RateMate — Product Reviews
for WooCommerce

What is RateMate?

RateMate is a full-featured WooCommerce product review plugin built on a single principle — everything that matters to store owners should be free. Competitors like ReviewX charge for email reminders, store owner replies, and import/export. RateMate ships all of that in the free version.

It is modular: every feature can be toggled on or off from the Settings page. Lightweight assets are loaded only on pages where they are needed — no global JS or CSS bloat.

System Requirements

WooCommerce is a hard dependency — RateMate checks for it on activation and shows an admin notice if it is missing. No other external services or libraries are required.

Installation

From WordPress.org (Recommended)

Manual Upload

Quick Start

After activating RateMate, your WooCommerce product pages already have rich snippets, a rating summary bar, verified buyer badges, and the review form enhanced with photo upload. Here is how to set up the most impactful features.

Enable review request emails

Go to RateMate → Settings → Email Requests. Toggle Email requests on and set the delay (default: 7 days after order completion). Emails go into the queue and are processed hourly by WP-Cron.

Test rich snippets

Visit any product page that has at least one approved review, then paste the URL into Google's Rich Results Test. You should see a valid Product schema with aggregateRating.

Rich Snippets / JSON-LD

RateMate injects Schema.org JSON-LD markup into wp_head on single product pages. The schema includes an aggregateRating block (average, count) and individual Review items for the latest reviews.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "Trail Runner Pro",
  "aggregateRating": {
    "@type": "AggregateRating",
    "ratingValue": "4.7",
    "reviewCount": "142"
  },
  "review": [...]
}

Verified Buyer Badge & Helpfulness Votes

When a customer submits a review, RateMate calls WooCommerce's wc_customer_bought_product() to verify the purchase. Verified reviews display a green "Verified Purchase" badge automatically — no manual action required.

Helpfulness votes

Each review shows a "Was this helpful?" vote button. Votes are stored in the ratemate_review_votes table. Duplicate votes are prevented by checking both user ID (for logged-in users) and IP address (for guests) — a unique constraint at the DB level.

Photo & Video Reviews

Customers can attach up to 5 images or videos (configurable) to their reviews. Files are validated by MIME type using PHP's finfo — not just file extension — before being uploaded to the WordPress media library via WP_Filesystem.

Review Request Emails

When an order status changes to Completed, RateMate adds an entry to the ratemate_email_queue table with a scheduled send timestamp. A WP-Cron job runs every hour and processes pending emails in the queue.

Unsubscribe

Every email includes a signed unsubscribe link. The token is validated using hash_equals() — timing-safe comparison — so it cannot be forged or guessed. Unsubscribed customers are flagged in the queue and never emailed again.

Rating Summary Bar

Above the WooCommerce review list, RateMate renders a star distribution bar showing the percentage breakdown for each rating level. Customers can click any star row to filter reviews by that rating via AJAX — no page reload.

Sort & Filter Controls

Customers can sort reviews by Newest, Highest Rated, Lowest Rated, or Most Helpful. There is also a "Photos only" filter that hides reviews without media. All sorting and filtering happens via AJAX.

Store Owner Replies

Admins and shop managers can reply to any review directly from the All Reviews dashboard or from the product page (when logged in). Replies are stored as child WP comments with the ratemate_owner_reply meta flag and displayed below the parent review with a "Store" badge.

A dedicated column in the Comments → Reviews WP screen shows which reviews already have a reply, making moderation at scale much faster.

Product Q&A Module

A "Questions (N)" tab is added to WooCommerce product pages. Customers can submit questions as guests or logged-in users. Questions from guests go to a moderation queue — admin is notified by email. Store owners answer with a "Store" badge. Other customers can upvote answers.

Admin moderation

The RateMate → Q&A admin page shows all pending questions with Approve and Delete buttons. Approved answers from the store show a teal "Store" badge on the front end.

Analytics Dashboard

RateMate tracks six event types locally — no external service required. The admin dashboard shows KPI cards, a canvas-based rating trend chart, and a top products table, all filterable by 7, 30, or 90-day ranges.

Tracked events

Import / Export CSV

Migrate from another review platform in minutes. RateMate auto-detects the CSV format by reading column headers — no manual mapping required for the three supported formats.

Import is processed in batches of 50 rows per AJAX request, with a live progress bar. Duplicate detection checks whether the same email has already reviewed the same product. After import, WooCommerce's rating transient cache is cleared automatically.

My Account Reviews

Customers can submit reviews directly from their WooCommerce My Account order history — no need to find the product page. A "Write a Review" button appears next to each completed order. On the order detail page, an inline review form appears for each purchased product.

Reviews submitted from My Account are automatically marked as Verified Purchase. The form includes the star picker, optional title field, and review body — and the minimum length validation runs on both client and server.

Recommendation System

When submitting a review, customers choose one of three sentiment options: Recommended, Neutral, or Not Recommended. This provides a binary signal beyond star ratings — similar to Amazon's "Would you recommend this?" feature.

