---
title: "Owner responses — Reviews for Laravel | Roundly"
description: "Reply publicly to a review — responses are threaded, approved immediately and never count toward ratings."
url: https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/reviews-for-laravel/owner-responses
language: en
---

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[Reviews for Laravel](https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/reviews-for-laravel.md)

# Owner responses

The subject’s owner — or anyone — can respond to a review:

```php
$response = Reviews::respond($review, $owner, 'Thanks for the feedback!');
// or, with an optional title:
$response = $review->respond($owner, 'Thanks for the feedback!', 'Reply from the owner');

$review->responses;       // HasMany of responses
$response->parent;        // BelongsTo back to the original review
$response->isResponse();  // true
```

A response is itself a row in the reviews table, tied to its parent via parent\_id. It:

- carries no rating;
- shares the parent’s subject, so it is found alongside the parent’s reviews;
- is approved immediately and skips the moderator — it never sits in the moderation queue;
- never counts toward averages, counts, distributions or cached aggregates;
- is force-deleted with its parent, so it never lingers as a review of its own;
- fires ReviewResponded with both the parent and the response.

## Reading responses

```php
// Load each review with its replies in one query:
$reviews = $restaurant->approvedReviews()->with('responses')->latestFirst()->get();

// