Yes. In Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors study, reviews count for about 20% of where you rank on the Google map, up from 16% in 2023. Only your Google Business Profile counts more (about 32%). The number of reviews, how new they are, and your replies all help you rank.
REVIEWWHEEL RESEARCH ·
The State of Home Service Reviews
The best contractor in town is usually the quietest, and the algorithm rewards the loudest. Here's the data on what that costs, and how the good get found.
Key findings
97%
of people read online reviews for local businesses
BrightLocal, 2026
54.6%
of review requests are now sent by text
Birdeye, 2026
+24.5%
more home service reviews than the year before
Birdeye, 2026
68%
will only use a business rated 4 stars or higher
BrightLocal, 2026
74%
only want to see reviews from the last 3 months
BrightLocal, 2026
45%
now use AI like ChatGPT to find local businesses: the #3 way
BrightLocal, 2026
01 · WHAT CUSTOMERS DO
Before anyone calls you, they read your reviews, or your competitor's
Most people check your reviews before they pick up the phone. Good reviews get you the call. Too few reviews, or bad ones, lose it.
97%
read online reviews
68%
only use a business rated 4 stars or higher
47%
want to see at least 20 reviews first
89%
expect you to reply to reviews
Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026.
02 · RANKING ON GOOGLE
Reviews are the #2 thing Google ranks you on
Google decides who shows up on the map. The Google listing counts the most. Reviews come second, and they are the one thing here that keeps growing.
32%
20%
15%
33%
- Google listing 32%
- Reviews 20% Up from 16% in 2023
- Website 15%
- Everything else 33% links, mentions, clicks
“Google listing” means your free Google Business Profile: how complete and active it is (categories, hours, photos, posts). Your website is the separate factor below it. New reviews count even more over time. Fresh reviews beat old ones.
Source: Whitespark, Local Search Ranking Factors (2023 & 2026 editions).
03 · HOW TO ASK
Texting wins
People open almost every text they get. They open very few emails. So when you ask for a review by text, far more customers see it, and far more leave one. That is why texting passed email in 2025 to become the #1 way to ask.
Sources: open rates: Gartner (SMS up to 98% vs email ~20%); channel mix: Birdeye, 2026.
How often each one gets opened
Text98%
Email~20%
54.6% of review requests are now texts, the #1 way to ask, the first time ever (2025).
ReviewWheel takes it one step further. Every review request we send includes a personalized image, not just a link. In our own data, 43.7% of the customers we ask leave a review. See how that compares to the published average in the next section.
Learn how it works →04 · THE BENCHMARK
Most review requests get ignored
Asking is the easy part. Getting an answer is not. Across the platforms that publish the number, about 8 in 100 customers respond to a review request, and roughly 1 in 10 ever leave a review at all. That is the bar every review tool is measured against.
43.7%
ReviewWheel
of the customers we ask leave a review.
ReviewWheel customer data, 2026
8.3%
The published average
of customers respond to a review request.
Fera, customer data
ReviewWheel against the benchmark
~5×
43.7% against 8.3%, about five times higher.
How we measured: reviews left, divided by personalized-image review requests sent, across the ReviewWheel customer base.
Two honest caveats. The two rates are not counted the same way: Fera counts customers who respond to a request, we count customers who leave a review. And neither benchmark is home services specific. The platforms that publish a real response-rate number sell to online stores, not contractors, and Growave puts the general figure at roughly 10% of customers leaving a review, close to Fera's 8.3%. They are the best public numbers there are, so they are the ones we hold ourselves to.
Sources: Fera, Average Response Rate for Review Requests (Fera customer data); Growave, What Percent of Customers Leave Reviews. ReviewWheel figure: our own customer data, 2026.
05 · YOUR TRADE
Reviews are growing fastest in home services
Reviews in home services grew 24.5% in a single year. Everyone is piling them up, so the bar keeps rising. You need more reviews than before just to keep up. Homeowners already struggle to find a good pro, and reviews are how they choose.
+24.5%
more home service reviews than last year
Birdeye, 2026
80%
of homeowners start their search online
ServiceTitan, 2025
54%
of homeowners have a hard time finding a good pro
Angi, 2024
One paid lead in home services costs
$90–$228
Reviews bring you the same customers for the price of a text.
