Top 3 Review Apps for Social Proof and Customer Trust

In this highly competitive digital world, having your Shopify store out there is usually not enough.

You must put some real effort and find a way to stand out from the other brands on the market.

You must give your audience the ultimate user experience.

You must prove to your prospects what makes your products their very best choice.

You must market smartly, test constantly and optimize strategically.

Swimming in a blue ocean is tough. Fortunately, there are many amazing tools that give you an edge and help you provide better service for your clients.

One of the best ways to outscore the competitors in your niche is by using review apps!

Did we mention that most of these game-changing apps are free?

They are the heroes of this article – we’ve gathered some of the most robust and used review apps and assessed them.

By pointing out the pros and cons of each of them, we aim at helping you choose the one that works best for your Shopify storefront.

Let’s dive in.

Table Of Contents

• Why should you use review apps?

• #1 App – Stamped.io

• #2 App – Judge.me

• #3 App – Loox

• Conclusion

Why Should You Use Review Apps?

Trust is essential for your brand image. One of the best ways to build it up is through your client’s reviews!

More than 88% of customers read reviews and most of the time these testimonials turn out to be what makes customers purchase or leave the online store with an empty cart.

People feel more inclined to make a purchase when they don’t see a risk. Reading about other people’s experience of buying from your store or in other words – the famous “word of mouth” is still one of the best marketing strategies. For what is more, it comes absolutely free.

Review apps are an extremely powerful marketing tool and we have gathered the finest ones here.

Let’s take a look at the first one.

1. Stamped.io

Our first best contender is “Stamped.io”. Truly a great option that you can start quickly and hassle-free. A few clicks are what you need to start boosting the trust of your brand to the sky thus increasing conversions and scaling up profits.

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Flexibility

The flow of Stamped.io is smooth and simple. When you make a sale, an email gets sent to the customer asking for a review of the product. And beauty happens. This is the first step of making all sales that come after way easier.

After the testimonial is written, you have full power over it. You can choose to publish or hide it, set it as featured, or even make an ad from it if you believe it is that good!

This is one of the many great advantages this app provides for free – a review request to your client that they can leave directly in the email!

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If you are establishing a brand, customization is one of the keys this tool also provides. In order to strengthen your brand identity, you can adjust your email template to your brand image.

You can start with creating a branded “thank you” page for reviewers and then keep on going with other customizable parts.

These adjustments are a professional way to encourage reviews and make the client subconsciously more secure while building up your brand’s credibility.

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Tools & Features

1. Surplus customization
   Customization begins right after you download the app. Stamped.io is a tool that encourages you to differentiate your brand from others. This feature makes this app a perfect choice for any shop merchant focused on branding.

2. Check out reviews
   Another great feature Stamped.io provides is “check out reviews”. It helps acquire a quick review of the customer and a review, whether big or small, adds to building strong social proof.

3. Kickstart with past reviews
   Even if you jumped late on these influential and effective apps, Stamped.io allows you to kickstart your reviews by sending emails to your customers from the past 30 to 120 days.

4. Analytics Dashboard
   This AI-powered analytics tool is a great implementation. Stamped.io provides a fully comprehensive analysis of your reviews, allowing you to better read and interpret numbers. Needless to say, marketing data can (and must) lead your business strategy.

5. Multi-lingual support
   A rare affair found only in the biggest app providers. This tool is available in 18+ languages so you won’t have a problem reaching out to the Stamped.io team if your store is set up in your native language.

6. Loyalty program
   The program includes VIP titles, referral programs, and acquiring points for rewards. This is another great way to encourage your customers to write a review for your product. 

Customer Support

We exchanged multiple emails with the Stamped.io customer support team – it felt like having a warm and friendly conversation with a friend.

Fast and dependable, they helped us with all our concerns.

The part where Stamped.io creates a deficiency for themselves is not having a dedicated Help Center within their app. Their myriad of articles and user-generated content is only available on their site.

Reviews & Testimonials

Stamped.io has this one remarkably covered. Their list of clients includes worldwide-known brands such as Colgate, HBO, and Purple.

Furthermore, their testimonials and the reviews of thousands of smaller business owners prove that Stamped.io is one of the greatest review app choices.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• The free plan provides more than just the essentials

• Many opportunities for customization & branding.

• Mobile-friendly on any theme

Cons

• Higher-priced plan than other review apps.

• Relatively short free trial.

