Amazon's Review Requests ad invites verified buyers to review a product they bought. It does not buy reviews. Here is who qualifies, the policy line to respect, and a five-step launch plan.
The short version: Amazon announced Review Requests at unBoxed 2026. It is a paid ad that shows verified purchasers an invitation to rate or review a product they bought. It does not buy reviews, and trade coverage reports that incentives are not permitted. The much-quoted "1,000" is an eligibility line, not a purchase quota: products with fewer than 1,000 ratings and reviews qualify, and campaigns pause automatically at 1,000.
Amazon is rolling out the US open beta between late October and November 2026. Used well, it fixes the slowest part of a launch. Used carelessly, it creates the exact policy problem it was built to prevent.
Review Requests is an ad product that asks recent verified buyers to leave a star rating or written review, shown to them while they browse Amazon, according to Amazon Ads. The brand pays to show the request. The buyer decides whether to respond and what to say.
In Amazon's closed beta in June 2026, products received about three times as many ratings and reviews per week as before the test (Amazon-reported).
Products in the test collected roughly three times the ratings and reviews per week. You pay for the reach of the ask, not for the review.
No. Several industry newsletters ran headlines saying Amazon will let you "buy up to 1,000 reviews." That framing is wrong. Amazon describes the product as an invitation shown to recent purchasers, and trade coverage reports that incentives are not permitted. You pay for the reach of the ask, not for the review or its rating.
That distinction matters because buying reviews remains a fast way to lose a listing or an account. Brands that read the headline and go looking for a "review program" from a third party are walking into the risk Amazon is trying to close.
Products with fewer than 1,000 total ratings and reviews qualify, and Review Requests pauses automatically once a product reaches 1,000, according to Amazon. Advertisers need an active ads account in good standing with no policy violations. Access runs through Amazon Ads Agent and the unified API, US only for now.
Products under 1,000 ratings are eligible. When a product reaches 1,000, the campaign pauses itself. You are never buying a target number of reviews.
| Question | Answer | Source |
|---|---|---|
| What does the brand pay for? | Showing the request to verified buyers | Amazon Ads |
| Are incentives allowed? | No | AdExchanger (not stated on Amazon's page) |
| Who qualifies? | Products under 1,000 ratings and reviews | Amazon Ads |
| What happens at 1,000? | The campaign pauses automatically | Amazon Ads |
| When is it available? | US open beta, late October to November 2026 (Amazon's pages give both) | Amazon Ads |
| Pricing? | Amazon has not published a benchmark. Confirm in the console. | Not published |
Review gating. Gating means steering happy customers toward a review and unhappy customers somewhere else, through inserts, follow-up messages or customer service scripts. It violates Amazon policy whether or not a paid ad started the conversation.
Products where the review count is the bottleneck, not the product. Review Requests multiplies whatever experience buyers already had. If a product has a sizing problem, a packaging problem or an expectation gap in the listing, three times the reviews means three times the evidence of that problem.
Start with products that meet all four of these:
New launches and line extensions in grocery, CPG and consumer electronics are the natural fit. Those are the categories where a product with 40 reviews sits next to a competitor with 4,000, and shoppers notice.
Follow five steps, in order:
Reviews feed Alexa for Shopping, which answers shopper questions using product details and customer feedback. An Amazon Ads director told AdExchanger that brands cannot make specific reviews more visible. Reviews are now part of how your product gets described to shoppers, not just a star count under the title.
We treat reviews as an operating metric, tied to product quality, listing accuracy and launch velocity, not as a number to chase. For every brand we manage, we will build the Review Requests eligibility list. We will flag the products that need a listing fix before they launch. And we will set the guardrails that keep the program inside policy.
Want your list? Book a meeting for a free Marketplace Assessment and Account Audit. A senior TopRank operator reviews your account, and you leave with a written priority list.
Sources: Amazon Ads, "Get product reviews faster with Review Requests" (advertising.amazon.com/resources/whats-new/get-product-reviews-faster-with-review-requests); Amazon Ads, unBoxed 2026 news and announcements; AdExchanger coverage, September 29, 2026; EcomCrew, "Amazon is turning review requests into a paid ad product."
About the author: Josh Phillippi is Founder and CEO of TopRank Partners, a performance-based Amazon and Walmart marketplace agency with no annual contracts.
Book a meeting for a free Marketplace Assessment and Account Audit. A senior TopRank operator reviews your account, and you leave with a written priority list.
Book your free assessment