Reviews API guide
Review monitoring levels: freshness, business impact and cost
None, Basic, Regular or Full: how fresh your review data is, what it lets your product do, and what it costs, side by side, so you can pick the right level for every listing.
At a glance
Four levels, one question: how current must your data be?#
Every level starts the same way: all the reviews of the listing, collected at once. The level decides what happens next, and how much it costs.
A snapshot
Freshness: One-off pull, no updates
Best for: Audits, research, history imports
50 credits + 1 per review
Monthly updates
Freshness: New reviews every 30 days
Best for: Monthly reports, prospecting
75 credits + 3 per review Renewal: 50 + 3 per new review
Daily updates
Freshness: New reviews every day
Best for: Daily dashboards and alerts
125 credits + 3 per review Renewal: 75 + 3 per new review
Live tracking
Freshness: At most every 8 hours, every edit, reply and deletion, plus the listing's rating and review count
Best for: Reply workflows, review inboxes, analytics
150 credits + 1 per review Renewal: 100 + 1 per review
The key difference
Only Full covers your listing's whole history#
Every level collects every review on day one. After that, the question is which reviews Zembra keeps watching: only the new ones, or all of them.
Basic Regular
Closing the gap #
The job's purpose is to close the gap between the newest review already collected and the reviews posted since: every check, monthly or daily, brings in what is new.
- Every new review, on time for its level
- Changes to recent reviews
No guarantee on older reviews. An edit, a new reply or a deletion on a review collected earlier may not be picked up, and the listing's rating and review count stay as of the first request. Whenever Zembra does detect a change, it is always sent to you.
Full
Covering everything #
Full watches every review of the listing, from the oldest to the newest, and keeps the listing itself current.
- New reviews within 8 hours
- A complete re-check of all reviews every week
- Edits, replies, deletions and restorations on any review, however old
- Rating and review count updated with the reviews
The only level with a guarantee that your copy matches the platform, for the whole history of the listing.
Full also keeps the listing up to date #
Every job returns the listing's details with its reviews. On None, Basic and Regular they stay as they were on the first request. Full is the only level that keeps them current, so the numbers your product shows match the platform.
- Rating and number of reviewsUpdated with the reviews, at most every 8 hours
- All other listing detailsName, address, phone, website, categories and more, refreshed every week
- Other levelsAs of the first request. To refresh them, call the Listing Info API separately
Side by side
What changes from one level to the next#
none | basic | regular | full | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First pull | All reviews, or up to a size or date limit | All reviews, at once, when the job is created | ||
| New reviews arrive | Never: pull again to update | Within 30 days | Within a day | Within 8 hours, plus a complete re-check every week |
| Edits, replies and deletions of older reviews | — | Recent reviews only | Recent reviews only | All reviews |
| Listing rating and review count | As of the first request | Updated with the reviews, at most every 8 hours; other listing details every week | ||
| Webhooks when something changes | — | Yes, to your server, Slack or email | ||
| Limit by size or date | Yes | No: monitoring covers every review | ||
| Job life | Data readable for 5 days | 30 days, renewable automatically with autoRenew | ||
Basic and Regular close the gap between the last review they pulled and the newest ones; they don't guarantee that older reviews or the listing's details stay current, though any change Zembra detects is always sent to you. Only Full covers all historical reviews and the listing itself.
Business impact
What each level lets your product do#
The level you pick decides how quickly your users can act on a review, and how much they can trust what your product shows.
| Your product needs to… | None | Basic | Regular | Full |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer a negative review the same day Regular brings it within a day; Full within 8 hours. |
No | No | Partly | Yes |
| Send alerts for new reviews Basic alerts are monthly, Regular daily, Full near real time. |
No | Partly | Yes | Yes |
| Show a rating and review count that match the platform Without Full, the listing's rating and count stay as of the first request. |
Partly | Partly | Partly | Yes |
| Reflect edited, replied-to and deleted reviews Basic and Regular only catch changes on recent reviews. |
No | Partly | Partly | Yes |
| Report on trends month over month A one-off pull needs to be repeated, and paid again, every month. |
Partly | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit, benchmark or research a listing once Monitoring works but costs more than you need for a one-time look. |
Yes | Partly | Partly | Partly |
Use cases
Which level for which product#
Most teams mix levels: Full where users act on reviews, lighter levels where a periodic view is enough.
Review inbox and reply workflows
Reputation management platforms where businesses answer reviews: every new review within hours, every edit and reply reflected, nothing answered twice.
Reputation analytics people trust
Ratings, review counts and trends that must match what the platform shows, including reviews edited or deleted months later.
Alerts on critical reviews
Notify a manager when a 1-star review appears or a review turns negative after an edit, the same day.
Compliance and dispute tracking
Keep a record of every version of a review, its deletion and its restoration, for any review in the history.
Daily CX dashboards
Customer experience and review reporting tools that refresh every day, replacing daily scraping scripts, on a budget.
Multi-location daily digests
Brands and agencies sending each location a daily summary of its new reviews.
Monthly reporting at scale
Research and property-management firms reporting on hundreds of thousands of listings every month, where new reviews matter more than old edits.
