To send a Zillow review request, open your Zillow profile in edit mode and click Request a review. A form appears with two options: email up to 50 client addresses a day through Zillow's form, or copy the direct link to your review form and send it yourself. A human moderator then reads the review before it publishes, which Zillow's own form puts at typically seven business days.

That is the easy half, and it is where most guides stop. Your client still has to make a Zillow account, write something specific enough to survive moderation, and do it from their own computer. Reviews fail on all three, and nobody tells you which one it was.

Verified 6 September 2026 against Zillow's Real Estate Professional Rating and Review Policy (updated April 2023), How to Request Client Reviews on Zillow for Agents (written by Zillow, 23 January 2025), and the help centre articles linked below.

How do I request a review on Zillow?

Zillow documents the flow in How can I request a review from a client?:

1. Sign in and open your Zillow profile in edit mode.
2. Click Request a review.
3. For a batch, leave Type an email(s) selected and paste in past client addresses, up to 50 a day.
4. Tick I am indicating that this person was a past client, then Send Request.
5. To send it yourself instead, choose Copy and paste direct link and take the URL from Direct link to review form.

The two methods are not equivalent. Emailed requests show up under Sent requests, so you can see whether a client has submitted a review or whether it is still sitting in moderation. Zillow says on the form that direct link requests cannot be tracked and will not appear there. The link wins on everything else: it goes in a text message, and it arrives from you rather than from a platform. Use the link for the client you settled with this week and the email form for the backlog you are working through.

Your client needs a Zillow account either way. Zillow requires a reviewer to create a profile first, which it says keeps reviews coming from actual clients. It takes an email address and a password, the address is never displayed, and someone who would rather not be identified can sign up under another name. It is still a step, and it is where a request sent to a busy seller dies. Say so in the ask.

When is the right time to request reviews?

Earlier than most agents ask. Zillow tells agents to raise it at the first win with a new client, when they get pre-approved or walk into a house they get excited about, then to request at mutual acceptance or within three days after closing. That second window is the one worth defending. The client can still remember the reprice in week two and the inspection that came back badly, and that detail is what moderation is looking for.

Send one request under your own name. Do not send it from the office, from a marketing address, or in a newsletter a month later. For past clients Zillow suggests phoning rather than emailing cold, and using the call to remind them of a specific moment before you send the link.

Ask every client, not the ones you expect to be happy. Google's content policy bans selective solicitation in as many words, and while Zillow does not use that language, a profile where nothing has ever arrived from a difficult sale reads as managed. Nothing goes in front of the ask either: no star question, no filter deciding who reaches the review form. Our guide to asking for real estate reviews is the longer version.

What to send: a Zillow review request template

A request works when it names the thing you want the client to talk about and warns them about the account step before they hit it.

Text message, the day of settlement:

Hi Elena, congratulations again on Wilson Street. If you have two minutes this week, a short review would help the next family deciding whether to list with me: [your Zillow review link]. Zillow will ask you to make a quick account first. Anything about how the second campaign went is perfect. Thanks, Marisol

Email, to a past client:

Subject: A quick favour, Raf

Hi Raf, two years on from the Ashfield purchase I still use that building report as the example of why we walk away from things.

I'm asking a few past clients for a Zillow review. Three or four sentences does it: what you were trying to do, one thing I did that helped, how it turned out. Zillow asks reviewers to make an account first, which takes a minute. Here's the link: [your Zillow review link]

No problem at all if you'd rather not. Marisol

Send one reminder a few days later, then stop.

How long does it take for my Zillow review to show up?

Zillow gives two answers. Where is my review? says it can currently take up to one week to clear moderation. The request form says a dedicated team of trained moderators evaluates every review before publishing, typically within seven business days. Plan on the longer one.

So a request sent on Friday is not a review on Monday, and it will not be there for Tuesday's listing presentation. If you are filling out a thin profile before a campaign, start a fortnight out. Emailed requests sit in the Request a review section of your profile, and your client can see the same status from the Reviews Written section of theirs.

What if a Zillow review gets rejected?

Zillow will not publish everything it checks, on the reasonable grounds that the people gaming the system do not need the list. It does name the common failures in When would a review get rejected? and in its review policy, and nearly all of them are avoidable in the ask.

