How many Google reviews does a plumbing company need?

For plumbing owners who want a review target they can actually plan around, set by their own market rather than a number someone made up.

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How many reviews does a plumber need to compete in the map pack?

Google doesn’t publish a minimum number of reviews for Maps; it says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. Local Services Ads are the exception: Google recommends 5 or more reviews and says some business types may need 5 for the ad to show. Past that, your target is the review range of the plumbers who show up next to you in Maps for your main searches, and then a steady flow of new reviews every month.

Review generation and review replies sit alongside Google Business Profile management in our local SEO work for plumbing companies, and the comparison below is the first check worth running on any review count. The rest of the plumbing marketing questions library covers how to ask, how to reply and how reviews fit with ads.

Is there a minimum number of Google reviews a plumber needs?

Not for Google Maps or the local results. Google doesn’t publish a review count you have to hit. What it says is that local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity. Under the prominence heading, it describes how well known a business is, says that’s based partly on how many reviews you have, and says more reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking (Tips to improve your local ranking on Google).

So reviews are one input to one of three factors. A plumber with fewer reviews can still show above you if its profile matches the search better or it’s closer to the homeowner searching. That’s why no single number works for every market, and why a figure quoted for every plumber everywhere is a guess. The general how-to of asking is in getting more Google reviews; this page is about the target.

How many reviews do I need for Local Services Ads?

Here Google does give a number. It recommends 5 or more reviews and says that, depending on your business type, your business may need 5 reviews to show (Improve your Local Services Ads performance). Google’s screening process varies by business category and location and may include minimum review requirements, so check what your own account shows (Understand the screening and verification process).

Past the floor, reviews keep working in the ads. Google says star ratings and number of reviews affect how your business is ranked within Local Services Ads, and that providers with higher ratings and more reviews stand out and typically book more jobs. The reviews themselves are managed through your Google Business Profile, not the ads account, so one pile of reviews does both jobs (Reviews and Ratings on Local Services Ads). Whether the ads pay off for a plumber is covered in whether Local Services Ads are worth it for plumbers.

How do I work out the right number for my market?

Benchmark against the plumbers you’re actually up against. In our judgement this takes about half an hour:

1. Pick your money searches. Three or four, the way homeowners type them: “plumber”, “emergency plumber”, “drain cleaning”, and one for the big tickets, such as “water heater replacement”.
2. Search from where your customers are. Google says distance is how far each business is from the customer who’s searching, so a search from your shop shows a different list from one in the town you want more work in. Use a phone from two or three of your target towns, or ask a tech who’s on a job there.
3. Write down the plumbers shown in Maps for each search, with their review count and star rating.
4. Find the range. Ignore the one giant with thousands of reviews if it shows up everywhere. Look at the count of the plumber sitting in the last Maps spot you’d like to take.
5. Set your target there, with a date based on how many jobs you complete each month.

You’ll often get different lists for emergency searches and big-ticket searches. That’s useful: it tells you which kind of work your review count is holding back.

How many reviews do I need to rank in the top three on Google Maps?

There’s no count that does it, and Google says there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking (Tips to improve your local ranking on Google). Reviews raise one of three factors. If the three plumbers on top for “plumber” in your town have 150 to 400 reviews and you have 40, reviews are probably part of the gap. If you have more reviews than they do and still don’t show, the gap is somewhere else: distance, a profile that doesn’t match the search, or a website that doesn’t back it up.

In our judgement, the honest goal is “comparable to the plumbers already in the top three for the searches I care about”, not a magic number. Everything else that decides who shows up in Maps is covered in getting into the Google map pack.

Do I need as many reviews as the biggest plumbing company in town?

Usually not. The biggest company, often a multi-trade shop that also does heating, cooling and electrical, may have more reviews than you’ll collect in years. It still doesn’t show up first for every homeowner in every town, because distance and relevance count too. In our judgement, a smaller plumber with a solid review count, a profile that matches the search and a base close to the customer can take Maps spots near its own shop from a company with far more reviews.

