Dope Studio

Show unlimited Google reviews on your site for free. Dope Studio Business Reviews Slider Lite fetches and displays your Google reviews in a polished, responsive slider (JSON-LD schema ready) — with no limits on how many reviews you can show.
Fresh reviews every day (recommended setup): 
1. Run your first fetch with Max reviews left empty to import your full review history. 
2. Set Max reviews to a small value (for example 1-5). 
3. Enable daily cron.
After that, your stored reviews are preserved, and each cron run appends only newly discovered unique reviews. This preserves tokens/quota.
The plugin uses <a href="https://apify.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Apify</a> to fetch your reviews. Apify offers a generous free tier that covers most small and medium businesses with no credit card required. You’re in control of your own account and your own data.
Free and unlimited. Fetch as many reviews as you like, display as many as you want, and pay nothing — as long as you stay within Apify’s free usage limits, which are more than enough for the vast majority of sites.
Pro version available — also free: adds support for additional review platforms and more advanced controls. <a href="https://products.dopestudio.co.uk/brs/" rel="nofollow ugc">Check pro features</a>
<h3>Why Dope Studio Business Reviews Slider?</h3>
Getting Google reviews onto your site has always meant either paying for an expensive SaaS widget subscription or wrestling with the restrictive (and increasingly costly) Google Places API. This plugin takes a different approach:
<ul>
<li>Unlimited reviews, zero cost — Apify’s free tier is genuinely generous. Most sites will never need to pay a penny.</li>
<li>No Google API key required — reviews are fetched via Apify, so you don’t need to set up Google Cloud billing just to show your reviews.</li>
<li>You own your data — reviews are cached directly in your WordPress database. No third-party dashboard, no lock-in.</li>
<li>One shortcode, done — drop <code>[dsbrsl_google_reviews_slider]</code> anywhere and your reviews appear.</li>
</ul>
<h3>What’s included in Lite</h3>
Review fetching 
– Fetch unlimited Google reviews via Apify (free tier) 
– Manual fetch from wp-admin whenever you need fresh reviews 
– Automatic scheduled fetching via WordPress cron — set it and forget it 
– Reviews cached in WordPress options for fast, server-efficient rendering
Beautiful slider 
– Dark and light themes 
– Autoplay with custom interval 
– Optional infinite loop 
– Progress bar pagination 
– Mobile and tablet swipe support 
– Configurable cards per view across mobile, tablet, and desktop 
– Optional summary header block showing overall rating and review count
Full display control 
– Filter out reviews below a minimum star rating 
– Hide reviews with no written comment 
– Set a frontend display limit independently from your fetch limit 
– Configure how many reviews are included in JSON-LD schema markup 
– Show reviews newest-first 
– Optionally show or hide “Read on Google” links
Optional Google Places enrichment 
– Pull your live overall rating and total review count from the Google Places API to display in the header — useful if you want the header to reflect your full review total rather than just fetched reviews 
– Entirely optional — the plugin works great without a Google API key
<h3>External services</h3>
This plugin connects to third-party services to fetch review data and optional rating summary data.
1. Apify (review fetching) 
– Purpose: fetches Google reviews on your behalf. 
– When data is sent: only when you manually trigger a fetch from wp-admin, or when the scheduled cron runs. 
– Data sent: your Apify API token, Google Place ID and/or Google Maps URL, selected language, and max review limit. 
– Apify free tier: https://apify.com/pricing 
– Terms: https://docs.apify.com/legal/general-terms-and-conditions 
– Privacy policy: https://docs.apify.com/legal/privacy-policy
2. Google Places API (optional — for summary header only) 
– Purpose: retrieves your place’s overall rating and total review count for display in the slider header. 
– When data is sent: only during fetch operations, and only if you have enabled Places summary mode and added a Places API key. 
– Data sent: your Google Places API key and Google Place ID. 
– Terms: https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/terms 
– Privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
