You should read this article if...
Podium pricing & plans left you scratching your head and saying 'huh?'
I'll break down the Podium free trial, reviews pricing, webchat costs, and payment fees.
Also, get ready for a side of my dry humor with your Podium pricing guide. I hope you don't mind some lame jokes.
Finally, we'll answer the big question: Is Podium worth the cost for local businesses and marketing agencies? We'll see the upsides, downsides, and my personal two cents.
Btw, I drank enough coffee to float a boat and scoured 10 articles (and put Podium to the test) to write this 2023 Podium cost guide. So grab a fresh cup of joe and let's demystify how much does Podium cost in 2023.
We will go over the following topics:
Podium Reputation Management Plan #3 -
Podium Reputation Management Plan #4 -
Podium All-in-one Plan for Small-Medium Businesses -
- Podium Pricing Summary
- Podium Free Trial
- Podium Review Management Pricing
- Podium SMS Pricing
- Podium All-in-One Plans
- Podium Pricing for Resellers and Whitelabel
- Is Podium Worth It for Local Businesses or Marketing Agencies?
Podium Pricing Summary
If you don't have time to go deeper into how much Podium costs, here's a quick summary:
👉 Podium Reviews Pricing:
- Podium review management pricing starts at $289/month, you can pick either the Essentials or Standard Plan.
- Essential: The cost of Podium Essential plan is $289/month, 1000 review requests on Google/FB max, no support for review campaigns.
- Standard: The cost of Podium Standard Plan is $449/month, unlimited review invites on Google/FB and you can set up automated review campaigns.
- Want to test drive Podium's review suite? They offer a trial for all their plans! Or you can try to join the Podium Starter club.
- I've also found insider intel that Podium offers secret plans like Reviews Plus and Business-In-a-Box, but they're not publicly listed on their website. I talk about these plans below.
👉 Podium SMS pricing:
- Podium lets you run text marketing campaigns and add a text chat widget to your website.
- Ready to send texts with Podium? Podium SMS pricing starts at $289/month. You can choose from their Essential, Standard, or Professional Plan with Podium webchat included in all plans. So Podium webchat pricing also starts at $289/month.
- The cost of Podium Essential Plan costs $289/month, you can text up to 1000 customers, but you're only allowed to text-market to 50 of them per month. Yikes! Let's hope those 50 are your biggest fans.
- The cost of Podium Standard Plan is priced at $449/month, it offers unlimited texting with a catch: you're only allowed to run text marketing campaigns on 100 customers per month.
- Similarly, the Premium Plan costs $649/month, and you can text unlimited customers but marketing campaigns are limited to 500 customers per month.
- Again, there are secret Podium plans like Marketing Plus and Business-In-a-Box, which I'll describe in detail below.
👉 Podium Payments Fees:
- Podium lets you send payment links via text or email and even take payments in person with its card readers.
- But you would need to pay extra processing fees on top of the existing cost of the Plan. You just can't catch a break with Podium, sigh!
- The table above shows the varying Podium payment fees across plans.
- Another thing to note is Podium payments is rated 2/5 by both cardpaymentoptions.com and business.org. Why, you ask? Podium has a reputation for bad customer service and a messy cancellation/refund process.
- If you're looking for a quick and reliable payment solution, Podium might not be the way to go. But hey, at least their processing rates are standard. *wink*
Now that you have a fair idea about Podium cost for reviews, podium chat pricing, and Podium cost for payments, we can jump into each one separately.
If you want to use boost your or your client's reputation using Podium, you can hop on over to the Podium pricing for review management.
If you need to use Podium for text marketing and webchat for yourself or your clients, you can jump to the Podium pricing for SMS & webchat section.
Finally, if you want to use Podium for reviews & SMS marketing, head over to the Podium pricing for All-in-One Plans section.
Podium Free Trial
Podium offers a 14-day trial for the Podium Essential Plan ($289/month).
Here are the top 3 things you can do with the Podium trial:
- Start collecting more reviews from Google/FB
- Install the Podium webchat widget on your site
- Run an SMS marketing campaign over a maximum of 50 customers
14 days to test drive Podium, that's what you get to decide if it's worth the cost of $300/month.
If you need more time, Podium also offers a free plan to select customers.
Let's talk about that.
Let's talk about that.
Podium Starter Plan
Ah, the elusive Podium Starter plan! Only available to "qualifying" businesses...whatever that means. Podium sure knows how to keep potential customers in the dark.
They would give a short onboarding process where they will set up your Podium account. After that, you need to buckle up and figure it out on your own. Disappointed, but not surprised.
Here are the top 3 features of this plan:
- You can send 10 Google/FB review invites per month, but 10 monthly invites are barely enough to get you any reviews.
- You can install the Webchat widget on your website, I like that they support Webchat in the free plan but 30 conversations/month just won't cut it.
