Why should you read this?
If you work at a local business or a marketing agency serving local businesses, this article would be worth your 11 minutes.
This will be the last article you would need to read on Birdeye vs Podium. We'll compare Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain and tell you where each tool shines and where they fall short. We'll also take a deep dive on their free trial and pricing info.
In the end, I'll discuss the best reputation management tool for your business based on your needs.
We will cover the following topics:
Also, this blog is hosted on reviewgain.io so of course, I think it's great. But I'm not here to praise ReviewGain and diss other tools, I'll back up all my points with cold hard facts.
Also, this blog is hosted on reviewgain.io so of course, I think it's great. But I'm not here to praise ReviewGain and diss other tools, I'll back up all my points with cold hard facts.
- Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain Summary
- How will we compare each tool?
- Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain Customers
- Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain Pros And Cons
- Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain Trial and Pricing
- Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain: Which is the Best Tool for Local Businesses?
Birdeye vs Podium vs ReviewGain Summary
Before we dive into the in-depth comparison of the three tools, let's see what features they have in common and where they differ:
👉 All of them offer reputation management features that help you get more reviews.
👉 While ReviewGain is built for local businesses, both Birdeye and Podium offer features that are more enterprise-centric. You can check out the customer base for each of Birdeye vs Podium vs ReviewGain here.
👉 ReviewGain offers all the features that a local business needs at a much more affordable price than Podium and Birdeye, their plans start from 250$/month. Find full pricing and free trial comparison here.
👉 All three of them claim to help businesses thrive with an awesome online reputation. You can see where each tool shines and where each tool fails to impress here.
If you want to see the pros and cons of each tool, you can jump here.
👉 Podium offers the worst customer support of the three tools we analyzed. ReviewGain, on the other hand, provides personalized onboarding for every customer. Check out the full comparison of their customer support here.
When comparing Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain, you need to ask yourself this:
Do you want to pay for features like team chat and corporate reporting?
Do you already have a profile on major sites like Google/Yelp or would you like to pay for having your business automatically listed on smaller directories too?
Do you just want more reviews or would you also like to make money using the reviews?
How will we compare each tool?
Before we jump into Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain comparison, let's see how we will judge each tool:
Does it help you get more 5-star reviews? ⭐️
Podium, Birdeye, and ReviewGain are reputation management tools.
We will compare these tools' ability to automatically send out review requests.
Each tool should help you get a high rating on all major review sites.
We will compare these tools' ability to automatically send out review requests.
Each tool should help you get a high rating on all major review sites.
Does it help you track your online reviews?
It's smart to get review alerts since you're not staring at your business profile all the time.
The tool should give you a gentle tap when there are new reviews so that you can take action right away.
The tool should give you a gentle tap when there are new reviews so that you can take action right away.
Does it help you process the customer feedback? ❤️
It's not enough to just track your online reviews, it's important to also keep improving.
The tool should provide you with insights into customer sentiment so that you can continuously improve.
The tool should provide you with insights into customer sentiment so that you can continuously improve.
Does it help you get more sales? 💰
Can the tool help you make money once you start getting an awesome online reputation?
The tool should provide some marketing features that help you gain more visibility with your reviews. This will get you more visitors and turn them into paying customers.
The tool should provide some marketing features that help you gain more visibility with your reviews. This will get you more visitors and turn them into paying customers.
Will it help protect your reputation? 🛡
A good reputation will help you keep your current customers and attract new ones.
It's important to reply to all reviews, whether positive or negative. The tool should help you quickly respond to your customers' reviews.
It's important to reply to all reviews, whether positive or negative. The tool should help you quickly respond to your customers' reviews.
Do they help you along the journey? 🤝
The company should not only provide you with a tool but also act as your team.
Personalized onboarding and timely resolution of issues make sure you never feel lost.
Personalized onboarding and timely resolution of issues make sure you never feel lost.
What is their free trial and cancellation process?
The flexible trial and an easy cancellation process allow you to try out the software without committing.
Does it give enough bang for the buck?
It should also give you a return on your money. You're putting your money and trust in the company to make sure you get more business using the tool.
Now that you know how we will compare each tool, let's take a look at what makes each of these tools unique, and then see how they stack up against one another.
