Last updated 22 August 2026
The calculator on our home page estimates what tap-to-review plaques might do for a business. This page sets out every figure behind it: which parts are arithmetic, which are assumptions, which come from published research, and which are simply unknowable. It is long on purpose. A calculator that shows a dollar figure without showing its working is asking to be believed rather than checked, and we would rather be checked.
Four things, all of which you already know: how many customers you serve on an average day, what one of them spends, your Google rating and review count today, and how many reviews arrive on their own in a month. We deliberately do not ask you to estimate anything about a product you have never used — an earlier version asked what percentage of customers would tap a plaque, which nobody who has not owned one could reasonably answer.
A star rating is a weighted mean. Given your current rating, the number of reviews it is made of, and a number of new reviews at an assumed average, the resulting rating is a matter of arithmetic rather than estimation. This is also why the projection curve bends flat: an average converges on whatever is being added to it. A business whose new reviews average 4.7 approaches 4.7 and stops. No volume of reviews pushes it past. Anything showing a rating climbing indefinitely is wrong.
The arithmetic being exact does not make the result certain, because it operates on assumed inputs. Exact maths on estimated numbers produces an estimate.
These rates are applied for you rather than asked of you. They are drawn from typical performance of prompted-review mechanisms and from our own observation. They are not measured at your business, and your figures will differ — possibly by a lot.
| Rate | Applied to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 40% | of monthly visits are people who have not reviewed you | A person reviews a business once. A regular who reviewed you in March will not review you again in April, so the pool is new faces rather than visits. This is the assumption most likely to be wrong for your business in either direction — a tourist strip runs far higher, a members-only gym far lower. |
| 12% | of those tap the plaque | Field-typical for a plaque on a counter. Table and receipt placements run higher; a plaque by an exit runs lower. |
| 72% | of those tap a star once the page opens | The page asks one question with five buttons and no typing, so most people who open it answer it. |
| 78% | land at or above a 4-star gate | Assumes a business already sitting near 4.2. A business rated lower will see fewer pass, and a higher share reaching its private inbox instead — which is the more valuable half early on. |
| 50% | finish writing on Google | The largest drop-off, and deliberately pessimistic. Once someone leaves our page for google.com, nobody can observe what happens — including us. |
| 4.7★ | is the assumed average of reviews earned this way | The average of what passes a 4-star gate, weighted towards fives. It is a ceiling, not a target: a rating converges on it and stops. |
A business already earning reviews keeps earning them. Comparing our projection against a frozen number would credit us with everything that would have happened anyway. So the calculator runs two futures side by side: your business carrying on exactly as it is, and your business with plaques out. Only the difference between the two is attributed to the product, and the revenue estimate is calculated from that difference rather than from the total.
We do not invent a dollar amount. We take the rating difference the arithmetic produces and apply an elasticity measured by academic researchers — 5–9% more revenue per additional star — to the monthly takings implied by the customer count and average spend you entered. The range is the researchers’ range; we show both ends rather than quoting the flattering one, and we show the conservative end against our own monthly fee rather than the optimistic one.
Each of these was read from the paper or survey itself, not from an article quoting it. The links go to the originals so you can read them yourself. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any of these researchers, institutions or organisations, and citing their work does not imply that they have reviewed, approved of, or have any knowledge of this product.
Michael Luca matched Yelp ratings against restaurant revenue in Washington State tax records. The effect held for independent businesses; chain-affiliated restaurants showed no effect, because people already know what a chain is.
Anderson and Magruder used a regression discontinuity design — comparing restaurants either side of Yelp’s rounding cutoff — so the comparison is between near-identical businesses. An extra half-star made peak-hour sell-outs 19 percentage points more likely, and 27 points for restaurants with no press or Michelin recognition to fall back on.
Anderson, M. & Magruder, J. — “Learning from the Crowd” — The Economic Journal, vol. 122, 2012
The reason the rating does any work at all: for most people it is the last thing checked before deciding where to go, and 41% now say they always read reviews while browsing — up from 29% the year before.
Annual survey of local-business consumers — BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
Only 78% of consumers were asked at all in the past year, and 94% say they are open to writing a review while just 69% actually wrote one. The gap between willing and asked is the gap this product exists to close — it is not persuading anyone, it is asking them at the one moment they are still standing there.
Annual survey of local-business consumers — BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
This section matters more than the one above it. Research is routinely quoted in marketing with its limits removed, and the limits are where the honesty lives.
You choose the rating at which a customer is sent to a public platform. We think it is worth being direct about this. Google’s review policies prohibit review gating — soliciting public reviews selectively from customers known to be happy — and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission treats the manipulation of reviews as potentially misleading conduct under the Australian Consumer Law. Regulators in other countries take a similar view.
That is why “every rating goes to Google” is the pre-selected option when an account is created, why the private feedback page still offers a public review link by default, and why we tell you this on a page you can read rather than in small print. The threshold is yours to set and the responsibility for that choice is yours. We do not fabricate, incentivise, buy, filter or remove reviews, and the product provides no means of doing so.
The calculator is an illustration. It is provided for general information, to help you judge whether this product is worth your time. It is not a forecast, a quote, a projection of your business’s performance, or a representation that any particular result will be achieved.
No outcome is guaranteed. Nudge Tags does not warrant that using Nudge Tags will increase your reviews, your rating, your revenue or your customers. Any figure produced by the calculator is an estimate derived from assumptions that may not apply to you.
It is not advice. Nothing here is financial, investment, accounting, taxation or legal advice, and it does not take account of your circumstances. Seek your own professional advice before making decisions.
The research is not ours. The studies cited are the work of their authors and publishers. We claim no ownership of them, no affiliation with them, and no endorsement by them. We have summarised them in good faith and linked the originals; if you are relying on a finding, read the source rather than our summary of it.
Third-party figures may change. Survey statistics are updated annually and academic findings are subject to revision and to debate. Figures were accurate to the cited sources as at 22 August 2026.
To the extent permitted by law, Nudge Tags accepts no liability for any loss arising from reliance on the calculator or on this page. Nothing here excludes any guarantee or right that cannot lawfully be excluded, including under the Australian Consumer Law.
If you think a figure here is wrong, or you have data from your own business that contradicts it, tell us at contact@nudgetags.com and we will correct it. That offer is genuine — the assumptions above are the best we have, not the best that could exist.