FAQ: Before You Sign Up

What does Cloutly actually change?

Three things, in order of how quickly you notice them.

You stop missing reviews. Every review from every site you have connected lands in one Inbox, with AI-drafted replies ready to edit. Replying quickly earns more repeat reviews and Google favours profiles that respond.

You start collecting reviews deliberately rather than hoping. Campaigns, plus review links and QR codes you can put on receipts, business cards or a counter poster.

You can prove it worked. Cloutly pulls your Google Business Profile performance — phone calls, profile views, website clicks — and shows them alongside review growth on the same axis. That is the answer to "what is this actually doing for my business", and it is a question most review tools cannot answer.

How much of this is AI, and do I have to use it?

A fair amount, and no — every AI feature drafts, it does not act on its own:

• Review replies. Draft with AI writes a reply based on what the review actually says, in a tone you pick. You accept it, edit it, or publish it. Nothing is posted without you.
• Ask. An analyst you can type questions at — "how many reviews mentioned parking this year?", "which location has the slowest response time?" It answers from your own data, with exact numbers rather than guesses. See Reporting and Insights.
• Social captions when you share a review.
• A website chatbot that captures enquiries, if you want one.

If you would rather write everything yourself, every one of these has a manual path.

Which review sites can I connect?

39 review sites including Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Trustpilot, ProductReview, Booking.com, Zillow, Indeed, Glassdoor, Capterra, RateMDs, Zocdoc, OpenTable and the major automotive and trades sites.

If yours is not on the list, you can add a custom link — you will not collect reviews back from it automatically, but you can still send customers there.

I have more than one location. Does that work?

This is what the product is built around. Everything filters by location, and a few things only make sense with several:

• A scorecard ranking every location, flagging automatically when one has gone quiet, had its rating drop, or has unanswered one- and two-star reviews.
• Competitor tracking by Google Place ID, so you can see where you sit locally on rating, review count and how fast you are collecting.
• A monthly report you can email or send as a PDF to an owner or franchisor who will never log in.

Can I see which of my team is collecting reviews?

Yes. Reviews that name a staff member can be credited to them, and each team member can have their own review link and QR code — a code on Sarah's business card credits Sarah's reviews to Sarah. Those feed a Staff Leaderboard.

In practice this is the thing that makes review collection actually happen. A task nobody owns does not get done; a leaderboard people can see themselves on does.

Can Cloutly stop me getting bad reviews?

No, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. Filtering customers so only happy ones are asked — review gating — is against Google's policies and risks your listing.

What Cloutly does instead is give unhappy customers somewhere better to go. Campaign messages carry a "Need help? Contact us directly" option that opens a private feedback form, routed straight to your Inbox with an alert. You get the chance to fix it before it becomes public. Your review engine counts these separately as complaints handled privately — each one is a bad review that never happened.

Do I need a website?

No. Links, QR codes and campaigns work without one. If you do have a site, you can embed review widgets that update themselves as new reviews arrive — including a setting that lets your star rating show up in Google search results.

Can I send campaigns to my existing customers?

Yes. Upload your contacts, or connect a CRM or booking system so requests go out automatically after a job or appointment. HubSpot, Klaviyo, Square, Mindbody, ClubReady, Iterable and Zapier all connect, and there is a REST API if yours is not listed.

What are SMS credits, and what happens if I run out?

Some campaign steps send an SMS as well as an email when you have a phone number for the contact. Credits are consumed per message segment — essentially message length — and the rate depends on the destination country.

If you run out, campaigns keep running by email only. Nothing stops, and nothing is lost. You can top up at any time.

One practical note: emoji and "smart" curly quotes push a message into a character set that roughly halves how much fits in a segment, so they cost more than they look. Plain punctuation goes further.

How am I charged?

By card at the start of your plan and each month or year after that. Paying yearly saves up to 20% depending on the plan.

Changing plans mid-cycle is prorated — you will see a pending charge or a credit. Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades apply from your next billing cycle.

Can I cancel?

Any time before your renewal date, from the Billing section of your dashboard. Prorated refunds on yearly plans are available if you contact us within 30 days of purchase — see our Terms and Conditions for the detail.

How long before I see results?

It depends far more on how you ask than on Cloutly.

Replying is immediate. You can clear a backlog of unanswered reviews on your first day, and that alone often moves things — both with the customers who wrote them and with Google.

New reviews come as fast as you ask for them. Send a campaign to a list of customers you already have and reviews can start landing the same day. Put a QR code on the counter instead and it moves at the speed of your foot traffic. Neither is wrong — they are just different levers, and you can pull both.

Moving your average rating is the slow part, and that is arithmetic rather than effort. If you have a 4.2 built on a thousand reviews, each new five-star barely shifts it; if you have thirty reviews, the same one moves it visibly. Check your total review count and you will know roughly which situation you are in.

This is why the dashboard tracks a review streak — weeks of steady collecting — rather than a single total. Consistency is what compounds.

Still deciding?

The questions worth asking yourself: how many reviews are sitting unanswered right now, and do you know which of your locations is quietest? Both are on the dashboard within minutes of connecting Google.