Who uses Birdeye vs Podium vs ReviewGain?
If you want to figure out if a tool is useful for your business, we need to look at the people who are using it today.
Birdeye Customers
Birdeye is a general-purpose tool, so businesses of all sizes can use it.
Although small business owners do use Birdeye. It also has a lot of mid-market and enterprise customers. This is because its corporate reporting and survey tools make it ideal for these types of organizations. Nearly 40% of Birdeye's G2 reviews are from mid-market and large enterprises.
Small businesses don't prefer Birdeye because it is too expensive for what they need. Most small business owners would not pay for features that are irrelevant to their business. See this review by a small clinic using Birdeye:
“I do not think that I am utilizing the software to its fullest extent! And they always want to sell me other stuff.”
That's why small-medium businesses are exploring other tools similar to Birdeye but built for small-business needs, I recently wrote about the top 7 Birdeye alternatives, you might want to check it out.
Podium Customers
Podium focuses more on small businesses and boosts their reputation but they have their fair share of enterprise customers also.
Local business owners find Podium's reputation and business text messaging features are helpful.
Yet more businesses are turning to Podium alternatives that provide them the same features at a much lower price and a better customer support.
I recently wrote about 7 of these Podium alternatives.
See this Podium review by a small business owner:
I recently wrote about 7 of these Podium alternatives.
See this Podium review by a small business owner:
“Customer Service is a key problem. Everyone at Podium is nice and kind, but their ability to execute after they commit to do something is poor. There are times when I've waited weeks even months for them to complete something they've promised to do. Even simply refunding an overcharge took months for them to follow through.”
ReviewGain Customers
ReviewGain is a tool built for small businesses and marketing agencies serving these businesses.
Birdeye vs Podium vs ReviewGain
Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain:
ReviewGain's reputation management and review marketing features are popular among customers, who love their ability to boost their online reputation.
ReviewGain not only gets you more reviews, its review marketing tools also boost sales by by showcasing your reviews everywhere.
Local businesses prefer ReviewGain for its affordable pricing and no-nonsense features. They get exactly what they need to run their business. Here's a review by a mattress shop owner using ReviewGain:
“Hugh, Kudos I want to take a moment to say thank you, you have helped me get more reviews and great success with my reviews!”
ReviewGain also caters to small-medium marketing agencies that cater to local businesses.
ReviewGain hooks you up with a 100% whitelabel platform, starting at just $49/month. You'll have your very own domain, logo, and pricing, plus we'll even set up the whitelabel stuff for FREE!
Now, listen to what Ahmed, the boss of a marketing agency, had to say about ReviewGain:
“Hugh is the best. He helped me with my Reviewgain account and didn't spare any effort to make my life easier while using the tool. He is a perfect example for startup cofounder who does his best for his start-up's clients.”
If you're new to offering review management
Need a 5-step rep management pitch guide?
Birdeye vs Podium vs ReviewGain
Pros and Cons
Let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of each tool.
What people like about Birdeye
✅ Managing business listings: Birdeye helps you manage your business listings by automatically listing yourself on 100s of online directories. These include Google, eLocal and Facebook, just to name a few.
✅ All-in-one inbox: Birdeye has a central inbox that makes it easy to carry out conversations across all major platforms. If you have a lot of customer enquiries coming from 5 or 6 different platforms, then this might be what you've been looking for.
✅ Team chat: Birdeye's team collaboration software is popular among mid-market and enterprise companies that have big teams. However, small-medium businesses don't need a team chat software, as there are other free chat softwares.
Where Birdeye falls short
❌ Hidden and expensive pricing: Birdeye's pricing is no longer available online. You'll need to talk with their customer service representative and get a custom quote. The company used to offer a 300$/month starter plan. Check out full pricing information about Birdeye here. Look at this review by a small-business owner in the health and fitness industry:
“ When we contacted BirdEye post-pandemic to restore our subscription, we were told we'd have to pay more than double our prior premium. We originally chose BirdEye for their small-business-centric features and service. But now it's obvious they have become a ruthless profiteer from the pandemic with little regard for the customer base who helped them grow.”
