Can You Offer a Discount for a Review?

Short answer: Yes, you can offer a discount in exchange for a review — but not in exchange for a good one, and the offer has to be out in the open before anyone writes anything.

That distinction is most of the rule, and it trips up more small business owners than almost anything else in review collection. A discount for leaving a review is an incentive. A discount for leaving a five-star review is a payment for a specific opinion, and that's the part regulators and platforms both draw a hard line around.

What the FTC's rule on reviews and testimonials actually says

The Federal Trade Commission has a rule that covers reviews and testimonials, including the ones a business collects from its own customers. In plain terms: you can pay for or incentivize a review, but you cannot condition that incentive on the review being positive, and you cannot hide the fact that an incentive was offered. The rule text is specific and gets updated, so don't treat this summary as legal advice — read the current rule on the FTC's own site before you set a policy, and talk to a lawyer if you want certainty for your specific business.

What matters for a small business owner running a rewards program: the reward has to be for the act of reviewing, not for the content of the review. A customer who leaves three stars and mentions the slow service gets the same code as a customer who leaves five stars and raves about the place. If your program can't survive that sentence, it isn't compliant.

Why "only if it's positive" doesn't work

It stops being a review and starts being an ad. A reward tied to a good rating isn't asking a customer what they thought — it's asking them to say something nice in exchange for money off. Readers can sense that, even when they can't name why, and it's exactly the practice the FTC rule exists to stop.

It also poisons the reviews that made it through honestly. Once a shopper suspects your five-star reviews were bought with a discount, they discount your genuine five-star reviews right along with the fake-looking pattern. Review gating — filtering out unhappy customers before they can post at all — is the more common version of the same mistake, and it costs a business the same way: reviews stop being evidence and start reading like advertising.

Does this apply to Google reviews specifically?

Separately from the FTC rule, Google has its own review policies for Business Profiles, and those policies prohibit incentivizing reviews outright — not just favorable ones. Google's policies change over time and enforcement varies, so check Google's current review policy directly rather than relying on this post, or any other secondhand summary, to set your practice.

The practical result: an incentive program belongs on reviews you collect yourself — on your own review page or form — not on a Google Business Profile listing. If you want more Google reviews, ask for them without a reward attached. If you want to reward customers for reviewing, do it on a channel you control.

How to structure a discount-for-a-review offer

Announce it before the customer writes anything. The offer needs to be visible on the review form itself, not revealed afterward as a surprise thank-you. If the customer didn't know the deal existed while they were writing, it wasn't really an incentive — it was a bribe dressed up as a bonus.

Say it's unconditional, in those words. "Leave a review and get a discount on your next visit" works. "Leave us a great review and get a discount" does not — that one word turns a request into a rating requirement.

Never tie the reward to approval. If you moderate reviews before they go live, the discount code still has to go out whether or not you end up publishing the review. Approval is your editorial decision about your own page; it can't double as the gate for whether someone gets paid.

Disclose it on the review, wherever it shows up. A shopper reading the review later — on your site, in a widget, anywhere it's displayed — should be able to see that it was written by someone who got something for writing it.

The Two-Minute Version

Kudo lets a page offer a discount code for leaving a review, with a separate, larger code for a review that includes a photo. The rating is never part of the condition — the reward goes out the same way for a critical review as a glowing one, and the offer and the disclosure are both handled for you.

Start free at getkudo.co.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I offer a bigger discount for a five-star review?
No. Tying the size or existence of a reward to the star rating is exactly what the FTC rule and Google's review policies both prohibit. You can offer a bigger reward for extra effort, like including a photo, but not for a better score.

Can I only send the discount to customers who left a positive review?
No — that's the same problem from a different angle. The reward has to be available to anyone who reviews, regardless of what they said.

Do I have to disclose the discount if the review shows up on my own website?
Yes. Disclosure isn't limited to the platform where the review was collected. If the review is displayed anywhere, the fact that it was incentivized should be visible with it.

Can I offer a discount for a Google review?
Google's own policies prohibit incentivizing Google reviews specifically. Keep discount-for-review offers on a channel you control, like your own review form, and ask for Google reviews without attaching a reward to them.

What if a customer takes the discount and then leaves a bad review?
That has to be fine. If it isn't — if you'd hold back the code over a bad review — the program was never actually unconditional, and that's the exact test regulators use.

Is a free product the same as a discount for this purpose?
Any incentive — a discount, a free item, an entry into a drawing — falls under the same rule. The form of the reward doesn't change the requirement that it can't be conditioned on a positive review and has to be disclosed.