- You can use the Podium payments processor, but the hefty 2.9% + $0.10 rate is way more than competitors (like Square) charge.
That's it on the Podium trial and starter plan info, now let's quickly look at Podium reviews pricing.
Podium Reviews Pricing
If you're a local business or a marketing agency owner, you must know the importance of positive reviews in sealing the deal!
If you want to manage your reviews, let's see much Podium costs. Don't believe me? Check out the official Podium pricing page, but spoiler alert: this blog is way funnier.
Podium Reviews Pricing Plan #1 - Essentials
Podium Essentials is the "budget-friendly" Podium reputation management plan. But this plan from Podium costs a steep $289/month. There are other unofficial plans like Podium Essentials & Podium Reviews Plus that might help you get started without breaking the bank.
Also, Podium claims this is the perfect plan for small businesses. I guess they assume every small biz owner has a spare $300 lying around like Monopoly money. Podium seems to be stuck in its own alternate universe.
Rant over, let's see the top 2 features of this plan:
- You can send up to 1000 one-off text review requests, but not run review campaigns.
- You can reply to your Google/FB reviews directly from a dashboard.
Does it seem worth the price to you? For me, hell no!
Podium Reviews Pricing Plan #2 - Standard
I believe Podium Standard is the only usable Podium plan for reviews.
For the price of a wooly mammoth, the cost of Podium Standard plan $449/month, we better be getting the Jurassic Park experience! Let's see.
Here are the top 3 features of this plan:
- You can send up to unlimited text requests.
- You can also run automated SMS review campaigns.
- You can monitor and reply to reviews on all major review sites.
Well first, the unlimited review requests feature is awesome. And the ability to run automated campaigns is key to getting lots of positive reviews.
Is it worth $450/month? Still NO!
That's because Podium competitors like ReviewGain offer automated review campaigns via text/email. With ReviewGain, you can also reply to all your reviews from a single, easy-to-use dashboard. But wait, there's more! ReviewGain also lets you show off your glowing reviews on your website and social media!
Guess how much ReviewGain costs? Just $49/month. There's no catch here! Unlike Podium, which seems to prioritize its investors over its customers, ReviewGain is designed with small businesses and agencies in mind.
Btw, if you want to compare Podium cost vs ReviewGain cost? I've got you covered! Check out my blog where I pit Podium vs ReviewGain and Birdeye.
Podium Reputation Management Plan #3 -
Essentials [Unofficial]
This is lowest-priced unofficial plan. The cost of Podium Unofficial Essentials plan is $99/month.
It lets you send up to 75 review asks per month.
If you have a good review request template, sending 75 SMS review requests will get you between 15-25 reviews per month.
If you're fine with getting around 20 reviews per month across all locations, you can choose this plan. But you would still be overpaying Podium compared to alternatives like ReviewGain.
Podium Reputation Management Plan #4 -
Reviews Plus [Unofficial]
This plan lets you send 250 invites. The monthly cost of Podium Reviews Plus is $249..
Also, it lets you respond to Google and Facebook reviews directly from Podium.
They'll throw in a "free" Podium card reader that automatically asks for reviews after transactions.
Tbh, it makes no sense to waste $249/month for just 250 review invites when you can upgrade to Podium Essentials [Official] for a mere $40 more and get 1000 invites.
But let's be real, both of these plans are still a rip-off. Local businesses and agencies shouldn't have to fork over hundreds of dollars for a solid reputation management system.
Podium's alternative ReviewGain's multi-location plan gives you 500 SMS review invites and lets you monitor/reply to reviews on 20 locations for just $79/month. Plus, our amazing review templates have a success rate of 1 review for every 3 customers asked. That's over 150 glowing reviews for a mere $79/month!
Podium SMS Pricing
Want to slide into your customers' DMs with Podium, you might want to check out their SMS and webchat pricing plans below. Before we dive into paid plans, please note that you can get the Podium webchat widget for free in the Starter plan, but you can only contact 10 customers in that plan
Podium Chat Pricing Plan #1 - Essentials
The Essentials Plan gets you 1000 texts for a hefty price of $289/month, plus a free website chat widget!
You can even run text campaigns for marketing or reviews, but only over a measly 30 contacts.
Podium Chat Pricing Plan #2 - Standard
The Standard Plan priced at $449/month promises unlimited texts, but with a caveat: your campaigns can only target 100 customers. So close, yet so far!
Can we talk about how ridiculous these prices are? Come on Podium, we're small businesses, not the Kardashians.
Btw, ReviewGain helps you run review campaigns for up to 100 customers for just $49/month. Take that, Podium!
Podium Chat Pricing Plan #3 - Marketing Plus [Unofficial]
The Marketing Plus Secret Plan lets you run campaigns with over 500 customers and gives you a free Podium card reader at $349/month.
