The title of the film is a play-on-words of the title of the 1995 song "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey. "Always Be My Maybe" was released in select theaters on May 29, 2019, and on Netflix on May 31, 2019. In July 2019, Netflix reported that the film was viewed by 32 million households in its first four weeks of release. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 89% based on 91 reviews, with an average rating of 6.99/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Carried by the infectious charms of Ali Wong and Randall Park, "Always Be My Maybe" takes familiar rom-com beats and cleverly layers in smart social commentary to find its own sweet groove." Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." "Always Be My Maybe" was nominated at the 2019 People's Choice Awards for "The Comedy Movie Star of 2019 - Ali Wong". Randall Park and Dan the Automator were nominated in the category for "Best Original Song - I Punched Keanu Reeves" by the 2019 Houston Film Critics Society Awards, but won the award at the 2019 Chicago Indie Awards.