How many Google reviews you need depends on the city, and across the 300 map-pack listings we captured in August 2026 the median was 80 reviews, from 38 in Adelaide to 124.5 in Canberra. The study took the pack for plumber and electrician in 10 Australian metros, five suburbs in each, on 5 to 6 August 2026, and 299 of those listings showed a review count.
Most tradies pick a round number and chase it for years without ever checking what the listings beside them actually hold. The useful number is the one in your own city, at the position you want, and in Canberra that is 3.3 times what it is in Adelaide.
This guide covers the benchmark city by city, the higher bar at position one, a live check we ran in September, what the ratings do, and how to turn the gap into a monthly quota.
In this guide
The benchmark, city by city
In Canberra the median plumber or electrician sitting in the map pack held 124.5 Google reviews. Adelaide’s median was 38. Same study, same two days, 30 listings in each of those two metros, so what separates the numbers is the city and not the method.
Median review counts for plumber and electrician map-pack listings across the ten metros:
| City | Median reviews | Entry bar (lower quartile) | Top quarter | Position-1 median | Mean rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide | 38 | 16.5 | 75.75 | 63.5 | 4.90 |
| Brisbane | 90 | 31 | 196 | 157.5 | 4.91 |
| Canberra | 124.5 | 22.5 | 289 | 225.5 | 4.94 |
| Gold Coast | 75.5 | 40.25 | 163.75 | 102 | 4.90 |
| Melbourne | 60.5 | 23.75 | 182.25 | 82.5 | 4.97 |
| Newcastle | 88 | 35.75 | 152.75 | 161.5 | 4.94 |
| Perth | 57 | 37.25 | 96 | 82.5 | 4.90 |
| Sunshine Coast | 83.5 | 49.25 | 206 | 119 | 4.95 |
| Sydney | 85.5 | 47.5 | 170.75 | 106 | 4.93 |
| Wollongong | 72.5 | 27 | 154.75 | 82.5 | 4.94 |
| All 299 listings | 80 | 30 | 163.5 | 105.5 | 4.93 |
How to read your city’s row
Find your metro, then read across. The median is the halfway point of the listings we captured there, so half the pack in that city sat above it and half below.
One listing in four held fewer reviews than the entry bar, which is the lower quartile. Adelaide’s entry bar was 16.5 and the Sunshine Coast’s was 49.25, so the same review file gets you into one pack and nowhere near the other.
The top quarter is the upper quartile, the point only a quarter of listings cleared, and the position-1 median is what the top listing in each of those packs held. Our local SEO guide for plumbers and electricians sets the review count beside the other ranking inputs.
Plumbers and electricians split by city
Across all 299 listings the plumbing median was 84 reviews and the electrical median 75, which is close enough to ignore. Inside a single city the two trades pull apart.
Canberra’s plumbers held a median of 132 against 60 for its electricians, and Melbourne ran the other way, 46 for plumbers against 121 for electricians. Adelaide split 24 and 62, Perth 89 and 44, Brisbane 80 and 146.5.
So the number you are chasing is your own trade in your own city, and the combined city median hides it. A Melbourne sparky reading the city median of 60.5 is reading a number that sits at half the electrical bar.
Where the pack bottoms out
Of the 299 rated listings, 46 were in a pack on fewer than 20 reviews and 115 sat on fewer than 50. At the other end, 59 held 200 or more, 12 held 500 or more, and the largest file we found was 1,673 reviews on the Gold Coast.
The floor is lower than the benchmark suggests. A Melbourne listing held position 1 on 5 reviews, the lowest count doing that anywhere in the study, with a Brisbane listing on 6 the next lowest.
Read it as correlation rather than permission, because the pin and the prominence behind those listings are doing work the review count does not show. The review file matters most at the top spot, which is where the parent guide to SEO for trade businesses puts it in the wider job.
Position one is a different bar
Two listings in the same pack, same trade, same suburb, and the one at the top usually carries the bigger review file. Usually, not reliably. Across 99 complete packs the most-reviewed listing held the top spot in 39 of them, which leaves 60 packs where something else decided the order.
The medians by position
The median review count at position 1 across the study was 105.5, against 67 at position 2 and 75.5 at position 3. Median ratings sat at 5.0 at every one of the three positions.
