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Star rating distribution calculator
Put in your counts per star level and see where the average comes from - and what a few more 5-star reviews would change it to.
How to use it
Copy the five bars from your Google listing: how many 1-star, 2-star and so on. You get your true average, and what it becomes after you add a given number of five-star reviews.
Count the numbers off the public page rather than from memory. Google shows the average to one decimal place; the real value hides behind it. A displayed 4.5 might be 4.45 or 4.54, and those two situations call for different next steps.
The spread says more than the average
Two businesses can both show 4.5 and mean completely different things:
- Lots of four stars, few ones — the service is consistent, it just does not delight. Lifting the rating here is about small details in the process.
- Lots of fives and also lots of ones — the service is inconsistent: some people have a great time and some have an awful one. Do not rush to collect more reviews in this state; the more you collect, the more one-stars arrive with them.
That second shape is the problem the average hides best. Four stars and one star are less than a point apart in the mean, but they are saying entirely different things.
Next
For how many five-star reviews lift the displayed figure, use the Star rating calculator; to spread that over months, the Review goal calculator. Why the display refuses to move when you add fives is in Why your rating does not move when you add 5-star reviews — rounding and denominators, both explained there.
If the one-star bar is the tall one, start with You got a one-star note. Now what?. What the rating itself is worth in trade is in What a good review is actually worth to you.
Shifting the distribution right
The only way the bars move right is if satisfied customers actually write something. They were already satisfied; they simply did not write.
In practice, ten happy customers, and often not one of them writes a review — not because they do not want to, but because it is a hassle, and typing it out is worse. Review Helper cuts that step to thirty seconds: the customer scans your code, ticks a few things they actually experienced, and the page turns it into a sentence in their own words. Copy, paste, posted. We do not ghost-write and we do not post for anyone — what they write, and whether to post it, stays their call. Three free reviews for every Google listing, nothing to pay up front, no card needed. No monthly fee: you pay per use.