No. You cannot offer a discount for a Google review. Google’s review policy names discounts, payment and free goods or services as incentives it does not allow, whether the review is good, bad or honest, and it treats an incentivised review as fake content. The penalty is not only the review coming down: Google can stop the profile receiving new reviews for a set period and post a warning on it. What you can do is ask every customer, the same way, with nothing attached.
That answer surprises owners, because “money off your next visit for a review” looks harmless next to a paid fake review. Google does not draw the line at honesty. It draws it at the exchange. Below is where the line sits, what Canadian law adds, and the offers that look like a reward but are fine.
What Google’s policy actually says
Two Google pages carry the rule. The Maps contribution policy lists what merchants may not do, and the first item is to offer incentives, “such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services”, in exchange for posting any review, or for changing or removing a negative one. The Business Profile help page on getting more reviews repeats it in plainer words: an incentive like free or discounted goods or services, given for a review, “is considered fake & misleading content and is strictly prohibited.”
Three details in that wording matter more than the headline.
It covers honest reviews too
The policy says “any review.” A customer who loved the job and would have written five stars anyway still turns into an incentivised reviewer the moment you attach a discount to the ask. You cannot fix the exchange by telling the customer to be honest.
It covers changing a review
Offering a refund, a free service call or a credit to a customer who agrees to delete or soften a one-star review is the same breach. This version is easy to walk into, because it feels like customer service. Fix the problem for the customer, then respond to the Google review in public, and leave what they post next up to them.
”Such as” is a list of examples, not a complete list
Google writes “such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services.” A draw entry, a gift card, a donation made in the customer’s name, or loyalty points are not named. In our reading the policy covers them all, because each one is something of value that the customer gets only if they post. We would not build a promotion around the gap between the examples and the rule.
What Canadian law adds
Google’s policy is a platform rule. The Competition Act is federal law, and it reaches further than Google’s servers.
The Competition Bureau’s consumer alert on fake reviews names three ways a business inflates its own rating: it encourages employees to post reviews, it gives customers incentives to leave positive reviews, or it hires a firm to post fake ones. All three sit in the same list.
In January 2024 the Bureau warned businesses that anyone who writes or permits reviews that give a false or misleading impression to consumers could be liable under the Competition Act. That warning was about staff reviews: an employee who reviews the business they work for, or a competitor, has to disclose that connection, even when the opinion is honest. If the disclosure cannot sit visibly inside the review, the Bureau’s advice is not to post it, and that includes a bare star rating.
The Bureau has acted on this before. In 2015 Bell Canada agreed to pay an administrative monetary penalty of $1,250,000 after some of its employees were encouraged to post positive ratings of two Bell apps without saying they worked for Bell. The reviews were app store ratings, not Google Maps reviews, but the principle is the one that applies to a trade business: a review that hides why it was written misleads the person reading it.
We are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. For a specific promotion, ask a lawyer who handles advertising law. For the everyday question of “can I give a discount for a review”, the answer is no on Google before the law is even relevant.
The offer test: would they get it without the review?
Any promotion passes or fails on one question. If the customer gets the thing whether or not they leave a review, it is a customer offer. If they get it only because they posted, it is an incentive.
| What you want to offer | Tied to the review? | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
| A discount on the next job “for a review” | Yes | Prohibited by name in Google’s policy |
| A draw entry for everyone who reviews this month | Yes | Something of value for posting; we treat it as prohibited |
| A refund or credit if the customer removes a bad review | Yes | Prohibited by name: “revision or removal of a negative review” |
| A bonus to staff per review collected | Yes, for the staff member | Google bars merchants from asking staff to solicit a set number of reviews |
| A discount on the next job for every customer, printed on every invoice | No | A customer offer; the review ask stays separate and unconditional |
| A thank-you text after a job, with the review link | No | Allowed; Google tells businesses to ask customers to visit a link or scan a QR code |
| A reply thanking the reviewer by name | No | Allowed and recommended |
Can you offer a discount to every customer and ask for a review in the same message?
