The best WordPress review plugins
IONOS editorial team
WordPress review plugins can help you boost your site’s traffic, the visibility of your business, and the authenticity of your services and products. Which plugins for reviews in WordPress are available and which are right for you? You can learn all that and more in our overview.
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What are WordPress review plugins?
If you want to create your own WordPress site or set up an online shop with WordPress, you should learn about WordPress plugins for a good head start. WordPress review plugins are some of the most important plugins for WordPress websites and online shops.
Review plugins offer extensive rating features for WordPress sites and allow customers to easily submit reviews about products or services. With the right plugin you can embed reviews on websites, upload images or videos, sort customer reviews, and assign them to products.
We must make a distinction here between customer reviews and product reviews. Customer reviews, also known as customer experience reviews, give website visitors an overall impression of your services, map customer satisfaction, and bolsters customer trust. Product reviews, on the other hand, can be assigned to specific products and services to facilitate purchasing decisions.
The best WordPress review plugins at a glance
The following WordPress plugins for reviews can help you with reviews on your websites, increase your conversion rate, optimise your brand identity, and build customer trust.
| Customer review plugins |
|---|
| Starfish Reviews |
| Google Reviews Widget |
| Reviewer WordPress Plugin |
| Customer Reviews (WooCommerce) |
| WP Customer Reviews |
| WP Business Reviews |
| Site Reviews |
| Product review plugins |
| Judge.me |
| Yasr - Yet Another Stars Rating |
Why are customer reviews so important?
As a social recommendation system used in e-commerce, customer reviews offer an often untapped potential for companies. With reviews, you can gain customer trust and strengthen your own brand and corporate identity almost for free.
Customer reviews serve different functions depending on the industry. If you offer specific products, positive product reviews make it easier for customers to decide whether they want to buy your product. Reviews of your company or services, in turn, give potential customers a feel for what you offer and immediately build trust. Rich snippets from Google, in turn, lead new customers to your site and generate more traffic.
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Pros and cons of customer reviews
The benefit you derive from customer reviews depends on the services and products you offer and the customer groups you want to reach. If you want to tap into new customer groups, it's worth integrating customer reviews from platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp into WordPress. If you want to trigger a purchasing decision for customers who have already found their way to you, having top reviews embedded on your site, strategically placed product reviews, or a review analysis of your customers’ overall satisfaction are all good ideas.
Customer reviews offer the following advantages and disadvantages:
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Free advertising for your offering | Negative ratings often cannot be avoided |
| Strengthening customer contact and customer loyalty | Targeted campaigns with many negative reviews are rare but can be dangerous |
| Gain customer trust through social proof | Customer service and customer care take time |
| SEO optimisation generates more reach and traffic | |
| Development of an authentic, transparent brand and corporate identity |
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What should you look for when choosing a review plugin?
To find the right WordPress review plugin, check for the important standard features that every review plugin should offer. Also look for any special additional features.
Any WordPress review plugin should offer the following features:
- Embedding reviews on your website
- Simple and automated review forms for customers
- Common rating systems such as stars or thumbs
- Sorting by high and low ratings
- Filtering reviews by keywords
- A clear user interface for managing and displaying reviews
- Adding reviews on Google, Yelp, or Facebook
- Integrating the WooCommerce plugin for products
- Flexible display options for reviews, e.g., as widgets, blocks, or shortcodes
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The best WordPress review plugins
Below we will present some of the best plugins for reviews on WordPress for the Customer and Product categories.
Customer review plugins
Customer review plugins give users the opportunity to rate the website, the whole company, or the offered service.