Position 3 sitting above position 2 is the part that surprises owners. It says the order inside a pack is not the review order, and that the review count separates the top listing from the other two more than it separates two from three.
Sydney’s position-1 median was 106, Canberra’s was 225.5 and Adelaide’s was 63.5, so the bar at the top spot moves with the city too.
Most reviews is not the ranking
In 99 packs where every listing showed a count, position 1 held the most reviews in 39 and the fewest in 29. So the review count tracks the top spot without deciding it.
The other two inputs are doing the work in those 29 packs. Distance is set by where your pin sits against the searcher’s phone, and prominence builds out of review velocity, citations and your own site.
Our guide on how to rank higher on Google Maps works through all three. Clear the review bar for your city, then spend the rest of the effort on the pin and the site behind it.
The biggest files in each city
The most-reviewed listing holding position 1 in each metro runs from 241 reviews to 1,057, and every one of the ten is rated 4.8 or above.
HOTT Electrics holds Wollongong on 1,057 reviews at 5.0, The Plumbing Doctor holds Burleigh Heads on 1,014 at 5.0, and True Connection Electrical holds Gungahlin on 699 at 5.0. Baywood Plumbing & Gas sits on 479 at 4.9 in Canning Vale, Penrith City Plumbing Services on 453 at 5.0, and North Lakes & Surrounds Electrical on 345 at 4.9.
The other four, in Adelaide, Melbourne, Newcastle and the Sunshine Coast, sit in the graphic below with the rest. Files that size are years of asking. Aim at your city’s median, not the top of the list.
Field check: the bar in September
A benchmark from August is a benchmark from August, and the owner reading it in September wants to know whether the bar has moved. So on 16 September 2026 we pulled 19 live map packs through the DataForSEO SERP API and counted every listing in them.
How we checked
We searched plumber from inside 11 Sydney suburbs and electrician from inside 8 on the Gold Coast, taking the organic pack items only and leaving the sponsored ones out. That is 19 packs and 57 listings, all captured on the one day. Searching from inside the suburb is what a customer standing there sees.
The comparison with August is cross-method, so treat it as a sense check rather than a trend. August searched plumber with the suburb name in the query, while September searched plumber and electrician from inside the suburb, and the query shape changes which listings Google shows.
Sydney plumbers, Gold Coast electricians
The 33 Sydney plumber listings held a median of 169 reviews, a position-1 median of 174 and a range from 11 to 1,900. Gold Coast electricians, 24 listings, held a median of 82, a position-1 median of 83 and a range from 8 to 509. Sydney’s live figure sat above its August median of 85.5, while the Gold Coast’s 82 sat close to August’s 75.5.
Across all 57 listings the medians ran 132 at position 1, 90 at position 2 and 106 at position 3, and the median rating was 5.0 at each. Position 3 sat above position 2 again. Run your own pack before setting a target, because a live count from the suburbs you work beats a six-week-old median.
Data: PlumbElec Marketing study of 300 AU map-pack listings, August 2026, and a live check of 19 Sydney and Gold Coast map packs on 16 September 2026.
Rating: the bar you clear, not the score
Open your profile and read the rating, because that one is already settled and you can stop thinking about it. Across the 299 rated listings, 59.2% held a 5.0 and 4.0%, 12 listings of the 299, sat below 4.7. A rating of 4.7 or above puts you inside the range 96.0% of those listings occupied.
5.0 is the median everywhere
The 5.0 share moves a long way by city. Melbourne ran highest at 73.3% of its listings on a perfect rating, Newcastle next at 70.0%, and Brisbane lowest at 48.3%.
Across every position the median rating was 5.0, which is the more useful way to read it. The middle listing at position 1, position 2 and position 3 all carried a perfect score, so the rating is not what sorted them.
The rating does its work when the customer picks which pin to tap. Three pins show three ratings before a single review count registers, and the listing sitting below 4.7 is the one being ruled out at a glance.
What customers say they need
BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found that 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, so the count and the rating are both being read before the phone rings.
Two of its figures set a floor. 31% of consumers said they will only use a business that has 4.5 or more stars, and 47% said they will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews.
Set those against the study and the 46 listings sitting in a pack on fewer than 20 reviews are in the pack and still losing the click. BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey is worth reading in full.
