Review Insights · App Store
Marco Polo - Video Messenger
Joya Communications · 2,147,584 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
2,147,584 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 20 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"family"
5 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Forced Invites = Lost Customer. My parent sent me a link to set up a family group but in order to even set up an account it forces you to send an invite to five of your contacts, which I did not have any interest in doing. So now no one in my family will be using this." - beat rice the second
2
"marco"
5 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Poor customer service and not useful if others won’t join. I purchased this a year ago to try it out with my sister and family. They didn’t want to join and download a new app, and without anyone’s adoption it’s useless. I tried to cancel it the very next day, and I couldn’t get anyone to help me …" - tacak
3
"plus"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lags and glitches - no support. I’m writing this review because support is unable to be contacted for some reason. I’ve tried multiple times and continue to get error messages. We have the plus version of the app and those features have not worked for months. The live tex…" - Ellie0917Mochi
4
"polo"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Poor customer service and not useful if others won’t join. I purchased this a year ago to try it out with my sister and family. They didn’t want to join and download a new app, and without anyone’s adoption it’s useless. I tried to cancel it the very next day, and I couldn’t get anyone to help me …" - tacak
5
"marco polo"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Poor customer service and not useful if others won’t join. I purchased this a year ago to try it out with my sister and family. They didn’t want to join and download a new app, and without anyone’s adoption it’s useless. I tried to cancel it the very next day, and I couldn’t get anyone to help me …" - tacak
6
"other"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Poor customer service and not useful if others won’t join. I purchased this a year ago to try it out with my sister and family. They didn’t want to join and download a new app, and without anyone’s adoption it’s useless. I tried to cancel it the very next day, and I couldn’t get anyone to help me …" - tacak
7
"free"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Money. I thought this was a free app." - Mrs. Maner
8
"customer"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Forced Invites = Lost Customer. My parent sent me a link to set up a family group but in order to even set up an account it forces you to send an invite to five of your contacts, which I did not have any interest in doing. So now no one in my family will be using this." - beat rice the second
9
"friends"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Help. Help; love the app love the idea keep up with family and friends in ongoing conversations and debates, but my issue is it will not refresh. It will not keep up. I lose a lot of conversation in the midst the only way I can get it to work is …" - 🙏Bud🙏
10
"work"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Help. Help; love the app love the idea keep up with family and friends in ongoing conversations and debates, but my issue is it will not refresh. It will not keep up. I lose a lot of conversation in the midst the only way I can get it to work is …" - 🙏Bud🙏
11
"years"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "$80? Are you crazy?. This app sadly is WAY overpriced. I’ve paid for years but this price hike is too much." - TianaMarieUnicorn
12
"features"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lags and glitches - no support. I’m writing this review because support is unable to be contacted for some reason. I’ve tried multiple times and continue to get error messages. We have the plus version of the app and those features have not worked for months. The live tex…" - Ellie0917Mochi
📋 All 20 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Money
I thought this was a free app.
No edit sucks
I loathe this app
Forced Invites = Lost Customer
My parent sent me a link to set up a family group but in order to even set up an account it forces you to send an invite to five of your contacts, which I did not have any interest in doing. So now no one in my family will be using this.
Help
Help; love the app love the idea keep up with family and friends in ongoing conversations and debates, but my issue is it will not refresh. It will not keep up. I lose a lot of conversation in the midst the only way I can get it to work is to uninstall, then reinstall, and that doesn’t always work and everyone on my pages complains about the same thing
Lags and glitches - no support
I’m writing this review because support is unable to be contacted for some reason. I’ve tried multiple times and continue to get error messages. We have the plus version of the app and those features have not worked for months. The live text feature does not work. We have done trouble shooting on our end and again have attempted to reach out to support but still get error messages.
ugh
i put in my number and did not work at all! wast of my time
Poor customer service and not useful if others won’t join
I purchased this a year ago to try it out with my sister and family. They didn’t want to join and download a new app, and without anyone’s adoption it’s useless. I tried to cancel it the very next day, and I couldn’t get anyone to help me through Apple Store or Marco Polo. They refused to refund my subscription even though it was NEVER USED, and I had only purchased it for a day. Super frustrating and a waste of money and lots of time
Annoying
The app spammed me with “John Doe is on. Talk to them.” notifications. No, thank you. I will talk to them if I feel like it. I was given no option to turn this type of notification completely off. The max time I was allowed to silence it was 12 hours. I uninstalled.
