You don't choose a rating — you answer a questionnaire
In App Store Connect, under App Information, you fill out an Age Rating questionnaire covering categories like violence, sexual content, profanity, gambling, alcohol/drug references, horror themes, unrestricted web access, and user-generated content. Apple's algorithm calculates the resulting rating (4+, 9+, 12+, or 17+) directly from your answers — you don't get to pick a number and move on.
This matters because it means the rating isn't a marketing choice, it's a consequence of what your app actually contains and does. Answering "no" to something your app genuinely includes doesn't lower the real risk profile of your app — it just creates a mismatch that a reviewer (or a user complaint) can catch later.
The four rating tiers
| Rating | Typical content |
|---|---|
| 4+ | No objectionable material of any kind |
| 9+ | Mild cartoon/fantasy violence, mild suggestive themes, infrequent mild profanity |
| 12+ | More frequent mild violence, mild sexual content/nudity, gambling, mature/suggestive themes |
| 17+ | Frequent intense violence, graphic sexual content, drug/alcohol references, unrestricted web access, unmoderated user-generated content |
Why under-rating causes rejections and removals
Picking a rating lower than what the questionnaire's honest answers produce is a real, common problem — and it doesn't just risk a one-time rejection. Apple can flag a mismatch at initial review, on a later update, or after a user report, and a rating correction on a live app can mean an unplanned re-review cycle. The safer default is to answer the questionnaire accurately the first time rather than guess low and hope nobody notices.
The most common under-rating mistake isn't dishonesty — it's forgetting a feature exists. A chat feature, a comment section, an in-app browser, or a link-sharing function you added months after your original rating submission can each push your real content profile higher without anyone revisiting the questionnaire.
The borderline category almost everyone gets wrong: UGC apps
Apps with unmoderated user-generated content — social apps, forums, comment sections, open chat — almost always land at 17+ unless you implement real moderation. "Real moderation" in Apple's eyes generally means:
- A mechanism for users to report objectionable content
- A way to block abusive users
- Published content standards/guidelines users agree to
- A functioning process to act on reports in a reasonable timeframe
Apps that add all of these can often qualify for a lower rating despite having UGC, because Apple's questionnaire specifically asks whether content is moderated, not just whether it exists. If your app is UGC-based and you want a broader audience than 17+ allows, building real moderation tooling is the actual lever — not adjusting your questionnaire answers.
Unrestricted web access
An in-app browser or webview with no content filtering is treated as equivalent to giving a user open internet access, which triggers a 17+ rating regardless of what your app's own core content looks like. If your app includes a webview for a narrow, controlled purpose (loading your own website, a specific documentation page), it typically doesn't trigger this — the concern is specifically unrestricted browsing to arbitrary URLs.
How the rating affects your listing and discoverability
The rating shows directly on your product page and in search results, and some organizations (schools, certain enterprise deployments) filter or restrict app availability based on it. A rating that's honestly higher than expected because of a UGC or gambling-adjacent feature isn't just a compliance box — it can meaningfully narrow your addressable audience, which is worth knowing before you build a feature that pushes the rating up unnecessarily.
If a lower rating matters for your target audience (education apps in particular benefit from staying at 4+ or 9+), it's worth designing features with the rating questionnaire's categories in mind from the start, rather than discovering the consequence after the fact.
Where this connects to your listing overall
Age rating is one piece of a complete, accurate App Store listing — alongside your description and your screenshots, both of which should also reflect what the app actually does and contains. A mismatch between your rating, your screenshots, and your app's real content is the kind of inconsistency reviewers notice. Once your rating and metadata are consistent, ezscreenshots makes finishing the visual side of the listing quick — drop your real app captures, pick the preset for each required device size, add honest captions, and export the full set in minutes. No account, no export limit, all in the browser.
Get the whole listing consistent, not just the rating.
Age rating, description, and screenshots should all tell the same accurate story about your app. ezscreenshots handles the visual side fast — a complete, correctly-sized set in minutes. Free, browser-based, no account.
Try ezscreenshots →Summary
- You don't pick a rating directly — Apple calculates it from your answers to the age rating questionnaire
- Four tiers: 4+, 9+, 12+, 17+, driven by categories like violence, sexual content, gambling, and user-generated content
- Under-rating is a common, quiet trigger for rejections and removals — usually from forgetting a feature (chat, UGC, webview) added after the original rating was set
- Revisit the questionnaire whenever you add a feature touching any of its categories, not just at first submission
- UGC apps land at 17+ by default unless you implement real moderation (reporting, blocking, published standards)
- Unrestricted web access (an open in-app browser) triggers 17+ regardless of your app's own content
- Keep your rating, description, and screenshots consistent — mismatches between them are the kind of thing reviewers notice