After 15+ years of building websites, I‘ve seen firsthand just how crucial customer reviews can be for converting visitors and building trust.
In fact, according to surveys, over 90% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase decision. And 78% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
So if you want to leverage the power of customer reviews, using a dedicated WordPress plugin is the way to go.
I‘ve personally tested dozens of these plugins over the years. In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll compare the top 6 customer reviews plugins for WordPress available today.
I‘ll dig into the key features of each one along with an unbiased look at the pros and cons. By the end, you‘ll know exactly which solution best fits your needs.
Let‘s get started!
Contents
Why You Should Be Using a Customer Reviews Plugin
But first – why even use a dedicated plugin in the first place?
Here are 5 compelling benefits:
1. Streamlined Review Collection
The #1 challenge with customer reviews is gathering them in the first place. Asking customers to leave reviews is a very manual process.
Review plugins make it easy by providing:
- Intuitive review submission forms
- Email templates for soliciting reviews
- Reminder emails to collect more reviews
This can save you dozens of hours vs manually requesting and collecting reviews.
2. Visually Display Reviews
Once you‘ve collected reviews, you need to showcase them prominently on your site.
Plugins provide beautiful templates and layouts to highlight reviews on:
- Product & service pages
- Testimonial sections
- Widgets & sidebars
Visitors will see real social proof right where it matters most.
3. Automate Moderation
Manually moderating reviews takes forever. Thankfully, many plugins like Smash Balloon automate moderation to filter out:
- Spam
- Abuse
- Competitor reviews
This keeps your review collection clean without eating up your time.
4. Collect Visitor Emails
Many review plugins allow collecting visitor emails during submission.
This achieves two goals:
- You can contact the reviewer for follow up questions.
- You can add emails to your newsletter list for future marketing.
It‘s a straightforward way to build an email list.
5. Improve SEO
Customer reviews create fresh, keyword-rich content on your site. This provides ongoing SEO benefits in terms of:
- Keyword optimization
- Local SEO
- Links and engagement signals
- Direct review markup in SERP snippets (more on this below)
Altogether, reviews are a great way to improve both conversions and search visibility.
Top Customer Review Plugins Compared
Next, let‘s dig into the details of the top 6 WordPress customer review plugins available today.
For each plugin, I‘ll cover:
- Key features
- Pricing information
- Pros and cons
- Who the plugin is best suited for
Let‘s get started!
1. Smash Balloon Reviews
Smash Balloon Reviews is one of the most popular all-in-one review plugins. It pulls in and displays reviews from major platforms like:
- Yelp
- TripAdvisor
Here are the key details about Smash Balloon Reviews:
Key Features:
- Imports and displays reviews from all major platforms in one place. This avoids the need for multiple integrations.
- Automatically pulls in new reviews in real time. No need to manually export and update reviews.
- Modern templates that seamlessly match your theme‘s style. Reviews blend right in.
- Detailed analytics on reviews, reviewers, sentiments, etc.
- Moderation tools to block spam, competitors, and abusive reviews.
- SEO-optimized with JSON LD markup for rich snippets.
Pricing:
- Free version with basic features
- Pro version starts at $99/year per site for full capabilities
Pros:
- All-in-one solution for multiple review platforms
- New reviews added automatically
- Great default themes and customization options
- Powerful analytics and moderation features
Cons:
- Cannot collect custom reviews directly from visitors
- Must pay for some advanced features like moderation
Best For: Smash Balloon Reviews is the easiest way pull in and consolidate reviews from external sites. The automatic sync and stylish templates make setup virtually effortless.
If you already have an existing presence across major review platforms, this plugin is a fantastic choice to round up all that social proof in one place.
2. WPForms
Although not technically a dedicated review plugin, WPForms makes it incredibly easy to create custom review submission forms on your site.
Here‘s an overview:
Key Features:
- Drag and drop form builder to quickly create custom review forms
- Pre-built review form templates for even faster setup
- Accept file uploads with reviews (like images and videos)
- Collect additional info like reviewer name, email etc
- Email notifications and custom follow-ups after submissions
- Seamlessly embed forms anywhere with shortcode or block
Pricing:
- Free version available on WordPress.org
- Pro version with advanced features starts at $199/year
Pros:
- Intuitive form builder for easy customization
- Great selection of pre-built form templates
- Collect data like names, emails, files along with reviews
- Flexibly embed forms anywhere on your site
Cons:
- No built-in features for managing/displaying reviews after submission
- Must pay for some advanced functionality
Best For: WPForms is the easiest way for any WordPress user to create their own custom review submission forms. The drag and drop form builder along with handy templates allow you to put together polished forms in minutes.
It‘s a fantastic foundation if you want to collect reviews directly from your own customers vs relying solely on external platforms.
3. Stamped.io
Stamped.io is a dedicated review management system for WordPress. It comes with advanced features for collecting and displaying reviews complete with ratings, photos, and more.
Let‘s look at what Stamped.io offers:
Key Features:
- Modern, customizable review forms to match your branding
- Advanced 5-star rating system
- Collect photos, videos or other media with reviews
- In-depth review analytics and trends
- Social sharing options for better reach
- Review reminders and follow-up workflow
- Respond publicly or privately to reviewers
Pricing:
- Starts at $9/month per site
- 30-day free trial
Pros:
- Very customizable review forms
- Unique features like review photos and videos
- Helpful review collection workflows
- Deep review analytics and management
Cons:
- Cannot pull in reviews from external sites
- Somewhat complex setup and customization
Best For: Stamped.io shines if you want to set up a custom review system tailored to your brand. The forms, ratings, workflows, and analytics allow you to dive deep into collecting and managing reviews from your visitors.
