Review Guidelines

Our objective is to help buyers identify leading firms that fit their needs. Ratings and reviews that are relevant, helpful, and trustworthy help with that objective.

Review Tips

When writing a review, please be informative and insightful. Provide information that you think will be helpful to readers in determining if the subject company will be a good fit for their needs. Specifically, focus on the following:

• Own experience: Focus the review on your own experience and the facts surrounding that experience. Limit any broad generalizations. 
• Balance & objectivity: Few experiences are 100% positive or 100% negative. Even if you had a great experience, think about areas of potential improvements. If your experience was negative, stick to the facts and try to identify areas of strength. 
• Relevance: Keep the review to information that would be helpful to prospective buyers. 
• Respect: When providing negative feedback, remain respectful and provide criticism in a constructive format. Most companies will look to learn from constructive criticism.  

Incentivized Reviews

If you receive a free or discounted service from a business in exchange for posting a review:

• You must clearly and conspicuously disclose that fact by including language at the beginning of the review indicating “I received this service for free (or at a discount) for my review.”  You may indicate that the review nonetheless reflects your honest opinion.
• The business may not direct the content of your review, including by requiring the review be positive.
• Your review must reflect your honest opinion.

We do not permit reviews that are posted in exchange for compensation of any other kind. 

Review Process

In some instances, we may contact you regarding the content of your review before it is published.  You agree to monitor your email after providing a review so that you can quickly respond to Clutch.  When you provide a review, you will be asked to agree to our Terms of Service and these Review Guidelines.

Inappropriate Reviews

You can contact us to report a review as inappropriate. We will then check if the review violates these guidelines or Clutch’s Terms of Use. Reviews are evaluated from the perspective of what a prospective buyer would think. Note, the Clutch Website and Services provide a forum for users to share both positive and negative experiences and opinions.  We do not arbitrate disputes, will not take down reviews just because they are negative, and absent highly unusual circumstances, which we in our sole discretion reserve the right to determine, err on the side of transparency and comply with our policy to leave reviews published.  As a balance to this "policy," companies may submit responses to reviews.  Please see the “Response to Reviews” section below.

Reviews may be removed for any of the following reasons:

• Inappropriate content: Don’t post reviews that contain or link to unlawful content, content that violates our user agreement, or infringes on privacy.
• Conflict of interest: Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. For example, don’t post reviews about your business, a competitor, or your current/former employer.
• Misrepresentation: Don’t misrepresent your identity or affiliation with the company being reviewed, such as submitting a review on behalf of a client.
• Others’ experience: Don’t submit reviews that do not reflect your own experience but those of another party.
• Accuracy: Make sure your review is factually correct. Don't exaggerate or misrepresent your experience. We don't take sides when it comes to factual disputes, so we expect you to stand behind your review.
• Off-topic reviews: Reviews are not a forum for personal rants or crusades, nor are they meant to be a forum for general political or social commentary. Stick to the facts about your experience.
• Outdated reviews: Reviews should be from projects completed within the past two years, or those currently in-progress.

Responses to Reviews

Companies are welcome to respond to reviews. Contact us with your response and we will post to the corresponding review. Responses should follow the guidelines above and should be respectful, constructive, and factual. 

Reviewees are not permitted to edit their reviews once they are published, except minor editorial corrections, such as grammar, spelling and punctuation, which corrections need to be requested within 3 business days of publishing. We reserve final editorial discretion over such minor editorial corrections. If the status of the engagement changes after the review is published, the reviewee may request to add a response to the original content and modify the given ratings. Response comments must be provided when modifying ratings. Adding a response will not remove the original content.

Clutch is not responsible for any negative reviews of a company or the ranking or leader matrix position a company receives based on the information provided to Clutch, nor is Clutch responsible for any consequences of such reviews and/or rankings, including but not limited to loss of business or loss of goodwill.