3. Dope Studio feedback endpoint (deactivation feedback popup only) 
– Purpose: records optional deactivation reasons to improve the plugin. 
– When data is sent: only when a user submits the deactivation feedback popup in wp-admin. 
– Data sent: generated install ID, hashed site URL (SHA-256), site host, plugin version, WordPress/PHP version, locale, and optional feedback reason/comment/email. 
– Endpoint: https://products.dopestudio.co.uk/brs/telemetry/collect.php
<h3>Requirements</h3>
<ul>
<li>WordPress 6.0+</li>
<li>PHP 7.4+</li>
<li>Outbound HTTP access from your server</li>
<li>Free Apify account + API token (https://apify.com)</li>
</ul>
Optional: 
– Google Places API key (only needed if you want the Places-powered summary header)
<h3>Quick start</h3>
Getting up and running takes about two minutes:
<ol>
<li>Sign up for a free Apify account at https://apify.com and copy your API token.</li>
<li>Activate the plugin and open Business Reviews Lite in wp-admin.</li>
<li>Paste your Apify token.</li>
<li>Add your Google source — either a Place ID or a Google Maps URL (or both).</li>
<li>Click Fetch Google reviews now.</li>
<li>Drop the shortcode onto any page or post: <code>[dsbrsl_google_reviews_slider]</code></li>
</ol>
That’s it. Your reviews are live.
<h3>Admin settings overview</h3>
Data source 
– Enable Google reviews toggle 
– Apify API token 
– Google Place ID 
– Google Maps URL 
– Max reviews to fetch 
– Review language
Automatic fetching 
– Enable cron auto-fetch 
– Fetch frequency 
– Fetch start time
Optional Places summary 
– Google Places API key 
– Use Places summary toggle
Slider defaults 
– Theme (dark / light) 
– Autoplay + interval 
– Infinite loop 
– Dot navigation 
– Swipe 
– Slides per view (mobile / tablet / desktop) 
– Slider title 
– Display limit 
– Show summary block toggle 
– Show “Read on Google” link toggle
Rating and review counters 
– Rating mode (Auto / Manual) 
– Manual rating value 
– Review count mode (Fetched / Custom) 
– Custom review count value
Filters 
– Minimum star rating 
– Hide textless reviews
<h3>Usage</h3>
Basic shortcode: 
 [dsbrsl_google_reviews_slider]
All settings from the admin page are used as defaults. You can override any of them per shortcode:
<pre><code>[dsbrsl_google_reviews_slider theme="light" limit="10" autoplay="1" desktop="3"]
</code></pre>
If you add attributes in a shortcode, those values override the admin settings for that shortcode instance only. This lets you use different widget variations on different pages.
All available attributes: 
– <code>theme="dark|light"</code> 
– <code>limit="0"</code> — number of reviews to display (0 = all) 
– <code>autoplay="0|1"</code> 
– <code>interval="1500-20000"</code> — autoplay speed in milliseconds 
– <code>loop="0|1"</code> 
– <code>show_dots="0|1"</code> 
– <code>swipe="0|1"</code> 
– <code>mobile="1-6"</code> — cards per view on mobile 
– <code>tablet="1-6"</code> — cards per view on tablet 
– <code>desktop="1-6"</code> — cards per view on desktop 
– <code>show_summary="0|1"</code> 
– <code>show_read_on_google="0|1"</code> 
– <code>rating_mode="auto|manual"</code> 
– <code>manual_rating="0-5"</code> 
– <code>min_rating="0|2|3|4|5"</code> 
– <code>show_no_comment="0|1"</code>
<pre><code>show_no_comment="1" hides ratings-only reviews without text comments.
</code></pre>
<h3>Storage</h3>
Reviews and settings are stored entirely within your own WordPress database — nothing is sent to external servers except during a fetch operation.
<ul>
<li><code>dsbrsl_settings</code> — plugin configuration</li>
<li><code>dsbrsl_reviews_cache</code> — fetched review data</li>
</ul>
<h3>Troubleshooting</h3>
Fetch times out 
– Lower your max reviews count and try again 
– Check whether your hosting provider restricts outbound HTTP requests or has short timeout limits 
– Wait a moment and retry — Apify may occasionally be under load
No reviews showing on the frontend 
– Confirm the shortcode is exactly <code>[dsbrsl_google_reviews_slider]</code> 
– Make sure Google reviews are enabled in plugin settings 
– Run a manual fetch and check the cache count shown in the admin panel 
– Double-check your Place ID or Google Maps URL is correct
Header rating or count looks wrong 
– If Places summary is enabled, the header pulls from the Google Places API — this reflects your total review count across all time 
– Disable Places summary to use values derived from your fetched reviews only

