LSD
APIEndpoint 9 of 40Business Data / Reviews / Google Reviews

Google Reviews API

The reviews API for the new local SEO stack.

The dashboard era built review tools for humans. Google's official Places API caps you at five reviews per business. We built infrastructure for the agents working on your behalf — full review history in one POST call, JSON out, your Claude prompt does the rest.

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POST /v1/business/reviews · 1 credit / 10 reviews

POST /v1/business/reviews3 of 847 returned

John D.

2 days ago

Best pizza in NYC, hands down. The classic slice is perfection.

Owner reply

Thanks John! Come back anytime.

Maria L.

1 week ago

Great food, though the wait was a little longer than expected on Saturday.

Sam R.

3 weeks ago

Authentic, family-run, and the calzones are unreal. Bringing the whole team next week.

▌ Ask your agent

These prompts are the new local SEO workflow.

Connect Local SEO Data as an MCP server once (60 seconds, below). Then your agent runs the work. Replace bracketed business names with your own.

Review monitoring

Pull every Google review for [Joe's Pizza in Brooklyn, NY] from the last 90 days. Flag any 1-star or 2-star reviews that don't have an owner reply yet.

Competitive sentiment

Compare review sentiment for [my business] and my top 3 local competitors. Show me the top 5 things customers complain about for each.

Pattern detection

List every Google review of [my business] where someone mentions "wait time" or "slow service." Group by month and tell me if it's getting worse.

Multi-location workflow

Pull this week's new Google reviews for all 12 client locations. Draft owner replies for the 4+ star reviews and flag the rest for human review.

▌ Real response

What you get back

Live response from POST /v1/business/reviews for a sample Brooklyn pizzeria.

response · application/json~2.4s · 1 credit
{
  "status": "success",
  "credits_used": 1,
  "summary": {
    "total_reviews": 847,
    "average_rating": 4.6,
    "rating_distribution": { "5": 520, "4": 187, "3": 78, "2": 35, "1": 27 },
    "owner_reply_rate": 0.62
  },
  "reviews": [
    {
      "author": "John D.",
      "rating": 5,
      "text": "Best pizza in NYC, hands down. The classic slice is perfection.",
      "date": "2026-01-15",
      "owner_reply": "Thanks John! Come back anytime.",
      "reply_date": "2026-01-16"
    }
    // ... up to 100 reviews per call, paginated via offset
  ]
}
▌ Returns

Everything you need to act on reviews

Per review

Author, rating, text, date, owner reply

Up to 100 reviews per call — double the official GBP API's 50-per-page cap. Paginate via offset for the full history.

Aggregate

Count, average rating, distribution

Star breakdown across all reviews. Computed at request time.

Owner activity

Reply rate, average time-to-reply

Critical for diagnosing reputation hygiene on a profile.

Sort options

Newest, highest, lowest

Pair with Review Velocity for trend analysis.

▌ Built for

What AI-native operators ship with this

Client review dashboards

Agencies pull all 12 client locations on a schedule, flag drops, surface unreplied negatives. Built once in Claude, runs on cron. No per-seat dashboard required.

→ For agencies

Auto-drafted owner replies

Pull new reviews, draft on-brand owner replies in Claude, queue for one-click approval. A LocalSEOSkills skill ships with the prompt.

→ LocalSEOSkills

Competitor sentiment tracking

Pull your top 5 competitors' reviews monthly. Run sentiment and theme extraction in your agent. Know what's eroding their customers before they fix it.

→ Competitor Gap API

Pre-pitch audits for consultants

Pull a prospect's review history before the call. Walk in knowing their pain. Closing rate goes up because the diagnosis isn't guesswork.

→ For consultants
▌ vs. the alternatives

Why not just use Google's official API?

Google's Places API returns a maximum of 5 reviews per business and requires OAuth for any production use. For anything beyond a personal-use prototype, you need an alternative. Here's how the options stack up.

ApproachReview limitSetupCostAI-agent ready
Google Places API (official)5 reviews maxOAuth, project setup$17 / 1K callsNo MCP, manual schema
Google Business Profile APIOwned listings onlyOAuth + 2-4 week approvalFree (gated)No competitor access
Custom scrapingUnlimited but brittleBuild + maintainProxy + CAPTCHA costsBreaks regularly
BrightLocal / WhitesparkUnlimitedDashboard UI~$40–50/mo flatManual CSV export
DataForSEO / Outscraper / Lobstr / SerpApiUnlimitedAPI key + dev work$0.50–0.75 per callREST only, no MCP
Local SEO Data Reviews APIUnlimited, 100 per callAPI key + 1-line MCP config$0.005 per 10 reviewsNative MCP, agent-first
▌ Connect in 60 seconds

Use it from your agent

Two integration surfaces: MCP for clients that speak MCP, REST API for everything else.

Direct MCP integration

Drop-in support in Claude Desktop, OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, and any MCP-aware client.

Add to your client's MCP config (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "localseodata": {
      "url": "https://mcp.localseodata.com",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

REST API

For Perplexity Computer, ChatGPT Custom GPTs, custom agents, and any platform that calls REST endpoints directly.

Base URL:

api.localseodata.com

See the docs for endpoint reference and auth.

▌ Quickstart

Your first call in three lines

Same call, three syntaxes. The `place_id` is Google's canonical business identifier (also called locationId or Business Profile ID) — find any business's Place ID in [Google's Place ID Finder](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-placeid-finder) or pulled from any Maps URL.

terminal · curl
POST /v1/business/reviews
curl -X POST https://api.localseodata.com/v1/business/reviews \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "place_id": "ChIJN1t_tDeuEmsRUsoyG83frY4",
    "limit": 100,
    "sort": "newest"
  }'
Full endpoint reference → · Get an API key →
▌ Pricing for this endpoint

$0.005 per 10 reviews

Pay-as-you-go starts at $5. Monthly plans from $19. Funds never expire. No seat fees, ever.

