I found a service that collects Google reviews for local businesses. It looked good. It cost around $500 a month.
I run a photo booth business, and I wanted it. But I didn’t have the budget, and I didn’t have enough consistent events to justify the expense. For most operators I know, that’s the whole story — you see the tool that would help, you look at the price, and you move on.
I’m naturally curious about making things with AI, so instead I asked a different question: could I just build it myself?
One day to a working skeleton
I asked ChatGPT how I could build this using Make.com and a Google spreadsheet. Not “build me an app” — just how the pieces would fit together.
Within one day, I had the skeleton of the service working.
The idea is simple. After an event, the guest list goes into a spreadsheet. Each guest gets a short, friendly text with a direct link to leave a Google review. A few gentle follow-ups over the next several days, and then it stops.
I tested it on myself first
I ran it on one of my own events before I showed it to anyone.
A few reviews came in on my own Google Business Profile. That was the moment it stopped being an experiment. Seeing real reviews land from a system I built proved the thing actually worked.
That’s the step I’d tell anyone not to skip. Run it on your own business first. You find out fast whether you have a product or an idea.
Shipping it
Two weeks ago I finally shipped it. I posted about the service in a Facebook group full of photo booth business owners.
The post generated real comments and real interest. That’s where my first founding client came from.
He’s an operator who is deeply concerned about compliance — which turned out to be exactly the right person to start with. He’s asked hard questions and given me a steady stream of honest, productive feedback about how the service should work and where it needs to improve. I’ve built more into this product in two weeks because of him than I would have in two months on my own.
88 to 101
In the two weeks we’ve been working together, his Google Business Profile has gone from 88 reviews to 101.
Thirteen new reviews from real guests at real events, on a profile that drives most of his bookings.
That’s the number I keep coming back to. Not because it’s huge, but because it’s real, and it came from something I built with no budget and no development background.
What I’m working on next
Two things.
Multiple clients at once. Right now the service runs cleanly for one client. The next build is making it handle several at the same time without me touching anything between events. That’s the difference between a project and a business.
A stop-on-click feature. Right now the follow-up texts go out on schedule. I want them to stop the moment a guest taps the link. If someone has already taken action, they shouldn’t keep hearing from us. Nobody should feel spammed by a service that’s supposed to be a polite ask.
That second one came directly from my founding client, which tells you something about why the first client matters more than the first dollar.
The takeaway
There’s probably a tool you’ve looked at and walked away from. Too expensive, or not quite worth it for the volume you do. Most small business owners have two or three of these.
Here’s the question worth asking now: could you build it?
Not “could you become a developer.” Could you describe what you need clearly enough, and work through the pieces one at a time, with AI helping you figure out how they fit together? That’s a different question, and for many tools, the answer is yes.
Mine cost $500 a month. I had a spreadsheet and a question, and a working version in a day.
So: what’s out of your budget, and could you build it instead?
I’m documenting this build as it goes — what works, what doesn’t yet, and what I learn along the way. If you want to follow along, subscribe here and I’ll send new posts as I write them.
ReviewLoop is at tryreviewloop.com.