Google Reviews API: The Free Options vs the 5-Review Limit
By Toy Wen Da, Co-Founder · Updated · 7 min read · scored 96/100
A Google reviews API is Google's own interface for pulling review data by code instead of by hand, and Google offers two of them: a free Business Profile API for listings you manage and a Places API that reads up to five reviews from any business. Picking the wrong one costs you either an approval wait or an unnecessary bill.
If review scores and review volume affect how your locations rank, the harder job is tracking those signals consistently across every listing you manage. SearchBlueprint's local SEO tools do that at the location level and pair rank data with the review signals that move it, so you don't have to assemble the picture from raw API output.
The two official Google reviews APIs and why people mix them up
Reviews matter enough that this confusion costs real money. BrightLocal's 2025 consumer survey found that 83% of consumers use Google to check reviews before they trust a local business, and 81% look at reviews before they'll even walk in the door. That is why so many site owners go looking for a reviews API in the first place, and why the two official options disappoint so many of them.
Google Business Profile API: best for reviews on listings you own
The Google Business Profile API, the newer name for what used to be the Google My Business API, lets you read and reply to reviews on locations your account manages. It returns review text and star ratings along with timestamps and a pagination token, at up to 50 reviews per response page. Access is free for registered, approved users, but only on profiles you are verified to manage, so your own restaurant works and a competitor's never will.
Pick it if the reviews you want sit on your own listings. Skip it if you need reviews from any business you don't manage.
Google Places API: best for quick lookups on any business
The Places API is what people reach for when they want reviews from businesses they don't own. Add reviews to the field mask on a Place Details request and you get review text and ratings back for any public listing. There is a hard limit of five reviews per listing, with no pagination and no sorting beyond what Google decides is "most relevant." Developers have asked Google to lift that cap since 2015 through its public Issue Tracker, and the request is still unresolved. Calls cost $25 per 1,000 Place Details requests, offset by roughly $200 in free monthly credit, which covers about 8,000 calls before you pay out of pocket.
Pick it for spot-checks on a handful of businesses. Skip it if you need full review histories.
How to pull or manage reviews inside Google Business Profile
For most small business owners, the simplest path skips the API entirely.
Reading and replying to reviews without an API
- Sign in to your Google Business Profile account.
- Select the location you want to manage, or switch to the multi-location view if you have several.
- Open the reviews section for that location, where each customer review appears with its rating.
- Read each review, filter by star rating if you need to, and post a reply directly underneath it.
- Repeat per location, because the dashboard has no bulk-export button.
Requesting Business Profile API access for programmatic pulls
If you need reviews flowing into your own site or app automatically, you'll need actual API access:
- Create a Google Cloud project and enable the Business Profile APIs inside it.
- Make sure your Business Profile is complete and verified, and that it lists your official website.
- Submit Google's Business Profile API access request.
- Wait for approval, which commonly takes a couple of weeks and sometimes longer.
- Once approved, set up OAuth 2.0 credentials and call the reviews-list endpoint for your authorized location.
Our full walkthrough of the Google Business Profile API's access process covers the Cloud Console setup and common approval rejections in more detail if you want the step-by-step version.
When Google's own tools are enough and when they aren't
The decision comes down to two questions: how many listings you have, and how often you need fresh data.
If you manage one location or a handful and just want to reply to reviews or embed your own star rating on your website, the free Business Profile API or even the dashboard covers it. There is no reason to pay a third party for data you can already pull for free.
The official route breaks down at scale and ownership. If you need reviews from businesses you don't manage, want more than five per listing, or must refresh review data across dozens or hundreds of locations on a schedule, neither official API will get you there, because the Places API's five-review cap and the Business Profile API's ownership requirement both rule them out. At that point a paid third-party option starts to make financial sense.
Google Reviews API pricing: official vs third-party
Check the units before comparing prices directly. The Places API charges per call, and each call returns at most five reviews, so $25 buys you 5,000 reviews at the cap. Third-party vendors charge per review, so a comparable $25 with Lobstr.io can buy tens of thousands of full review records.
| Option | Price | Review Access | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Profile API | Free (approval required) | All reviews, your own listings only | Replying to and displaying your own reviews |
| Places API | $25 per 1,000 calls (~$200 free credit/month, ~8,000 calls) | 5 reviews per listing, any business | One-off lookups, quick spot-checks |
| Outscraper | ~$3 per 1,000 reviews | Unlimited, any business | Query filters, region control |
| SerpApi | ~$1.50 per 1,000 reviews | Unlimited, any business | Real-time, synchronous lookups |
| DataForSEO | Pay-as-you-go | Unlimited, any business | Teams already using DataForSEO for SEO data |
| Lobstr.io | ~$0.10–$0.40 per 1,000 reviews | Unlimited, any business | Cheapest at scale, asynchronous jobs |
How we compared
We compared each option using the public pricing and feature information the vendors publish, along with the review sites and documentation listed in Sources. We did not open paid accounts or run any of these tools ourselves, so the figures above are the published ones and your own bill may differ with volume and plan.
Common mistakes when pulling reviews via API
- Treating "Google reviews API" as one product. It is two unrelated APIs solving different problems, plus a separate third-party market.
- Expecting the Places API to paginate. Five reviews is the ceiling, and there is no way to request more.
- Skipping markup when you display pulled reviews on your own site. Mark them up with Schema.org's Review and AggregateRating types so Google can render star ratings in search results.
- Underestimating the approval timeline. Launching a feature around Business Profile API access without budgeting a couple of weeks for approval is a common planning mistake.
- Confusing bulk export with reputation management. If a mix of genuine and suspicious negative reviews is part of why you want bulk data, find out which reviews Google will actually remove before you build around the assumption that a bad review can simply be deleted.
FAQs
Is there a free Google reviews API?
Yes. The Google Business Profile API is free for registered, approved users, but it only returns reviews for listings you manage and won't pull reviews from a competitor or any business you don't own.
Why does the Google Places API only return five reviews?
Google caps Place Details review results at five per listing by design. Developers have requested changes since 2015, and no fix has been issued.
Can I get all the reviews for a business I don't own?
Not through either official Google API, since the Places API caps at five and the Business Profile API requires ownership. Third-party providers such as Outscraper, SerpApi or Lobstr.io are the route to full review histories for businesses you don't manage.
How long does Google Business Profile API approval take?
Timelines vary, but a couple of weeks is a common wait after you submit a complete, verified Business Profile and an access request.
Do I need an API just to reply to my Google reviews?
No. You can read and reply to reviews directly inside your Google Business Profile account without any developer setup. The API only matters if you want that process automated or embedded elsewhere.
Pick the right starting point
Most readers who search "Google reviews API" want reviews to show up somewhere other than Google's own site. If the reviews are on your own listing, the free Business Profile API or the dashboard gets you there without a bill. If you need reviews at scale from businesses you don't own, a third-party option is the straightforward answer. Either way, review data is most useful once it is tied to the local rankings it is meant to support, which is the layer SearchBlueprint's local SEO tools are built to track. Talk to the team to see what that looks like against your own listings.
Sources
About the author
SearchBlueprint researched, wrote and scored this article with the content pipeline our customers run on their own sites. The score in the byline is what our content engine gave this page before it published. Nothing here is reviewed by hand, which is the point: it is the product's output, published where anyone can check it.