By Alex Host · Founder of Hosted Reviews, Operator of Top Care Cleaning · Updated 2026-05-22
I run Top Care Cleaning and built Hosted Reviews. Read this knowing I'm biased toward my own product. I will tell you exactly when a competitor is the better fit.
Three tools, one question: which one actually stops unhappy customers from leaving a public review before you have a chance to respond? I built one of these three tools. Here is how all three compare on the thing that matters most — funnel screening — and where each one makes sense for a real operator.
What funnel screening is and why it matters
A review funnel screen is a gate inside the review request flow. When a customer receives a review request, they first hit a simple rating prompt — thumbs up or thumbs down, a star score, or a short NPS question. Customers who rate positively get sent straight to Google or Facebook to post a public review. Customers who rate poorly get routed to a private feedback channel — an internal form, a direct message to the business, or a support escalation — before anyone publishes anything public.
Without screening, every unhappy customer who opens your review request has a clear path to a public one-star review. With screening, you intercept them first.
The number that makes this concrete for Top Care: 46% of customers who tap "yes" on the initial SMS prompt never finish the review form. That is the form-abandonment stat from our 70-SMS test cohort. Some of those are genuine drop-offs (they got busy). But some are customers who hit the form, saw it was more work than expected, and bounced. Without a screen, that same cohort — including any dissatisfied customers — would have been sent directly to Google's review form with no intercept. Funnel screening compresses that risk.
Grade.us — the agency tool with the best funnel design
Grade.us is a white-label review management platform designed for marketing agencies and local SEO consultants. Their thumbs-up/thumbs-down funnel is one of the most mature implementations in this category — it was built into the core product and has been refined across hundreds of agency client accounts.
Pricing: The Solo plan is $110/month for one seat. Professional is $180/month for three seats. Agency is $400/month for ten seats. Partner is $2,500/month for 100 seats. Annual billing saves 10%. A 14-day free trial is available — no credit card required — but SMS is not available during the trial. (Grade.us Pricing Page)
Funnel screening: Yes — core feature. The thumbs-up/thumbs-down flow routes low-rating customers to a private feedback form before sending happy customers to a public review site. Multiple Capterra reviewers call this out explicitly: "Negative reviews are routed to the organization first — at least presenting an opportunity for the reviewer to vent themselves and for the organization to respond before going public." (Capterra Grade.us Reviews)
SMS: Available on Professional plan and above as a paid add-on. The per-month cost is not published — you contact sales to activate it. SMS is not available during the free trial. (Grade.us Pricing) The platform's primary outreach channel is email; SMS is supplementary.
G2 / Capterra: 4.6/5 on G2 (144 reviews) and 4.8/5 on Capterra (244 reviews) as of May 2026. Top pros: excellent white-label capability for agencies, best-in-category funnel design, clean reporting. Top cons: pricing has increased multiple times, no mobile app, SMS number registration issues in some large cities.
Who it is built for: Agencies managing 10 or more SMB clients. The seat-based pricing model only makes economic sense when you are managing multiple client accounts — you spread the $400/month Agency plan across 10 clients at $40/seat. A single-location cleaning company paying $110/month for one seat to manage their own reviews is paying roughly three to four times what the same core function costs elsewhere.
Where it genuinely wins: The funnel design quality is excellent. The white-label depth — full client dashboard under your own brand and domain — has no equivalent in either NiceJob or Hosted Reviews. If you run a marketing agency and manage review programs for multiple service businesses, Grade.us Agency at $40/seat is a strong value.
NiceJob — the highest-rated SMB tool without funnel screening
NiceJob targets the same local service operator market — cleaning, HVAC, plumbing, landscaping — and is the highest-rated tool in this competitive set on both G2 and Capterra. It integrates natively with Jobber, Housecall Pro, QuickBooks, and ServiceTitan. When a job closes in your field-service CRM, NiceJob fires a review request automatically. The automation is genuinely zero-touch.
Pricing: $75/month (Reviews plan) or $125/month (Pro plan). The Pro plan adds referral automation, booking reminders, and AI-generated review replies. No annual vs. monthly pricing distinction is advertised publicly. No credit card required for the 14-day free trial. (NiceJob Pricing)
Funnel screening: No. NiceJob sends customers directly to a public review platform after the initial invite text. There is no NPS-style gate that intercepts dissatisfied customers before they reach a public review form. (NiceJob Campaign Help) The platform monitors for new reviews and alerts you to respond quickly — but that is reactive, not a pre-publication intercept.
SMS: Partial. The initial invite is sent via text message. Follow-ups shift to email — up to three email reminders over 14 days. NiceJob is more accurately described as email-primary with an SMS trigger than as an SMS-first tool.
G2 / Capterra: 4.8/5 on G2 (416 reviews) and 4.9/5 on Capterra (202 reviews) as of May 2026 — the highest ratings in this competitive set. Top pros: seamless Jobber/HCP integration, review volume results are consistently cited, referral automation is useful. Top cons: limited integrations beyond Jobber/QuickBooks, widget customization is limited, multi-location management is clunky.
Acquisition note: NiceJob was acquired by Thryv per competitor research; pricing and feature roadmap may shift. Worth verifying current plans before committing.
Where it genuinely wins: If your field service company runs on Jobber or Housecall Pro and you want review requests to fire automatically without any manual step, NiceJob is the strongest option in this group. The ratings reflect real results — users consistently report dramatic review count increases. For operators who do not need funnel screening and prioritize CRM automation over price, NiceJob earns its position.