• Might appear a bit overwhelming for newcomers.

Summary & Pricing

Stamped.io is a great fit for all your social proof & customer feedback needs.

This tool offers many crucial for your brand image customization options. All templates you create and the app’s optimized functionalities allow you to display reviews and testimonials in a user-friendly and credible manner.

One might get overwhelmed at first glance with all options the app has, but through trial and error, it gradually gets faster and easier.

And if you thought that the free option satisfies your every need, you will be more than surprised with the pro features available on paid plans.

Pricing ranges from $23 to $119 per month, with annual subscriptions that lower your monthly bill of the app by 15 to 20%.

Features include tools like “AI review” – a review written for your customers automatically, so they can add it in just a few clicks; photo/video additions to the reviews, and many, many more!

Stamped.io offers a $249 – $299 enterprise plan for established brands, where its team becomes your under-brand with consultative service, bespoke customization, and dedicated prioritized support.

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About the App

Empowering over 100,000 brands worldwide, with clients like HBO and Colgate, Stamped.io truly is a leading platform for improvements and a great tool to use for an entrepreneur.

By providing social proof to its customers, it has acquired a great deal of it itself, throughout its service.

2. Judge.Me

Second, on the list is another of the Shopify review app barons – “Judge.me”. Compared to Stamped.io, this tool is much simpler yet it definitely does not step down in the number of features and opportunities it offers.

Flexibility

The setup is quite clear. A few clicks are all it takes after the download. The following app navigation is as simplified as possible.

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With four fully-loaded email templates, Judge.me can safely run on auto-pilot.

This review app also allows you to fully customize the templates you use.

Judge.me provides convenience to the customers as well. It lets buyers leave a review directly in the email they receive, thus limiting the hassle. As you know, when it comes to clients, the quicker the task, the greater the quantity.

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The navigation menu is much simpler compared to the ones in other review apps. This makes the app the best choice for all store merchants that look for a review app with all needed basics provided straightforwardly.

Greatly beneficial are also the thorough FAQ page and the dedicated support team.

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An automatic SEO booster is another feature this app offers. With Judge.me, you can add rich snippets to the review body, which would naturally increase your store’s organic traffic and rank it higher in the SERPs.

On top of all already mentioned, Judge.me can easily be integrated with numerous other apps for email marketing, upselling, and everything else your store needs.

Tools & Features

1. No watermarks

   No watermarks appear when you choose to use one of the paid plans. You can customize the templates and decide how to display your reviews without any app logos present.

2. QA section

   What happens if there are no reviews? Well, potential clients could be able to find the answers to their questions and to have their concerns eliminated instead. Judge.me provides this amazing feature in the app package thus gifting you a free QA functionality.

3. Unlimited product review requests

   The ability to send unlimited product review requests to your clients via email is a fantastic provision that is not offered for free by many app providers. Once you purchase their “Awesome” plan, you will receive unlimited reviews on your site as well.

4. Autopilot

   If you already have customers but are not quite ready with your templates and branding, you can start by using the autopilot settings that Judge.me offers. This automation lets you start gathering reviews while working on your branding.

5. Reviews directly inside the email

   What better way to get a review fast, without making your client leave the email they opened? Click, click and send. You have a review in no time.

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Customer Support

Their help is immediate and professional.

With no hesitation, the agent we reached to, offered to speed up and execute the solution from their end.

To have a specialist by your side who is ready to lend a hand in such a way is truly fantastic! Judge.me really does a great job in gratifying their clients.

Their “Support” tab has some FAQs already answered, but for a more specific issue, do not hesitate to contact the wonderful Judge.me customer service.

Reviews & Testimonials

Thousands of Shopify store owners across the globe trust Judge.me for a good reason.

From minor local businesses to big international brands, you can see Judge.me reviews all across the Internet.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Full customization from the Judge.me support team

• Multilingual tool – 34 languages available

• Lowest cost of all review apps

• Option for a forever-free plan

Cons

• Lacks enterprise-level functions

Summary & Pricing

If you are brand new to e-commerce, this app is for you.

There is power in simplicity and this tool takes full advantage of it.

Judge.me offers two packages only. The first one is completely free and the other, named “Awesome”, costs only $15 per month. This relatively low pricing places Judge.me in the most economical section of apps throughout the whole app store.

Amongst the app’s additional features are the Q&A page (which costs a lot as a standalone app), the opportunity to add a photo and video reviews, and many more.

