Amazon announced Review Requests on September 29, 2026, with a U.S. open beta planned for late October. The new ad format gives sellers and vendors a paid way to invite people who already bought their product to leave a rating or review while shopping on Amazon.
That’s a change in what advertising can do on the marketplace. Most Amazon ads try to find your next buyer. Review Requests aims to reach a past buyer, with the hope that the review helps persuade the next one. The customers are verified purchasers, not people who received a free product. Amazon’s Review Requests announcement has the initial program details.
How Review Requests Works
A customer buys your product, then later sees a sponsored invitation to review it while browsing Amazon. They can leave a star rating with one click and optionally add a written review, photos, or video. Any resulting review appears on the product detail page, where other shoppers can see it.
Amazon says the invitations can run on its highest-traffic pages. The public announcement doesn’t name specific placements, so for now, “high-traffic pages” is the useful level of detail. The ad isn’t a request for a review from a stranger. It’s a paid prompt shown to someone who has already purchased the product.
Who Qualifies
The open beta is planned for the United States. Registered sellers and vendors can use it if they have an advertising console account in good standing and no active policy violations. A product must have fewer than 1,000 total ratings and reviews to qualify. Amazon checks eligibility both when a campaign is created and while it runs, and the campaign pauses automatically when the product reaches 1,000.
You’ll create and manage campaigns through Amazon Ads Agent, using bidding and budget controls like those in other Amazon Ads campaigns. Access is also available through the Amazon Ads Unified API. That puts campaign management in a familiar advertising workflow, though the feature’s purpose is a little different.
What Does It Cost?
Amazon hasn’t announced campaign pricing or how advertisers will be charged. It says sellers can use bidding and budget controls, but the public announcement doesn’t specify whether a charge applies to impressions, clicks, submitted ratings or reviews, or another action.
That distinction matters. A low cost to show an invitation can still add up if only a small share of buyers respond. Paying for a submitted rating would produce a different calculation. Until Amazon explains the billing model and reporting, you can’t estimate cost per acquired review with confidence.
Amazon’s 3× Review-Volume Claim
Amazon says products in the closed beta received about three times as many ratings and reviews per week as they had before the test. The test ran in the United States from June 3 through June 21, 2026.
That’s an encouraging result, but it doesn’t tell you whether the program will pay off. Amazon’s public announcement doesn’t disclose the test’s sample size, ad spend, cost per additional review, or whether the results were compared with a randomized control group. The reported increase is a starting point for evaluation, not a return-on-ad-spend forecast.
Review Requests vs. Amazon Vine
Vine and Review Requests address different stages of review building. Vine puts free products in the hands of invited reviewers. Review Requests invites people who already bought your product to leave feedback. The programs could work in sequence, rather than compete.
| Feature | Amazon Vine | Review Requests |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Seed early reviews, including before launch | Help products already making sales gain reviews |
| Audience | Invited Vine Voices | Existing verified purchasers |
| Free product provided? | Yes, to the reviewer | No |
| Advertising spend | No | Yes, pricing not announced |
| Enrollment fees | Free for up to two units; fees apply at higher tiers | Not disclosed |
| Review threshold | Fewer than 30 reviews | Fewer than 1,000 ratings and reviews |
| Best use | Building an initial review base | Growing reviews on a product with sales |
Amazon’s current Vine fee structure is tiered: enrolling up to two units is free, with fees for larger enrollment tiers. The broad distinction is simple: Vine can help seed a product’s first reviews, while Review Requests may be useful later, once buyers are already placing orders.
How It Differs From the Free Request a Review Button
Seller Central already has a free Request a Review feature. Sellers can use it once per order between 5 and 30 days after delivery. Amazon also says its systems request reviews automatically at no cost. The Seller Central instructions explain the existing process.
Review Requests doesn’t replace either option. It adds a paid ad placement for reaching past customers while they’re shopping. The free tool sends a standardized request by email; the new format puts an invitation in Amazon’s shopping experience. You’ll want to compare any paid campaign with the review activity you already get without it.
The Advertising Case: Cost per Incremental Review
A smaller review count can make it harder for a product to compete with established listings. A product with 35 reviews sits beside competitors with thousands, and the difference may influence a shopper deciding which listing feels like the safer pick. More reviews could help conversion, but Review Requests still has to prove that the added reviews are worth the spend.
The potential loop is straightforward: advertising generates sales, Review Requests reaches some of those buyers, added reviews may help future shoppers convert, and stronger conversion may improve advertising efficiency. Unlike a campaign aimed only at a sale, the potential benefit of a review could continue after the campaign ends.
Measure cost per incremental review, not just the total reviews associated with a campaign. Suppose a product typically gets 10 reviews a month and gets 30 while using Review Requests. That’s about 20 additional reviews. If the campaign costs $100, the illustrative cost is $100 ÷ 20, or $5 per incremental review.
The word “incremental” is doing real work here. If those 20 reviews would have arrived anyway through ordinary sales and Amazon’s free requests, the campaign didn’t create 20 new reviews. You’ll also need to check whether added review volume changes conversion enough to justify the cost.
What Sellers Should Watch Before Testing It
Review Requests may be worth testing for newer ASINs with steady sales but a relatively small review base. A possible sequence is launch, use Vine to seed early reviews, generate sales, then test Review Requests and track both review growth and conversion. Each step has a separate job; no ad format can replace a product people want to buy.
Before committing budget, look for Amazon’s pricing and reporting details, then set a baseline for the reviews and conversion your product already receives. The key question is direct: what does each additional review cost, and does the resulting review growth improve conversion enough to justify that spend?
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