Our position

Why we never give points for reviews

Every street team platform faces the same question, and most answer it wrong. Here is our answer, and the reasoning behind it.

The short version

Hype is never awarded for leaving, changing, or removing a review or rating, on any retailer or review site. Not as a task, not as a bonus, not quietly. There is no setting for it and no way to add one.

Why not

Amazon prohibits incentivised reviews. Their Community Guidelines forbid offering anything of value in exchange for a review — including free products, discounts, or entry into a giveaway. Authors have had books removed, reviews purged, and accounts closed over it. Readers have lost their reviewing privileges entirely.

The FTC treats undisclosed compensated endorsements as deceptive. Their Endorsement Guides require a clear disclosure whenever a material connection exists between a reviewer and a seller. A points system that pays for reviews creates exactly that connection.

And it doesn't work. Reviews bought with points read like reviews bought with points. Readers notice.

How this is enforced

Not by policy. By construction.

before it can go live, with an explanation of why.

An author cannot switch this off, and neither can we without changing the database itself. That is deliberate.

What earns Hype instead

Everything that actually spreads a book:

Review anyway

Please do. Review because you loved a book, or because you didn't. Just know it will never be worth a point here, and nobody in your squad will ask you about it.

If anyone on this platform — including an author — offers you points, prizes, or status in exchange for a review, report it to us. That is a Terms violation and we act on it.

HomeTerms PrivacyWhy no review points Find a squad