Recent beats total
74% of consumers in the same survey said they look for reviews written in the last three months. A big file with nothing new in it reads older than a smaller one that gets one a week.
Review velocity and directory listings are the two compounding inputs on our Maps campaigns, and we measure them on listing clicks, geo grid expansion and calls we can attribute to the listing.
The Google Maps case studies show what that looks like over a few months. Stop asking and the total stops growing, the recency drops away, and the listing goes quiet while the pin next door keeps compounding.
Setting your target and hitting it
Why does a review target quietly die? It gets set for the business, which means nobody owns it, so nobody asks, and it ends up belonging to whoever is least busy that week. Hand the same target to each tech as one ask a week and it belongs to a person on a day.
Work it through in this order:
- Find your row: take the city median and the position-1 median from the table above, matched to your trade where the split is wide, as in Canberra and Melbourne.
- Measure the gap: subtract your current count from both numbers, so you know what gets you into the pack and what gets you to the top of it.
- Quota per tech, not per business: we set it per tech on our campaigns, and four techs asking one customer each a week is 16 reviews a month.
- Ask on site, with a card: the ask happens while the job is fresh, and our guides on how to ask for Google reviews and creating your review card cover the words and the card.
- Reply to every one: BrightLocal’s 2026 survey found 80% of consumers say they are likely to use a business that responds to all of its reviews, and replying to a Google review walks through the wording.
- Stay inside the policy: Google’s Maps content policy bars incentives “such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services”. It also bars merchants who “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”, or who “require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises”. The ACCC treats fake and incentivised reviews as misleading conduct under Australian Consumer Law.
The card above works it through for Northgate Plumbing & Gas, a fictional Sydney plumber measured against Sydney’s medians of 85.5 and 106. Divide the gap by 16 a month and you have a timeline instead of a wish.
Set the target, name the quota per tech, and put a date on the month you clear the city median. If you would rather hand the job over, that is what our local SEO and Maps service does.
Conclusion
The number is a city number. Canberra’s median sat at 124.5 and Adelaide’s at 38, so a target borrowed from a mate in another state is the wrong target.
Position one is a higher bar than the pack, a median of 105.5 against the 80 across all of them, and the most-reviewed listing still held the top spot in fewer than half the packs we could read. Reviews get you into the conversation. The pin and the prominence sort the order.
Rating works as a filter, so 4.7 and up keeps you in the running and nothing above that wins the search on its own. What moves is the rate: a quota per tech, an ask on site while the job is fresh, and a public reply on every review. Keep every ask inside Google’s policy, set the quota this week, and the count looks after itself.
FAQs
How many Google reviews does a plumber or electrician need to rank in the map pack?
There is no threshold. Across 299 rated map-pack listings in August 2026 the median was 80 reviews, and position 1 held a median of 105.5, so read your own city’s row first.
Which Australian city needs the most Google reviews?
Canberra, on a median of 124.5 reviews and a position-1 median of 225.5. Adelaide sat lowest of the ten metros at a median of 38, with an entry bar of 16.5.
Does a 4.7 rating hurt a trade business on Google Maps?
Not in the packs we measured, where 4.0% of 299 listings sat below 4.7 and the median rating was 5.0 at every position. BrightLocal’s 2026 survey puts the consumer filter at 4.5 stars.
Do Google reviews need to be recent to count?
Recency matters to customers. BrightLocal’s 2026 survey found 74% of consumers seek reviews written in the last three months, so the rate of new reviews does more than the total.
Can I ask customers for a Google review on site?
Yes, as long as you do not pressure them. Google’s Maps content policy bars any move to “require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises”.
Can I offer a discount for a Google review?
No. Google’s policy bars incentives “such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services” for reviews, and the ACCC treats fake and incentivised reviews as misleading conduct under Australian Consumer Law.
Want a target for your suburb, not your city?
What does your own count look like against your city’s row, and how far is it to the position-1 median in the suburbs you actually work? PlumbElec Marketing runs the pack for your suburbs, sets the review quota per tech, and measures the campaign on listing clicks, grid coverage and calls we can attribute to the listing.
We work with plumbers and electricians right across Australia. Call (02) 9100 0985, book a time that suits you, or see how our local SEO services for trade businesses work.
