Can I report a fake 1-star review left on my own app?

Yes. Shopify staff confirmed in March and October 2026 that the partner violation form is the way to report fake reviews on your own app, with the reason "Reviews that do not comply with Shopify's terms and conditions".

Will Shopify tell me what happened to my report?

No. Shopify writes that it cannot discuss the outcome of its investigations, and gives no delay. Staff say Shopify acts on reports even when it does not reply.

Can a store that never used my app leave a review?

Shopify publishes no minimum time of use. Only merchants who have the app installed, or uninstalled it less than 45 days ago, can review, and since December 11, 2024 not merchants on a trial plan. Each review shows how long the store had the app installed.

What happens to an app that buys reviews?

Shopify can remove a portion of its reviews, restrict it in search, suspend its developer's submissions, make it ineligible for Built for Shopify and, in severe cases, close the Partner account. Staff add that delisting is possible.

Someone asks for money to stop posting bad reviews. What should I do?

No Shopify page covers it. Shopify staff pointed developers to Shopify Support and to the form for reporting a merchant. In the case told on Shopify's forum, paying did not stop the reviews.

Luseri / Guides

Fake reviews on the Shopify App Store: what Shopify does and what you can do

On Shopify's developer forum, app developers report offers to sell them reviews, waves of 1-star reviews from stores that never opened their app, and demands for money to make those reviews stop. Shopify forbids fake reviews in its Partner Program Agreement and its App Store requirements, removes them when its checks or a report catch them, and asks developers to report each case through its partner violation form. It does not tell you what came of a report.

By Arthur Renard, updated October 29, 2026

What Shopify forbids

Practice	Where Shopify says it
Fake reviews, or reviews misleading about the reviewer's identity or their connection to the app	Partner Program Agreement
Limiting the content, type or place of reviews	Partner Program Agreement
Faking data to deceive merchants, "such as fake reviews"	App Store requirement 1.1.4
Reviews left by the developer or affiliated employees, on their own app or on a competing app	Manage app reviews
Posting or paying for fake reviews on a competitor's app	Manage app reviews
Any reward to add, edit or remove a review	Manage app reviews
The same review posted several times, from one account or several	Manage app reviews

The rules on asking your own merchants for a review, and what the July 2026 removals changed, are in our guide to the reviews Shopify removed and in how to get Shopify app reviews.

What Shopify can do to an app that breaks them

Shopify's partner help pages list the sanctions, from the lightest to the heaviest:

Remove a portion of the app's reviews as a penalty.
Restrict how the app shows in App Store search results.
Temporarily suspend the developer's ability to submit apps for review.
Make the app ineligible for some partner programs, such as Built for Shopify.
In severe cases with concrete evidence, close the Partner account.

A Shopify staff member wrote on the developer forum on September 4, 2026 that apps found breaking the review policies "can face delisting or account termination, not just review removal".

What Shopify did in 2025 and 2026

Date	What happened	Source
December 11, 2024	Merchants on any trial plan, paid trials included, can no longer leave a review.	Shopify changelog
March 9, 2026	Shopify staff announce a dedicated taskforce on fake reviews.	Shopify forum
May 14 to 28, 2026	Developers propose fixes: archive reviews from closed stores, show trust signals on reviews, flag sudden spikes, open an inbox for fake-review offers. Staff forward them without announcing a change.	Shopify forum
July 6, 2026	A dedicated rule against incentives: an app caught rewarding reviews loses "a significant portion" of them. Wider authenticity checks run on old reviews too. Staff add that app naming and duplication come next.	Shopify changelog and forum
September 3, 2026	Shopify adjusts its checks after partner appeals: some reviews may come back, others may go. Staff add the next day that the assessment has no end date.	Shopify forum
October 29, 2026	Staff write that Shopify unpublished hundreds of apps that day, spam apps from a few high-volume submitters, and that limits on submissions will be announced. This was about apps, not reviews.	Shopify forum

Shopify has published no count of the fake reviews it removed, and has not opened the inbox for fake-review offers that developers asked for. What the July 2026 sweep did to genuine reviews is told in our guide to the reviews Shopify removed.

How to report a fake review

Shopify finds non-compliant reviews with algorithms, manual searches and the reports developers send through its violation form. Shopify staff confirmed on the forum, on March 31 and October 14, 2026, that the same form is the way to report fake 1-star reviews left on your own app.