About the App

The team behind Judge.me is truly upfront with their offers and “weaknesses” as they say.

The Judge.me crew grows rapidly and they deserve it. They add thousands of stores to their arsenal every month with millions of product reviews.

Sometimes simplicity is all you need.

3. Loox

Loox is in the premium league of review apps. The great number of ratings in the Shopify app store makes this app an absolute favorite among brands.

Flexibility

Loox greets you with a super simple, step-by-step setup.

You can configure your templates, discounts, etc. right off the bat, without having to separately search them.

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This review app specializes in photo reviews. It offers an automatic collection of customer reviews with photos attached and displays them for your prospects and website visitors.

With a stylish and remarkable outlook both on the user interface and on the reviews display, Loox offers a great opportunity to enhance your web design with a premium reviews section.

Reviews with photos attached are way more powerful than normal text reviews. With Loox, having visual testimonials is purely effortless.

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Tools & Features

1. Premium design

   Loox’s elegant review display will strengthen the premium look of your storefront and build up your brand’s credibility.

2. Loox pop-ups & sidebar

   Amongst the unique features of this app is the possibility to display reviews in various places and in many different ways. You can configure the tool to send popups to visitors or add your best reviews to a sidebar button, which can be accessed at any time.

3. Astonishing & dedicated review page

   What better way to gather and display all of your 5-star reviews than on one special page. Your visitors can scroll endlessly through the photos and satisfaction of your already existing clients.

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Customer Support

When we contacted Loox through their email, their response came incredibly fast.

Although there were some misspellings, the answer we received was kind and professional. The agent even added a screenshot for an easier-to-understand point of view.

The great deal about their support is the wonderful offer of onboarding calls and a customer success manager on their highest plan.

Even before you try to reach out to an agent, you will be greeted with 100+ blogs, articles, and FAQs written by the Loox team on their “Help” tab, where you can get your answers faster and maybe learn something new.

Reviews & Testimonials

More than 100,000 international brands trust and happily utilize Loox.

This review app prides itself with the highest number of reviews within the Shopify app store, even though it isn’t free. Once you read through the 6000+ testimonials of online merchants with an average rating of 4.9/5, you will understand why Loox deserves its place amongst the top 3 review apps.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Premium outlook

• Ready-to-go unique review placements

• Option to reply to your customers’ reviews

• Mobile-friendly sections and dedicated pages

Cons

• No video reviews

• Limited functions when compared to other review apps

• No free plan

Summary & Pricing

One can easily compare Loox to the iPhone of review apps.

This application is aimed at bringing your credibility to new heights with many rich snippets and SEO-optimized tools.

Loox starter plan is quite limited with a price tag of $9.99/month. The “Advanced” ($29.99/month) plan offers all Loox widgets and an opportunity to integrate your Facebook pixel.

The sweet spot for most is their “Pro” plan that costs $59.99/month. In this package, you receive full control and customization of your assets, Google Shopping integration, and a dedicated Facebook Tab.

Their highest “Unlimited” plan is shaped for big corporations and international businesses. Starting at $99.99 all the way to $499.99, the package features onboarding calls and a dedicated customer success manager (CSM).

About the App

Loox has made a name for itself (the biggest in this niche) throughout the Shopify apps community.

The blog on their website has hundreds of real stories of how their app helped the growth of powerful brands.

Conclusion

A study conducted in 2020 found that 88% of customers read and trust the reviews of other clients and that this helps them make informed purchases. These are 88% of potential customers lost forever if you do not have anything to display and prove the happiness of your clients.

Nowadays, with almost every visitor looking for and reading reviews, not getting an app to display reviews of your products could badly affect your conversion rate and brand credibility.

Furthermore, these apps raise your search engine rankings and prolong customer retention.

The Shopify app market offers many review apps thus making the decision of which one to use hard.

Do you know your way around e-commerce and are already thinking of the next few useful apps that you might get? Stamped.io is for you.

New to all of this? Let us advise you and say that a review app will be one of your most useful tools and Judge.me will serve you well.

Searching for the most premium designs and features? Loox has got you covered.

Each app offers different features and finding the one that works best for your store is key to utilizing this powerful tool successfully.

In case you hesitate which app to choose, wonder how to readjust the automated settings and display your testimonials in a specific way (coding required) or want to create your own custom reviews page or section, your very best option would be to ask for some expert help.