Ratings by age: who gives higher scores, and who gets them

Which age group rates highest

RATE is for adults only, so the youngest raters are 18. We split everyone into four age groups by their age on the day they gave each rating. The 21 to 24 group is the most generous: 5.71 on average, and 24.8% of their ratings are an 8 or higher. The groups either side of them are stricter. Raters aged 18 to 20 average 5.19 and give a 1, 2 or 3 in 30.0% of ratings, the highest share of low scores of any group. Raters aged 25 to 29 have the lowest average, 5.10.

Raters aged 30 and over sit in the middle at 5.36, close to the overall average of 5.34. The gap between the most and least generous group is 0.61 points. On a scale where a person's own photos usually differ by about half a point, that is enough to matter.

Age works differently for photos of women and of men

The overall picture hides a split. Photos of women and photos of men are rated on very different scales, so we looked at each separately. For photos of women, the oldest raters are the most generous: people aged 30 and over give women 6.31 on average, and 34.8% of those ratings are an 8 or higher. For photos of men, the same age group gives 4.66, and only 5.1% of their ratings are an 8 or higher, the lowest share in the table.

The 21 to 24 group is the kindest to men by a clear margin: 5.21 on average, with 15.1% of ratings at 8 or higher. If you are a man and your raters happen to be mostly 21 to 24, expect a better number than if they are mostly 25 to 29 (4.56).

How men of each age rate women

Most ratings of women's photos come from men, so we can narrow this one further, to men only. The pattern holds. Men aged 30 and over rate women highest, 6.24 on average, with 34.2% of their ratings at 8 or higher. Men aged 21 to 24 are close behind at 6.06. Men aged 25 to 29 are the most reserved at 5.82.

The spread across the four groups is 0.42 points. That is smaller than the gap between men and women as raters of women (6.05 against 6.72), but it is steady in both the average and the share of high scores. We can't do the same for women rating men: each age group has too few women in it to publish.

Does your own age change your score?

This is the question people care about most and the one the data answers least well. For men we have enough to say something. Posts from men aged 21 to 24 score highest, 5.08 on average. Men aged 18 to 20 score lowest at 4.53, and men 30 and over get 4.61. An 8 or higher is 13.4% of the ratings men aged 21 to 24 receive, against 6.6% to 7.9% in the other age groups.

For women we are not publishing a breakdown. Most women with rated posts are aged 18 to 20, and each of the other three age groups holds too few women. An "average for women over 30" built on a handful of people would describe those people, and they would be easy to recognize. When there are enough women in each group, this section will get its second table.

What this means when you read your own results

An average is a blend of whoever happened to rate you. If more of your raters came from a generous age group, your number is a little higher, and the reverse. Any rating system has this property, whether it shows you the breakdown or not. A few practical points:

• Look at the age breakdown of your results before the headline number. On RATE your results show how each age group rated you.
• Decide whose opinion you are asking for. If you want to know how people your own age see a photo, read that row and ignore the rest.
• Don't compare a score across audiences. A 5.2 from raters aged 25 to 29 and a 5.7 from raters aged 21 to 24 can be the same photo.
• A small group in your breakdown is noisy. Five ratings from one age group can be off by most of a point.
• Your age is the one thing here you can't change, and it explains less than the photo does. One person's best and worst posts differ by 0.58 points on average.

Method and limits

Numbers are from RATE's database on November 11, 2026: 12,512 counted ratings. Age is worked out from the date of birth each person gave at sign-up, as of the day of each rating, so someone who turned 21 during the period appears in two groups. A rating is counted only if it counts in the app. Test, banned and deleted accounts are left out.

• Dates of birth are self-reported. RATE checks photos for signs that someone is under 18, but it does not verify the exact year.
• We don't know why the groups differ. Age could stand in for other things: who each group follows, when they joined, how long they have used the app.
• The groups are small, and a handful of very active raters can move a group's average. About half of all ratings come from a small group of people.
• Two weeks earlier, with half as many ratings, the youngest group was the strictest and the 21 to 24 group was already the most generous. The top of the ranking has been stable; the bottom has not.