It‘s ideal for brands focused on cultivating reviews exclusively from their own customers vs external platforms.
4. BirchPress Testimonials
BirchPress is a dedicated WordPress testimonials plugin allowing you to collect and showcase reviews across your site.
Let‘s look at the key BirchPress features:
Key Features:
- Custom forms for front-end review submission
- Organized review storage with custom post types
- Shortcodes, widgets, and Gutenberg blocks to display reviews
- Robust review management system
- Testimonial analytics and reporting
- Review moderation and filtering
Pricing:
- One time purchase on CodeCanyon around $39
- Support license $99/year
Pros:
- Market leading testimonial management system
- Extremely customizable and flexible
- Great for user-generated testimonials
- Advanced moderation and analytics
Cons:
- No pull reviews from external sites
- Steeper learning curve
Best For: BirchPress shines for full control over user-generated testimonials. The management suite provides fine-grained moderation, filtering, display, and analytics of custom reviews.
It‘s perfect for review-focused sites wanting maximum customization and manipulation of visitor submitted reviews.
5. Google Reviews Widget for WordPress
This plugin exclusively focuses on showcasing Google Business reviews from GMB on your WordPress site.
Let‘s explore the features:
Key Features:
- Pulls in latest Google reviews automatically
- Display via widgets, shortcodes, etc
- Local business data like photos, maps etc
- Advanced performance with caching and lazy loading
- Fully customizable layout and design
- Complete Google Places API integration
Pricing:
- One time purchase on CodeCanyon around $29
- Support licenses from $89/year
Pros:
- Tailored specifically for Google Business reviews
- Great performance enhancements
- Pulls in helpful local business data
Cons:
- Only supports Google reviews
- Less customization than other options
Best For: This is a great plug and play solution if Google Business reviews are crucial for your brand. It‘s an easy way to get your GMB review count, star rating, and feedback showcased across your WordPress site.
No need to settle for just the review count in Google search snippets – this embeds your full Google reviews directly on site.
6. Five Star Reviews
Five Star Reviews lets you implement a custom star rating review experience across your WordPress site and WooCommerce store.
Here‘s an overview:
Key Features:
- Adds a customizable star-based review system
- Front-end review submission forms
- Review integration on WooCommerce product pages
- In-depth review analytics and moderation
- Aggregate ratings and review summaries
- Email collection and notifications
Pricing:
- Starts at $99 for a single site
- 30 day money back guarantee
Pros:
- Advanced star-based review functionality
- Great for product and service reviews
- Deep analytics and metrics
Cons:
- Cannot import external reviews
- Could be overkill for simple sites
Best For: Five Star Reviews brings full-fledged advanced review functionality across your site. It‘s especially useful for ecommerce product pages where visitors expect to see star ratings and aggregated feedback.
The analytics also give you actionable insights into reviews and ratings trends.
Makings Your Decision: 7 Key Factors to Consider
As you can see, there are great options for any type of review implementation in WordPress.
Here are 7 factors to keep in mind when making your choice:
1. Review Sources
Will you rely on external sites like Google and Facebook? Or focus exclusively on collecting direct reviews from visitors instead?
If external sites are crucial, choose an integration tool like SmashBalloon. For purely custom reviews, explore options like Stamped.io and BirchPress.
2. Review Display
How and where will you showcase reviews across your site?
Most solutions provide shortcodes, widgets, blocks etc for flexible display. Consider special contexts like WooCommerce product pages as well.
3. Collecting New Reviews
Make the review submission process as easy as possible.
Look for options with handy features like templates, reminders, and follow-up workflows to painlessly grow your review library.
4. Review Moderation
Plan to invest time into moderating low quality or inappropriate reviews.
Prioritize plugins that give you control over approval workflows and filtering/blocking reviews.
5. Customization
How easily can you customize the review forms and display templates to match your brand?
Seek plenty of layout options and custom CSS access for optimal flexibility.
6. Analytics & Reporting
Review data can provide a goldmine of business insights. Make sure your plugin supplies helpful analytics.
Ideally, you should be able to segment and filter reviews in multiple ways.
7. Budget
Factor in ongoing costs, one-time fees, support plans etc into your budget.
Free plugins provide value, but often lack capabilities and support. Invest wisely in the platform you‘ll rely on.
Wrapping Up
I hope this guide gave you a comprehensive overview of the best WordPress customer review plugins available today.
Each solution has its own niche and advantages based on your specific goals and needs.
Personally, I suggest considering SmashBalloon Reviews for its simplicity and external integrations along with WPForms or BirchPress for collecting direct customer testimonials. That combination gives you internal and external review sources.
No matter the platform, building an authentic library of customer reviews should be a top priority. Reviews build authority, trust, and social proof while also improving SEO.
But the benefits don‘t stop there. According to research:
- 78% of customers are more inclined to buy from businesses with reviews
- 72% of people won‘t take action until they‘ve read reviews
- 88% of shoppers read 10 or more reviews before trusting a business
So do everything you can to make the review submission and collection process easy for your visitors and customers. A purpose-built WordPress plugin is the perfect tool for the job.
You have all the information needed to pick the one that best meets your website‘s unique needs.
Now‘s the time to dive in and start reaping rewards of customer reviews!
