampled September 2026.

Limitation: Apple's public feed returns a limited window of recent reviews per app, so counts are comparable between apps but are not totals for an app's whole history. Apps with no recent reviews in the feed show a count of zero.

What people complain about

Billing complaints outnumber reviews about crashes and bugs by about 2.6 to 1 (44,918 vs 17,561, same keyword method). Among billing reviews that describe a specific problem, a free trial turning into a paid charge is by far the most common:

Specific billing problem	Reviews
Free trial turned into a paid charge	6,852
Refund refused by the developer	1,505
Charged a different amount or plan than expected	1,334
Could not find a way to cancel	1,253
Charged after canceling	1,133
Paid, then core features stayed locked	953
Billed outside Apple (card, PayPal or website)	113

A review can describe more than one problem; many billing reviews ("scam", "waste of money") describe none specifically and are not counted in this table. Classification is keyword-based — see the method above.

Apps with the most billing complaints

Ranked by the number of recent 1–2★ reviews that mention billing.

Apps where billing is most of the complaints

Raw counts favour big apps. Measured as a share instead — of apps with at least 100 recent 1–2★ reviews — 53 of 633 have more than half of their negative reviews about billing rather than the app itself.

App	1–2★ reviews	About billing
Breeze: Self-Discovery Buddy	416	89.9%
Fax from iPhone: Free of ad	190	75.3%
Headway - Daily Micro Learning	115	74.8%
Construction Master Pro Calc	123	69.9%
Chatbot AI Assistant ChatPrime	218	68.3%
Settlemate: Claim Savings	371	66.8%
RatePunk: Cheap Plane Tickets	193	62.2%
ReelMe: AI Photo & Video	182	62.1%
Camera Scanner - PDF	142	62%
Endel: Focus & Sleep Sounds	288	60.8%
Muse: Reels Video Editor	143	60.8%
GIO - Photo & Video Generator	335	59.4%
Plant Identifier: Plantiary	180	59.4%
RISE: Sleep Tracker	143	59.4%
Deepstash: Smarter Every Day!	304	58.9%

Citing this

This dataset is free to cite and reuse with attribution.

RefundAppeal (2026). App Store Subscription Billing Complaints: 2026 Dataset.
Retrieved from https://refundappeal.com/data/

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