Trustindex and Elfsight both put your Google reviews on your website, and on the cheapest paid plans they cost almost the same: $65 a year against $60 a year. The real differences are in the limits. Trustindex has no cap on how many times the widget loads and pulls from 133 review sites on its first paid plan. Elfsight caps monthly views, refreshes on a 72-hour cycle, and sells its multi-site reviews widget as a separate, pricier app.
This comparison is written for a home service business or a small agency that wants fresh reviews on a site without paying for a full review management platform for small businesses. If your problem is a website builder that stops showing new reviews, start with our fix for a Jobber website that is not showing new Google reviews, then come back here if you decide to add a widget.
How this comparison was made: it is a research comparison, not a hands-on test. We have not installed either widget on a live client site. Every price and limit below comes from the vendor’s own pricing or help pages, linked in the text and listed under Sources. Prices checked October 16, 2026.
The quick difference
| Trustindex | Elfsight | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | Single: $65/year, 1 company | Google Reviews Basic: $5/month billed yearly ($60/year), 3 widgets |
| Free option | Free WordPress plugin: 1 source, up to 10 reviews per widget, no automatic updates | Free plan: 1 widget, 200 views a month, Elfsight branding |
| Review sites | 133 platforms on every paid plan | Google only in the Google Reviews app; 30+ platforms in the separate All-in-One Reviews app (from $10/month billed yearly) |
| View limit | Unlimited widgets and views | 5,000 views/month on Basic; over the limit the app is temporarily deactivated |
| How often new reviews appear | Widgets refresh daily on paid plans | 72-hour cache |
| Websites | Limited by companies: 1 (Single), 5 (Pro), unlimited (Ultimate) | Unlimited websites on every plan |
| Refund window | 30 days | 14 days |
| Extras | Email review requests, AI-translated reviews, automatic AI replies at $29 per source per year | AI-generated review summary, 12 templates, free installation help on paid plans |
Prices checked October 16, 2026 on Trustindex prices, Elfsight Google Reviews pricing and Elfsight All-in-One Reviews pricing. Elfsight shows discounted yearly rates; its regular rates were $6, $12 and $24 a month for Basic, Pro and Premium.
What you pay over three years, in three common setups
Both vendors bill yearly on the plans below, so the clearest comparison is a three-year total. The setups are the ones we see most often in local service businesses.
| Setup | Trustindex | Elfsight | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| One website, Google reviews only | Single: $65 × 3 = $195 | Google Reviews Basic: $60 × 3 = $180 | Elfsight by $15, if you stay under 5,000 views a month |
| One website, Google plus Facebook and Yelp | Single: $195 | All-in-One Basic: $120 × 3 = $360 | Trustindex by $165 |
| Five client sites, Google only (small agency) | Pro: $125 × 3 = $375 | Google Reviews Pro: $120 × 3 = $360 (9 widgets, 50,000 views) | Close; Elfsight by $15 if views stay under the cap |
Two things move these numbers. Elfsight’s welcome discounts change often, so your first year may be cheaper than the table. And if you add Trustindex’s automatic AI replies for Google, add $29 a year per review source.
Views: the limit most small sites never think about
Elfsight sells its plans by monthly views: 200 on Free, 5,000 on Basic, 50,000 on Pro and 150,000 on Premium for the Google Reviews app. Its pricing page says that going over the limit “will temporarily deactivate your app”. If you put the widget in a site-wide footer, every page a visitor opens can use up that allowance faster than you expect, so check your page views in Google Analytics before picking a tier.
Trustindex lists unlimited widgets and widget views on all three paid plans, so traffic spikes, such as a busy week after a storm or a local news mention, do not switch the widget off.
How fast a new review shows up
Elfsight’s help article on missing reviews says its reviews widget uses a 72-hour cache and checks your Google source every 72 hours. A review left on Monday morning may not appear until Thursday. If that is too slow, the article tells you to contact support. If that delay matters, EmbedSocial’s paid plans sync every 3 hours or faster; see our EmbedSocial vs Elfsight comparison.
Trustindex says its paid widgets refresh daily, and its help center notes that automatic refresh only runs while a subscription is active. The free WordPress plugin does not update on its own and shows at most 10 reviews per widget, which is the most common reason owners on the free plugin see the same reviews for months.
Free plans: which one is actually usable?
For a WordPress site that only needs a few Google reviews, Trustindex’s free Widgets for Google Reviews plugin is the more usable free option: it has more than a million active installs, no view cap and no time limit, but it stops at 10 reviews and needs a manual refresh. Note that Trustindex’s free registered account is different: widgets created there display for only 7 days unless you upgrade.
Elfsight’s free plan works on any site builder, but 200 views a month runs out quickly on any site with steady traffic, and the widget carries Elfsight branding. Treat it as a trial. On Squarespace, widget code only runs on Core and higher plans; see how to add Google reviews to Squarespace if you are on Basic.
Which one to pick
- Pick Trustindex if you want reviews from Google and other sites such as Facebook and Yelp in one widget, if your traffic is unpredictable, or if you want new reviews to show within a day. Its paid plans also list email review campaigns and QR codes for asking customers.
- Pick Elfsight if you only show Google reviews, your site gets modest traffic, you manage several websites under one login, or you want free installation help and more template choices. Its unlimited-websites rule suits a freelancer who adds one widget per client site.
- Pick neither if you mainly need more reviews rather than a display widget. A tool that sends review requests by text after each job does more for a contractor; the review management roundup linked at the top of this page compares those.
One caution on Trustindex: its negative-review filter routes unhappy customers away from Google. Google’s review policy does not allow selectively asking only happy customers, so leave that feature off.
Before you install either one
- Check the review is public on Google Maps first; neither widget can show a review Google is holding back.
- Decide where the widget goes. One placement on the homepage and one on the contact page uses far fewer Elfsight views than a site-wide footer.
- Confirm the plan renews yearly on both tools, and set a reminder before renewal.
More guides on showing and earning reviews are on our reviews and reputation hub. We explain what a hands-on test involves on our how we test page.
Sources
- Trustindex: Prices
- Trustindex help: subscription packages
- Trustindex help: what is free
- Trustindex help: why only 10 reviews in the WordPress plugin
- Trustindex help: how often the widget updates
- Elfsight: Google Reviews pricing
- Elfsight: All-in-One Reviews pricing
- Elfsight help: why my reviews are not being updated
All checked October 16, 2026.