Sales prospecting and lead scoring
Track prospects' review volume and rating trends month to month at the lowest monitoring cost.
Audits, benchmarks and research
A one-time look at a competitor, a market study, or the history of a new client before onboarding.
AI training and data science
Collect large, standardized review datasets once, limited by size or date to pay only for what you need.
Cost
What each level costs, in real scenarios#
Charges follow the work: a base fee when the job starts, then a fee per review collected. Monitoring jobs renew every 30 days. Reading results with GET is always free.
Simulate your cost #
Move the sliders to your portfolio. Every level is priced side by side.
Credits are billed at the rate of the tier they fall into, so the price per credit drops as volume grows. The first 10,000 credits are free on sign-up. Renewals assume autoRenew; None assumes the listings are pulled again every month.
One listing, 300 reviews each, 10 new per month#
| None | Basic | Regular | Full | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 30 days | 350 credits Free on sign-up |
1,005 credits Free on sign-up |
1,055 credits Free on sign-up |
460 credits Free on sign-up |
| Each month after None: pulled again every month |
360 credits ≈ $0.43 |
80 credits ≈ $0.10 |
105 credits ≈ $0.13 |
410 credits ≈ $0.49 |
A portfolio of 100 listings, 300 reviews each, 10 new per month#
| None | Basic | Regular | Full | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 30 days | 35,000 credits ≈ $37.00 |
100,500 credits ≈ $92.40 |
105,500 credits ≈ $96.40 |
46,000 credits ≈ $48.00 |
| Each month after None: pulled again every month |
36,000 credits ≈ $38.00 |
8,000 credits ≈ $9.60 |
10,500 credits ≈ $12.50 |
41,000 credits ≈ $43.00 |
A large portfolio of 1,000 listings, 150 reviews each, 5 new per month#
| None | Basic | Regular | Full | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 30 days | 200,000 credits ≈ $172 |
540,000 credits ≈ $444 |
590,000 credits ≈ $484 |
305,000 credits ≈ $256 |
| Each month after None: pulled again every month |
205,000 credits ≈ $176 |
65,000 credits ≈ $64.00 |
90,000 credits ≈ $84.00 |
255,000 credits ≈ $216 |
Monitoring beats re-pulling #
Pulling a listing again every month means paying for all its reviews again. A Basic or Regular renewal only charges the new ones, so monitoring costs a fraction of repeated one-off pulls.
Full is not the most expensive start #
Full charges 1 credit per review against 3 for Basic and Regular, so its first month often costs less. Its renewal covers every review of the listing, since it keeps all of them up to date.
Mix levels across listings #
Each listing is its own job. Put the locations your users act on daily on Full, the rest on Regular or Basic, and audit prospects with one-off pulls.
Prices use the credit tiers of the pricing explained page: credits get cheaper as your volume grows, and the first 10,000 are free. Your own numbers: simulate a job or use the cost estimator.
Choose a level
Pick the right level in four questions#
- Do you need the reviews only once? None Use None, with a size or date limit to pay only for what you need.
- Do your users reply to reviews, or need ratings that match the platform? Full Use Full: it is the only level that tracks every edit, reply and deletion, and keeps the listing current.
- Do you need new reviews every day? Regular Use Regular for daily dashboards and alerts.
- Is a monthly update enough? Basic Use Basic for monthly reports and light tracking.
FAQ
Questions about monitoring levels#
Does Basic or Regular keep my older reviews up to date?
No guarantee. Their job is to close the gap between the reviews already collected and new ones. If Zembra detects a change on an older review, it is sent to you, but only Full re-checks every review and guarantees the whole history stays current. #
Can I change a listing's monitoring level?
Not with an API call on an existing job: create a new job at the level you want. Moving many jobs, for example to Full? Contact us: we can migrate them on our side without collecting and charging their history again. #
Does monitoring update the listing's rating and number of reviews?
Only Full. It updates the rating and review count with the reviews, at most every 8 hours, and every other listing detail weekly. On None, Basic and Regular, the listing stays as of the first request; refresh it with the Listing Info API if you need to. #
Do review IDs change if I recreate a job?
No. Review IDs never change, whether a review is new or old, and even if a job is deleted and created again, so nothing is duplicated on your side. #
Can different listings use different levels?
Yes. Each listing is a separate job with its own level, so you can match the level to how each listing is used. #
How do I stop monitoring?
Turn off autoRenew to stop at the end of the 30 days, or delete the job to stop immediately. #
What does a renewal cost?
Basic and Regular charge a renewal fee plus the new reviews of the period. Full charges a renewal fee plus every review of the listing, because it keeps all of them up to date. #
Do I need to poll for updates?
No. Every monitoring level pushes changes to your webhook, Slack or email as they are collected. Reading with GET stays free. #
Can I limit how many reviews a monitoring job collects?
No: monitoring covers every review of the listing. Size and date limits are available on one-off (None) jobs. #
Start monitoring today
Create an account and get 10,000 free credits: enough to try every monitoring level on your own listings. No commitment, no minimum.