You can send both, but keep them apart in the wording. “Here is your invoice, here is a discount on your next furnace service, and if you have a minute, here is our review link” gives the discount to everyone. “Leave a review and show it to us for the discount” ties it to the review, and that version is the breach. If a customer could read your message and believe the discount depends on the review, rewrite the message.
Can staff be rewarded for reviews?
Not per review. Google’s policy says merchants should not ask staff to solicit a certain number of reviews, or reviews that mention a staff member by name. A plumber who pays an apprentice for each review that names him has built both problems into one bonus. Reward the work instead, and let the review ask be the same automatic message for every job.
What happens to a profile that gets caught
Google’s page on Business Profile restrictions lists what it can do when it decides an owner has broken the fake engagement policy, on top of removing the reviews:
- stop the profile from receiving new reviews or ratings for a set period;
- unpublish the profile’s existing reviews for a set period;
- show a warning telling customers that fake reviews were removed.
Google says it notifies the owner by email before it applies a restriction, and that the owner can appeal. The warning is the part that costs work. A customer comparing three electricians in Collingwood sees a notice on one of them and has every reason to call one of the other two.
The quieter cost is filtering. Reviews that arrive in a burst after a promotion can be filtered without notice, and we cover how that looks from the owner’s side in why a Google review is not showing up. A discount campaign that adds a burst of reviews and then loses most of them to the filter leaves you behind where you started.
What you can do instead, and why it works better
The rule leaves one honest route: ask every customer, at the same point in every job, with the same direct link, and attach nothing. Google’s own help page names the two ways to deliver the link: a Google review link or a QR code.
Two things decide whether that ask produces reviews.
The timing of the ask
Ask when the job has just closed, not at the end of the month. The customer remembers the work, has a phone in hand to pay, and has not yet moved on. A Google review QR code on the invoice catches the customer in front of you. A text sent automatically when the job is marked done catches the customer who paid online.
Asking every customer, not only the happy ones
Google’s policy also bars merchants from selectively soliciting positive reviews. A discount offered only to customers who say they were happy breaks two rules at once. An ask sent to every customer after every job breaks neither, and it also produces the steady arrival rate that matters for ranking, and we set out the review counts and arrival rates behind a Collingwood Map Pack position separately.
The system is the hard part. Owners know how to ask. What slips is asking after the last job of a busy July week the same way as after the first job in a quiet one. Our Google review management service, Review Engine, sends the ask when every finished job is marked done, with no discount and nothing else attached. It is one piece of local SEO in Collingwood and the towns around it, and it is the piece most businesses can start this week.
Frequently asked questions
Can you offer rewards for Google reviews if the reward is small?
No. The policy has no minimum value. A free coffee, a draw entry and a percentage off the next visit are all something the customer gets because they posted, and Google’s wording covers “payment, discounts, free goods and/or services” for “any review.”
Can you offer money off for reviews on other platforms?
Each platform sets its own rules, so read them before you run a promotion. On Google the answer is no. And in Canada, a review that hides why it was written can mislead consumers under the Competition Act, whatever site it sits on. If you run an incentive anywhere, make sure the reason for the review is visible to the reader.
What is Google’s 20% rule?
Google’s review policy pages do not contain a rule by that name; we read the contribution policy, the review tips page and the restrictions page and found no percentage in any of them. The 20% figure owners usually mean is an industry estimate of how much reviews weigh in Map Pack ranking, which we use in our local SEO blueprint for Georgian Bay trades. It is an estimate, not a Google rule.
How much is a 5 star Google review worth?
Nobody can put an honest dollar figure on one review. What we can measure is position: in our Collingwood study the median service business held 15 reviews, so in many trades a handful of new, recent reviews moves a business past the middle of its category. Recency counts too, which is another reason a steady ask beats a one-week promotion.
Can I ask a customer to change a bad review if I fix the problem?
You can fix the problem and you can tell the customer it is fixed. You cannot offer anything for the change, and you should not ask them to delete it. If the review breaks a policy, how to remove a Google review covers what Google will take down and what it will not.
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