But let's face it, even the Marketing Plus plan can't hide the fact that Podium is still a bit of a rip-off compared to its competitors. The monthly cost of $349 is a LOT for texting only 500 customers. ReviewGain does the same thing for just $79/month.
Pssst... Want to cheat on Podium? I won't tell! Check out my article on the top 7 Podium alternatives. You might just find your perfect match 😉
Podium All-in-One Plans
If you need to use Podium for both reviews and text marketing, these plans are for you.
Podium All-in-one Plan for Small-Medium Businesses -
Business in a Box [Unofficial]
The Unofficial Business-in-a-Box plan is Podium's all-in-one solution for small-medium businesses.
For the cost of $449/month, you'll have access to unlimited review texts and 500 marketing subscribers, which is a better deal than their Standard Plan which offers only 100 marketing subscribers for the same price
But $449/month is still a hefty price tag. If you're looking for a reputation management and marketing tool that won't break the bank, take a look at ReviewGain. It starts at just $49/month and is actually designed for local businesses and agencies.
Podium All-in-one Plan for Big Businesses - Professional
The Podium Professional Plan costs $649/month and you get unlimited contacts and up to 500 marketing subscribers per month.
If you're really into playing around with customer data, you'll love the Basic and Advanced Segmentation features. You can even send MMS messages. Because let's be honest, nothing says 'I'm a professional' like sending cat videos via text message.
Unless you're a big-shot corporate or enterprise, this plan is just a fancy way to say "give us all your money for features you'll never use". Save yourself the headache (and the cash) and stick to a more reasonable option.
If you're curious about Podium, I wrote a comprehensive Podium review in one of my recent blogs!
Podium Pricing for Resellers and Whitelabel
If you want to use Podium to offer reputation management to your clients, you can become a Podium Certified Partner.
Podium Solutions Partner Plan
If you're thinking about selling Podium tools to your clients, you can jump on board their Podium Solutions Partner plan.
But hold on tight, 'cause the pricing for this plan is like a magician's secrets — completely opaque and only revealed as custom quotes to potential partners.
Now, if you're on the hunt for an awesome whitelabel tool to dive into reputation management and marketing for your clients, here's my recommendation for you: ReviewGain! (*surprise surprise*)
We've got plans starting at just $49/month, plus a FREE whitelabel setup. Perfect for all small-medium agency folks like you.
Is Podium Worth It for Local Businesses or Marketing Agencies?
There you have it, we have discussed Podium review management, SMS, and all-in-one pricing.
Here's a quick recap of what we discussed:
- If you're interested in trying out Podium, they've got a 14-day trial of their Essentials Plan.
- Want to use Podium for free? They have a Podium Starter Plan that's completely free - you can send up to 10 review requests and even install a Webchat widget.
- Need to use Podium to boost reputation? Podium has 4 plans ranging from $99/month to a whopping $449/month. The Podium Essentials Plan priced at $289/month gives you the most bang for your buck, but let's be honest, they're all way too pricey.
- Is texting customers your style? Podium SMS pricing ranges from $289/month to $349/month. Again, way too expensive.
- And finally, for the all-in-one solution for small business owners, they've got the Business-in-a-Box plan priced at $349/month.
Podium is bleeding small businesses & marketing agencies dry. And don't forget the atrocious customer support, isn't it time to find someone who treats you better? And if you need more convincing, check out this review from ex-Podium customer Michael.
“ Overpriced, undersupported under developed, bad terms of agreement. Undertrained unresponsive staff. Did I mention over priced !”
For comparison, here are ReviewGain's plans:
- Our $49/month Starter plan will:
- Get you 20-30 reviews/month using 100 SMS review requests and 1000 email requests.
- Make responding to reviews easier than ordering pizza using our central dashboard.
- Monitor your profile 24/7 and send review alerts straight to your phone.
- Help you understand your customers better using our customer sentiment analysis features.
- Our $79/month Growth plan will:
- Get you at least 150 glowing reviews/month using 500 SMS review invites and unlimited email requests.
- Get you more local customers by automatically showcasing your reviews on social media and your website.
- Plus, everything else in our $49/month Plan.
- For agency folks:
- We offer a 100% whitelabel platform supporting whitelabel reports and a centralized admin dashboard.
- You get to decide your own domain, your logo, and your pricing, so you can be your own boss.
- We charge a flat fee starting at just $49/month per client.
- Up to 50% discounts as you scale to more clients, so you can get more bang for your buck as you get more clients.
Did you get the answer you were looking for? I hope I was able to provide clarity about Podium pricing. If you like ReviewGain, click here to find out more about it, or, just click here to start a free trial of ReviewGain.
You just need your email, no credit card or phone number, get started in 30 seconds :)
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!