Starfish Reviews
Use Starfish Reviews to proactively ask customers for reviews. This allows you to collect positive customer reviews and successfully integrate them into your website. Negative reviews, however, can be sent directly to you via the review form.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Review links to the review form are sent to customers via an automated funnel process | Free version with limited functionality |
| Negative reviews go directly to you via the funnel function, while you embed positive reviews on your website | |
| Features for embedding shortcodes and importing and displaying external reviews | |
| Integration of email marketing platforms | |
| Comprehensive analytics features | |
| Very easy to use | |
| Multi-level pricing model according to demand, number, and scope of websites |
Widgets for Google Reviews
Many review plugins process and present positive customer reviews using review forms on their own website. The plugin Widgets for Google Reviews in turn embeds your best Google Reviews as a widget in headers and footers or as a sidebar. Since Google Reviews are often brand-building and help trigger purchase decisions, Widgets for Google Reviews is a particularly promising plugin for small businesses.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Free of charge | Only five Google and three Yelp reviews can be integrated |
| Particularly suitable for small online retailers | Facebook reviews only with paid business version |
| Positive Google Reviews are clearly displayed on your own website | |
| Multilingual with flexible designs | |
| Support for Google Rich Snippets for SEO | |
| Google, Yelp, and Facebook are supported review platforms |
Reviewer WordPress Plugin
The Reviewer WordPress Plugin is a paid WordPress review plugin that offers a variety of features. You can present the reviews as needed using the many high-quality designs that can provide an individual look. In addition, users can upload their own product images. Ratings appear as stars or bars, and can also appear in detailed pros and cons lists. Google Rich Snippets support, in turn, creates more reach.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Many features and designs that allow each website to have an individual look | No free version and relatively pricey |
| Flexible rating systems (e.g., stars, bars, detailed pros and cons) | |
| Comparison function for ratings | |
| Users can add photos to reviews | |
| Support for Google Rich Snippets | |
| Versatile options for displaying reviews (e.g., filters for top reviews) |
Customer Reviews for WooCommerce
Customer Reviews for WooCommerce offers modern review designs for online shops that have chosen WooCommerce over Shopify. Similar to Amazon, the plugin sends automated review reminders to customers who have recently shopped with you. All ratings are certified and it supports video and photo integration.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Automatic review reminders for customers who recently purchased something from you | Various additional features only available in the pro version |
| Certified customer reviews | |
| Photos and videos can be integrated into ratings | |
| Snippet feature for displaying reviews on Google | |
| Various filtering options | |
| Discounts and coupons for reviewers |
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WP Customer Reviews
WP Customer Reviews is a free open-source review plugin for WordPress with a simple but attractive dashboard. You can easily configure the acceptance and integration of reviews and review boxes and customise the number of reviews and how they are presented.
| Advantages | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| One of the clearest, most user-friendly review plugin solutions | Limited functionality, more suitable for small companies |
| Reviews can be flexibly integrated into your website as required | |
| Administrators can reply to reviews | |
| Integration of review excerpts in search engines | |
| Free of charge |
WP Business Reviews
WP Business Reviews is a high-quality review plugin with additional support and a license for up to 15 sites depending on the package. It almost completely automatically integrates and displays customer reviews. Reviews from review platforms such as Google, Yelp, and Facebook are automatically collected and imported to the website. This saves companies a lot of effort in terms of review maintenance. Additional filter options and user-defined settings ensure that reviews are integrated as needed.
| Advantages | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| Reviews are automatically collected from platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook and displayed on the website | Only available as a paid version |
| Custom settings allow users to display selected reviews or filter negative reviews | |
| Rating can be in numbers or stars | |
| Individual review design | |
| Top ratings can be highlighted |
Site Reviews
Site Reviews provides a no-frills, clear way to integrate reviews in classic formats – as widgets, blocks, or shortcodes. Ratings are presented in order. Top ratings can be placed prominently at the top.
| Advantages | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| Reviews are presented clearly and simply | Too few features for large companies and websites |
| Backup feature protects against loss of important review data | |
| Ratings are displayed in search engines with stars | |
| Ability to export and import of ratings | |
| Free of charge |
Product review plugins
With product review plugins, you can give your customers the opportunity to rate and comment on your products directly.
Judge.me
The WordPress plugin for reviews Judge.me gives you the ability to ask customers for reviews via email and then display them on your own website. The plugin has a solution even if your customers do not respond directly. Judge.me sends reminders automatically. The ratings then appear on the website in an appealing form and confirmed purchases can be specially marked as verified reviews to further increase trust.
| Advantages | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| Requests evaluations via (automated) emails | Not yet tested for the current WordPress version (as of: October 2021) |
| Create incentives via coupons | |
| Customers can submit product photos | |
| Different display modes | |
| Free of charge |
Yasr - Yet Another Stars Rating
Yasr is a handy tool that lets you collect customer reviews for products, services, and content and display them as you wish. It offers nine different rating criteria, filtering options for reviews and top reviewers, various design options, and rankings to display top products or content.
| Advantages | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| Rating options are suitable for products and services as well as for website content such as blog posts | Limited functionality in the free version |
| Reviewing options can be shared with all visitors or only with registered users | |
| Nine evaluation criteria | |
| Custom review displays | |
| SEO optimized and CSS integration |
To ensure that you can use a review plugin’s full functionality, you should check that you are also using the latest version of WordPress.
Conclusion: Which plugin is the right one?
The right WordPress review plugin for you depends primarily on the type and size of your business and your services and website content. For comprehensive and versatile customer or product reviews, we recommend professional, paid review plugins, such as:
- Reviewer WordPress Plugin
- WP Business Reviews
- Customer Reviews for WooCommerce
For smaller online shops, free, compact review plugins that have the most important functions, such as:
- WP Customer Reviews
- Site Reviews
- Judge.me
- Yasr
WordPress review plugins are not the only extensions for your WordPress site that are worth your time. The following WordPress plugins will help you increase the quality of and the traffic to your site:
