Reviews for WooCommerce by WpExperts Hub

1. Overview

Reviews for WooCommerce by WpExperts Hub asks your customers for product reviews at the right moment, reminds them politely, lets them write a review on a clean private page without an account, and publishes it with a Verified Buyer label after you approve it.

When an order becomes Completed the plugin emails the billing address a review request with a button for every product that was bought. Products that still have no review get a reminder 5 days later and a final reminder 7 days after that. Before every email the plugin checks again, so nobody is asked about something they already reviewed.

How it works

1. An order is completed. The plugin records the order, lists the products that can be reviewed and schedules the initial email (immediately, or after the delay you set). The sequence starts once per order: going from Completed to another status and back never restarts it.
2. The emails go out from a background queue. Action Scheduler (part of WooCommerce) runs the jobs, with WP-Cron as a fallback. Each email is claimed with an atomic step, so a repeated status change, a retried job or a double click can never send the same email twice.
3. The customer writes a review. The button in the email opens a private page with a star rating, optional title, text and optional photos. The link contains a random token that expires; it shows nothing about the order to anyone without it.
4. You moderate it. The review is saved as a normal Pending WooCommerce product review. You approve, reject or trash it in the usual place. Approved reviews of a real purchase show a Verified Buyer label.
5. Reminders stop by themselves. As soon as every product of the order has a review, the remaining reminders are cancelled. A reminder only ever lists the products that still wait for a review.

At a glance

What it does not do

• It does not publish reviews on its own. Reviews are Pending until you approve them, unless you switch on automatic approval.
• It does not prove delivery. WordPress can only report that it handed an email to the mail system. The log says exactly that and never claims an email was delivered or opened.
• It does not import reviews from other sites or services, and it does not send review requests for orders that are not in an eligible status.
• It does not replace WooCommerce reviews. Reviews are ordinary WooCommerce product reviews, so they keep working if you deactivate the plugin.

2. Requirements

3. Installation

1. Download the plugin zip from your account on wpexpertshub.com.
2. In WordPress open Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the zip and press Install Now.
3. Activate the plugin. It creates three small tables and adds WooCommerce → Review Requests.
4. Open Review Requests → Settings and check the eligible order statuses and the reminder timing.
5. Open WooCommerce → Settings → Emails and read the three Review request emails. Send yourself a test email from Settings → Email.
6. Activate your licence under Plugins → WpExperts Hub Licences to receive updates.

Licence and updates

Open Plugins → WpExperts Hub Licences, enter your licence key and the email address used for the purchase, and press Activate. The licence is only used for updates: every feature works without it.

The licence and update check contacts wpexpertshub.com with the licence key, your site address and the plugin version. It never sends orders, customers, emails or reviews.

What activation creates

Updating, deactivating and deleting

• Updating keeps your settings and records. The tables are upgraded automatically when needed.
• Deactivating pauses the queue and deletes nothing. When you activate again, missing queue jobs are re-created.
• Deleting the plugin removes its data only if Delete all plugin data on uninstall is on (Settings → Data & privacy). Reviews are WooCommerce reviews and are never deleted.

Multisite

Each site of a network has its own tables, settings and queue. Network activation creates the tables on every site, and on sites created later.

4. Quick start

Five minutes to your first review requests:

1. Check the basics. Review Requests → Settings → General: Automatic review requests is on and Completed is ticked under eligible order statuses. That is the default.
2. Look at the emails. Settings → Email shows the timing (5 and 7 days by default) and your logo. Press Preview next to an email, then send yourself a test email.
3. Complete an order. Mark a test order Completed. It appears under Review Requests with its initial email scheduled. Open Details and press Send now if you do not want to wait.
4. Write a review. Open the link from the email, rate the product and submit. The review is Pending.
5. Approve it. Products → Reviews (or Comments): approve the review. It appears on the product page with a Verified Buyer label.
6. Ask for older orders too. On WooCommerce → Orders select completed orders and choose Review request: send initial email from Bulk actions.

