Review management software pulls your reviews into one inbox, sends review requests to customers, helps you write replies and reports on what people say. The nine options below differ most on three points: which review sites they cover, whether they ask for reviews by text or by email, and whether you can see a price without a sales call. We make one of them, GLocal, so it gets the same treatment as the rest: what it does, what it costs and who should pick something else.
Every price comes from the vendor's own pricing page (prices checked October 2026). Where a vendor publishes no price, we say so instead of repeating third-party estimates. Feature notes come from each vendor's own pages.
Quick picks: which review management software fits which business
- Fewer than a handful of reviews a month: Google Business Profile itself, free.
- Google is the review site that matters, one to 50 locations, and you also run the Business Profile: GLocal, from $29.99 a month.
- You also need local rank tracking and listings: BrightLocal's Grow plan, $65 a month or $49 a month billed annually for one location.
- Trades and home services that ask by text after each job: NiceJob, from $75 a month.
- Reviews on many sites, plus NPS surveys, priced per location: GatherUp, $99 a month for one location.
- Agencies selling review management under their own brand: Grade.us, Agency plan from $400 a month.
- Multi-location brands that want reviews bundled with AI agents or a texting inbox, in one contract: Birdeye or Podium, both quote-only.
- Online businesses that want a Trustpilot rating: Trustpilot, free for 50 invitations a month.
Review management software compared
The list starts with the free option, then runs by the price of the cheapest paid plan, then the quote-only platforms. "Not stated" means the vendor's pricing or product page does not say, not that the feature is missing.
| Software | Review sites | Review requests | AI replies | Starting price (Oct 2026) | Trial or refund |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | You share the review link or QR code | You write them | Free | n/a | |
| GLocal (Wiremo) | Email sequences, 1,000 a month on Starter | Yes, up to 3 drafts, optional email approval | $29.99/mo, 1 location | No trial; 30-day money-back | |
| BrightLocal (Grow plan) | Multiple sites | Email, SMS and in-store | Not stated | $65/mo, or $584/yr ($49/mo), 1 location | 14 days, no card |
| NiceJob | Not stated | SMS and email | Pro plan ($125/mo) | $75/mo | 14 days; no contract |
| GatherUp | 100+ sites | Up to 300 SMS and 3,000 emails per location a month | Yes | $99/mo, 1 location; $60 per location for 2 to 10 | 14 days |
| Grade.us | Unlimited sites for monitoring | Email, SMS and MMS | Not stated | $99/mo, 1 location; Agency from $400/mo | 14 days; no refunds |
| Trustpilot | Trustpilot | 50 invitations a month free, 100 on Starter | Not stated | Free; Starter from $99/mo per domain, billed annually | 14 days on Plus; 12-month contracts |
| Birdeye | "Every site" | "The channel that gets the most responses" | Yes, with approval options | Quote only | Not stated |
| Podium | "All of your review sites" | Text | Yes | Quote only | Not stated |
The nine options, one by one
1. Google Business Profile: free, and enough for low volume
From your Business Profile you can reply to every review, and Google's own help page tells owners they "can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code" to leave one (Google Business Profile Help). Our guide to getting your Google review link shows where to find it, and the free Google review QR code generator turns it into a printable code.
Fits: a single location that gets a few reviews a month and has one person who checks them.
Pick something else when: you forget to ask, reviews sit unanswered for days, or you manage several profiles. Google sends no requests for you.
2. GLocal: Google reviews plus Business Profile management
GLocal is our Google review management tool, part of the wider Google Business Profile management software. Per the GLocal reviews help article, it imports reviews only from Google Business Profile. Each review gets a sentiment label (positive, neutral or negative) and extracted keywords. Replies can be written by hand or drafted by AI, up to three variations, with tone and language settings, and you can send three drafts to an email address for approval before anything posts. Separate tabs show unreplied reviews and reviews that disappeared from the profile. Auto-reply is not available.
Review requests go out as email sequences: you choose how many emails, how far apart and at what time, and you can import customers by CSV (GLocal review request help). There is no SMS channel. The same subscription covers post scheduling, profile analytics, a GBP audit and monthly reports.
Price: Starter $29.99 a month for one location (1,000 email requests a month), Professional $79 for 10 locations, Business $149 for 20 and Agency $299 for 50, with 20% off annual billing. White-label branding comes with Business and Agency. There is no free plan or trial; every plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Fits: local businesses and agencies whose customers review them on Google and who want the profile and its reviews in one place.
Pick something else when: Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor or an industry site matters as much as Google, or you need to ask for reviews by text.
3. BrightLocal Reputation Manager: reviews next to local SEO data
BrightLocal puts review management in its Grow plan, on top of the local visibility tracking and listings tools of its cheaper Track and Manage plans. The BrightLocal pricing page describes Grow as monitoring and replying to reviews "across multiple sites", collecting reviews "via email, SMS, and in-store campaigns" and publishing reviews on your website.
Price: one location is $65 a month billed monthly, or $584 a year ($49 a month); 2 to 5 locations cost $87 a month or $782 a year. The 14-day trial needs no card.
Fits: SEOs and owners who already want BrightLocal's local rank and citation data and would rather not run a second tool for reviews.
Pick something else when: you only need reviews. You would pay for the SEO features too.
4. NiceJob: text-first requests for trades and home services
NiceJob sells to service businesses that finish a job and want the review request to go out the same day. Starter includes "SMS & email review requests", review widgets for your website, social sharing, a reviews microsite and a team leaderboard of staff review rankings (NiceJob pricing). Pro adds AI replies, referral campaigns, NPS surveys, email broadcasts and automated thank-you gifts.
Price: Starter $75 a month, Pro $125 a month, no contracts, 14-day trial.
Fits: plumbers, cleaners, HVAC and other trades with a job-completion trigger and customer phone numbers.
Watch: keep the leaderboard for recognition, not quotas, and never make a thank-you gift depend on a review. Google's policy rules out staff review quotas and incentives in exchange for reviews (more on that below).
5. GatherUp: many review sites, NPS and per-location pricing
GatherUp combines review requests with customer feedback surveys. Every plan includes up to 300 SMS and 3,000 email credits per location a month, monitoring of 100+ review sites, Net Promoter Score surveys, AI-written replies and an API with Zapier and webhooks (GatherUp pricing). A Review Defense add-on flags suspicious reviews.
Price: $99 a month for one location, $60 a month per location from 2 to 10, quotes for agencies, 20% off annual billing, 14-day trial.
Fits: multi-location businesses that get reviews on several sites and want NPS data next to them.
Pick something else when: you only care about Google and $99 a month is a lot for one location.
6. Grade.us: white-label review management for agencies
Grade.us calls itself "the review management platform for marketing agencies". Its plans page lists email, SMS and MMS request templates, and every plan can use White Label Basic, which removes the Grade.us name from review request pages, alert emails and reports. Putting your logo on the dashboard itself is White Label Premium, $440 a year and only on the Agency plan and up.
Price: $99 a month for one location, $60 per location for 2 to 10, and the Agency plan from $400 a month for 10+ seats. The 14-day trial gives you three seats, without text messaging or API access until you talk to sales. The FAQ adds: "We do not offer refunds."
Fits: agencies that want to resell review management under their own brand at a per-seat margin.
Pick something else when: you are one business managing your own reviews.
7. Trustpilot: for a Trustpilot rating, not Google reviews
Buyers often compare Trustpilot with the tools above, but it collects reviews on Trustpilot's own site. The free plan sends 50 review invitations a month. Starter starts at $99 a month per domain with 100 invitations, Plus at $319 with 300, and Premium at $799 with 1,000, all billed annually. Starter is open only to new small business customers with up to $5M in revenue. The pricing page states that "all contracts are a 12-month commitment" (Trustpilot pricing).
Fits: online stores and service brands whose buyers look for a TrustScore before they buy.
Pick something else when: your customers find you on Google Maps. Trustpilot reviews do not count toward your Google star rating. For product reviews on your own store, an e-commerce review app such as our Wiremo customer reviews platform is the closer fit.
8. Birdeye: an all-in-one platform for multi-location brands
Birdeye runs reviews through a set of AI agents. Its reviews page promises "every rating and review, from every site, in one place", a request agent that "reaches out on the channel that gets the most responses", AI replies that read the review text, photos and past visits and can wait for approval before posting, a Ticketing Agent that routes reviews to whoever fixes the cause, and an agent that turns top reviews into social posts. The pricing page shows no prices: you fill in a form with your location count to get one.
Fits: brands with dozens or hundreds of locations that want one vendor and one contract for reviews and the work around them.
Pick something else when: you want to know the price before a demo, or you only need reviews.
9. Podium: reviews inside a text-messaging inbox
Podium started from text messaging and now leads with its AI Employee, which answers leads and books appointments. Its reviews page describes automated "textable review invites" and reminders, one place to manage "all of your review sites", and an AI Reputation Specialist that drafts invites and replies. The pricing page lists no prices, tells you to "talk to our sales team for details" and offers the AI Employee as an add-on to any plan.
Fits: auto dealerships, home services, aesthetics and retail (the industries Podium names) that already text their customers and want review requests next to lead follow-up and booking.
Pick something else when: you only need review requests and replies. You would pay for the lead and messaging tools too.
ReviewTrackers, another common pick, prices per location, paid annually, and works the figure out from the location count you enter on its plans page, so it is not in the table.
How to choose review management software
Answer these five questions before you book a demo.
Where do your customers leave reviews?