An overall recommendation score bar appears above the review list showing the percentage breakdown. Each review card displays the customer's recommendation badge.

Review Title Field & Minimum Length

Review title

An optional headline field appears above the review textarea. Titles are stored in wp_commentmeta under the key ratemate_review_title and rendered as a styled headline above the review body.

Minimum review length

Set a minimum character count (default: 0, meaning disabled). A live character counter with colour feedback appears below the textarea. Validation runs on both the client side (for UX) and server side via the preprocess_comment filter (for security).

Gutenberg Blocks & Shortcodes New in 1.0.2

Place reviews anywhere — homepage, landing pages, widgets areas and block-theme templates — without a page builder. RateMate adds two native blocks and two matching shortcodes. There is nothing to enable: they are available as soon as the plugin is active, and they only load their stylesheet on pages that actually use them.

RateMate Product Reviews block

In the editor click +, search for “RateMate” and insert RateMate Product Reviews. A live preview is shown while you edit; options are in the block sidebar.

Each card shows the reviewer, a star rating, the Verified purchase badge, the review title and an excerpt. When no product is in context, each card also links to the product that was reviewed.

RateMate Rating Summary block

Shows a product's average rating, the number of reviews and five distribution bars (5★ → 1★). Options: Product (default: current product) and Show star distribution bars. Ideal for a Single Product template or a landing page.

Shortcodes

For classic themes, widgets and page builders. Attribute values are sanitised and clamped, so invalid values fall back to the defaults.

[ratemate_product_reviews limit="6" layout="grid"]
[ratemate_product_reviews product_id="42" min_rating="4" show_photos="false"]
[ratemate_rating_summary]
[ratemate_rating_summary product_id="42" show_distribution="false"]

How “current product” is chosen

With product_id="0" (or “Current product” in the block) RateMate picks the product in this order:

• The product ID you selected, if any.
• The product of the template or query loop the block sits in (block themes).
• The product currently being displayed on the page.
• None: the Reviews block shows the latest reviews from your whole store; the Rating Summary shows nothing to visitors (inside the editor it shows a short hint instead).

Add the rating summary to a block-theme product page

Admin Interface

RateMate adds a top-level RateMate menu to the WordPress admin sidebar with seven sub-pages: Dashboard, All Reviews, Q&A, Analytics, Settings, Email Queue, and Import/Export.

All Reviews dashboard

The All Reviews page shows a filterable, searchable table of all WooCommerce reviews. Bulk actions (approve, unapprove, trash) run via AJAX. Quick-approve toggle lets you flip a review's status with a single click. Inline reply opens a textarea directly in the row.

AI Features Free · Requires API Key

RateMate includes two AI-powered features powered by the Anthropic Claude API (claude-haiku-4-5 model). Both features are free — you only need your own Anthropic API key. Go to Settings → AI Features to enter your key and enable features.

AI Review Summary

Automatically generates a 2–3 sentence intelligent summary of all approved reviews for each product. The summary is displayed in a highlighted box above the review list, helping shoppers quickly understand what customers love and any common concerns.

• Triggers automatically when a product has 3+ approved reviews.
• Cached for 7 days in post meta — API is only called once per product per week.
• Cache automatically invalidates when a new review is approved.
• Admin can manually regenerate or clear the summary from the product edit screen (meta box in sidebar).
• Option key: ratemate_ai_summary_enabled

AI Sentiment Badge

Every approved review is automatically analysed by AI and tagged as 😊 Positive, 😐 Mixed, or 😞 Negative. The badge appears in the admin review list and optionally on the product page next to each review.

• Analysis runs asynchronously via WP-Cron (5-second delay) — no slowdown on review approval.
• Results stored as comment meta: ratemate_sentiment and ratemate_sentiment_score (0–100).
• Admin review list gets a colour-coded Sentiment column: 🟢 Positive / 🟡 Mixed / 🔴 Negative.
• Batch-analyse tool in Settings processes all existing un-tagged reviews in batches of 10.
• Frontend display is optional — toggle in Settings → AI Features.
• Option keys: ratemate_ai_sentiment_enabled, ratemate_ai_sentiment_frontend

Pro Features RateMate Pro

Pro features require the RateMate Pro plugin (a separate installable plugin) with an active license key. Go to RateMate → License to activate. Pro settings are under RateMate → Settings → ⚡ Pro Features.

🎟️ Coupon Incentive

Automatically generates a unique WooCommerce discount coupon and emails it to the reviewer the moment their review is approved. Drive repeat purchases by rewarding customers for leaving feedback.

