Free Facebook Reviews — One Recommendation Sample for Your Page

Why Facebook scoring matters before you buy volume

Why there’s no such thing as a 5-star Facebook rating calculator

Facebook doesn’t use a 1–5 star average anymore. When someone visits a Page’s Reviews tab, they’re asked a binary question — “Do you recommend [business]?” — and answer Yes or No, then can optionally add written detail, photos, and tags. That’s a fundamentally different input than a star rating, and it’s the current mechanism confirmed directly on Facebook’s own Help Center, not a legacy system that’s still transitioning.

A Page also has to clear two conditions before any rating shows publicly at all: Recommendations has to be turned on, and the Page needs at least 5 reviews. Per Facebook’s own explanation of how this number is determined, only recommendations shared with a public audience count toward the score — a recommendation someone posts to a restricted audience simply doesn’t factor in for other visitors. And for Pages that had 5-star reviews before Facebook made this switch, Recommendations was automatically turned on and those historic star ratings continue to blend into the Page’s current rating alongside new Yes/No recommendations — through a formula Facebook has never published.

• Binary recommendations, not star ratings — visitors answer “Do you recommend this business?” with Yes or No; there’s no 1–5 star selection in the current system.
• Recommendations must be on, and 5 reviews minimum — a Page won’t display any rating until Recommendations is enabled and it has at least 5 reviews.
• Public visibility required — only recommendations shared with a public audience count toward the Page’s overall rating; audience-restricted recommendations don’t factor in for other visitors.
• Legacy stars still blended in for older Pages — Pages that had 5-star reviews before Facebook’s switch to Recommendations had the feature auto-enabled, and those historic ratings continue to factor into the current score alongside new Yes/No recommendations, via a method Facebook doesn’t publish.
• Spam removal moves the number — recommendations Facebook removes for violating its spam policies are excluded from the count, and Facebook’s own documentation says that removal can change a Page’s displayed rating.