Where the giant pulls ahead is at the edge of your area, far from your shop and close to theirs. That’s a distance problem, and more reviews alone won’t fix it. Compare yourself with the plumber just above you in the towns you care about, not with the biggest name in the metro.

Does the number of reviews matter more than the star rating?

Early on, the count tends to matter most. Retail research from Northwestern’s Medill Spiegel Research Center, first published in 2017 and about products sold online, found that the purchase likelihood for a product with five reviews was 270% greater than for one with no reviews, and that the marginal benefit of additional reviews begins diminishing rapidly after the first five (How Online Reviews Influence Sales). That’s retail research about products, not plumbers, so treat it as a direction, not a forecast.

In our judgement, the practical reading for a plumbing profile: getting out of single digits is urgent, getting into the range of the plumbers next to you in Maps is the real goal, and after that the rating and what recent reviews say carry more of the weight. A profile with a few honest complaints and calm replies can read as more believable than a wall of identical five-star reviews; recovering from bad plumbing reviews covers the rating side.

Do reviews matter more for water heaters and repipes than emergency calls?

The same Spiegel research found reviews have a greater impact for higher-priced items: when reviews were displayed, the conversion rate rose 190% for a lower-priced product and 380% for a higher-priced one (How Online Reviews Influence Sales). Again, that’s products, not plumbing, but the direction fits what owners see.

In our judgement, it splits plumbing work in two. A homeowner with water on the floor calls whoever looks close, open and decently reviewed; past a reasonable count, more reviews change that call less. A homeowner pricing a repipe or a tankless install reads the reviews, and looks for ones that mention the kind of job they’re about to buy. So the target isn’t only a total. It’s enough reviews from the big-ticket jobs that a careful shopper can find a few. Making sure those customers get asked is part of getting more water heater and repipe jobs.

How many new reviews a month should a plumbing company aim for?

Work it backwards from your jobs instead of picking a round number. Three inputs decide it:

• Completed residential jobs a month. Pull it from your job software.
• Ask rate. The share of those jobs where someone sent the review link. This is the one you control.
• Post rate. The share of asked customers who actually post. Measure your own for a month; it varies a lot by shop.

Multiply them for your monthly pace, then divide the gap between your count and your target by that pace to see how many months it takes. If the date is too far out, raise the ask rate, not incentives. Getting your techs to ask on every job covers the habit and how to track it.

Do old reviews still count, or only recent ones?

For your score, all of them count. Google says the review score is the average of all ratings published on Google for that business, and that after someone leaves a new review, it may take up to 2 weeks to get an updated score. Google shows the score and the total number of reviews on Search and Maps (Understand review scores for local places & businesses).

For the homeowner reading them, our view is that recent reviews matter more than the total suggests. A plumber whose newest review is from two winters ago can look like a company that’s slowed down, even with a big count. That’s one more reason a steady monthly flow beats a one-time push, and why the target never really ends at a number.

What's the fastest honest way to close a review gap?

More asks, not shortcuts. Google gives every Business Profile a review link and a QR code and suggests putting them on receipts and in thank-you emails (Create a Google link or QR code to request reviews). For a plumber, that usually means the job-complete text from your job software and the invoice, sent to every customer, not just the ones you think were happy. The scripts, timing and what Google allows when you ask are covered in getting more Google reviews.

The shortcut to avoid when the gap looks big: Google’s Maps content policy says incentivized reviews are not allowed and will be removed, and it lists unusual volumes or patterns of reviews that point to an effort to manipulate a rating as a violation (Prohibited & restricted content). A gap closed with bought or incentivized reviews can end with those reviews removed, which leaves you further behind than when you started.

What's different about review targets for plumbing companies

You have more chances to ask than most trades. A plumbing company runs a lot of short service calls: clogs, leaks, running toilets, disposals. Each one is a completed job and a chance to ask. In our judgement, that’s why a plumber who asks on every job can usually close a review gap faster than a trade with fewer, bigger jobs.