• Discount type: Percentage (%), fixed cart, or fixed product.
• Minimum stars: Only reward reviews with ★ ≥ N (e.g. only send coupon for 4★+ reviews).
• Expiry: Configure expiry in days (0 = never expires).
• Coupon is created as a real WooCommerce coupon — restricted to the reviewer's email, single-use.
• Beautiful HTML email sent automatically — no manual action needed.
• All sent coupons logged in the ratemate_pro_coupons DB table with totals shown in settings.
• Option key: ratemate_pro_coupon_enabled

🚨 Negative Review Alert

Sends an instant email alert to the store owner whenever a low-star review is approved. React quickly to unhappy customers, respond before the review is seen by shoppers, and protect your store's reputation.

• Threshold: Alert when rating ≤ 1, 2, 3, or 4 stars (configurable).
• Alert email: Send to any address — defaults to WordPress admin email.
• Email includes: star rating, product name, reviewer name & email, review excerpt, and a direct "Reply to Review" button.
• Works for both manually approved reviews and auto-approved reviews.
• Option key: ratemate_pro_alert_enabled

🎠 Review Carousel & Trust Badge

Embed reviews anywhere with the Pro shortcode [ratemate_reviews] (or the RateMate Pro – Reviews block) in grid, carousel or list layout, plus an optional floating store-wide rating badge. The free blocks cover single-product lists; Pro adds the carousel and store-wide widgets.

• Attributes: product (ID or all), layout, limit, rating (minimum stars), show_photo, show_date, title.
• Carousel has arrows, dot indicators, swipe and keyboard navigation.
• Floating trust badge (“★ 4.8 · 240 reviews”) in the bottom-left or bottom-right corner.
• Option keys: ratemate_pro_carousel_enabled, ratemate_pro_badge_enabled, ratemate_pro_badge_position

🛒 Google Shopping Review Feed

Generates a Google Product Ratings XML feed for Merchant Center so star ratings can appear in Google Shopping and search results.

• Feed URL: https://your-store.com/?ratemate-feed=reviews — copy it from Settings → 🛒 Google Feed.
• Cached as a file in uploads/ratemate/google-feed.xml; regenerated daily and instantly when a review is approved or deleted.
• Status bar shows reviews in feed and last-generated time, with a Regenerate Now button.
• Products are matched by GTIN, MPN or SKU — set SKUs in WooCommerce → Product → Inventory.
• Option keys: ratemate_pro_feed_enabled, ratemate_pro_feed_publisher_name, ratemate_pro_feed_publisher_url

📧 Smart Email Sequences

Turns the single review request email into a multi-step drip. Default: Day 7 → Day 14 → Day 21.

• Each step is sent only if the customer has not reviewed yet; a submitted review cancels all remaining steps.
• Per-step delay, subject and body, with placeholders {name}, {site}, {order}, {products}, {coupon}.
• Optionally attach a discount coupon to a step (uses the Coupon Incentive settings).
• Live Preview of every step; queue stats (pending / sent / skipped / failed).
• Uses the existing hourly cron — no extra scheduled events. Stored in ratemate_pro_sequence_queue.
• Option key: ratemate_pro_sequence_enabled

🎛️ Display Control & AI Moderation

Decide which reviews shoppers see, and stop problem reviews before they go live.

• Display control: 📌 pin to top, ⭐ highlight as featured, 🙈 hide — one-click buttons in the admin Comments list. Optional “hide reviews at or below N stars” (a disclaimer is shown automatically) and default sort: newest, most helpful or age-weighted.
• Moderation: quarantines reviews flagged as spam, offensive (your keyword list), competitor mention, incentivized, duplicate, or — optionally — AI-flagged using your Anthropic key.
• Private resolution: email the reviewer from the moderation column, or automatically on quarantine, before anything is published.
• Option keys: ratemate_pro_display_enabled, ratemate_pro_moderation_enabled, ratemate_pro_moderation_ai, ratemate_pro_private_resolve

All Settings

All settings are stored as WordPress options using the ratemate_ prefix and are seeded with sensible defaults on activation.

Privacy & Data

• All data is stored locally in your WordPress database — no third-party services receive any customer data.
• Email addresses collected for review requests are stored only in the ratemate_email_queue table and are never shared.
• Vote duplicate detection stores IP addresses hashed in the ratemate_review_votes table.
• Email open tracking (on by default, switch off under Settings → Email requests → Track email opens): review request emails contain an invisible 1×1 image. Only an anonymous count per order is stored — no IP address, email address or cookie — and no JavaScript trackers are used. Opens are approximate because some mail apps preload images.
• Guest Q&A submissions store name and email only for admin moderation purposes.
• AI features: Review text is sent to the Anthropic API using your own API key. No data passes through WebTend servers. The API key is stored encrypted in the WordPress database.
• Pro Coupon feature: Coupon codes and reviewer emails are stored in the ratemate_pro_coupons table. No data is sent externally.
• Pro Google Shopping feed: when enabled, approved review text and reviewer names are published at your feed URL and fetched by Google Merchant Center. Pro AI moderation sends review text to the Anthropic API using your own key.
• Uninstalling the plugin via Plugins → Delete triggers uninstall.php which drops all custom tables and deletes all plugin options.

Frequently Asked Questions

Changelog