Average cost per lead from paid search, by trade (LocaliQ, 2025).
06 · THE MONEY
Reviews make you money
~2×
More reviews, more money
Businesses with 200+ reviews earn about double the revenue of an average business.
+52%
New reviews beat old ones
Get 9 or more reviews in 90 days and you earn 52% more revenue.
+35%
Replies pay off
Reply to at least 1 in 4 reviews and you earn 35% more revenue.
5–9%
Every star counts
Each extra star in your rating raises revenue 5 to 9%.
Sources: Womply, 2019 (revenue, reply & recency); Luca, Harvard Business School, 2011 (per-star lift, independent restaurants).
07 · AI SEARCH
People now ask AI to find a contractor
More people ask ChatGPT and Google's AI, "who's the best HVAC company near me?" The AI reads your reviews to answer. So your reviews now help you show up in AI, too.
45%
now use AI like ChatGPT to find local businesses: the #3 way, up from 6% last year
BrightLocal, 2026
68%
of local searches now show an AI answer at the top
Whitespark, 2025
Google now treats AI search and map search the same way. The same reviews help you in both.
WHAT TO DO
Four things that work
1
Get more reviews
You need at least 20 to be trusted. At 200+, businesses earn about double.
2
Keep them coming
New reviews count more than old ones for customers, Google, and AI.
3
Ask by text
It works better than email, so more people reply.
4
Reply to reviews
89% of customers expect it, and it brings in more money.
ReviewWheel does this for you. We text your past customers and ask for a review, on a steady schedule. The reviews add up, and so does your spot on Google.
Start getting reviews →COMING IN 2027
Next year: our own numbers
Next year we'll share data no one else has: which trades get the most reviews, text vs. email, and how fast a new review shows up, straight from the ReviewWheel network.
Questions home service owners ask
New reviews matter most. 74% of people only want to see reviews from the last three months (BrightLocal, 2026), and Google now treats review recency as one of its top ranking signals. A steady stream of new reviews works better than one big batch.
Text. In 2025, texting became the #1 way businesses ask for reviews for the first time: 54.6% of all requests, ahead of email (Birdeye, 2026). People read texts fast, so more of them leave a review. That is why home service review volume grew 24.5% in a year.
Enough to be trusted, then keep going. 47% of people want to see at least 20 reviews before they trust a business (BrightLocal, 2026), and businesses with 200+ reviews earn about double the average (Womply, 2019). More reviews plus newer reviews is the winning combination.
Yes, more and more. 45% of people now use AI tools like ChatGPT to find local businesses, the #3 way, after Google and Facebook (BrightLocal, 2026), and 68% of local searches now show an AI answer at the top (Whitespark, 2025). The AI reads your reviews to decide who to recommend, so new reviews help you show up there too.
SOURCES
Where these numbers come from
This is a roundup of the best public research on local reviews, focused on home services. Every number above links to where it came from, with the year where the source gives one.
- BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (what customers do; about 1,002 US adults)
- Whitespark: Local Search Ranking Factors (2023 & 2026; survey of local SEO experts)
- Whitespark: AI Overviews in Local Search (study, 2025)
- Birdeye: State of Online Reviews 2026 (text vs. email; home services growth)
- Gartner: Tap Into the Marketing Power of SMS (SMS open rate up to 98% and 45% response, vs 20% and 6% for email; delivery/engagement estimates)
- Fera: Average Response Rate for Review Requests (8.3%; based on Fera customer data, no publication date given)
- Growave: What Percent of Customers Leave Reviews (roughly 10%; Growave's general e-commerce baseline, no underlying source cited; published June 24, 2026)
- ServiceTitan: 2025 Consumer Trends in the Trades
- Angi: 2024 State of Home Spending
- LocaliQ: 2025 Home Services Search Ad Benchmarks (cost per lead by trade)
- Womply: Impact of Online Reviews on Revenue (2019)
- Luca: Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue (Harvard Business School, 2011)
Cite this report: ReviewWheel (2026). The State of Home Service Reviews. reviewwheel.com/research/state-of-home-service-reviews-2026
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