Android vitals and Google Play visibility: the thresholds that hide apps

Android vitals is Play Console’s view of your app’s stability, performance and battery use. At the top of its overview are the core vitals, which Google describes as the most important technical metrics and says affect the discoverability of your app on Google Play: user-perceived ANR rate, user-perceived crash rate, excessive battery usage for watch faces, and excessive partial wake locks, which is in beta and, Google says, will not make your app less discoverable while it stays in beta. Google defines a bad behavior threshold on each. Its definition: if your app’s rate is equal to or higher than the threshold, it is in the bottom 25% of the top 1,000 apps on Google Play by number of installs.

A user-perceived crash is one the user is likely to have noticed, for example while the app is showing an activity or running as a foreground service. The overall bad behavior threshold is reached when at least 1.09% of daily users experience one across all device models. A user-perceived ANR counts, for now, only “input dispatching timed out” ANRs, and the overall threshold is at least 0.47% of daily active users. Both also have a per-device threshold of at least 8% of daily users on a single device model. Google says to fix the underlying crash and ANR clusters reported on the Crashes and ANRs page, since the clusters affecting the most users contribute most to your rate.

Google says an app that exceeds a bad behavior threshold is likely to be less discoverable on Google Play. If the bad behavior is on specific device models, Google Play steers users on those devices away from the app and towards others more suitable for them, and in some cases shows a warning on the store listing to set expectations. So a crash that only hits one popular phone can cost you visibility with everyone using it, even when your overall rate looks fine. The Critical issues section of the overview lists both bad behaviors and anomalies, such as a sharp jump in ANRs, and you can turn on email notifications for anomalies.

Android vitals also shows core value metrics. DAU / MAU is the ratio of people who open your app at least once in a day to those who open it at least once in 28 days; if it does not meet the 8% threshold, a warning may be shown on your store listing and the app may not be eligible for certain surfaces on Google Play. User loss rate compares users who uninstalled your app from all their devices with users who have it on at least one active device; above Play’s 5% threshold, the same warning and surface limits may apply. These are retention numbers, so marketing that brings installs from people who will not keep the app can work against you here.

Android vitals data comes from users who opted in to share usage and diagnostics data, from a subset of Android devices and OS versions, and it excludes uncertified devices and app versions not installed through Google Play. It is updated daily and kept for 90 days in Play Console and three years in the Play Developer Reporting API. You can break metrics down by app version, Android version, form factor, device model and country or region, and compare against category benchmarks or a custom peer group. If no data shows, Google says your app does not have enough data points for the filters you chose.

Quality keeps the store listing visible; the listing itself still has to convert, see how to promote an app on Google Play and the ASO checklist. Censuus ranks apps by the real visit traffic they draw on the web. Adding your app is free on the submit page, and it can rise on the visits it earns. Sponsorship raises placement and adds a followed link to your website; details are on the sponsor page. We do not promise downloads or store rankings.