Best Squarespace Review and Testimonial Plugins in 2026

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Squarespace still has no native reviews block: there is a Testimonial section for quotes you paste in yourself, but nothing that pulls your real Google or Facebook reviews onto the page and keeps them fresh. After 400 or so client builds since 2018, "how do I get my Google reviews on the homepage?" is still the question I hear most, so here is my honest run through the plugins I actually reach for, what each costs in money or maintenance, and when you need none of them.

Quick verdict

For live reviews from Google or another platform, use a hosted widget: Elfsight Google Reviews is the one I install most often, Elfsight All-in-One Reviews when reviews are spread across platforms, and Common Ninja is the cheaper alternative with a more generous free tier. For a slider of quotes you collected yourself, a one-off code plugin such as the Ghost Plugins Bebe Testimonial Slider beats any subscription over time, because you pay once and own the code. And if your quotes are short, Squarespace's built-in Testimonial section is often enough.

Comparison table

Plugin	Type	Sources it pulls reviews from	Best for
Elfsight Google Reviews	Widget subscription (free tier)	Google Business Profile	Local and service businesses selling on their Google rating
Elfsight All-in-One Reviews	Widget subscription (free tier)	Google, Facebook, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Amazon, Etsy, Airbnb and 60 plus others, plus manual entries	Reviews spread across several platforms
Common Ninja Google Reviews	Widget subscription (free tier)	Google Business Profile	Per-review approval on a low cost paid tier
Common Ninja All in One Reviews	Widget subscription (free tier)	Google, Facebook, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Amazon, Etsy, G2, Capterra and more	Multi-platform reviews on a budget
Common Ninja Testimonials Slider	Widget subscription (free tier)	Quotes you type in yourself	Hand-picked testimonials without touching code
Ghost Plugins Bebe, Boldly and Aiko Testimonial Sliders	One-off code plugin (or Ghost Pro membership)	Quotes you add to a Summary block	Designers and owners who want a slider they own outright
Will's Toolkit testimonial styles	Membership code snippets	Quotes in a List section	Designers already paying for Will's Toolkit

Elfsight Google Reviews

What it does. Connect your Google Business Profile by Place ID, business name or a Maps share link (no API key needed), pick one of six layouts, and paste the embed code into a Squarespace code block. Each review shows the reviewer's name, photo, rating, date and text with a link back to Google, under a header with your overall rating and count. A "Review us on Google" button sends visitors to the review box on your listing, and new reviews sync within a few days.

Who it suits. Tradespeople, clinics, restaurants, agencies and any local business where the Google rating wins the enquiry. It is the widget I install most, because setup takes ten minutes and clients can manage it without me.

The trade-off. It is a subscription, and the free plan is genuinely limited: 200 widget views a month with Elfsight branding, which a modestly busy homepage burns through in a week. Paid plans started at $5 a month when I checked, rising with the view allowance. Each widget shows one location, and if you stop paying the reviews vanish from the page. One more caution: the rating filter lets you hide anything under four stars, which in the UK can fall foul of consumer protection rules, so I leave it off.

See Elfsight Google Reviews or read the SquareLocator listing.

Elfsight All-in-One Reviews

What it does. The same engine as the Google widget, but it aggregates reviews from more than 60 sources into one feed: Google, Facebook, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Airbnb, Booking.com, G2, Capterra, the app stores and a long tail of directories, plus a Custom Source for typing in reviews from anywhere else. Each card carries the source logo, the header shows your combined rating, and tabs show the rating per platform. It can also output aggregate rating schema markup.

Who it suits. A restaurant on Google and Tripadvisor, a holiday let on Airbnb and Booking.com, a shop on Etsy and Google. If everything lives on one platform, the single-source widget is cleaner.

The trade-off. Pricing and view limits match the Google widget, so the same caveats apply. Reviews can take up to 72 hours to appear, automatic translation needs a Pro plan or higher, and with several sources connected the widget gets busy.

See Elfsight All-in-One Reviews or read the SquareLocator listing. I cover the wider Elfsight catalogue in my Elfsight for Squarespace review.

Common Ninja Google Reviews Widget

What it does. Common Ninja's version of the Google reviews embed. Point it at your Google Business Profile, choose a slider, grid, list or compact badge layout, pick a skin, and paste one line of embed code into a code block. The feature I like most is manual approval: every review is queued in the dashboard and only goes live when you tick it, a more defensible way to curate than a blanket star filter. There are keyword filters, sorting and a custom CSS field.

Who it suits. Owners who want control per review, and anyone who found Elfsight's paid tiers steep for a small site.

The trade-off. The free plan covers one widget with no time limit, but it has a monthly view cap (the page is vague about the number) and Common Ninja branding. Paid plans are priced per widget on annual billing; the entry tier was listed at $24 a year when I checked. The editor is less polished than Elfsight's and the default skins need more work to look native on Squarespace. It is still a subscription, so the same "stop paying and it vanishes" rule applies.

See Common Ninja Google Reviews or read the SquareLocator listing.

Common Ninja All in One Reviews Widget

What it does. Aggregates reviews from Google, Facebook, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Amazon, AliExpress, eBay, Etsy, G2, Capterra, Sitejabber, Glassdoor and the app stores into a single wall, with the same per-review approval, filters and layouts as the Google widget.

Who it suits. The same multi-platform businesses as Elfsight's All-in-One, on a smaller budget.

The trade-off. The source list is shorter than Elfsight's and I have found the sync less predictable. Design control is good once you open the custom CSS panel, but the default look is busier. As with every hosted widget, reviews load from a third-party server, so there is a small performance cost and a dependency on the vendor.

See Common Ninja All in One Reviews or read the SquareLocator listing.

Common Ninja Testimonials Slider Widget

What it does. This one pulls nothing from a review platform. You type or paste the testimonials yourself, add a name, photo, star rating and optional source icon, and present them as an auto-scrolling slider, a wall, a grid or quote cards.

Who it suits. Coaches, consultants and B2B services whose best testimonials were never posted on a public review site.

The trade-off. You are paying a subscription for something Squarespace can very nearly do natively, so look hard at the built-in Testimonial section or a one-off code plugin first. The free plan covers one widget.

See Common Ninja Testimonials Slider or read the SquareLocator listing.

Ghost Plugins Bebe Testimonial Slider (and Boldly and Aiko)

What it does. Bebe is a one-off code plugin that restyles Squarespace's Carousel Summary block into a centred testimonial card: round client photo, name, title line, quote, optional star rating, and dot navigation with autoplay. You add testimonials as posts in a hidden blog, point a Summary block at it, and paste the plugin's CSS and JavaScript into Custom CSS and Code Injection. Boldly and Aiko are its siblings on the same mechanism with a bolder and a softer look. Every colour, radius and font size is a variable at the top of the code, and all three work on 7.0 (Brine family) and 7.1.

Who they suit. Designers building for clients, and owners who would rather pay once than monthly. The licence covers multiple sites and updates are free.

The trade-off. They only style quotes you enter yourself; they cannot fetch Google reviews. Each takes over the Carousel Summary block, so you cannot run another plugin on the same block, and Code Injection needs the Core or Business plan or higher. Because you are pasting code into your site, a Squarespace update can occasionally break the layout until Ghost ships a fix. Each was listed at $25 as a single purchase when I checked; Ghost also sells a Pro Access membership covering its whole Super Plugin library.

See Bebe (listing), Boldly (listing) or Aiko (listing).

Will's Toolkit testimonial styles

What they do. Will Myers publishes two testimonial treatments in his Code Catalog: a Slideshow Testimonial Style that turns a List section into a slider, and a Simple List Testimonial Style for a static grid of quotes. Both build on 7.1's native List section, so your testimonials stay in Squarespace's own editor.

Who they suit. Designers who already subscribe to Will's Toolkit for the wider code library, and who prefer native sections over the Summary block route.

The trade-off. These are member-only snippets, not standalone purchases: the Toolkit membership was listed at $15 a month or $150 a year when I checked. Worth it if you use the catalogue daily, a poor deal for one slider. Like all code snippets, you maintain them yourself when Squarespace changes something.

See the Slideshow Testimonial Style (listing) or the Simple List Testimonial Style (listing).

Squarespace's built-in options, and when they are enough

Before you buy anything, look at what 7.1 already does. Add a section, choose the Testimonials category, and you get a List section preset with a quote, a name and an optional image per item, in a simple list, carousel or banner slideshow layout. It is responsive, editable by anyone, and free. For three to six short quotes it is honestly all most service businesses need.

The older workaround is the Summary block: a hidden blog where each post is a testimonial, with a Carousel Summary block pointing at it. That is what the Ghost sliders build on, and it is still handy when testimonials must appear on several pages from one source.

Where the native options fall short: no live reviews from Google or anywhere else, no schema markup for rich results, and limited carousel styling without CSS. If your proof lives on Google or Facebook and you want visitors to see it is real and current, that is where a widget earns its subscription.

How I choose between a SaaS widget and a one-off plugin

This is the real decision, so it is worth being honest about the maths. A hosted widget costs a few pounds a month for as long as the site exists. Over a five year client site that is more than most code plugins cost in total, and the moment the card expires the section goes blank. In return you get live data a code snippet cannot fetch (Squarespace has no server-side way to call the Google API), an editor the client can use, and no maintenance when Squarespace changes its markup.

A one-off code plugin costs more upfront, is yours forever, and loads nothing from a third-party server. The price is ownership in the other sense: when a Squarespace update shifts a class name, you patch it, and it cannot display anything you did not type in yourself.

My rule of thumb: if the reviews are on a platform and their being verified is the point, pay for the widget and treat it as a marketing cost. If the testimonials are quotes you collected, use the native Testimonial section first, and buy a one-off slider only for a look the native layouts cannot give you. Either way, keep a copy of the testimonials somewhere you control; neither a widget account nor a hidden blog is a backup.

The template underneath

A reviews widget sits inside whatever template you chose, and no slider will rescue a cluttered homepage. If you are still choosing, the Squarespace templates hub lists every template on SquareLocator, and the templates for service businesses and templates for coaches collections are where a testimonial section does the heaviest lifting.

Related SquareLocator guides

• Elfsight for Squarespace: which widgets are actually worth it
• Best Squarespace plugins in 2026
• Best free Squarespace plugins in 2026
• How to add plugins to Squarespace: a beginner's guide
• Best live chat plugins for Squarespace in 2026
• Best Squarespace templates in 2026

Frequently asked questions

Can I show Google reviews on Squarespace without a plugin?

Not automatically. Squarespace has no built-in Google reviews block, so the only plugin-free route is to copy reviews into a native Testimonial section by hand. A hosted widget such as Elfsight or Common Ninja is the practical route to live, verified Google reviews.

Does Squarespace have a testimonial slider built in?

Yes. On Squarespace 7.1, add a section, choose the Testimonials category and pick a carousel or slideshow layout. It cannot show live reviews or ratings pulled from a platform, but for quotes you collected yourself it is often enough.

Which free Squarespace reviews widget is best?

Common Ninja's free plan is the more generous of the two for a single widget, though it carries branding and a monthly view cap. Elfsight's free plan allows 200 widget views a month, which is only useful for testing. For something free with no view limit, use the native Testimonial section.

Is it legal to show only my five star reviews?

Most widgets let you filter out low ratings, but UK and EU consumer protection rules treat selectively presenting reviews as potentially misleading, and the US FTC has similar rules. I recommend showing the full set and replying to the poor ones on the source platform instead.

Will a reviews widget slow my Squarespace site down?

A little. Hosted widgets load a script and the review data from the vendor's servers. On a well-built page the effect is small, but keep it to one widget per page and avoid placing it above the fold. One-off code plugins add almost nothing because they only restyle content Squarespace already loads.

Do I need the Business plan for these plugins?

For hosted widgets, no: a code block works on any plan that allows code blocks, though check Squarespace's current plan features because they change. Code plugins such as the Ghost sliders need Code Injection, which requires the Core or Business plan or higher.

Affiliate disclosure: SquareLocator earns a commission if you buy through the sponsored links in this article, at no extra cost to you. Prices checked 27 September 2026 on the vendor sites and may have changed since. Recommendations are based on my own client builds, not commission rates.

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