“Can I knock fifty dollars off for a five-star review?” It sounds like a fair trade: the customer saves money, you get the review, and the next homeowner sees a good rating. It is also a review tactic a federal rule now names outright, and Google's policy goes further than the rule does.
Here is what each set of rules says, in plain words, and a way of asking that keeps you inside both.
The FTC rule: no reward for a particular kind of review
The Federal Trade Commission's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials took effect on October 21, 2024. Its section on buying reviews is short. A business may not provide compensation or other incentives in exchange for, or conditioned expressly or by implication on, consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative (16 CFR 465.4). A discount for a five-star review is exactly that.
The rule also covers the other shortcuts. A business may not write or sell fake reviews, buy reviews it knew or should have known misrepresent the reviewer or the reviewer's experience, or procure such reviews from its own officers, managers, employees or agents or their immediate relatives (16 CFR 465.2). An officer or manager of the business may not post a review of it without clearly disclosing the relationship, and one who asks employees or relatives for reviews must tell them to disclose it, or answer for the undisclosed reviews that result (16 CFR 465.5).
The FTC says the rule lets courts impose civil penalties for knowing violations. For penalties assessed after January 17, 2025, the maximum for a knowing rule violation is $53,088 per violation (16 CFR 1.98(d)), the same figure the FTC quoted when it sent warning letters to 10 companies about the rule in December 2025. The FTC stressed that those letters were not findings that anyone had broken the rule.
Google's policy: no reward for any review
The federal rule stops at sentiment. The FTC's own questions-and-answers page says the rule does not prohibit incentives for reviews as long as there is no express or implied requirement that the reviews express a particular sentiment, and adds that failing to disclose an incentive could still violate the FTC Act. Its guide for marketers says that even without that condition, the review should disclose the incentive.
Google does not leave that door open. Its Maps content policy says merchants must not offer incentives, such as payment, discounts, free goods or services, in exchange for posting any review, or for revising or removing a negative one. Google's help page on review links repeats it: offering incentives for reviews is considered fake engagement and is strictly prohibited.
The consequences go beyond losing the reviews. Google says that if it finds a business owner violated its fake engagement policy, it may, in addition to removing the reviews, stop the Business Profile from receiving new reviews for a set period, unpublish its existing reviews for a set period, or show a warning telling consumers that fake reviews were removed. For a contractor who wins work from the map listing, any of those would cost far more than the discount ever saved.
So the practical answer is simple: no reward of any kind, for any review, on Google. Not a discount, not a gift card, not an entry into a drawing.
Asking only the happy customers
The quieter trap is review gating: asking every customer how the job went, then sending only the satisfied ones to Google and steering the rest somewhere private. Say a contractor's follow-up message asks for a rating from one to five, and only fours and fives get the Google link. That is gating.
Google's policy says merchants must not discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers. The FTC's guide for marketers says it directly: don't ask for reviews only from customers you think will leave positive ones. The FTC's questions-and-answers page notes that the 2024 rule has no specific ban on asking only happy customers, but says the practice could violate the FTC Act.
Your crew, your family, yourself
Google's policy prohibits content based on a conflict of interest, which it says may include current or former employment, a contractual relationship, or personal affiliations such as family relationships and industry competitors. Reviews of your business by you, your crew or your relatives fit that description. Its fake engagement rules also bar content posted from multiple accounts by or at the request of one person. And a disclosure that might satisfy the FTC may not be enough elsewhere: the FTC's own guide warns that some platforms prohibit reviews from people with personal or financial connections to the seller even when the connection is disclosed. Ask your crew to hand customers the link, not to post reviews themselves.
What you can do: ask everyone, the same way
The FTC rule repeatedly carves out “generalized solicitations to purchasers”: asking the people who bought from you to post about their experience (16 CFR 465.2(d) and 465.5). That is the safe pattern. Every finished job gets the same request, whatever you expect the answer to be.
Google makes the mechanics easy. From your Business Profile, choose Read reviews, then Get more reviews, and you can copy a link or save a QR code that asks customers for a review. Google suggests putting it on receipts, in thank-you emails and at the end of a chat, and printing the QR code for display.
A few habits make the request work without bending anything:
Here is a request that fits, as an example:
“Hi [first name], thanks for having us out for the gutter job. If you have a minute, an honest review on Google helps other homeowners decide: [your link]. Good, bad or in between, we read every one.”
No stars mentioned, nothing offered, and the same words go to the customer who loved the job and the one who thought the cleanup was slow.
When the review is bad
Asking everyone means some reviews will sting. The rules apply there too: Google's policy bars offering anything in exchange for revising or removing a negative review. What you can do is fix the problem and answer in public, calmly. Answering a bad review covers what to say, what never to post, and when a review can be reported.
The short version
HurraBell™, our review-request tool, is built on these rules: the same request, in your words, to every customer when the job is done, a link straight to your Google review page, and nothing offered in return. Review requests are switched off for every account today while the mail plumbing is finished, so for now send the link yourself; the HurraBell page says where it stands.
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change and vary by state; check with the agency named above or a professional for your situation.