Pest Control Data · By Anthony Limpert · November 6, 2026 · Updated November 6, 2026

Half of Pest Control Companies With Reviews Have a 5.0

1. Of 19,021 pest control companies with a public rating, 49.7% show exactly 5.0.
2. The median company has 22 reviews. The top quarter starts at 103.
3. Nearly half have under 20 reviews, a line 47% of consumers say they won't cross.
4. The bar moves a lot by place. The tenth most reviewed company in Phoenix has 1,512. In Chicago it's 93.
5. Stop chasing the score. Build the count, at a steady pace, from every customer.

A 5.0 makes a pest control company stand out. That's the myth. In our data for pest control, 9,449 of the 19,021 companies with a public rating show exactly 5.0.

That's 49.7%. Half the field has the score you're chasing. Another 2,921 sit at 4.9, so 65% are at 4.9 or better.

I don't run a pest company. I run a mobile mechanic business in Riverside County, and I've got the same problem you do. Everybody's stars look alike. So I went through what the listings show.

Most Perfect Scores Rest on Few Reviews

The typical 5.0 company has 9 reviews. Not 90. Nine. Of the 9,449 at 5.0, 4,890 have under 10, and 7,216 have under 50.

Only 1,489 companies hold a 5.0 with 100 reviews or more. That's 7.8% of the rated field. Keeping a perfect score gets harder as the count climbs.

Look at the last column. Small counts swing both ways. Low scores nearly vanish past 100 reviews. That doesn't prove reviews fix a rating. Good companies tend to last, and lasting builds a count.

Ratings still matter. BrightLocal's 2026 survey found 68% of consumers will only use a business with 4 stars or more, and 31% want 4.5 or more. In our count, 85.6% of rated pest companies clear 4.5. So a good score gets you in the room. It doesn't get you picked.

Review Count Is Where the Field Spreads Out

Stars bunch up. Counts don't. The median company has 22 reviews. The top quarter starts at 103, the top 10% at 413, the top 1% at 2,575.

The top 10% of companies hold 73% of the 3,351,370 reviews we counted. The bottom half holds 2%.

The same BrightLocal survey found 47% of consumers won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews. In our count, 48.2% of rated pest companies are under 20. Another 3,205 companies have no public rating at all.

This isn't just the national brands. A name check on about 20 of them pulled 57 rows, and the median stayed at 22. NPMA reports that 81.4% of pest firms ran one or two locations in 2025. Your rival with 800 reviews is probably local too.

How One Bad Review Hits a Small Count

Run a worked example. Start with all five star reviews, then add one bad one.

Simple average, for illustration. Displayed ratings can differ.

At 9 reviews, one angry customer drops you to 4.6. At 5, you land under the 4.5 line that 31% of consumers use. At 103, you barely move. In pest control, someone will eventually be mad about a callback. A big count is your insurance.

What to Beat in Your State

National numbers won't tell you much. A California company at 60 reviews is in the top quarter. In Arizona, it takes 245.

States with 100 or more rated companies. Smaller states are left out because the cut gets thin.

Arizona has the highest median at 56.5, with North Carolina next at 48. Mississippi is lowest at 11.5, and California sits at 14. If you're in a low state, a year of steady asking can move you a long way.

Big Cities Play by Different Numbers

Your state is still too wide. Buyers pick from who's near them. So I ranked each city by review count and took the third and tenth highest.

A sample of large cities, each with 46 or more rated companies, by the city on each listing. Counts only, no company named.

Phoenix and Chicago are the two ends. To crack the top 10 by count, you'd need about 1,500 reviews in Phoenix and under 100 in Chicago. Same trade. That's a 16 times gap.

Count isn't the whole game. Google says local results come from relevance, distance and prominence, and it gives no weights. A nearby company can beat a bigger one. But now you know who you're up against.

Bad Advice We Keep Seeing

Get to 5.0 and you'll stand out. Half the field is there. Worse, you may start dodging customers who might give you a 4.

Get to 100 and you're done. That's top quarter nationally. In Phoenix, the median company has 137.

Only ask happy customers. Some tools and consultants still push this as a filter. Google's policy bars selectively asking for positive reviews, and it bars discouraging negative ones.

Buy a batch to catch up. The FTC's 2024 rule bans fake reviews, and it lets the agency seek civil penalties against knowing violators. Google removes fake engagement too. It's not worth the business you built.

Get them all at once. Whitespark's 2026 ranking factors report lists a steady flow of reviews as its own signal, apart from total count. It ranks numeric rating 6th, review count 9th, recency 11th and steady flow 14th. A burst followed by silence hurts those last two.

What I'd Do This Month

Find your line. Look up your state and your city above. Then count reviews on the five companies closest to your office.

Set a pace. Worked example. Going from 22 to 103 takes 81 reviews. At 7 a month, that's about a year. Pick a number you can keep hitting.

Ask every customer, the same way, right after the job. You've got an edge here. NPMA puts recurring work at 85.4% of residential revenue in 2025, so you see the same people again and again.

Keep it fresh. BrightLocal found 74% of consumers look for reviews from the last three months. Three hundred old reviews won't carry you forever.

Answer them. The same survey found 89% expect an owner reply and 42% are unlikely to use a business that never replies. Half are put off by canned replies. Write a real sentence.

Fix your listing too. Companies in our count with a website have a median of 36 reviews, and those without have 5. Claimed profiles sit at 26, unclaimed at 3. Older, busier companies do more of everything, so that's not pure cause. It's still the cheapest fix on this list.

If You Are Still Unsure

Anthony Limpert owns Supercanic, a mobile mechanic business in Riverside County, California, and the Shop Desk software it runs on. ASE Business Built With Master Automotive Technicians. He founded Clickflame in 2004 and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from The University of Akron. Full author page.

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