Hosted Reviews — the operator-built option
I built Hosted Reviews because I needed this tool for Top Care Cleaning and nothing available fit the specific workflow a service operator actually runs. It is SMS-first: the entire review request — invite, funnel screen, and final Google link — happens inside a single SMS thread on a Twilio toll-free number. No email follow-up sequence. No login required for the customer.
Pricing: $29/month (Starter) or $49/month (Pro). No credit cap on SMS sends. No per-location fee for single-location businesses. 14-day free trial — core SMS feature works from day one, unlike Grade.us's trial which excludes SMS entirely.
Funnel screening: Yes — real-time, inline with the SMS conversation. A customer receives the initial text. They tap their rating. A low score routes them to a private feedback channel before they ever see the Google review link. A high score routes them directly to the review form. The screening happens inside the conversation thread, not on a separate landing page, which reduces friction compared to email-based funnels.
Top Care data: From our 70-SMS test cohort: 21% overall conversion (15 Google reviews), 40% tap-yes on the initial SMS, 54% of those who tap yes go on to post a review, median time-to-review 2.5 hours, 71% of reviews finished within 24 hours. These numbers come from a real cleaning operation — not a demo account.
Where it falls short: No native CRM integrations at V1 (no auto-trigger from Jobber or HCP without a Zapier step), no referral automation, and no multi-location rollup dashboard. If you are on Jobber and want zero-touch automation, NiceJob's native integration is more elegant than Hosted Reviews' current approach.
The head-to-head on funnel screening
| Tool | Has funnel screen? | Screen type | Primary channel | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade.us | Yes | Thumbs-up / thumbs-down | Email-primary | $110+/month (Solo) |
| NiceJob | No | N/A | SMS trigger + email | $75+/month |
| Hosted Reviews | Yes | Real-time SMS score | SMS-first | $29+/month |
NiceJob's lack of screening is a documented product decision, not an oversight. Their philosophy is that the best review request is the fastest one to Google. For operators whose customers have a consistently high satisfaction rate, that logic works. For operators in trades with occasional damage claims, overspray incidents, or schedule disputes — pressure washing, exterior cleaning, service work — an intercept layer is worth having.
Which tool is right for your use case
Running an agency managing 10+ SMB clients: Grade.us. The white-label depth, multi-seat pricing ($40/seat at Agency tier), prospect finder tools, and client-facing PDF reports are designed for exactly this workflow. No equivalent in NiceJob or Hosted Reviews.
Solo operator on Jobber or Housecall Pro who wants zero-touch automation: NiceJob. The native CRM integration means review requests fire without any manual step after a job closes. Highest ratings in the category. Worth the $75/month if the Jobber auto-trigger saves you the manual work.
Solo operator who wants funnel screening + SMS-first + the lowest price: Hosted Reviews. Screening inline in the SMS thread, no credit cap, $29/month. If you are managing your own reviews for one location, this is what I would use — and I do use it, at Top Care.
For a full comparison of all six tools in this market, see the review management software buyer's guide — the pillar hub covering every vendor worth considering for a local service business.
Frequently asked questions
What is review funnel screening? Funnel screening is a gate in the review request flow that routes low-rating customers to private feedback before they reach a public review site. A customer receives a review request, submits a quick rating (thumbs up/down, NPS score, or star rating), and the tool routes them based on their response — high scores to Google, low scores to a private channel.
Does NiceJob have a funnel screen? No. NiceJob sends customers directly to a public review platform after the initial invite. There is no pre-publication intercept. The platform monitors for new reviews and notifies the business to respond, but that is reactive — after a review is posted — not a pre-screening step.
Is Grade.us worth it for a single-location business? Probably not. The $110/month Solo plan is priced for the agency context — one of ten seats managed under a white-label dashboard. A single-location operator paying $110/month for review requests and funnel screening alone is paying two to three times what competing tools charge for the same core functionality. Grade.us is a strong value when amortized across multiple client accounts.
How does Hosted Reviews' funnel screening compare to Grade.us? Both intercept low-rating customers before they reach a public review site. The mechanical difference: Grade.us routes customers to a separate landing page with a thumbs-up/thumbs-down form. Hosted Reviews keeps the screening inside the SMS conversation thread. For mobile-first customer behavior, the in-thread approach has fewer steps. Grade.us's landing page design is more customizable and white-labelable.
Which review tool has the best G2 ratings? NiceJob: 4.8/5 on G2 (416 reviews) and 4.9/5 on Capterra (202 reviews) as of May 2026 — the highest in this group. Grade.us is 4.6/5 on G2 (144 reviews) and 4.8/5 on Capterra (244 reviews) as of May 2026.
Try Hosted Reviews free for 14 days
I built Hosted Reviews and I am biased. I also want to be useful: if you are on Jobber and want zero-touch review requests, NiceJob is the better call. If you are managing multiple SMB clients as an agency, Grade.us is built for you.
If you run a single-location service business, want funnel screening, and want SMS-first delivery without a monthly credit cap — try Hosted Reviews free for 14 days. No card required. SMS works from day one.
For a full NiceJob vs Hosted Reviews comparison, see NiceJob vs Hosted Reviews. For a full six-vendor roundup, see best review management software for local service businesses. For the full Whitespark comparison covering another funnel-screening tool, see Whitespark vs Hosted Reviews.
About the author
Alex Host runs Top Care Cleaning (Top Care Cleaning Services, Grandville MI — 4.9 stars, 373 Google reviews) and built Hosted Reviews. He writes about review collection, local SEO, and operating service businesses. Full bio →