Emergencies need a later ask. A customer who just watched you shut off a burst pipe at midnight isn’t writing a review. Count those jobs in your pace, but send the link the next morning.

Not every customer is the homeowner. Landlords, property managers and tenants call plumbers too. Base your target on the jobs where the person you dealt with can genuinely review the work, and leave commercial accounts out of the math if they rarely post.

Big tickets need their own share. If almost every review is about a quick drain clearing, a homeowner pricing a repipe learns little about your install crews. Make sure water heater, repipe and sewer customers are asked too.

A worked example: setting a review target from your own Maps results

These numbers are made up to show the math, not a benchmark for your market. Say you search “plumber” from the towns you want more work in, and Maps keeps showing the same three companies: one with 640 reviews at 4.8 stars, one with 230 at 4.6, and one with 118 at 4.9. You have 52 reviews at 4.7.

You don’t need 640. A sensible first target is the low end of that range: about 120 reviews, so you’re comparable to the plumber you’d most like to pass. That’s a gap of 68.

Now the pace. You complete 220 residential jobs a month and get the ask rate to 80%, which is 176 asks. If about 1 in 12 asked customers posts, that’s about 15 new reviews a month, and the gap closes in roughly five months. Then reset the target against the next company up, and check that some of the new reviews come from water heater and repipe customers.

Review response and basic review generation are part of our Essentials package at $3,500 a month, alongside Google Business Profile management; a free visibility audit is a reasonable place to run this comparison against your real Maps results.

Frequently asked questions

Is 100 reviews enough for a plumbing company?

It depends on who shows next to you in Maps. Where nearby plumbers have a few dozen reviews, it can be plenty; where they have several hundred, it’s a solid start. Run the comparison for your own searches.

Do Yelp, Facebook or Angi reviews count toward my Google score?

No. Google says your review score is the average of ratings published on Google. Source: Understand review scores.

Does Google penalize a sudden jump in reviews?

Google doesn’t publish a limit on review pace. Its policy counts unusual volumes or patterns that point to rating manipulation as a violation. A jump from honestly asking every customer after a busy freeze week is different from a jump that comes from buying reviews.

Do review replies count toward the number?

No, replies aren’t reviews. Google says positive reviews and helpful replies can help your business stand out, so they’re still worth writing. Source: Tips to improve your local ranking on Google.

Should each tech have a review target?

No. Google’s policy doesn’t allow businesses to ask staff to collect a certain number of reviews. Track whether each tech sends the link on every job instead.

Do I need more reviews if I serve a big area?

Often, because you’re compared with different plumbers in different towns. Run the Maps check from each part of your service area and set the target against the toughest town you care about.

Key takeaways

• Google sets no review minimum for Maps; reviews feed popularity, one of the three things Google says local results are mainly based on.
• Local Services Ads: Google recommends 5 or more reviews, and some business types may need 5 to show.
• Set your target from the review counts of the plumbers shown next to you for your money searches.
• Work out the monthly pace from completed jobs, ask rate and post rate, and raise the ask rate if it’s too slow.
• Make sure water heater, repipe and sewer customers get asked, not just quick service calls.

More in this section

• How do I get more Google reviews for my plumbing company?
• How do I get my plumbing techs to ask for reviews on every job?
• How much should a plumbing company spend on Google Ads?
• How do I recover from bad reviews on my plumbing company?
• How many service pages should a plumbing website have?

Sources

1. Tips to improve your local ranking on Google — Google Business Profile Help
2. Improve your Local Services Ads performance — Google Local Services Help
3. Reviews and Ratings on Local Services Ads — Google Local Services Help
4. Understand the screening and verification process — Google Local Services Help
5. Understand review scores for local places & businesses — Google Business Profile Help
6. Create a Google link or QR code to request reviews — Google Business Profile Help
7. Prohibited & restricted content — Maps User Contributed Content Policy Help
8. How Online Reviews Influence Sales — Medill Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern University