How much does it cost to get a bad Google review removed?

The direct cost is nothing. Flagging a review from your Business Profile or the Reviews Management Tool is free, the appeal is free, and Google's extortion report form is free. Whether a review comes down depends on whether it breaks Google's policies, and Google's process has no paid option.

That is why paid review removal services deserve suspicion. A legitimate one can only do what you can do yourself: work out which policy a review breaks, gather the evidence and file a clear report. A service promising guaranteed removal of a genuine negative review is promising something it doesn't control, and some use false reports or pressure on reviewers that can come back on the business that hired them.

Be careful about paying customers, too. Google's policies ban offering rewards for removing negative reviews, and the CMA's guidance on the UK fake reviews ban lists making an offer to settle a dispute conditional on the customer not leaving a negative review as a way of suppressing reviews. Sorting out the complaint is fine. Making the review part of the deal is not.

The one route with real costs is the legal one. If a review states false facts that are causing serious financial loss, a solicitor can write to the reviewer or take the matter to court, and the fees depend entirely on the case. For most small businesses, a single bad review doesn't justify that spend.

The cheapest answer to a bad review is usually not removal. A calm public reply and a steady flow of new reviews from happy customers push one bad review down the list and reduce its effect on your average. That costs time rather than money, and it keeps working long after the bad review is forgotten.