How we rate short drama apps

This page explains how every app page, comparison and list on this site is put together. The short version: we only state what an official source says, we date every source, we put our own app first and say why, and we order everyone else by a number you can check.

Who we are, and why it matters here

This site is run by Agape Group GmbH, the company that makes TotalShort, a short drama app. That is a conflict of interest, and we handle it in the open rather than hiding it. More on that in our disclosure page and on our about page.

The sources we read

We use primary sources only. For each app, that means:

• The official store listing. The US App Store page gives us the publisher, rating, number of ratings, age rating, interface languages, in-app purchase prices and the developer's own description. Google Play listings are used where an app isn't on the App Store, and for TotalShort.
• The app's own documents. Terms of use, subscription and recharge policies, and public help centers. They tell us which company you're actually paying, the minimum age it sets, and its rules on refunds, coins and cancelling.
• The app's official website. Where it has a player or a web store, we open it ourselves and record what we see on a given series, such as how many episodes are free and what a locked episode costs in coins.
• Neutral reference pages. Apple and Google support pages for cancelling, refunds and purchase controls; Sensor Tower's market report; Wikipedia for the history of the format; and the US Federal Trade Commission for scam warnings.

We don't use other review sites, app-ranking blogs or press releases as sources of fact. User reviews are opinions we can't verify, so when a claim appears only in reviews, we either leave it out or label it clearly as "reviews say, not confirmed".

When we read them

Every fact on this site carries a read date in its page's Sources list. The current snapshot:

Prices and ratings change. When we re-read a source, we update the figure and the date together.

Why there are no 9.8 scores

Some sites give every app a score like 9.8 out of 10. We don't, for a simple reason: no source supports it. A store rating like 4.7 from 504K people is a real number. A score we invented would only measure our opinion, dressed up as data.

The same goes for things we can't observe. We don't say we "tested an app for 30 days" or count visitors. Where a listing is silent, for example on how long a DramaBox Membership lasts, we say it's silent rather than guess.

Why TotalShort is first

TotalShort is first because we own it. Not because a test or a score put it there. Every page that ranks apps says so in its first paragraph, labels TotalShort "Our app", and lists its limits next to its strengths: a small catalog of six series, AI-made with no real actors, Italian audio with subtitles, Android only for now with the iPhone version coming soon, and no public rating yet because it's new.

How we order the other apps

Every other app is ordered by one stated attribute: its number of ratings on the US App Store, highest first. On our current snapshot that starts with DramaBox (867K), GoodShort (527K) and ReelShort (504K). An app without a US App Store listing, such as FreeReels, comes after the rest.

We chose rating count because it's public, comparable and hard to fake at scale. It measures how many people bothered to rate an app, not how good its stories are. It is not a quality ranking, and we don't present it as one.

"Best for" labels follow the same rule. We only write them when a dataset attribute backs them up, such as "most interface languages", "lowest weekly plan listed" or "plays in a browser". You'll find these on our best lists and in the full comparison.

Prices and currencies

Prices for other apps are in US dollars from the US App Store, or from an app's website as shown to us on the date stated. We never mix currencies in one calculation. TotalShort's prices are given in euro where that's what we've confirmed, and the US weekly price is described as set for the iPhone launch. Prices vary by country and over time; the Apple or Google payment sheet is always the price that counts.

Links

We don't link to rival apps, their websites or their store pages. We name them as plain text, including in our Sources. External links go only to neutral pages: Apple and Google support, Sensor Tower, Wikipedia, the FTC, and TotalShort's own website and Google Play listing.

How to report an error

If you spot something wrong or out of date, email support@totalshort.com. Please include:

1. the page address,
2. the sentence or figure that's wrong,
3. where you saw the correct information (a store listing, a help page, a screenshot).

We check the claim against the official source. If we were wrong, we fix the page and update its date. Errors that favor TotalShort get fixed with the same priority as any other.

To start from the list itself, go back to the ranking.