LocalImpact

Review management retainers usually die on labor: every client location needs its own collection sequences, inbox, and reply drafting. LocalImpact's Agency plan at $149/mo bundles white-label dashboards, multi-client account management, and reseller tools, so the marginal cost of adding a client location is configuration time, not a new subscription. The strategic stake is whether an agency can sell reputation work below the Pro plan's 3-location ceiling and still keep delivery hours under control.

LocalImpact's pricing is a location ladder, not a seat ladder: Growth at $49/mo covers 1 location, Pro at $99/mo covers 3, and the Agency plan at $149/mo adds white-label dashboards, multi-client account management, and reseller tools. The deployment model follows from that shape. Map every client's location count before you quote, because a franchise with four locations cannot sit on Pro without a second subscription, and stacking Pro plans costs more than moving to Agency once you pass roughly three client accounts. An agency running six single-location home services clients pays $149/mo on Agency and resells review management at $420/mo per client, which is the margin the ladder is built to protect. The trap is onboarding a multi-location franchise onto Growth and discovering the SMS and email request sequences only cover one location. Count locations first, then pick the tier, then price the retainer.

Reply Authenticity Ratio is the share of review responses that carry a named human voice versus templated or AI-drafted text. The category framing warns that automated responses feel impersonal and can backfire, so the ratio is a leading indicator of whether a review program builds goodwill or erodes it. Agencies should measure it per client location, not per account: a 200-location franchise averaging 80 percent templated replies is one viral screenshot away from a reputation problem. The practical rule is to reserve automation for triage and drafting, then route anything below four stars or mentioning a named employee to a human within one business day. Tools like Grade.us and Reviewshake ship AI reply drafts that make the templated path frictionless, which is exactly why the ratio needs tracking. Pair the metric with a quarterly sample audit of 20 replies per client and report it alongside star-rating movement on the retainer scorecard.

Review Signal Compounding treats review volume and recency as a compounding input to local search visibility rather than a vanity metric. Each new review adds a freshness signal and a keyword-rich snippet that feeds Google Business Profile ranking, which lifts map-pack impressions, which produces more customers who can leave the next review. The loop decays fast: a profile that collected 40 reviews in 2024 but nothing since loses recency weight while a competitor adding 6 per month overtakes it. For agencies, this reframes the retainer from reputation defense to a growth lever with a measurable cadence, and it gives a defensible reason to keep collection running through quiet months. Reviewly's SMS invitations, which the vendor reports at a 98% open rate, illustrate how the loop is fed at the point of service. The practical discipline is a monthly collection floor per client location, tracked alongside rank movement, not a one-off campaign.

Adopt LocalImpact only once the agency is managing at least 5 client locations and can bill white-label review management as a retainer line, and stay on Growth or Pro below that threshold.

Automate the request cadence and the monitoring layer, but route every negative review and every public reply through a named human before it publishes.

IF your agency manages 5+ client locations and needs white-label review dashboards plus reseller tooling, THEN the Agency plan at $149/mo is the entry point, since Growth ($49/mo) caps at 1 location and Pro ($99/mo) caps at 3 locations with centralized reporting but no white-label layer. IF you only run review collection for one or two single-location clients, THEN start on Growth or Pro and defer Agency until the location count forces the upgrade.

Agency playbook for standing up LocalImpact's Agency plan as a resellable multi-location review retainer, from workspace onboarding through white-label dashboards and the first client-facing review request sequence.