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product story · review automation · australia
The right tool cost $600 a month.
So we built our own.
A small business we look after needed more Google reviews, the thing that decides who ranks, and who gets called, in local search. The off-the-shelf answer was an established review platform at around $600 a month, which for a small Australian business is not a software subscription, it's a second rent. Rather than tell our client it wasn't possible, we built the tool ourselves. It's called RankByReviews, it's live, and it starts at $56 a month.
the problem
Reviews decide who gets called.
Asking for them is the hard part.
When someone searches for a local business, Google shows a map with three names on it, and the names with the most recent reviews sit at the top. Our client did great work and had the happy customers to prove it, but almost none of them ever made it to Google. That's normal. Leaving a review takes effort at exactly the moment the customer has stopped thinking about you.
Asking is awkward
Most owners can't bring themselves to chase customers for reviews in person, and the moment passes. The competitor with a system for it collects reviews every week; the better business without one stays invisible.
The tools price out small business
Review automation is a solved problem, if you can pay for it. The established platform came in at around $600 a month. For the client we wanted it for, that was more than their entire marketing budget.
Bad experiences go public first
Without a direct channel, the first time an owner hears about a problem is often a public one-star review, when it's too late to fix quietly.
the decision
We didn't say "it's not possible."
We said "give us a bit."
The easy answer was to tell the client the tool existed but wasn't in their budget, shrug, and move on. Instead we treated the price tag as the actual problem and built a review platform sized and priced for the businesses that need it most.
- $56a month, published pricingvs ~$600 for the platform it replaced
- 1 tapfrom message to Google reviewthe link opens your review page directly
- 4ways to askSMS · email · QR stickers · NFC plates
- 0lock-inno contracts, cancel anytime
what it does
It asks every customer,
at the moment that works.
RankByReviews turns the customers a business already has into genuine Google reviews by making the ask automatic, and the review one tap away.
- One-tap review requests by SMS and email.
After a job or a sale, the customer gets a short message with a link. One tap opens the business's Google review page. No searching, no hunting for the review button. Polite follow-up reminders go out automatically if nothing happens.
- Counter hardware for walk-in customers.
QR stickers and NFC plates sit at the counter or on the invoice. A customer taps their phone on the plate and lands on the same one-tap review page. No app, nothing to type.
- A private way to flag a problem.
Every customer sees the same page and the same invitation, so nobody gets filtered. But the page also gives any customer a private way to raise a problem, and the owner is alerted immediately. Issues get heard fast, and get fixed before they fester.
- Built with compliance in mind.
Designed around Google's review policy and Australian anti-spam rules: an unsubscribe in every message, no review gating, no bought reviews, no tricks. Genuine customers, asked directly.
- A dashboard and a documented API.
Owners see every request and review in one place. And because it has a proper API, booking and job-management systems can trigger a review request the moment a job is done, so the ask happens without anyone remembering to make it.
the bigger point
We don't just build websites.
We build what's missing.
This is what working with a builder, rather than a reseller, gets you. When Select Coolrooms needed quotes to stop taking hours, we built a quote engine into their site. When a small business needed review automation the market had priced at $600 a month, we built the platform, and now every business we work with gets it for a fraction of that. If the tool your business needs exists but costs too much, or doesn't exist at all, that's not the end of the conversation. That's usually where we start.
- Product design
- Build
- SMS + email
- Counter hardware
- Billing
- Hosting
- Compliance
- Support
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