No. You can't offer a discount, a free coffee, a gift card or a prize draw entry in exchange for a Google review. That applies whether the reward is for a five-star review or for any review at all, and it applies to rewards for editing or deleting a bad one too.
You can ask every customer to leave a review. You can make it easy. What you can't do is attach something of value to the act of posting.
Where Google draws the line
Google files this under its fake engagement rules. Summaries of the policy from Applause and Vizup agree on the basics: coupons, gift cards, free services and prize entries given in return for a review are out, and so are payments or perks offered to change or remove an existing negative review.
The "regardless of sentiment" version is a common trap. Some agencies suggest you can reward everyone who reviews, good or bad, and stay clean. The policy summaries we found say otherwise: the problem is the exchange itself, not whether the review is positive. A reward for any review is still a reward for a review.
A simple test: would the customer get the same benefit if they never posted anything? If yes, you're fine. If the benefit depends on posting, editing or removing a review, it's an incentive.
What happens if you get caught
Consequences reported by PinMeto and others include removed reviews, penalties on your listing, and in serious cases a suspended Business Profile. Competitors can report you. So can customers. Google has also been reported to ask some users directly whether a business offered a reward for their review.
The upside of a bribed review is one extra star on a profile. The downside is losing the profile. That trade doesn't work even before you count the trust cost of a review that reads like an ad.
Things that look harmless but aren't
- A sign at the till: "Leave us a 5-star review, get 10% off." Incentive, and it also asks for a specific rating.
- A monthly draw for everyone who reviewed. Prize entry in exchange for a review.
- "We'll refund you if you take the review down." Incentive to remove, which is just as prohibited.
- Staff competitions with a cash prize for most reviews collected. This one is a grey area worth thinking about. The reward goes to your employee, not the customer, and recognition is common practice. Keep the prize tied to asking every customer, not to only asking the ones who seem pleased, and never to a star count.
What you can do instead
Run a normal promotion that has nothing to do with reviews. A loyalty card, a seasonal offer or a referral program is fine as long as the customer gets the same thing whether or not they post.
Ask everyone, the same way. The same prompt for every customer is policy-safe. Asking only the ones who look happy is the part Google calls gating. Our explainer on the gating policy goes through exactly where that line sits.
Remove friction instead of adding rewards. Most customers who would happily review never do, because it takes too many taps. A short link or a QR card at the counter beats a discount for conversion, and it costs nothing per review. If you want the full list of reasons people skip it, see why customers don't leave reviews.
Say thank you after the fact. A public reply to a review is not an incentive, and it keeps people coming back. We cover it in how to respond to a positive Google review.
Thank your team, not your customers. If you want rewards in the system, aim them at the people doing the asking. Per-staff attribution makes that easy to see, and a staff leaderboard shows who is asking consistently.
Does the same rule apply to private feedback?
The rule is about reviews on Google. A customer feedback form that goes to your own inbox is a different channel, and thanking people for filling in a survey is normal practice. Keep the two honest, though: if a "feedback" form is really a way to route happy customers to Google and unhappy ones away from it, that's gating, whatever it's called.
The clean version is simple. Every customer gets the same rating prompt. After the stars, the customer decides whether the comment goes to a public profile or to you privately. Nobody is filtered, and nobody is paid.
The short version
Ask every customer. Make it fast. Never pay for it, in coupons or in kind. If you want more reviews, cut the steps between "that was great" and "posted", and let the volume come from asking consistently rather than from a reward.
Starboard is built around that: one scan, one rating prompt for everyone, and the customer picks where their feedback goes. The rest is just doing the asking every day.