About the pilot

Short answer: InvoiceStars is being piloted at a Rhode Island embroidery shop run by its founder, Matt Sidlo. The shop bills its customers in QuickBooks Online, which is exactly the setup InvoiceStars is built for. It's early: we're testing the product on real invoices before opening it more widely, and we don't have results to share yet.

Why the pilot is at the founder's own shop

Matt runs an embroidery shop in Rhode Island that sends its invoices from QuickBooks Online. Like a lot of small businesses, it finishes the job, gets paid, and then rarely remembers to ask the customer for a Google review. InvoiceStars came out of that gap: tie the ask to the moment the invoice is paid in full.

Running the pilot at a shop the founder operates has a plain upside and a plain limit. The upside: problems surface fast, on real QuickBooks Online data, with real customers and real invoice habits. The limit: one shop is one shop. It isn't proof that InvoiceStars works for every business, and we won't present it that way.

What the pilot is testing

That paid-in-full invoices are detected correctly from QuickBooks Online, and that partial payments don't trigger a request.
That requests skip billing and AP inboxes, customers with no email, unsubscribed customers, and anyone asked in the last 90 days.
That approval mode (on by default) makes it easy to approve or reject each request before it goes out. Rejecting needs one reason from a fixed list (wrong contact, duplicate, customer asked not to be contacted, or not a real sale). None of them is about whether the customer is happy, because Google doesn't allow holding back requests from customers you expect to leave a bad review.
That the email itself is short and clear, with one reminder at most if the link isn't clicked.

What we won't do

Publish made-up numbers, ratings, review counts or testimonials. When we have real, permitted results to share, we'll say exactly what they are.
Name the pilot shop or ask its customers for anything beyond an honest review.
Offer incentives for reviews or filter out unhappy customers. Google doesn't allow either.

Where things stand

Email review requests work today; SMS is coming later. Pricing is $25/month per location with no setup fee. If you'd like to try it when it opens up, get early access. Questions? Email hello@invoicestars.com. More about the company: About InvoiceStars.

InvoiceStars facts

Trigger: a QuickBooks Online invoice paid in full (balance $0) sends that customer a Google review request email. Partial payments do not. A deposit billed as its own invoice can trigger a request once that invoice is paid in full; approval mode (on by default) lets you hold or reject it, and each customer is asked at most once in 90 days.
Send delay: 2 days after payment by default, adjustable from 0 to 30 days.
Cooldown: each customer is asked at most once every 90 days.
B2B: ap@ and billing@ style inboxes are skipped.
Channels: email (SMS coming later).
Price: $25/month per location. No setup fee.
Free tool: the Review Score checker compares your Google rating and review count with the top 3 nearby businesses.