Working out how many reviews you need to catch your competitors

Every article on this question says the same thing: there is no magic number, look at your competitors. That is correct and it is where all of them stop, which leaves you exactly where you started.

Here is the method. It takes twenty minutes, it needs no tools, and it ends with a number of reviews per month rather than a total, which is the only form you can actually act on.

Why a benchmark cannot answer this

A 2026 study of ranked local businesses found a median review count of 58, with the full range running from 1 to 4,400. That spread is the reason no benchmark helps.

The category medians make it sharper still. In that same data the median ranked concrete contractor had about 11 reviews. The median ranked HVAC company had 182. Same country, same platform, sixteen times the requirement.

Small-town businesses in that study frequently ranked on 10 to 30 reviews. Metro markets often needed 100 to 300 or more. So the useful question is not how many reviews are needed, it is how many are needed here, for this, against these three businesses.

The twenty minute method

Step 1: Find the right three, from the right place

Search your main term from the area you actually want work from, not from your own premises where distance flatters you. Write down the three businesses in the map pack.

If you serve several areas, do this for the two or three that matter most. You will sometimes find different competitors in each, which is useful on its own.

Step 2: Record four numbers for each

• Total review count.
• Average rating.
• The date of their most recent review.
• How many they received in the last three months. You count these by opening their reviews, sorting by newest, and scrolling until you pass the three month mark.

That fourth number is the one nobody collects and it is the most important. It is their rate, and a rate is what you have to beat, not a total.

Step 3: Do the arithmetic

Take the lowest of the three total counts. That is your target, because you are trying to enter the pack rather than lead it. Subtract yours. That is the gap.

Now take their rate. Divide their three month count by three and you have their reviews per month. To close a gap rather than hold it steady, you have to beat that rate, and the gap divided by the amount you beat it by is how many months this takes.

Third place has        74 reviews, 9 in 3 months  = 3/month
You have               22 reviews, 2 in 3 months  = 0.7/month

Gap                    52 reviews
At 3/month you never close it. You match their pace.
At 6/month you gain 3/month, and close it in ~17 months.
At 9/month you gain 6/month, and close it in ~9 months.

Turning the number into something achievable

Nine a month sounds like a lot until you divide it by your job count.

A business doing 60 jobs a month needs roughly one in seven customers to leave a review. A business doing 20 jobs a month needs closer to one in two, which is a different proposition and may mean the honest answer is a longer timeline rather than a harder push.

Do that division before setting the target. It converts an abstract goal into either a reasonable ask or a reason to reset expectations, and both are more useful than a number nobody can hit.

Three things the count does not tell you

• Recency. A competitor with 200 reviews and none in eight months is weaker than the number suggests, and it is a gap worth attacking.
• Rating. Catching them on count while sitting a full star below them is not catching them.
• Content. Twenty reviews describing specific jobs do more for a reader, and for anything summarising you, than a hundred saying great service.

We argued the case for those three over raw volume in a separate piece, which is worth reading alongside this one: that page explains why the total is the wrong thing to watch, and this one is what to do once you accept it. Building the rate itself is covered in review velocity and how to ask.