The compensation line has teeth. Zillow withholds reviews from anyone offered payment for one, and separately makes you agree not to solicit a review from any person, family and colleagues included, in exchange for compensation. There is no gift-card version of this that works. The last sentence of the policy is the one to read twice: if Zillow decides you are enabling reviews that were not submitted directly to Zillow by the client, it reserves the right to terminate your Agent Profile and any Zillow programme attached to it.

A review is not posted if it rates you on skills that were not applicable to the interaction, so a buyer's-agent client praising your listing photography is rating something outside their own transaction. By creating an Agent Profile you also agree that some reviews will be negative. If you do not want them, Zillow's only remedy is deleting the profile.

Replying to a Zillow review, and what to do about a bad one

To reply, open your profile from the Agent Hub dropdown, scroll to the review and click Respond to review. Your answer publishes underneath it.

Reply to all of them. Zillow says people find a 4.8 or 4.9 more credible than a perfect 5.0, and that its data shows the number of reviews drives more contacts to an agent than the rating does.

For a review you think is unfair, Zillow is blunt that reviews are very rarely removed once approved. Flag it from your profile for re-moderation and it comes down only if the team decides it breaks the guidelines. Respond publicly, which for a review that passed moderation is the only recourse the policy offers you: a clarification comment under it, in your words. Report it to Consumer Care if the person was never your client. Then go and collect newer reviews, which is Zillow's third suggestion and the one that changes what a stranger sees. Wording for all three cases is in our realtor review examples and review response examples.

How to optimise your Zillow reviews

Zillow tells agents to think about where they want the next deal to come from and point the client at it. More listings in one suburb means asking the clients who bought there and suggesting their review mention the area. Zillow's only condition is that you request accurate and honest information.

Google's rule is different. Its content policy says a merchant should not request that specific content be included in a review. If the same ask goes to both profiles, write to Google's rule. It is the stricter of the two, and it governs the profile that comes up when someone searches your name.

Aim for at least five recent published reviews, the number Zillow itself suggests. A profile whose newest review is from 2023 tells a seller something you did not mean to say.

On a team, the roll-up matters before you quote a team rating. Reviews published to a Member Agent's profile while they are on the team are attributed to the team profile as well; a Referral Agent's are not, which is the setting leaders use for someone still building a history. When a member leaves, reviews from their time stay on the team profile and anything they collect afterwards does not count toward it.

Zillow reviews versus Google reviews for an agent

If you can only sustain one, make it Google: it is what a seller sees when they search your name, and your clients already have accounts. Zillow is the strong second in the US, because it is where people go specifically to compare agents and because the review attaches to you rather than to your brokerage, which matters the day you change office. How to get more Google reviews covers the other side.

Running this across an office rather than one profile is what Cloutly does. The ask goes out when a deal moves into the stage you nominate in HubSpot, on the timing you choose. A repeat client stays one contact asked once, anyone who reviewed you in the last 90 days is skipped, and follow-ups stop the moment the review lands. Zillow is one of the 39 review sites Cloutly reads, so what arrives there lands in the same inbox as Google.

Common questions

Can I write the review for my client?

No. Zillow's review policy reserves the right to terminate your Agent Profile if it determines you are enabling reviews that were not submitted directly to Zillow by the client. Even with the client's blessing, it is the one thing on that page that risks the profile itself.

Does my client need a Zillow account to review me?

Yes. Zillow requires a reviewer to create a profile before submitting. It takes an email address and a password, and the address is never displayed. Warn them in the ask so the sign-up screen is not a surprise.

How many Zillow review requests can I send a day?

Fifty email addresses a day through the request form. Zillow publishes no cap on the direct link, and sending that one client at a time is the version that gets written anyway.

Can I get a bad Zillow review removed?

Rarely. Zillow says reviews are very rarely removed once approved. Flag it for re-moderation if it breaks the guidelines, report it to Consumer Care if the person was never your client, and otherwise respond to it and collect newer ones.

Why did my review request never turn into a review?

Check Sent requests first, because a review can sit in moderation for a week. After that the usual causes are the account step, a review too short to pass, an office computer, or an overseas client who never replied to Zillow's confirmation email.