ReviewHeroIs a Perfect 5.0 Rating Bad? What the Data Shows
Is a perfect 5.0 rating bad? Two Northwestern figures disagree, BrightLocal's 2026 data adds context, and a thin score has an honest fix.
The short version
- Northwestern's Spiegel Research Center reported purchase likelihood peaking below 5.0, but its 2015 release says 4.2 to 4.5, its 2017 page says 4.0 to 4.7, and neither covers local services.
- BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US adults found only 10% will use only five-star businesses, while 68% want four stars or more and 47% want at least 20 reviews.
- A 5.0 built on a handful of reviews is a thin signal, so the fix is more honest reviews and public replies to the critical ones, never filtering or removing them.
A perfect score looks like a win, and you may wonder if it is one
You open your Google profile and it says 5.0. Then a competitor tells you a perfect score looks fake and that 4.7 sells better. One article says nobody trusts 5.0. Another says you need a perfect score to win the map pack.
All of these cannot be right, and most of them cite the same two sources without reading them. This article reads those sources, adds the 2026 consumer and ranking data, and says what a small business can reasonably conclude. The short version: a 5.0 is not a penalty, but it is a weaker signal than it feels like, and the cure is never to go looking for a bad review.
What the Spiegel research said, and the two versions of it
The claim that a 5.0 underperforms traces back to Northwestern University's Spiegel Research Center. There are two public versions, and they do not match.
The first is a PowerReviews press release dated 22 September 2015. It describes an analysis by PowerReviews and the Spiegel center of how star ratings and review content affect purchases, using PowerReviews data from the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) category, meaning everyday packaged goods. It puts the peak in purchase likelihood at an average rating of 4.2 to 4.5 stars and says perfect ratings strike skeptical shoppers as too good to be true. The release does not state how many reviews or products were analysed.
The second is the Spiegel center's own page, How Online Reviews Influence Sales, which reports findings first published in 2017. It puts the peak at 4.0 to 4.7 stars and says likelihood declines as ratings approach 5.0. It also reports that a product with five reviews was 270% more likely to be purchased than one with none, and that each extra review adds less after the first five. The page text does not give product or category counts.
| 2015 PowerReviews release | 2017 Spiegel page | |
|---|---|---|
| Peak purchase likelihood | 4.2 to 4.5 stars | 4.0 to 4.7 stars |
| Data | PowerReviews, FMCG category | Online product purchases |
| Sample size stated | No | Not in the page text |
| Business type | Consumer packaged goods | Products, not local services |
Two things follow. The direction agrees: purchase likelihood does not rise all the way to 5.0. But the exact range depends on which version you read, so any article that calls "4.2 to 4.5" or "4.0 to 4.7" a settled sweet spot for your business is overstating it. Neither study looked at a plumber, a salon or a dentist. Both looked at things people add to a basket.
The Spiegel page also makes a point about negative reviews: they can help, because they make the whole set of reviews look credible. That is a statement about credibility. It is not an instruction to collect bad reviews.
What shoppers say in 2026
A stated preference is not a purchase, but it is closer to local services than a product study. BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, published 11 February 2026, surveyed 1,002 US adults through a representative panel run on SurveyMonkey. Its findings on ratings:
| Threshold | Share of consumers | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Will only use a business with 4+ stars | 68% | 55% |
| Will only use a business with 4.5+ stars | 31% | 17% |
| Will only use a business with a five-star rating | 10% | Not stated |
| Won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews | 47% | Not stated |
Read the third row twice. Only 10% say they will use nothing below five stars. Most people are not screening for a perfect score. They are screening for a score that clears a bar, and the bar has risen: the 4+ and 4.5+ shares both jumped in a year.
The fourth row matters for a young profile. A 5.0 from six reviews fails the 20-review test for nearly half of consumers before the star rating comes up. BrightLocal's page does not say how consumers treat a 5.0 specifically, so this survey neither confirms nor refutes the "too perfect" idea. It shows that review count and the 4 and 4.5 bars do much of the sorting.
What the ranking data says
Ranking is a separate question from persuasion. Local Falcon's whitepaper, Google Reviews, Ratings and Location, published 14 January 2026, covers Q4 2025. After filtering to US results it analysed 50,357,778 searches, covering 2,779,825 unique business profiles across 1,993 categories.
It reports that 4.5 to 4.7 stars is the minimum needed to compete in most categories, that anything below 4.3 makes ranking very hard, and that the typical map-pack winner has 4.8 to 4.9 stars. A different section of the same page says 4.7 to 4.8 is where most winners sit, so treat the exact winning band as approximate. Categories differ: the page lists chiropractors at 4.8 (10th percentile) and 4.9 (median), and self-storage facilities at 4.3 and 4.8. It calls towing an outlier, with a 10th-percentile rating of 3.1.