5. Features

The review sequence

• Once per order. The sequence of an order starts once. Completed → On hold → Completed does not start it again. An administrator can reset it from the order's detail screen.
• A disabled email is skipped, not stuck. If you switch an email off in WooCommerce, that step is marked skipped and the next one is planned from the same moment.
• Rechecked before every send. The order status, refunds and existing reviews are checked at the moment of sending. A product that was reviewed in the meantime, by any route, is never emailed.
• Cancelled automatically. If the order becomes cancelled, refunded or failed, the waiting emails are cancelled (setting Skip refunded, cancelled and failed orders). A completely refunded product is always skipped, and you choose whether a partial refund stops the sequence.
• Retries. If WordPress cannot hand an email to the mail system, the plugin tries again after 15, 30 and 45 minutes, then marks the email Failed with the error text. Each attempt is logged once.

Who is asked, and for what

An order is asked when it has a valid billing email address, an eligible status and passes your rules. Each product is checked on its own.

The emails

• Native WooCommerce emails. The three emails are registered under WooCommerce → Settings → Emails, so enabling, subject, heading, additional content and HTML or plain text work like any other WooCommerce email, with WooCommerce's live preview.
• Placeholders for subject and heading: {site_title}, {order_number}, {order_date} and {customer_first_name}.
• Branding. Choose an email logo and the sender name and address in Review Requests → Settings → Email, and whether product images and prices appear.
• Built for mail clients. Table-based layout with inline styles, a bulletproof button, no JavaScript and a plain-text version, readable on phones.
• Theme overrides. Copy templates/emails/wphub-review-request.php (and the plain version) to yourtheme/woocommerce/emails/.
• Preview and test. A preview with sample data, and a test email to any address. Neither creates a record.

The review page

• No account needed. The link is the key. You can require customers who have an account to sign in first (Sign-in requirement); guest orders never need one.
• Several products, one page. Every product of the order that is still open has its own form. The product from the button you clicked is shown first.
• Fields. Star rating (required or not), name, the billing email (read-only, never shown publicly), optional title, review text with a character counter, and optional photos. Your minimum and maximum length apply.
• Photos. JPG, PNG, GIF and WebP only, checked by content and not just by file name, with a maximum number and size per image.
• Friendly errors. If something is wrong the customer sees what to fix and keeps everything they typed.
• Thank-you and edit. After submitting, the form is replaced by a thank-you message. Refreshing the page cannot create a second review. If you allow it, the customer can edit the review until you moderate it.
• Accessible and private. Real labels, keyboard-friendly star radios, visible focus, good contrast, dark mode, a phone layout. The page is not indexed, sends no referrer and is never cached.

Review links and security

• Random and unguessable. A link carries a random selector and a signature derived from your site's secret keys. A copy of the database alone cannot produce a working link, and the order number is not in the link.
• They expire. Links expire after the number of days you set, counted from the last email sent (60 by default). An expired link shows a plain message and nothing about the order. A daily job permanently revokes links that expired long ago.
• Only what was bought. The page and the form only ever accept products that belong to the order behind the link. The product in the URL only chooses which product is shown first.
• Spam protection. A WordPress nonce on every form, a hidden honeypot field, and rate limits per address and link. A nonce alone is never treated as authorisation.
• One review per product. Duplicate prevention is atomic, so two parallel submissions cannot both succeed. You can choose one review per product and order, or one per customer and product across orders.

Reviews, moderation and Verified Buyer

• Native reviews. A submitted review is a normal WooCommerce product review. It is Pending by default, and you approve, reject or trash it in Products → Reviews or Comments. The request status follows what you do there.
• Automatic approval is off by default. You can switch it on in Settings → Review form.
• What makes a review verified. The review gets WooCommerce's own verified-owner flag only when the order exists, is paid, contains the product on a line that is not completely refunded, and has the same billing email as the review. A guest is never marked verified just because an email matches.
• The label. Show a Verified Buyer badge, WooCommerce's own "(verified owner)" text, or nothing. The plugin uses WooCommerce's review hooks and does not replace the review template.
• Titles and photos are shown with the review text on the product page.

Managing requests

• Dashboard. Eight statistics cards, filters (waiting, awaiting approval, fully reviewed, failed, cancelled), search by order number, name or email, sortable columns and 20 requests per page.
• A status for every product. Waiting, Awaiting approval, Approved, Rejected, plus an overall status for the order: Not Requested, Scheduled, Email Sent, Reminder Scheduled, Partially Reviewed, Submitted — Awaiting Approval, Review Approved, Completed, Email Failed, Cancelled.
• Order detail. The customer, the review status, the next email, every product with its review, and the three emails as a timeline with Send now or Send again, Reschedule, Cancel pending reminders, Retry failed emails and Reset sequence.
• Resending needs a confirmation. An email that was already sent is only repeated after you confirm it. Manual sends still respect product eligibility and existing reviews; administrators can tick Ignore eligibility checks for the order rules.
• Reset never deletes reviews. It revokes the old links, clears the email progress and starts again for the products without a review.

On the WooCommerce Orders screen

• A Review request column with a short status (Not Requested, Email Sent, Awaiting Review, Partially Reviewed, Reviewed, Failed) that links to the order's detail screen.
• Bulk actions for the selected orders: send the initial email, the first or the final reminder, cancel pending reminders and retry failed emails.
• A Review request box on the order edit screen with the status, the three emails and one-click actions.
• Works with HPOS and with the classic order list, and does not interfere with WooCommerce's filtering, sorting or other plugins' actions.

Bulk sending

• Background processing. A bulk action never sends emails during the click. Each order becomes one queued job, so hundreds of orders are safe.
• Every order is checked on its own. Ineligible orders, orders without a billing email, products that were already reviewed and emails that were already sent are skipped and logged. A bulk action never repeats an email that was already sent.
• A summary. A banner shows how many orders are done, skipped or failed, and the Email log shows each one with the trigger Bulk action.
• Confirmation. You are asked before emails are queued and for large selections.
• Sending limit. Set a maximum of emails per hour; the rest waits in the queue.

Add a review for a customer

• Load an order, choose one of its products, and the customer's name and email are filled in from the order. Or search for a product and a customer without an order.
• The review is saved as a normal review, Pending unless you choose Approved. It is only recorded as a verified purchase if the order is paid and contains the product.
• It is marked as entered by an administrator, with your user and the time, in a box on the review's edit screen, so it is never mistaken for a review the customer wrote. An order note records it too.
• Duplicates for the same order and product are refused.

Email log and reliability

• Each attempt records the order, product when relevant, address, type, scheduled time, attempt time, result, error text, the trigger (automatic, manual or bulk) and the administrator for manual sends.
• The result is worded honestly: Handed to mail system means WordPress passed it on without an error. It is not proof of delivery.
• Filter by order, type, result and date. Message bodies are not stored, and old rows are deleted after the retention period you choose.

Tools

• Export every request as a CSV file (spreadsheet formulas in customer text are neutralised).
• Retry failed emails, clean up expired links, delete old log entries and re-create missing queue jobs.
• Scheduled jobs: the list of what is waiting in the queue.
• Reset the plugin's settings (administrators only) after a confirmation.

6. Admin screens

Everything is under WooCommerce → Review Requests, in five tabs, plus a column and a box on the Orders screens.

Review requests

The cards show how the sequence is doing, with fixed counting rules so that nothing is counted twice:

The table has one row per order: the order number, date and status; the customer; the products with a status each; the status and date of the initial email, the first reminder and the final reminder; the overall review status with "x of y reviewed"; and the last email sent. Bulk actions are above the table.

Order detail

Open it with Details in the table, with the status in the Orders list, or from the box on the order screen. See the figure under Managing requests. Actions:

Add a review

See the figure under Add a review for a customer. Enter an order number and press Load order to choose one of its products and prefill the customer; leave the order empty to enter a review without an order (it is then never verified).

Email log

Filters for order, type, result and dates. Columns: time, order, address, type, result, scheduled time, who triggered it and the details (the error text of a failure).

Settings

Four tabs with a Save button each. Saving one tab never changes another. All settings are listed under Settings.

Tools

7. Settings

Open Review Requests → Settings. The defaults are chosen so that the plugin works without changes. Subject, heading, additional content and the on/off switch of each email are in WooCommerce → Settings → Emails.

General

Who is asked, for which orders and products, and how long the review links last.

Email

Timing, sender, logo and what the emails show.

Review form

What the review page asks for and how reviews are handled.

Data & privacy

Log retention and what happens when the plugin is deleted.