Search your business name and your main service in your city, then count where the reviews sit. A hotel or restaurant may find as many on Tripadvisor as on Google; a plumber may find Yelp or Facebook behind Google. If Google is the only site that matters, a Google-only tool costs less and has fewer screens to learn. If three sites matter, pay for monitoring that covers all three.
Text or email?
A text lands on the customer's phone, but you need their mobile number and their permission to text them. Email works when your booking or invoicing system already stores addresses. NiceJob, GatherUp, Grade.us, BrightLocal and Podium can send texts; GLocal sends email only.
What triggers the request?
The best request goes out right after the job, the appointment or the delivery. Check that the tool connects to the system that knows when that happens: a native integration, Zapier, an API or at least a CSV import. Our guide to automating review requests walks through triggers by business type. For the wording of the request itself, copy one of our Google review request templates.
Who writes and approves the replies?
Replies are where many profiles fall behind. In our study of 286 audited Google Business Profiles, 59% answered at least 80% of their recent reviews. When an AI step rated the newest replies on 36 of those profiles, 4 were a copied template. Pick a tool that lets a person approve a draft before it posts, and edit anything that reads like the last reply. For one-off replies, the free Google review reply generator drafts one without an account. For the hard ones, see how to respond to negative Google reviews.
What will it cost at your real location count?
Per-location pricing adds up. At list prices, five locations cost $300 a month on GatherUp's multi-location plan (5 x $60), $87 a month on BrightLocal Grow and $79 a month on GLocal's Professional plan, before annual discounts. Also read the contract terms: Trustpilot asks for 12 months, Grade.us gives no refunds, NiceJob has no contract, and GLocal refunds within 30 days.
Features to leave switched off
Some review software includes features that break Google's rules. Google's prohibited and restricted content policy says businesses must not "discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers", must not offer incentives "in exchange for posting any review", must not pressure customers to review while on the premises, and must not ask staff to collect a set number of reviews. In the US, the FTC's 2024 rule on fake reviews also bans incentives conditioned on a positive or negative review, threats or intimidation used to prevent or remove a negative one, and presenting the reviews on your own website as all or most of those submitted when negative ones were held back.
In practice that means three settings deserve a second look:
- Rating pages before the review link. Some platforms, GLocal included, can put a "how did we do?" page in front of Google and send low ratings to a private form. In GLocal it is an optional setting called review filtration, and our own help article warns that it "can conflict with Google's review policies". Google treats asking only happy customers as selective solicitation.
- Rewards tied to reviews. Discounts, entries into a draw or gifts that depend on posting a review are incentives under Google's policy.
- Staff targets. A leaderboard is fine for spotting who asks. A quota of reviews per employee is not.
No review management software can delete a Google review for you either. You can report a review that breaks Google's policy and appeal the decision; our guide on getting a Google review removed covers the steps, and buying Google reviews explains why paid reviews end in removals.
Do you need paid review software at all?
Maybe not yet. A business that gets two or three reviews a month can run on the free Business Profile, a printed QR code and a reply drafted in a minute. Paid software earns its cost when you forget to ask (in the same 286-profile study, 25% of profiles had no new review in the 90 days before the audit) or once you manage several profiles.
Not sure where your profile stands? Run the free GBP audit first to see your review count, how many you answered and what else needs work. For the process behind any tool, read how to manage Google reviews.
Review Management Software FAQ
What is the best review management software for a small business?
It depends on where your reviews are and how you ask. A single location that mostly gets Google reviews can start with the free Business Profile and move to a Google-focused tool such as GLocal ($29.99 a month) once it needs requests and AI replies. A trade business that asks by text fits NiceJob ($75 a month). If you also want local rank tracking, BrightLocal's Grow plan starts at $49 a month billed annually. Prices checked October 2026.
Is there free review management software?
Google Business Profile is free and lets you reply to reviews and share a review link or QR code. Trustpilot has a free plan with 50 review invitations a month, but those reviews appear on Trustpilot, not Google. Most paid tools in this list offer a 14-day trial instead of a free plan; GLocal has no trial but refunds within 30 days.
Is review gating illegal?
Google's policy prohibits it: businesses must not "selectively solicit positive reviews from customers" or discourage negative ones, and Google can remove reviews that break its policy. In the US, the FTC's 2024 rule on fake reviews bans incentives conditioned on review sentiment and bars a business from presenting the reviews on its own website as all or most of those submitted when negative ones were held back. Ask every customer, with the same link.
What is the difference between review management and reputation management software?
Review management software covers reviews: monitoring, requests, replies and reporting. Reputation management software adds more, such as listings, social posts, surveys, messaging and search results about your brand. Birdeye and Podium sit at the reputation end; NiceJob and GLocal stay closer to reviews. Our guide to online reputation management for local businesses covers the wider job.
Can review management software remove negative reviews?
No. Only the review site can remove a review. Software helps you spot reviews that break the site's rules so you can report them, and some tools, such as GatherUp's Review Defense add-on, flag suspicious reviews for you.