Free tier
500
reviews on signup (50 credits)
Starter · $19/mo
40,000
reviews/mo at this rate
Per-call cost
$0.005
per 10 reviews returned
▌ FAQ

Common questions

What is the Google Reviews API?+
A REST endpoint that returns the full review history for any Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) — author, rating, text, date, owner reply, and aggregate stats — in structured JSON. It's the data layer underneath review-monitoring, sentiment-analysis, and owner-reply workflows. The endpoint is POST /v1/business/reviews; one call returns up to 100 reviews and costs 1 credit (~$0.005).
How do I authenticate with the Google Reviews API?+
Authentication uses a Bearer token. Generate an API key from your Local SEO Data dashboard (Settings → API Keys), then include it as Authorization: Bearer sk_live_... in your request headers. The same key works for MCP integration (in your claude_desktop_config.json) and direct REST calls. No OAuth flow, no project setup, no domain verification, and no multi-week approval — the Google Business Profile API requires a 2-4 week application; this is provisioned in 30 seconds. There are no per-endpoint quotas either: your only ceiling is your credit balance, so a daily 12-location sweep uses the same rate-limit pattern as a one-off call. See the authentication docs for key rotation, scoping, and security best practices.
Can I get Google reviews for businesses I don't own?+
Yes — and this is the core reason third-party review APIs exist. Google's official Business Profile API only returns reviews for listings you've claimed and verified via OAuth, which is fine for managing your own businesses but useless for competitor monitoring, prospect audits, or acquisition diligence. The Places API caps at 5 reviews regardless of ownership. Our endpoint accepts any Place ID — your competitors, your prospects, your client's locations, any business you can identify by Place ID. No verification, no OAuth, no ownership requirement. This is what makes competitor sentiment tracking, pre-pitch audits, and the agent prompts above actually work.
Is it legal to use a third-party Google reviews API?+
Google reviews are public data — anyone can read them on Google Maps without authentication, and third-party review APIs have been a standard category for over a decade (DataForSEO, Outscraper, Lobstr.io, SerpApi, BrightLocal, Whitespark). Google's Terms of Service govern automated access to *Google's own services* and are a civil contract, not a criminal statute; federal courts in *hiQ v. LinkedIn* have consistently held that scraping publicly available data does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. You're also not the one operating the collection — you're calling a hosted API whose upstream provider operates this surface at scale. If you're running production review intelligence for client work, this is the standard, defensible path. (None of this is legal advice; consult your counsel for your specific use case.)
Where does this review data come from?+
Google Reviews data for this endpoint is aggregated from DataForSEO, our upstream provider for most SERP and business-data endpoints. Review data refreshes within approximately 6 hours of new reviews being posted to a Google Business Profile, and aggregate stats (rating distribution, owner reply rate) refresh within 24 hours. For composite endpoints like Citation Audit and AI Visibility we operate our own first-party collection infrastructure — we name the source because if you're running real client work you should know where the data comes from.
How often should I call the Google Reviews API?+
It depends on the workflow. Daily for active review monitoring where new negatives need owner replies fast. Weekly for trend tracking and sentiment shifts across multiple locations. Monthly for client reporting and historical baselining. Most agencies cron-job a daily scan across all client locations, flag changes via agent, and surface only what needs human attention. Because pricing is per-call (not per-seat or per-location), there's no penalty for frequency beyond actual usage.
Can AI agents use the Google Reviews API directly?+
Yes. Two integration paths. MCP: add Local SEO Data to your claude_desktop_config.json (or any MCP-aware client — OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, etc.) and the agent calls this endpoint from any prompt. REST: any agent that can make HTTPS calls — ChatGPT Custom GPTs, Perplexity Computer, custom Python agents — hits api.localseodata.com directly with the Bearer token. You don't write integration code. You write the prompt.
How does this compare to the official Google Places API?+
Google's Places API returns a maximum of 5 reviews per business and requires OAuth, which makes it suitable for embedding ratings in a consumer app but not for review intelligence. The Google Business Profile API (formerly Google My Business API) requires you to own and verify each business — fine for managing your own listings, useless for monitoring competitors or auditing prospects. For full review history across any business you don't own, you need a third-party endpoint. That's the gap we fill.
Does this work for multi-location businesses?+
Yes, and this is where the agent model earns its keep. Each call pulls reviews for one location, but you can batch as many as you want — the API has no per-call limit beyond your credit balance. Most multi-location operators set a daily or weekly agent run across every location. The Local Audit API composites reviews, rankings, and citations into one call per location if you want a single per-location report.
What changed in 2026 that made this category exist?+
MCP — the Model Context Protocol — became standard in late 2024 and went mainstream through 2025. It let agents call external APIs without bespoke integration code. The moment that happened, the right shape of a local SEO data product flipped from "dashboard with a login" to "endpoint your agent calls." The dashboard era is winding down the same way the scraper era is.
▌ Related endpoints

Often used in the same agent prompt

POST /v1/reviews/velocity
Review Velocity

Trend, rating change, reply rate over time.

POST /v1/reviews/multi-platform
Multi-Platform Reviews

Google + Trustpilot in one call.

POST /v1/business/profile
Google Business Profile

Hours, categories, photos, attributes.

POST /v1/audit/reputation
Reputation Audit

Composite: reviews + sentiment + cross-platform.

Build your first agent workflow in 60 seconds.

50 free credits on signup. Your first review fetch happens through Claude, not curl.

Start FreeRead the docs
▌ MADE FOR THE NEW LOCAL SEO STACK