Costs and questions

It will, on some accounts, and the writing is fine. It also needs you to log in, read the review and press send, on every review, forever. That click is exactly the thing that doesn't happen at 11pm. Google's feature also won't ask your diners for reviews and won't post to your social, and it's still a limited rollout, so plenty of restaurants in the same town don't have it at all. The free tool solves typing. It doesn't solve noticing.

ChatGPT can write a good reply. It can't see that a review arrived and it can't post one. You still have to notice, copy, paste and send, every time, and that's the part that stops by week two. The other thing worth knowing: the standard advice for doing this yourself is to build a set of reply templates and tweak them, and about half of consumers say a templated reply puts them off. That failure mode is the one we're built to avoid.

Because it isn't the same job. A $10 tool takes one review, drafts one reply and emails it to you, and that is genuinely worth $10. It won't ask your diners for reviews, answer the questions coming into your website, take a pickup order, run an offer or write your posts. Those are the other six things on the list, and they're the ones that need somebody, not software. Check the cheap ones for one more thing before you buy: several post the reply on their own with no approval step, so a one-star can be answered in public before you've read the review or the reply. Here, anything negative waits for your OK, on every setting.

Those are capable tools that you log into and operate. A tool you operate is still a job you have. We're the other arrangement: no dashboard to learn, no habit to build, and one person whose name is on the work. You get a message when something needs a yes. If you want software, buy software.

If posts are all you want, hire the freelancer, and we won't pretend otherwise. A $300 to $500 package usually gets you 8 to 12 posts, which is more than our four, and we would rather say that than dress it up. What those packages almost never include is your Google reviews: a reply written and put up for every one, and getting your happy diners to actually leave them. That's the half that's actually sitting undone, and it's the half a stranger sees when they search your name at 6pm on a Friday. If you're talking to a freelancer, ask whether review replies are in scope and what happens on a one-star at 11pm on a Saturday.

It's the cheap end on purpose. Ten hours a week at around $18 to $20 an hour is roughly $780 to $865 in wages, and employer payroll taxes and workers comp add somewhere around 10% to 15% on top, so about $850 a month is the floor. No health insurance and no paid leave is assumed, which is normal for a part-time hire but means the real number is usually higher. We could have used a bigger figure and made ourselves look better. Treat it as an estimate for comparison, not a quote, and check wages in your own market. The working is in the note under the comparison table.

It is, and we'd rather say so than have you work it out. Four posts is two to three hours, a month of review replies is one to three, requests and the report are about an hour each. Call it five to nine hours a month, which at part-time wages plus payroll taxes lands somewhere near $150. That is less than $199, and we would rather you heard it from us. It also isn't the real point. Those hours only exist if somebody is watching for the reviews in the first place, and they land whenever a stranger decides to post about your restaurant. Nobody takes a ten-hour-a-month job on that schedule. You're not buying hours, you're buying the fact that it's covered on a Saturday you'd have forgotten.

Some people are sharp about this and it's a fair thing to worry about in 2026. Two things help. Replies name the specific thing the diner wrote about instead of thanking them for their valued feedback, which is the tell people actually notice. And a person reads the ones that matter before they go out. There's a real example on this page, and if you want five written against your own reviews before you pay anything, send us your listing.

That's the right fear. A defensive reply on a one-star is the screenshot that travels, which is why every negative, low-starred or sensitive review is held for you, every time. This one isn't configurable, and it isn't a setting that can drift. It lands on your phone, you read it, and you approve it, edit it, or tell us to leave that one alone.

We won't promise that, and be careful with anyone who does. Your rating comes from your food and your service, not from us. What we can tell you is that more of your diners get asked and your reviews get answers instead of silence, which is what roughly nine in ten of your reviewers say they're expecting.

You add us as a manager on your Google Business Profile. It takes about 30 seconds, you never share a password, and you can remove us in two clicks whenever you like. We can't change who owns the profile. We don't need your POS, your bookings or your bank, and we don't ask for them. Here are the exact steps, if you want to see what's involved before you sign up.

Facebook retired star ratings and reviews, so no tool can reply to them. We focus reviews on Google, where they actually move the needle, and handle your Facebook and Instagram posts.

Fair. You already pay all of those and none of them are doing this job. But if $199 is the difference between tight and fine this month, don't buy it. It'll still be $199 in the autumn, and $199 is our real price, not an introductory rate we plan to raise on you.

Small, and new. One person runs it, and today a good part of the work is done by hand rather than fully automated. That means a human genuinely reads your reviews. It also means there's no support queue, so you get the founder's email. As more of it automates we'll tell you which parts before it changes, and the rule that negative reviews wait for your OK won't change.

No, and we won't. Everyone sees the same QR code, and a printed code cannot tell whether someone had a good night. That is the point of doing it this way. Google prohibits filtering, and the FTC's rule on consumer reviews treats review suppression as deceptive, so cherry-picking your happy customers is the kind of shortcut that gets a profile wiped. You get real reviews or none.

Edit it or kill it, one tap, and tell us why in a line. Anything already posted can be edited or deleted from your Google profile at any time, by you or by us. Rejections are the fastest way for us to learn how you actually talk. If we keep getting it wrong, cancel.

Two things, and only if you ask for them. A website, $1,200 once, if you have no site or the one you have is beyond saving. And photographs, $750 once, if the pictures of your food are the weak part. For the photos we book a photographer in your town, brief them on the six shots a Google listing and a month of posts actually need, and hand you the edited set to keep and use anywhere, including on a site we did not build. Neither is needed by most restaurants. Your own phone photos taken near a window at eleven in the morning beat stock every time, and nothing in the $199 stops working if you never buy either.

Any month. No contract, no notice period, no cancellation call. Email us and it stops at the end of the month, and we take ourselves off your Google profile the same day so you're not left wondering who still has access.

You keep it. Every reply we posted stays up, in your name, and we never take them down. Your review code and any cards you printed keep working forever, because the code points at Google rather than at us. The chat on your website keeps running. If you were using our hosted link, we point it at your Google listing so nothing printed on a bag or a table goes dead. The only thing that stops is us: we come off your Google profile the same day, and your Facebook and Instagram access if you gave it.