How to Get Reviews on Amazon for a New Product: Vine, Request a Review, and Amazon's New Review Requests Ads

A new product with zero reviews is paying a tax on every click. Your ads send a shopper to the page, the shopper sees no stars, and they go back to the listing with 400 reviews and a slightly worse product. If you are trying to work out how to get reviews on Amazon without risking the account, you have had two real options for years: Amazon Vine and the free Request a Review button. Starting in late October 2026 there is a third, and it is an ad product.

Timeline: Amazon Ads announced Review Requests on September 29, 2026, with a US open beta planned for late October 2026. Current as of October 2026.

Amazon Ads announced Review Requests on September 29, 2026. It shows a review invitation to people who already bought your product, on Amazon's own high-traffic pages, and you pay for it out of an ad budget. We think it will matter most to the brands we work with that sell steadily but sit stuck at 40 or 80 reviews for months. Here is what is confirmed, what is still fuzzy, and how we would pair it with Vine.

What are Amazon Review Requests?

Review Requests is a new Amazon Ads campaign type. According to Amazon's announcement, it reaches "customers who recently purchased your product" and invites them to leave a star rating or written review while they are shopping on Amazon. Amazon says the invitations appear on the homepage and other high-traffic pages, that a rating takes a single tap, and that the shopper can optionally add a written review with photos or video.

What Amazon has confirmed:

• Timing: US open beta in late October 2026, other marketplaces later.

• Who can run it: registered sellers and vendors with an advertising account in good standing and no active policy violations.

• Which products: ASINs with fewer than 1,000 total ratings and reviews. Campaigns pause on their own once a product reaches 1,000.

• Where you set it up: in Amazon Ads Agent, with "the same bidding and budget controls" as your other campaigns. It is also exposed through the Amazon Ads API.

• Results, per Amazon: in early testing in June 2026, Amazon says products received about three times as many ratings and reviews per week compared with before the test. That is Amazon's internal data. Amazon has not published how many products were in the test, what they spent, or what the comparison group looked like.

Trade coverage reports that advertisers are charged only when a shopper actually submits a rating or review, rather than per impression or click. Amazon's own announcement doesn't state the billing event. Coverage also reports the shopper must have received the product at least a week earlier, which Amazon's announcement also doesn't state. We have not found a public Amazon source for any minimum order count, frequency caps, or the exact reporting columns, so do not plan around specific numbers there until you see them in the console.

(Some sellers call it "Sponsored Review Requests." Amazon's name is just Review Requests.)

How is that different from the Request a Review button?

The Request a Review button in Seller Central is free and it is not going away. You open an order in Manage Orders, click the button on the order detail page, and Amazon sends the buyer a standard email asking for a product review and seller feedback. Widely reported limits: it works once per order, and only between 4 and 30 days after delivery.

The difference is where the ask lands. The button sends an email, and email review requests compete with every other message in the inbox. Review Requests puts the ask in front of the buyer while they are already on Amazon, and lets them answer with one tap. You are paying for placement and a lower-friction moment. The buyer still writes whatever they think. If you want the broader picture of how ratings and seller feedback feed each other, we cover it in our guide to customer feedback.

How much does Amazon Vine cost, and what do you get?

Vine is still the only one of the three that works before you have sales. You give free units to invited reviewers (Vine Voices), and they post honest reviews. Per Amazon's Vine page, the enrollment cost is per parent product, with no extra cost for child variations:

The review caps come from Amazon's April 2025 Vine policy clarification. Some other rules worth knowing:

• The product needs an FBA listing, fewer than 30 reviews, an image and a description. Brands must be in Brand Registry. Adult, digital and bundled products are out.

• You can enroll as soon as the FBA listing exists, before inventory is received and before launch. Amazon recommends having inventory in the network at least three weeks before your launch date, which is how you launch with up to 30 reviews on day one.

• You are not charged until 30 days after enrollment and after the first review posts. No review in 90 days, no charge.

• You can move up a tier within the first 30 days, but you can never move down. Enrollment ends after 90 days or when all units are claimed.

• Since mid-2025, heavy and bulky FBA items and authorized resellers are eligible too.

• Vine reviews aggregate at the parent ASIN. If you merge parents later, only the highest tier's cap survives, so plan variations before you enroll.

There is also a timely wrinkle. Amazon's New Selection Program (2026), which started July 30, includes a $75 Vine credit (applied to the middle tier) usable in the first 60 days, plus a 45-day extension on the program's benefits if you use Vine Pre-launch. If you were in the old program, those benefits applied automatically to new branded FBA ASINs launched through October 31, 2026. After that, Amazon says you have to confirm enrollment to keep them. Check that before your next launch.

Rough math: a hiking sock that costs you $4 landed, 30 units enrolled, is $120 in product plus the $200 fee, about $11 per review if all 30 land (before inbound shipping). Do it per SKU.

What we've seen with Vine

Vine Voices are invite-only and tiered, with daily limits on how many items they can pick. Nobody has to claim your product, so a weak listing can sit with unclaimed units.

Amazon states that Voices are responsible for income tax on the products they receive. In practice that means a reviewer weighs whether your item is worth what it is listed at. A launch price that reads as fair value tends to get claimed and reviewed more kindly than an inflated "list price."

Reviewers also cannot contact you. If a unit arrives damaged, or they misunderstand how to assemble a tent pole system or dose a supplement, you find out in the review. Clear instructions or a simple insert, plus a main image that is realistic and true to size, head off most of the avoidable two-star reviews we see. Our notes on Amazon image requirements apply here.

How to get reviews on Amazon at each stage: Vine vs Request a Review vs Review Requests

They are not competitors. They cover different stretches of a product's life.

1. Before launch (0 reviews): Vine. It is the only tool that does not need a paying customer. Pick the tier by unit cost: top tier for cheap goods, middle tier when each unit is expensive.

2. From the first sale onward: Request a Review on every eligible order, automated. It is free, so there is no reason to skip it.

3. Once Vine is used up and organic ratings are trickling in: Review Requests, for ASINs that sell steadily but have fewer than 1,000 ratings. Vine stops at 30. Review Requests is built to keep going toward 1,000.

Two limits to keep in mind with Review Requests. First, it only reaches people who already bought, so it cannot fix a product with no orders. Spend on traffic first (Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands still do that job). Second, it amplifies honest opinions. If the product has a fit or quality problem, more ratings will show it sooner. Read your returns and existing reviews before you pay to collect more.

Treat it as a capped test. Pick two or three ASINs where review count is clearly holding back conversion, set a small daily budget, and judge it on cost per review against what Vine cost you. If the beta reports cost per rating or review directly, use that. Amazon hasn't published the reporting columns yet.