When Every Agency Has Five Stars, Reviews Are Broken

If every agency is five stars, then five stars mean nothing. Scroll any major design or development marketplace (I’m looking at you, Clutch) and you’ll see the same pattern: polished profiles, glowing testimonials, five-star averages. In a market where positivity is engineered, visible differentiation collapses.

The charitable view is that review platforms were built to surface quality. Over time, they’ve been captured by the very vendors they purport to review.

Agencies request feedback from their happiest clients. They curate who responds. They invest in visibility. Platforms reward engagement and paid placement. None of this is illegal. None of it is even surprising. It’s how the system now works.

For buyers making consequential technology decisions, this matters. Five stars don’t tell you who actually staffed the project, whether milestones slipped, or whether budgets were blown. They don’t show delivery integrity. They show that a vendor was effective at capturing peak sentiment. In complex software, UX, and AI engagements, sentiment is not performance.

Launch Day was built to help our clients find ground truth. Buyers deserve comparative analysis, performance scrutiny, and disciplined negotiation before signing a contract. In a market saturated with positivity, clarity requires structure.