Dope Studio Business Reviews Slider Lite (Display unlimited Google reviews for free, fetch every day)

Display unlimited Google reviews in a beautiful slider — completely free. No API billing surprises, no review caps. Now with a friendly step-by-step s …

tracksies

Your customers have been saying good things about you. Trustie is a free reviews plugin that helps you bring all of it — customer testimonials, Google Business reviews, and WooCommerce product reviews — onto your own website, stored in your own database, displayed the way you want them. Tested with Elementor, Divi, and Bricks. Free, self-hosted, and yours to keep.
<h4>What makes Trustie different</h4>
Three things, mostly:
<ul>
<li>Your reviews live in your database. Not ours. Not a third party’s. They’re WordPress posts and comments, stored alongside the rest of your site’s content. If you ever want to export them, move them somewhere else, or just peek at what’s in there — they’re yours.</li>
<li>WooCommerce is optional. Trustie works on service sites, portfolios, bakeries, accountants — anywhere with happy customers and a WordPress install. When WooCommerce is there, Trustie leans in and handles product reviews too.</li>
<li>The free version is a whole plugin. Testimonials, Google reviews, product reviews, import tools, the floating widget, the reviews page, the visual designer — all included. If you never need more, brilliant. If you do, the rest of the Tracksies family is there when you’re ready.</li>
<li>Plays nice with the rest of the family. If you add Tracksies HQ, Helpie, Packsie, Perkie, Squizzie, or Pipesie alongside Trustie, the admin menus merge automatically — one shared “Tracksies” parent in the WordPress sidebar, not many. No setup; Trustie detects the siblings and adjusts.</li>
</ul>
<h4>On any WordPress site</h4>
No WooCommerce needed for any of these.
<ul>
<li>Google Business reviews on your own site — pull in your real Google reviews with star ratings, reviewer names, and a “View on Google” link. JSON-LD schema travels with them, so search engines can surface them in rich results.</li>
<li>Testimonials you collect yourself — a proper submission form, with grid, list, masonry, and slider layouts for display. Auto-approve above a rating threshold, or moderate manually.</li>
<li>A floating reviews widget — a slide-out panel showing your latest reviews on every page. Think of it as the polite version of those pop-ups that chase you around the internet.</li>
<li>A dedicated reviews page — a <code>/reviews/</code> page with tabs, filtering, and pagination. Works automatically. No WooCommerce required.</li>
<li>Visual Designer — colours, star styles, card edges, and branding from one settings page. Auto-detects your theme’s fonts and colours on first run (we tried to be clever about it).</li>
</ul>
<h4>Even better with WooCommerce</h4>
Everything above, plus:
<ul>
<li>Better-looking product reviews — Trustie’s review cards include star summaries, rating breakdowns, and layouts designed to show your reviews off.</li>
<li>Star ratings anywhere — shortcodes for average ratings on any page, plus lightweight “loop stars” optimised for archive pages, so your category listings stay quick.</li>
<li>Automatic review request emails — we email customers after purchase asking for a review (because they’re not going to remember on their own). Smart cancellation: if the order is refunded, cancelled, returned, or already reviewed, the email quietly doesn’t go out.</li>
<li>Turn old comments into reviews — if you turned WooCommerce reviews on after already having product comments, one click converts those comments into star-rated reviews with a default rating you choose. You can tidy up individual ratings afterwards.</li>
<li>Catalogue-wide rating sync — recalculates average ratings and review counts across every product (handy after imports, migrations, or general database fiddling).</li>
</ul>
<h4>Tested with the page builders people actually use</h4>
Elementor, Divi, and Bricks are all tested. Oxygen is currently in active testing — we’ll update here once we’re happy with it. If you use a different builder and something looks off, please tell us. We’d much rather hear it from you than find out from a one-star review (ouch).
<h4>Moving from another plugin? We’ll meet you halfway</h4>
<ul>
<li>Testimonials — auto-detects and imports from Strong Testimonials, Easy Testimonials, and Starter Templates. Keep the originals or clear them out once you’re settled — your call.</li>
<li>Old product comments — as mentioned above: one click, pick a default rating, done.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Built to be accessible</h4>
Trustie is tested against WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines and we keep improving: keyboard navigation, visible focus indicators, screen reader announcements for form submissions and content loading, and descriptive labels on interactive controls. If something doesn’t work the way it should for you, tell us — accessibility is a commitment, not a checkbox.
<h4>Shortcodes</h4>
Without WooCommerce
<ul>
<li><code>[trustie_google_reviews]</code> — your Google Business reviews with aggregate rating and schema. Needs a Google API key and Place ID in Settings > Google Reviews.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_testimonials]</code> — testimonials in grid, list, or masonry.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_testimonial_form]</code> — the submission form.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_testimonial_slider]</code> — auto-advancing carousel.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_testimonial_grid]</code> — grid layout wrapper (convenience shortcut).</li>
</ul>
With WooCommerce
<ul>
<li><code>[trustie_reviews]</code> — reviews for a specific product, with optional form and summary.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_all_reviews]</code> — all reviews, from all products, in a grid.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_reviews_page]</code> — full reviews page with pagination.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_review_form]</code> — standalone review submission form.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_rating]</code> — average star rating for a product.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_rating_badge]</code> — compact stars-plus-count badge.</li>
<li><code>[trustie_loop_stars]</code> — lightweight stars optimised for archive loops.</li>
</ul>
Every shortcode takes optional attributes for customisation. See the <a href="https://doc.tracksies.com/docs/trustie-free/shortcode-reference/" rel="nofollow ugc">full shortcode reference</a> for details.
<h4>When you’re ready for more</h4>
If your site grows and you’d like more, the Tracksies family plays nicely together:
<ul>
<li>Trustie Pro — photo reviews, custom review forms, advanced filtering, enhanced widget controls.</li>
<li>Tracksies HQ — the operational layer for WooCommerce stores: customer intelligence, order management, tags, branded email templates, returns workflow, packing workflow.</li>
</ul>
Visit <a href="https://tracksies.com" rel="nofollow ugc">tracksies.com</a> if that sounds like your sort of thing.
<h4>Privacy & external services (in brief)</h4>
Trustie can connect to two external services. Full details are in the External Services section below.
<ul>
<li>Google Places API — used only when you’ve added your own API key and Place ID to display your own Google reviews. No visitor data is sent to Google.</li>
<li>Appsero — optional, opt-in diagnostic telemetry. Off by default. Nothing is sent unless you explicitly allow it.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy Policy</h3>
Trustie uses <a href="https://appsero.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Appsero</a> SDK to collect some telemetry data upon user’s confirmation. This helps us to troubleshoot problems faster & make product improvements.
Appsero SDK does not gather any data by default. The SDK only starts gathering basic telemetry data when a user allows it via the admin notice. We collect the data to ensure a great user experience for all our users.
Integrating Appsero SDK DOES NOT IMMEDIATELY start gathering data, without confirmation from users in any case.
Learn more about how <a href="https://appsero.com/privacy-policy/" rel="nofollow ugc">Appsero collects and uses this data</a>.
<h3>External Services</h3>
This plugin connects to the following external services:
<h4>Google Places API</h4>
Trustie uses the <a href="https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/web-service" rel="nofollow ugc">Google Places API</a> to retrieve your Google Business reviews for display on your site.
<ul>
<li>What data is sent: Your Google API key and Place ID (both configured by you in plugin settings).</li>
<li>When: When a page containing the <code>[trustie_google_reviews]</code> shortcode is loaded, or when you test the connection from Settings > Google Reviews. Results are cached for 24 hours to minimize requests.</li>
<li>No visitor data is sent to Google — only your business credentials are used to fetch your own reviews.</li>
<li><a href="https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/terms" rel="nofollow ugc">Google Terms of Service</a></li>
<li><a href="https://policies.google.com/privacy" rel="nofollow ugc">Google Privacy Policy</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Appsero</h4>
Trustie uses the <a href="https://appsero.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Appsero</a> SDK for optional, opt-in diagnostic data collection. This helps us troubleshoot issues and improve the plugin.
<ul>
<li>Tracking is disabled by default. Data is only collected after you explicitly allow it via the admin notice shown on plugin activation.</li>
<li>What data is sent (when opted in): Site URL, admin email, WordPress version, PHP version, server environment details, active plugin/theme information, and plugin version.</li>
<li>When: Once per week via a scheduled event, only if you have opted in.</li>
<li>You can opt out at any time from the admin notice or plugin settings.</li>
<li><a href="https://appsero.com/terms-conditions/" rel="nofollow ugc">Appsero Terms of Service</a></li>
<li><a href="https://appsero.com/privacy-policy/" rel="nofollow ugc">Appsero Privacy Policy</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>icanhazip.com (Cloudflare)</h4>
When you opt in to Appsero diagnostic tracking (see above), Trustie uses <a href="https://icanhazip.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">icanhazip.com</a> to determine your server’s public IP address for environment diagnostics. This service is operated by <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Cloudflare, Inc.</a>.
<ul>
<li>What data is sent: A simple HTTP GET request with no payload.</li>
<li>When: Only when you have opted into Appsero tracking. Not called if tracking is disabled (the default).</li>
<li>What is returned: Your server’s public IP address, which is included in the Appsero diagnostic data.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/" rel="nofollow ugc">Cloudflare Terms of Use</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/" rel="nofollow ugc">Cloudflare Privacy Policy</a></li>
</ul>

Trustie — Reviews, Testimonials & Google Reviews

Free reviews plugin for WordPress — customer reviews, product reviews, testimonials, and Google reviews in one. Works with or without WooCommerce.

Dope Studio Business Reviews Slider Lite (Display unlimited Google reviews for free, fetch every day) vs Trustie — Reviews, Testimonials & Google Reviews