Short answer
If your product has no reviews: ✅ Yes — you can request a category change.
If your product already has reviews: ❌ No — the primary category cannot be changed. However, you may create an additional product profile if your solution now fits a different category.
Why can’t I change the category if the product already has reviews?
Once a product has received reviews, its category becomes locked to protect review integrity, marketplace fairness, and regulatory compliance.
Here’s why:
1. Reviews are tied to a specific product and category context
When a hotelier submits a review, they are evaluating:
A specific product
Within a specific software category
Based on the expectations and use case of that category
Changing the category after reviews are published would materially alter the context in which those reviews were written.
For example:
A review written for a “Booking Engine” reflects expectations specific to booking engine functionality.
If the product were later reclassified as a different category, that same review would now appear in a different buying context than the reviewer originally intended.
That effectively changes the meaning and representation of the review.
2. Altering review context conflicts with review integrity standards
Hotel Tech Report does not modify, reinterpret, or reassign user reviews once they are submitted.
Changing a product’s category after reviews are live would:
Reassign reviews to a different product classification
Alter the context in which feedback was provided
Potentially misrepresent the reviewer’s intent
Maintaining strict review integrity standards is foundational to our marketplace and to buyer trust.
3. Compliance with FTC and consumer protection guidelines
Under FTC advertising and endorsement guidelines, reviews must:
Accurately reflect the reviewer’s experience
Not be materially altered
Not be presented in a misleading context
Reclassifying a reviewed product into a different category could be interpreted as changing the claim being validated by the review. This creates potential regulatory and reputational risk for both the vendor and the platform.
This policy exists to protect vendors from that exposure.
4. Fairness within competitive category rankings
Categories drive:
Competitive rankings
Awards eligibility
Comparison visibility
Buyer filtering and discovery
Allowing category changes after reviews are collected could create unfair competitive dynamics and undermine benchmarking accuracy.
Category stability ensures:
Transparent comparisons
Fair rankings
Consistent buyer expectations
For example:
Imagine a company has an amazing upselling product and they collect 500 rave reviews. Now that same company builds a PMS and they want to change their upselling product to the PMS category. The reviews submitted by users were about the companies upselling software and in no way reflect their opinions about the newer PMS that didn't even exist when they left their review.
What can I do instead?
If your product has evolved or now supports additional workflows, you may:
Create an additional product profile for a distinct offering
If the secondary product is an add-on or module of the core product, you can list it as an Add-on Module (which don't collect their own reviews)
If you believe your product was initially miscategorized before reviews were submitted, please contact our team so we can review the situation.