8. Developer reference

Hooks

// Never ask for reviews of products tagged "gift-card".
add_filter( 'wphub_reviews_product_problem', function ( $problem, $product_id ) {
    if ( '' === $problem && has_term( 'gift-card', 'product_tag', $product_id ) ) {
        return 'gift_card';
    }
    return $problem;
}, 10, 2 );

The three emails are standard WooCommerce emails (ids wphub_reviews_initial, wphub_reviews_first and wphub_reviews_final), so WooCommerce's own email filters such as woocommerce_email_subject_{id} and woocommerce_email_attachments apply.

Queue jobs

• wphub_reviews_process_stage( $order_id, $stage ) sends one email of the sequence.
• wphub_reviews_bulk_item( $batch_id, $order_id, $action, $admin_id ) runs one order of a bulk action.
• Both run in the Action Scheduler group wphub-reviews (WooCommerce → Status → Scheduled Actions) and are de-duplicated. Without Action Scheduler the same hooks run from WP-Cron.

Data model

Email statuses: none, scheduled, sending, sent, failed, skipped, cancelled. Product statuses: requested, submitting, submitted (awaiting approval), approved, rejected (trashed, spam or deleted), skipped, cancelled.

Review meta

Reason codes

Order: missing, reviews_disabled, invalid_email, guest, status, refunded, min_value. Product: product_unavailable, reviews_closed, virtual, excluded_product, excluded_category, refunded_item, already_reviewed, repeat_purchase.

Template overrides

Copy templates/emails/wphub-review-request.php and templates/emails/plain/wphub-review-request.php to yourtheme/woocommerce/emails/ and yourtheme/woocommerce/emails/plain/. The page's look is set by one small stylesheet that you can override with your own CSS on the .wphub-reviews-page body class.

CSV export

Columns: order_id, order_date, customer, email, sequence, initial_status, initial_sent, first_status, first_sent, final_status, final_sent, products_eligible, products_reviewed, reviews_approved, reviews_awaiting_approval, last_email_at. Times are UTC.

9. Privacy and data

• Export and erase. The plugin registers a personal-data exporter and eraser by email address (Tools → Export / Erase Personal Data). Erasing removes the request records and log rows of that address and cancels their queued emails.
• Suggested policy text is added under Settings → Privacy.
• Deleted orders. When an order is deleted, its request record and queue jobs are removed.
• The email address is never shown on the review page or on the product page, and links do not contain it or the order number.
• Outside servers. The only outside contact is the WpExperts Hub licence and update check, if you activate a licence. It sends the licence key, your site address and the plugin version.

Uninstalling

Deleting the plugin keeps everything unless Delete all plugin data on uninstall is on. With it on, the three tables, the settings, transients and queued jobs are removed. Reviews are never deleted.

10. Troubleshooting

First, the quick checks

• Review Requests → Email log shows every attempt with its result and error text.
• Review Requests → Tools → Scheduled jobs shows what is waiting in the queue, and WooCommerce → Status → Scheduled Actions (group wphub-reviews) shows the Action Scheduler side.
• Settings → Email shows whether each of the three emails is enabled in WooCommerce.

Emails are not sent

The review page

Reviews

11. FAQ

12. Changelog

1.0.0 · 2026-10-10

• First release.
• Automatic review requests when an order is completed, with a reminder after 5 days and a final reminder 7 days later, all configurable.
• Three native WooCommerce emails with preview, test email, logo and sender settings.
• Private, accessible review page with ratings, optional titles and photos, spam protection and duplicate prevention.
• Pending WooCommerce reviews, Verified Buyer label based on the real order, and request status that follows moderation.
• Review Requests dashboard, order detail, email log, CSV export and tools.
• Orders screen column, bulk actions and an order meta box, on HPOS and classic storage.
• Add a review on behalf of a customer, marked as entered by an administrator.
• Personal data export and erase, log retention and a clean uninstall.
• Hooks for developers: wphub_reviews_order_problem, wphub_reviews_product_problem, wphub_reviews_review_created and wphub_reviews_email_sent.

13. Support

Email support@wpexpertshub.com and a person will help. Please include:

• Your order ID (from your purchase email or My Account on wpexpertshub.com).
• The plugin version (shown on Plugins) and your WordPress, WooCommerce and PHP versions.
• What you expected, what happened and what you already tried.
• The relevant rows from Review Requests → Email log and the error text of a failed email.
• Whether you use SMTP or an email service, and whether Action Scheduler or WP-Cron runs your queue.

Please do not send passwords or customer data. Support never needs them.