Managing online reviews properly is vital for any local business hoping to succeed in the eyes of both Google and the consumer. But sometimes, you might need a little help in keeping on top of the constant stream of customer feedback – and ensuring timely responses, too.
When things start getting on top of you, that’s when you’ll want to enlist the help of a trusted reputation management tool. With so many to choose from, how can you be sure which will be the best fit for your business?
To help you along the way in your decision-making process, we’ve decided to provide a comprehensive comparison of the leading reputation management tools, including our own.
Throughout this article, we’ve relied on the data and facts supplied a) by the reputation management tool’s website, and b) by trusted consumer reviews from third-party sites to provide you with as balanced a view as possible.
Keep reading to get a comprehensive overview of each reputation management tool, or skip ahead to see the full comparison table.
Contents
- What is reputation management?
- What is a reputation management tool?
- Top reputation management tools: features and price comparison
- Top ‘reputation management only’ tools compared
- Top tools with reputation management features compared
What is reputation management?
Before you decide what online reputation management tool is right for you, you might need to know what reputation management is and what review management is.
Generally speaking, online reputation management is the ongoing task to maintain a positive perception of a brand or business. More often than not, though, it just refers to online reviews.
Good reputation management entails generating online reviews, responding to online reviews, and leveraging online reviews.
Local businesses should invest in reputation management for a number of reasons, but primarily because reviews are a local ranking factor, and reviews help customers convert.
If you’d like to read more on the benefits of online reviews, or how to educate clients on them, we’ve got plenty of resources about reputation management to read up on.
What is a reputation management tool?
A reputation management tool is simply something that aides the reputation management process. Online reputation management tools exist to simplify and optimize the process of generating, responding to, and leveraging reviews. Usually, this will involve a combination of features, such as automating review requests, sending review response reminders, or showcasing reviews on your website.
Top reputation management tools: features and price comparison
The table below compares the leading review management tools’ key features, ordered by cost per location.
| Tool | Price per location | Review monitoring | Review generation (email) | Review generation (SMS) | Review generation (kiosk mode) | Review sites tracked | Review inbox | Sentiment analysis | White label | Showcase reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BrightLocal | $8 /month | 80+ | ||||||||
| Moz Local | $24 /month | Unknown | ||||||||
| Whitespark | $35-$299 /month | 100+ | ||||||||
| ReviewTrackers | $49 /month | 100+ | Agency only | |||||||
| GatherUp | $75-$199 /month | 50+ | ||||||||
| Grade.us | $180+ /month | 40+ | ||||||||
| Reputation.com | On request | 200+ | Add-on | Unknown | ||||||
| Podium | On request | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
| BirdEye | On request | 150+ |
Top ‘reputation management only’ tools compared
If you’re looking for a local SEO tool designed to handle only your online reputation management needs, then you may be interested in one of the options listed below.
The benefit of opting for a reputation management-only tool is that you’re likely to get more in-depth features that cater to your needs.
If you’re looking for one tool to look after all your local SEO needs, however, you may want to take a look at the reputation management tools with other features.
ReviewTrackers
Tagline: “Turn review insights into action.”
ReviewTrackers aggregates reviews from 100+ sites to provide you with a comprehensive overview of everywhere you’re receiving customer feedback.
As a reputation management-only tool, ReviewTrackers offers a whole host of features and, in theory, should provide you with all you need to nail reputation management. Although, this all depends on what plan you get.
Plan pricing is available on request and, depending on what you opt for, you could benefit from: review requests, Net Promoter Score, analytics and dashboards, mobile app, competitor reports, sentiment analysis (pictured above), review widgets, and API access.
URL: https://www.reviewtrackers.com/
Pricing: $49/month
Third-party reviews of ReviewTrackers
Explore reviews of ReviewTrackers from around the web:
Reputation
Tagline: “Get found. Get chosen. Get better.”
Reputation allows you to optimize your business listings, manage your reviews, improve ratings, and better the customer experience by collecting customer feedback via customized surveys.
Reputation automatically aggregates data from all sources in real-time, so you can see the overall feedback of customers’ feedback and provide reports to help guide your strategy.
One of Reputation’s more unique features is the Reputation Score, which helps to represent your overall performance across a number of review sites.
URL: https://www.reputation.com/
Pricing: Available on request
Third-party reviews of Reputation
Explore reviews of Reputation from around the web:
Grade.us
Tagline: “Everything You Need to Generate, Monitor, and Market Your Customer Reviews.”
Grade.us automates your efforts to acquire, monitor, and amplify your customer reviews through review generation, unified reporting, and widgets.
With Grade.us you’re able to increase your reviews on sites of your choice, resolve issues with unhappy customers before they leave a negative review, collect data to optimize your campaigns, and automatically stream your positive reviews across your website and social channels.
Grade.us also offers a white-label review management platform for agencies and SEOs.
URL: https://www.grade.us/home
Pricing: $180+ /month
Third-party reviews of Grade.us
Explore reviews of Grade.us from around the web:
GatherUp
Tagline: “We make customer experience the backbone of your business through reviews and customer feedback.”
Owned by the same SaaS holding company as Grade.us (ASG), GatherUp is a customer experience and online review engine that helps to simplify the review management process.
With GatherUp you are able to manage and monitor your online reputation by automating the customer feedback process to capture your Net Promoter Score, testimonials, and online reviews.
With multiple ways to add 1st and 3rd party reviews to your website, you can use GatherUp to turn your site into a sales funnel.
Pricing: $75-$199 /month
Third-party reviews of GatherUp
Explore reviews of GatherUp from around the web:
Top tools with reputation management features compared
Using a reputation management system with other features can be great if you’re looking to kill more birds with one stone (metaphorically speaking).
As reputation management crosses over into two key categories – local SEO and customer service – you can expect the tools mentioned below to offer slightly different features in addition to review management.
You may, for example, be interested in a tool that offers a chatbot and review management, or you might want a tool to provide review management and rank tracking.
Whitespark
Tagline: “Reputation Builder Helps You Earn More Customer Feedback & Online Reviews.”
Whitespark white-labels GatherUp’s technologies to help you earn more customer feedback and online reviews, with access to over 45 online review sites including Google, Facebook, Foursquare, and TripAdvisor.
The automated platform allows you to engage and listen to your customers, whilst also gathering their Net Promoter Score, providing you with the insights needed to better your business.
Whitespark’s tool also segments happy customer reviews to your pre-selected sites and offers a customized feedback form, so that you can improve their experience by asking the important questions. All data is then made available in detailed reports within the tool.
Pricing: $35-$299 /month
Third-party reviews of Whitespark
Explore reviews of Whitespark from around the web:
Podium
Tagline: “Get found with Reviews.”
Podium is an interaction management system. Its solution for reputation management allows the user to set up automated review invites, in order to grow their online review presence.
Every lead from the likes of Google, Facebook, Instagram, and more go to one centralized inbox. With Podium you can manage all of your customer interactions in one place, including answering questions, scheduling appointments, closing deals, and collecting reviews.
You can also request reviews via SMS, should that medium suit your business.
Pricing: Available on request
Third-party reviews of Podium
Explore reviews of Podium from around the web:
Moz Local
Tagline: “Keep your finger on the pulse of what your customers are saying about you, and manage your business’s online reputation.”
Moz Local offers review management as one of its features to help with local SEO, alongside citation building, rank tracking, and social posting.
With Moz Local you’re able to monitor reviews, but not generate them. It also doesn’t offer white-label capabilities for agencies looking to offer the platform to their clients.
That said, given its other local SEO-oriented features, Moz Local may be a suitable fit if you’re looking to dip your toe into reputation management and simply keep an eye on what’s being said about your business while working on other aspects of local SEO.
URL: https://moz.com/products/local
Pricing: $24 /month
Third-party reviews of Moz Local
Explore reviews of Moz Local from around the web:
BirdEye
Tagline: “All-in-one customer reviews software.”
BirdEye offers reputation management among other less local-focussed features, such as web chat, video chat, and mass texting.
At $300+ per month, BirdEye is a more costly option, though it does encompass a lot of features.
With BirdEye users are able to monitor reviews, generate reviews via SMS, track 150+ review sites, perform sentiment analysis, and showcase reviews.
Additionally, BirdEye focuses on word of mouth marketing to ensure your reviews are seen beyond just your website by making them easily shareable to connected social media accounts.
URL: https://birdeye.com/
Pricing: Available on request
Explore reviews of BirdEye from around the web:
BrightLocal
Tagline: “Build the best online reputation.”
BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager is part of its all-in-one local SEO platform that focuses on rank tracking, citation building, and reviews. As of September 2020, it is also purchasable as a standalone product for just $8 per month — Just Reviews.
With Reputation Manager, users are able to generate reviews via SMS, email, and kiosk mode. It also offers a review inbox, making it simpler to respond to reviews, whether working alone or as part of a team.
Finally, with Reputation Manager you can showcase reviews on your site for all to see with a handy widget. It is also available to be white-labeled.
BrightLocal’s tool does miss out on sentiment analysis, but this can be conducted by free tools such as Objection Co’s.
URL: https://www.brightlocal.com/reputation-manager/
Pricing: $8 /month for RM only or $29 /month for suite of tools
Explore reviews of BrightLocal from around the web:
We hope this has helped you along your way to finding the right reputation management tool for your business. If you have any questions, please let us know in the comments below and we’ll endeavor to answer them!