❌ Rough onboarding process: According to Birdeye's reviews, the onboarding experience depends on the kind of rep you get and most of them have been outsourced. It's nearly impossible for reps to set it up on their own.
❌ Horrible customer support: Although Birdeye's email support is decent, you won't be able to speak to someone from their team on the phone. Their reviews mention that their cancellation process is also quite bumpy.
❌ Tough to use: Because Birdeye is meant for both small businesses and enterprises, it can be confusing to use. The interface has a lot of features that are difficult to understand all at once.
What people like about Podium
✅ Generating reviews: Podium lets you ask for reviews on both SMS and Email. Podium is a much more focused tool compared to Birdeye for getting more reviews.
✅ Podium webchat: Another great feature of Podium is its webchat. It allows you to easily contact your customers using SMS rather than live chat on your website.
✅ Analytics: Podium has corporate reporting features like NPS analytics. Although this wouldn't benefit small-medium businesses.
Hey listen, if you wanna dive deep into Podium and get my honest take on it, just head over to my Podium review blog!
Where Podium falls short
❌ Too pricey: The lowest-priced plan, at 289$/month, provides review management and payment features; however, some people have complained that their cancellation process is too opaque. People have been charged even after canceling their subscriptions. Check out all the info about Podium plans here.
❌ Annual contracts: Some Podium reviews mention that the company only offers yearly contracts. The company expects at least one year of commitment before you can start using the platform. Read this review by a small-business owner in the consumer services industry:
“Trying to cancel with Podium is the worst experience we've ever had with a company. My partner had to pretend to be a new client prospect to get Podium to help us because they will dodge and outright ignore correspondences about cancelling service. They've told us they are letting us out of the 1-yr contract, yet they are still charging our credit card each month.”
❌ Customer support: Setting up a Podium account is time-consuming and their customer support isn't helpful. Response time is slow, so expect your questions to go unanswered for days, if not weeks.
❌ Not good as a payment option: Podium has a "D-" rating on BBB and cardpaymentoptions.com rates them as 2/5 as a payment option. You're better off using other payment options compared to Podium payments.
What people like about ReviewGain
✅ Getting more 5-star reviews: ReviewGain can help you run personalized review campaigns, sending review requests via SMS and Email. The more personalized, the better — because you get 5x more reviews than without any personalization!
✅ Protecting your reputation: ReviewGain watches over your business 24/7 and sends out review alerts to you as soon as a new review is posted. ReviewGain's AI auto-suggests human-like responses to reviews so you can quickly reply to all your reviews.
✅ Getting more sales using reviews: Just getting reviews isn't enough, you also need to market them. ReviewGain provides real-time marketing tools to help you share eye-catching and persuasive reviews on socials, and on your website.
✅ Built for small-medium businesses: ReviewGain only offers the features that local businesses need, and their prices are affordable with a monthly subscription. Their easy cancellation policy is a huge bonus. You can check out full pricing info about ReviewGain here.
✅ Affordable whitelabel platform: It is the only whitelabel reputation management platform designed and priced for small-medium agencies. Also the platform is completely customizable with your logo, domain, and pricing with FREE whitelabel setup. Plus marketing agencies also get partner dashboard and client login.
✅ Excellent customer support: ReviewGain provides personalized onboarding for all customers, email and on-call support, and most customer issues get resolved within 1 hour.
Where ReviewGain falls short
❌ No corporate-level reporting: ReviewGain has a good customer sentiment analysis feature, but it doesn't have corporate reporting features like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and traffic analytics.
❌ No team collaboration features: ReviewGain doesn't offer features like team chat, so if you're a large enterprise with big teams, ReviewGain probably isn't the right tool for you.
Birdeye vs Podium vs ReviewGain Pricing
Finally, let's see how much each tool costs. I'll also tell you about the trial process for each tool.
How much is Birdeye?
The above image shows a screenshot of Birdeye's pricing when it was publically available.
The Standard plan is 299$/month which gives you review and listing management.
The Professional plan is 399$/month which includes everything in standard plan plus chatbot features.
Their Premium plan is a custom plan that offers surveys and ticketing features, this plan is mostly meant for corporates.