Write down each review as your listing shows it: the store name, its country or region, the date, the stars, and how long the store had your app installed, which Shopify displays on every review.
Add what you know from your own records: when the store installed and uninstalled your app, and whether it ever opened it. Install and uninstall dates are in the Partner API events (see how to measure churn).
Open Shopify's partner violation form and sign in with a Shopify account. Link the listing on apps.shopify.com and choose the reason "Reviews that do not comply with Shopify's terms and conditions".
Describe, in Shopify's words, "how you identified it, the impact, and any supporting evidence you may have", then confirm that the report is accurate and made in good faith.
If Shopify opens a case, reply in that ticket's thread. Shopify says the governance email address "isn't actively monitored", and staff advised on June 17, 2026 to update an existing case rather than open a new report.

Expect no answer. Shopify writes that it is not "able to discuss the outcome of these investigations", and a staff member wrote on April 9, 2026 that Shopify acts on the reports it receives "even if we don't reply to each one". No delay is given.

Extortion and offers to sell reviews

No Shopify page covers extortion. When a developer asked on the forum what to do, Shopify staff pointed to Shopify Support, through the help center, and to the form for reporting a merchant, since the person behind it uses a store. For emails offering to sell reviews, staff wrote in August 2025 that the report forms are the formal process; one developer files them under "Spam or malicious practices" in the merchant report form.

Paying did not end it in the case told on the forum: the team that paid received new 1-star reviews the following month (see below).

What developers report on Shopify's forum

These are accounts from developers, not checked by Shopify; amounts and counts are theirs. The forum thread "Is Shopify actually addressing the fake review problem?" has been read more than 5,000 times since November 2025.

Posted	What the developer reported	What followed
February 22, 2025	Three 1-star reviews from stores that never opened the app, with fake phone numbers, closed a few days later. Sellers offered to remove bad reviews for 25 to 100 US dollars each.	No reply from Shopify in the thread.
August 2025	Offers to sell reviews arriving by email and through the listing's contact form; one developer counted three to six a day in November 2025.	Staff said they would pass on the idea of an inbox to forward them to, and pointed to the merchant report form meanwhile. No such inbox exists as of October 2026.
November 11, 2025	Six offers of fake reviews in 12 hours, and reports that seemed to go nowhere.	Staff announced a taskforce in March 2026. On October 27, 2026, developers still quoted offers such as 50 reviews for 749 dollars, or 50 spread over five to six months from stores that really install the app.
February 11, 2026	Someone on WhatsApp demanded 250 dollars and posted eleven 1-star reviews; the team paid 150.	Staff wrote on February 19 that Shopify had unpublished several 1-star reviews it was confident were not genuine. New ones came in March.
June 18, 2026	An app offering 200 AI credits in exchange for a review, reported three times in about two weeks.	Staff said they were investigating; the offer came down on June 22. The reporter saw no change in that app's review count.
October 11, 2026	A store suspected of selling 1-star reviews: about four hours of use before the review, then a reinstall.	Staff flagged it internally on October 12 and said the outcome would not be shared.

Keep the evidence ready

A report is only as good as its evidence, and Shopify will not tell you what it did with it. Three habits help:

Reply publicly to every review, the fake ones included, calmly and with facts: the merchants reading your listing see your reply.
Keep your own install and uninstall history, with dates, so you can show that a reviewer used the app for minutes or never opened it.
Watch your rating and review count every day, so a wave of 1-star reviews or a sudden drop does not go unnoticed for weeks.

Luseri reads your public listing once a day and shows each review with its store, country, date and stars, your review count day by day, and the reviews with 3 stars or fewer in one list; it also keeps each store's install and uninstall history from the Partner API. It does not say which reviews Shopify removed, and it does not report reviews for you. See review monitoring for your Shopify app.

Questions

Can I report a fake 1-star review left on my own app?: Yes. Shopify staff confirmed in March and October 2026 that the partner violation form is the way to report fake reviews on your own app, with the reason "Reviews that do not comply with Shopify's terms and conditions".
Will Shopify tell me what happened to my report?: No. Shopify writes that it cannot discuss the outcome of its investigations, and gives no delay. Staff say Shopify acts on reports even when it does not reply.
Can a store that never used my app leave a review?: Shopify publishes no minimum time of use. Only merchants who have the app installed, or uninstalled it less than 45 days ago, can review, and since December 11, 2024 not merchants on a trial plan. Each review shows how long the store had the app installed.
What happens to an app that buys reviews?: Shopify can remove a portion of its reviews, restrict it in search, suspend its developer's submissions, make it ineligible for Built for Shopify and, in severe cases, close the Partner account. Staff add that delisting is possible.
Someone asks for money to stop posting bad reviews. What should I do?: No Shopify page covers it. Shopify staff pointed developers to Shopify Support and to the form for reporting a merchant. In the case told on Shopify's forum, paying did not stop the reviews.