Consumers tend to rely more on peer information than seller information for their online product choices. Online rating systems have therefore become popular whereby consumers evaluate a product’s quality on a numerical scale. Previous studies have mainly investigated sales effects of online ratings, reporting mixed findings. How online ratings impact free app downloads is important to better understand for multiple and related reasons. Specifically, the vast majority of apps are free to download, price cannot be used by potential consumers to infer app quality, and providers may offer free apps as a means to gain market share. In this paper we analyse how average rating score, volume of ratings, and dispersion of ratings impact free app downloads. Signaling theory is used to derive hypotheses on how online rating variables impact in this regard. Data on online ratings and downloads of apps was collected for 720 apps available on Apple App Store and Google Play. Apps from the productivity and game categories were sampled to capture utilitarian and hedonic apps respectively. This choice was made to enable analysing the impact of online ratings across app type. For free app downloads, regression analyses revealed: (1) volume of ratings to have positive significant effect; (2) average rating score to have positive but insignificant effect; and (3) dispersion of ratings to have positive significant effect contingent on app type. Findings are partially consistent with signaling theory and suggest that app rating providers should attempt to attract large volume of ratings. Providing incentives for rating apps, or using a pledge in the app asking consumers to rate it, could be such means. Future research is needed on whether average rating scores are too similar for competing app alternatives to guide app choice. Further research is also needed on why dispersion of ratings positively impacts free app downloads.