What is the average Google rating for a local business?

Across 816,000+ reviews from 3,700+ US local businesses in ProsperQR's data, the average rating is 4.6 stars and about 84% of all reviews are 5-star. It varies by industry: dentists (4.9) and home & field-service businesses (4.8) rate highest, while restaurants and medical offices sit closer to 4.5–4.6.

How many Google reviews does the average business get per month?

The median local business collects about 3 new Google reviews a month, and the busiest 10% collect 15 or more. Restaurants collect the most (a median of 5 a month), while dentists, med spas, and home-service businesses tend to collect fewer — around 2 a month — despite earning the highest ratings.

Which industries reply to their Google reviews the most?

Medical & health offices (66%) and automotive businesses (64%) reply to the largest share of their reviews. Restaurants reply the least, responding to only about 26% — meaning roughly three of every four restaurant reviews go unanswered.

Google Reviews by Industry: What 816,000 Reviews Reveal (2026)

Quick answer

Across 816,307 Google reviews from 3,739 US local businesses, the average rating is 4.6★ and the median business collects about 3 new reviews a month — but it varies sharply by industry. Restaurants collect the most (5/month); dentists and home-service pros earn the highest ratings (4.9 and 4.8) on far fewer.

Most "average Google reviews by industry" numbers online are either guesses or recycled from a survey years ago. These aren't. They come from 816,307 real Google reviews across 3,739 US local businesses actively collecting reviews with ProsperQR, as of July 2026. Here's what the data actually says — and where the biggest opportunities hide.

The benchmarks, by industry

Ordered by average rating. "Median / month" is what a typical business in that industry collects; "Top 10% / month" is the pace of the busiest tenth.

Industry	Avg rating	5-star share	Owner reply rate	Median reviews/mo	Top 10% reviews/mo
Dental	4.9	95%	43%	2	9
Home & field service	4.8	93%	52%	2	8
Med spa & aesthetic	4.7	92%	51%	2	13
Personal care (salon, barber, nail)	4.7	90%	34%	2	10
Restaurants & food	4.6	80%	26%	5	21
Automotive	4.6	83%	64%	3	14
Medical & health	4.5	82%	66%	3	16

The short version

Rating is high almost everywhere. Every industry averages 4.5–4.9. A steady stream of real customers pushes ratings up; the differences between industries are small.
Volume is the real gap. The median business collects only about 3 reviews a month. Whoever collects consistently, wins — the ceiling (the top 10%) is many times the median in every industry.
Most businesses ignore their reviews. Reply rates run from 26% to 66%. Replying to every review is free and most competitors don't bother.

The best-rated businesses collect the fewest reviews

The clearest pattern in the data is almost backwards from what you'd expect. Dentists (4.9) and home & field-service businesses (4.8) earn the highest ratings and the highest 5-star share (95% and 93%) — but collect the fewest reviews, a median of just 2 a month, with the busiest tenth only reaching 8–9.

These are businesses whose customers are genuinely happy — the reviews they do get are excellent. They're just not asking enough. A dentist or an HVAC company sitting at 4.9 stars with 40 reviews is leaving its biggest advantage on the table: at 2 a month, it takes years to build the volume that makes that rating impossible to ignore. The businesses in the top 10% aren't better-liked — they just ask every customer, every visit.

Restaurants collect the most — and engage the least

Restaurants are the opposite story. They collect more reviews than any other industry (a median of 5 a month, and 21 a month for the busiest 10%) — high foot traffic, lots of transactions. But they also have the lowest average rating (4.6), the lowest 5-star share (80%), and by far the lowest reply rate (26%). Three of every four restaurant reviews get no owner response.

That's an opening. In a category where nobody replies, the restaurant that responds to every review — especially the critical ones — stands out to both customers and Google.

Who actually replies

Reply rate is the one metric where the "unglamorous" industries lead. Medical & health (66%) and automotive (64%) reply to two-thirds of their reviews; personal care (34%) and restaurants (26%) trail badly. Responding to reviews signals an engaged business to customers reading them and is something Google itself recommends — and in the low-reply industries, it's a nearly free way to differentiate. If writing each reply is the bottleneck, here's how to automatically reply to Google reviews.

What every industry has in common

Whatever your category, the lever is the same: velocity — a steady stream of recent reviews. Ratings are already high across the board, so the businesses that pull ahead aren't the best-liked; they're the ones that ask consistently. The gap between the median business (about 3 a month) and the top 10% (15+) is entirely a gap in asking.

The way to close it is to make leaving a review effortless and to ask every customer while they're happiest. That's the whole idea behind ProsperQR: a tap card your staff hands over, or a stand on the counter, that takes a customer straight to your Google review form in one tap. See the full Google review statistics, or find the playbook for your trade in how to get more Google reviews.

Start collecting more reviews

Methodology

Figures are aggregated from 816,307 Google reviews (excluding deleted) across 3,739 US local businesses using ProsperQR, as of July 2026. Businesses are grouped by their primary Google Business Profile category into industry segments. "Reply rate" is the share of reviews with an owner response; "reviews per month" is the distribution of reviews collected per business per month. Segment sample sizes range from ~70 businesses (med spa & aesthetic) to ~430 (restaurants). Figures refresh quarterly.