Disappointing
I renewed my Plus two days ago and I am STILL not able to use the features. It’s STILL set as basic Marco. Customer service has not responded after 48 hrs!!! I am STILL awaiting a response!!!! Very bad customer service.
Bug issue?
Every other app that I use, my speaker is fine, but on this app, you can barely hear me when I talk
Free option awful, ripoff for Plus
Marco Polo was such a great invention! Unfortunately they’ve gotten greedy and like so many other companies have started ripping us off. They charge more for a monthly plus pass than Apple TV! If you are fine with the basics, then this is great for communicating with friends and family. But if you want to share pictures, be able to speed up, or listen in the background you’ll need to pay a ridiculous amount of $$.
Glitches
The last two weeks the app has had so many glitches. My friends and I have polos that don’t finish loading, stay black the whole time, or even just disappear. I started listening to one when I went into my house real quick, opened the app again and it was gone. Checked with my friend and its gone on her end too. Idk whats going on but the app is not working at all these days.
Why should I have to pay just to be able to fast forward
I truly hate this app, I only use it because some family members insist on it.
Privacy violation
Constantly sending me notifications suggesting I chat with people from my contacts, even for someone I blocked years ago due to safety concerns. I did not give the app access to my contacts, and some of the suggested people are from contacts I deleted years ago. I have no idea how the app has access to these other than a privacy violation, and the notifications are obnoxious and unwanted. There’s no way to turn them off other than turning off all notifications which I don’t want to do.
Bad
It does not send me the code it is stupid and why so if you want me to say a good review then send me the code
Updating !
The updating will freeze so long u have to delete and upload the app numerous times!
$80? Are you crazy?
This app sadly is WAY overpriced. I’ve paid for years but this price hike is too much.
Videos
Not too thrilled I lost some of my videos that means alot to me..
Plus Feels Like a Paywall, Not an Upgrade
I’ve been a loyal Marco Polo user for years. It’s been a meaningful way to stay connected with a close friend across the country, and I originally subscribed to Plus to support the app and try the added features.
When I joined, Plus was $60 per year. It’s now $75 annually or $10 per month ($120 per year). That’s a significant increase, and the overall value hasn’t grown enough to justify it.
Over time, features that were once part of the free version - like expanded emoji reactions and 2x playback speed - were moved behind the Plus paywall. These changes happened gradually, but the result is the same: Plus feels less like an upgrade and more like access to features that used to be included.
The remaining Plus features - HD video, voice memos, photo and note sharing, background play, and unlimited storage - may be useful to some, but many can be replicated through other apps at no additional cost.
I still appreciate the core app, but at its current pricing, Plus is hard to justify.
When I joined, Plus was $60 per year. It’s now $75 annually or $10 per month ($120 per year). That’s a significant increase, and the overall value hasn’t grown enough to justify it.
Over time, features that were once part of the free version - like expanded emoji reactions and 2x playback speed - were moved behind the Plus paywall. These changes happened gradually, but the result is the same: Plus feels less like an upgrade and more like access to features that used to be included.
The remaining Plus features - HD video, voice memos, photo and note sharing, background play, and unlimited storage - may be useful to some, but many can be replicated through other apps at no additional cost.
I still appreciate the core app, but at its current pricing, Plus is hard to justify.
Cost increase
I actually really like Marco Polo but we’re not using as much. And then the prices went up. So we’re probably not gonna renew our subscription because it doesn’t make financial sense. OK but still really great. Product.
Sentiment summary
95%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
2%
Negative (1-2★)