Notice what the data does not say. The winning rating is a high 4.x, not 5.0. And the authors state the limit themselves: the data "doesn't prove that reviews alone caused" the rankings. Proximity, relevance and profile completeness all play a part. So a 4.8 is not a flaw to fix. It is where the winners sit.
How Google computes the number
Google's help page on review scores says the score is the average of all ratings published on Google for that place or business. It also says a new review can take up to two weeks to show in the updated score. The page does not say how the score is rounded or how many decimals are shown, so do not assume a 4.96 displays as 5.0 or as 4.9.
The practical consequence is arithmetic. The average swings when the count is low and barely moves when it is high. Here is what one 4-star rating does to a profile that is otherwise all 5s:
| Reviews before | Average before | Average after one 4-star | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 5.00 | 4.89 | -0.11 |
| 40 | 5.00 | 4.98 | -0.02 |
| 200 | 5.00 | 4.995 | -0.005 |
A mature profile with a few critical reviews still averages in the high 4s. A new profile with six reviews swings on any single rating. That is the real reason a young 5.0 tells you less than it appears to: it is a small number of data points, not a verdict on your quality.
What not to do about it
If a perfect score is not required, someone will suggest engineering the opposite. Two rules apply, and both come from the same place as the rest of our advice on how Google's review policies work.
Do not filter who gets asked. Sending the request only to customers you expect to be happy is review gating. The FTC's questions and answers on its consumer reviews rule and Google's policy both bear on selective solicitation. We cover what the FTC rule does and does not ban in our review gating article.
Do not buy, write or delete. The same FTC rule targets fake reviews and review suppression, and Google's policy on prohibited and restricted content covers fake engagement. Asking a real customer to remove a genuine review is a separate risk, covered in can you ask a customer to remove a review. This is general information, not legal advice; rules vary and change, so check with a lawyer about your own situation.
Equally, do not plant a bad review to make your score look natural. A 5.0 that is earned honestly needs no fix. It needs more reviews behind it.
What to do instead
Ask everyone, not a selected few. A request process that goes to every customer produces an honest spread, and an honest spread tends to settle in the high 4s by itself. ReviewHero sends review requests by email to every customer on your list rather than only the happy ones, and that is the property that matters here.
Count first, then rate. Get past 20 reviews, because that is the bar 47% of consumers set. Our guide to your first 50 Google reviews covers how to get there within the rules, and review velocity versus review count explains why volume and recency both matter.
Reply to the critical ones. A calm, specific, public reply to a 3-star review shows how you handle a problem. See review response templates that don't read like templates.
Treat the research as a ceiling on worry, not a target. Local Falcon puts the typical winner at 4.8 to 4.9. If you are there, you are in the band that wins.
What to do next
- Check your review count first. If it is under 20, the priority is volume, not the average.
- Look at your rating spread on your own profile. Note how many 3-star and lower reviews you have and whether each has a reply.
- Write a short, specific reply to every critical review you have not answered. Use facts from the job, not a template.
- Make sure every customer, not a chosen subset, receives your review request by email after the job is done.
- Run a competitor review audit to see the count and rating of the businesses above you, so your target is a real number.
- Check again in 60 days. The average moves slowly once the count passes about 40, so judge the trend, not one week.
What we left out
Several widely repeated numbers did not survive checking. No primary source supports the figure that "89% of consumers trust a 4.5 to 4.9 rating more than a 5.0," which our star rating and revenue article already flags. We found no published study that isolates the effect of a 5.0 on a local service business, so any exact percentage for that is invented. And neither Spiegel version states a sample size in the text we could read, so the "270% more likely" figure is a shape, not a forecast.
Frequently asked questions about a perfect 5.0 rating
Is a perfect 5.0 rating bad for a local business?
Nothing we could verify says so. The Northwestern findings come from product purchases, not local services, and BrightLocal's 2026 survey found only 10% of consumers insist on five stars. A perfect 5.0 rating built on very few reviews is a thin signal, so the count matters more than the decimal.
What rating wins the Google map pack?
Local Falcon's Q4 2025 data puts the typical winner at 4.8 to 4.9 stars, with 4.5 to 4.7 the minimum to compete in most categories. It says this is correlation, not proof that reviews alone caused the rankings.
Should I ask for a lower rating to look real?
No. Never ask for a particular rating, filter who you ask, or plant a review. Ask every customer, reply to critical reviews, and let the average settle where honest feedback puts it.
Put this on autopilot
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