Incentivized reviews on Trustpilot, Google and under the FTC rule

What is an incentivized review?

An incentivized review is a review written in return for something of value. The thing of value can be a discount, a promo code, a prize draw entry, a refund, a free product, loyalty points or cash. It does not have to be money. It does not have to be large. A $5 code counts.

The reviewer may be honest and the product may be good. The problem is the payment. A reader cannot tell a paid opinion from a free one, so the whole page becomes harder to trust.

Two questions decide how much trouble an offer causes. Did you give something of value? And did you ask for a particular rating in return? The first question decides whether you broke a platform rule. The second decides whether you broke federal law.

What is the difference between an incentive for any review and one for a good review?

This is the line that matters, and most teams miss it.

An incentive for a review of any kind, good or bad, breaks Trustpilot's rules and Google's. It is usually outside section 465.4 of the FTC's rule, because that section is about incentives tied to sentiment.

An incentive conditioned on the review being positive breaks all three. So does an incentive for changing or deleting a negative review.

Read the first row again. An offer can be lawful and still get your reviews wiped and your profile flagged. Platform rules are stricter than the federal rule here, and the platform acts faster.

What does Trustpilot say about incentivized reviews?

The Guidelines for Businesses tell businesses not to offer incentives in connection with writing or editing reviews. The guidelines give the examples themselves: discounts, promo codes, prize draw entries, refunds, freebies, or any other benefit connected with the business for leaving a review.

The ban runs both ways. The Guidelines for Reviewers say a person who has received or been offered an incentive is not eligible to write the review.

There is a second trap in Trustpilot's rules, and support teams fall into it every week. The Action We Take policy lists asking a customer to edit or remove a review after you resolved their issue as misuse. The fix and the review have to stay separate. Refund because the refund is owed, reply in public, and say nothing about the rating.

Our Trustpilot rule page on incentivized reviews has the wording in full, with the table of what counts.

What does Google say about incentivized reviews?

Google is blunt. Its page on getting more reviews covers incentives offered so that customers post reviews, change reviews, or remove negative ones. Google calls that fake and misleading content, and strictly prohibited.

The content policy files the same conduct under fake engagement. Prohibited and restricted content says fake engagement is not allowed and will be removed, and it lists reviews or ratings that have been paid for, directly or in kind. "In kind" is the part people miss. A free product is payment.

The same policy tells merchants not to discourage or prohibit negative reviews, and not to selectively solicit positive ones. That rule is covered in our guide to review gating.

What does the FTC rule say about incentives?

The Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials is 16 CFR Part 465. The FTC announced it in August 2024 and it took effect that October.

Section 465.4 is the incentive section. It bans compensation or other incentives given in exchange for reviews that express a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative. The condition is what the section turns on. Pay for praise and you are inside it. Pay someone to delete a complaint and you are inside it too.

Penalties are real. The FTC can seek civil penalties against knowing violators, up to $53,088 per violation.

The clearest example involves a health brand and Trustpilot. In July 2025 the FTC took action against NextMed, a telehealth company selling GLP-1 weight-loss programs. The FTC said the company offered Amazon gift cards to consumers to remove or change negative reviews, and conditioned refunds on agreement to remove them. The Commission approved the final order in December 2025, with a $150,000 payment.

Two lessons follow. A federal agency reads third-party review sites. And a refund tied to a deletion is not a private arrangement between you and one unhappy buyer. Our telehealth page sets out the conduct in that case next to the compliant alternative.

What can a business still do to ask for reviews?

Plenty. The rules ban the bribe, not the ask.

• Invite every customer, at the same point after their order, with the same wording.
• Automate the invitation so nobody can pick names.
• Say nothing about the rating you want.
• Offer nothing of value, to anyone, for anything connected with a review.
• Thank customers in a way that does not depend on whether they reviewed you.
• Reply in public to reviews you already have, good and bad.

A loyalty reward that goes to every customer is fine. The same reward, sent only to customers who reviewed you, is an incentive. The test is whether the review changed what the customer received. Our guide to getting more Trustpilot reviews covers the safe version in detail.

What happens to reviews that were incentivized?

They come down, and the profile carries the mark.

Trustpilot can take incentivized reviews offline. Its Action We Take policy sets out a ladder for misuse. It starts with an educational email and a formal warning. It ends with account restrictions and a public Consumer Warning. While that warning is live, the TrustScore is hidden.

Google can act on the profile as well as the reviews. Its page on Business Profile restrictions describes three outcomes. A profile can be stopped from taking new reviews for a set time. Its reviews can be unpublished. It can carry a public warning about removed reviews.

The arithmetic is bad. You pay for the reviews, you lose the reviews, and the profile that is left is worse than the one you started with. Buying reviews outright ends the same way, as our guide to what Google does when a brand pays for reviews shows.

Do promo codes and affiliate reviews count?

They are the same problem seen from a different angle. An affiliate is paid by you. When that affiliate writes a 5-star review with their own code in it, the review is both incentivized and promotional, and it breaks the advertising rules on both platforms.

Reviews carrying codes or links can be reported whatever their rating, and the 5-star ones should be reported too. Flagging a type of content only when it appears in negative reviews is itself listed as misuse. Our guide to promo-code and affiliate reviews covers the evidence and the flagging reason.

What if incentivized reviews are already on your profile?

Stop the offer first. Then read the profile against the rules, and report only the reviews that break one, at a slow pace, across star ratings. Positive reviews that break the same rule go too.

That is the work behind our Trustpilot review removal service. Remove One Star charges $475 to $600 per confirmed removal, with nothing paid up front, and the three packs and their prices are public. Trustpilot and Google decide each case, so no review is certain to come down. You never pay for one that stays up.