If you want the complete lowdown on Birdeye pricing, I recently wrote an article on Birdeye Pricing 101, check it out!
Free trial: Birdeye offers a 15-day trial period, you can sign up using your email and phone number.
How much is Podium?
The Essentials plan is 289$/month which gives you payment and webchat support.
The Standard plan is 449$/month, they only give you personalized onboarding in this plan. Also you can use their review generation features in this plan.
The Professional plan costs 649$/month, which gives you the ability to automatically send incoming leads to various departments. If you have lots of incoming leads and a big team to handle the traffic, this plan might be right for you.
Free trial: Podium offers a 14-day trial, you just need your email to get started.
If you want to take the plunge into Podium's pricing pool? Don't worry, I've already dived in and made sense of it all in a recent Podium pricing blog. Consider me your personal pricing lifeguard!.
How much does ReviewGain cost?
The Starter plan is just 49$/month.
It is meant for businesseds having less than 10 locations who want to get more reviews and and rank on top of Local Search in their area.
It also has features to help you protect your reputation like review alerts and auto-suggested responses.
It is meant for businesseds having less than 10 locations who want to get more reviews and and rank on top of Local Search in their area.
It also has features to help you protect your reputation like review alerts and auto-suggested responses.
The Ideal plan is 79$/month.
This plans offers everything than Starter plan does and gives you more SMS invites and unlimited Email invites.
It is meant for medium-sized businesses who want to manage and increase their reviews up to 20 locations.
This plan also offers review marketing features which helps you attract more customers by showcasing your reviews.
This plans offers everything than Starter plan does and gives you more SMS invites and unlimited Email invites.
It is meant for medium-sized businesses who want to manage and increase their reviews up to 20 locations.
This plan also offers review marketing features which helps you attract more customers by showcasing your reviews.
The Starter Whitelabel Plan starts at just $49/month for 1 client with FREE whitelabel setup. You get completely customizable review request page, partner dashboard, client login and automated whitelabel reporting. Each client gets 300 SMS review requests and unlimited email requests.
The Ideal Whitelabel Plan starts at just $199/month for 5 clients. It includes everything in the Starter Whitelabel Plan with dedicated on-call support.
The Pro Whitelabel Plan starts at just $299/month for 10 clients. For 10+ clients, ReviewGain offers custom quotes.
Free trial: ReviewGain offers a full-access 14-day trial, no credit card required. You just need to sign-up with your email and get started in less than 30 seconds. You can quickly sign up for the trial here.
Podium vs Birdeye vs ReviewGain:
Which is the Best Tool for Local
Businesses & Marketing Agencies?
It's time to see which tool out of Birdeye vs Podium vs ReviewGain is the best for your local business.
I believe every business is a little different with slightly different needs,
but I think ReviewGain will be a good fit for your small-medium business, here's why:
but I think ReviewGain will be a good fit for your small-medium business, here's why:
💥 Want to get you more 5-star reviews? Use ReviewGain's personalized SMS/Email review campaigns to get new 5-star reviews every month.
💥 Want to handle bad reviews quickly? Get review notifications when new reviews are posted and reply to your reviews quickly using auto-suggested responses.
💥 Want to rank on top of Local Search? Keep your Google Business profile fresh with new detailed reviews mentioning your services, helping you rank on top of Local Search.
💥 Want to get more sales using your reviews? Use review marketing to show-off your testimonials on your website and socials to get more customers.
💥 Want timely and personalized guidance? Get quick resolution to all your issues with personalized tips on how to boost your online reputation.
💥 Want an affordable and easy-to-use tool? ReviewGain costs just 49$/month and it's designed to be used by local businesses. No complex and unnecessary features that make you feel lost.
For agencies, I would again suggest ReviewGain. It's a 100% whitelabel tool so you can offer review management and marketing to your clients starting at just $49/month for 1 client with FREE setup.
About the Author
Hugh Kumar
Hi! I'm the co-founder of ReviewGain, I like helping small businesses get an awesome online reputation!
Before starting ReviewGain, I used to write a SaaS newsletter, that's where the writing bug bit me ✍️
When I'm not working, you can find me chatting with people on LinkedIn 😊
I'm a big foodie but I burn all the calories on treks!