How to Add Reviews to Softr: A Static Block in a Live App

Softr sorts its blocks by what they are connected to. Most of them are data blocks: they point at a table or a spreadsheet and render rows, differently for different users. The Custom Code block is filed under Static, and that word is doing real work. It tells you the block renders the same thing for everyone, which is exactly what a review widget should do, and it also hints at where the block belongs on an application that has both a public front and a private inside.

Blocks, Static, Custom Code

Open the Softr editor and add a block through Blocks then Static then Custom code. Softr documents it as a way to insert custom HTML, CSS and JavaScript anywhere within the application body element, so a widget embed goes in as written.

It behaves like any other Softr block once added: it occupies a position in the page order and can be moved. What it does not do is bind to a data source, which is the difference the Static category is signalling.

Softr also documents custom code snippets for header and footer injection, which are for the usual site-wide things. A widget needs a place on a page, so the block is the right choice rather than the snippet.

It Needs a Paid Plan

Softr states that custom code is available for users on the Basic plan and above, and that you need to be on a paid plan to use the Custom code block. A free workspace will not render it.

This is worth checking early because Softr free workspaces are genuinely useful and a lot of projects live on one for a long while before anyone upgrades. Discovering the gate after building the widget is a waste of a good half hour.

If the workspace is staying free, link out to the review profile from the public landing page. It is a weaker placement than an embedded widget, and it is still a real signal to a visitor deciding whether to sign up.

Public Front, Private Inside

A Softr application usually has two halves: public pages anybody can load, and pages behind a sign-in that show a user their own data. They serve different people and the same content rarely suits both.

Reviews belong on the public half. Their whole job is to persuade somebody who has not yet signed up, which means the landing page, the pricing page and any page an unauthenticated visitor can reach.

Inside the portal they do nothing useful. Someone signed in has already decided, is now trying to get something done, and a wall of testimonials in that context is a distraction from the tool they came to use.

Why Static Is the Right Category

A data block shows different rows to different people, which is the entire point of Softr. That flexibility is also a hazard for anything making a factual claim, because a claim that varies by viewer is hard to keep honest.

A review widget should not vary. The rating is the platform aggregate for the business and every visitor should see the same number, which is what makes it checkable against the profile one click away.

So the Static classification is not a limitation here, it is the correct fit. Nothing about a review widget wants to be personalised, and a block that renders identically for everyone is what you want doing the persuading.

How Do You Build the Widget?

Paste your Google, Trustpilot or Facebook profile URL, preview your real reviews and rating, then choose from over 100 layout styles across the slider, marquee, grid, list, masonry and badge families, and set the colours to the app theme.

Match the application rather than the marketing. Softr apps tend to have a restrained interface palette, and a review section in a louder style than the rest of the page reads as an advertisement dropped into a product.

The header rating comes from the platform aggregate rather than from the cards on screen. Free plan, unlimited widget views, so a landing page that gets shared costs nothing extra.

Where Should the Reviews Go?

On the public landing page, below the description of what the application does and above the sign-up call to action. A visitor needs to understand the tool before evidence about it means anything.

The pricing page is the second placement worth having. That is where hesitation concentrates, and a rating beside the plans answers a different question than the feature list does.

Leave the signed-in pages alone. Every block inside the portal is competing with the work the user came to do, and reviews are the least useful thing you could give that space to.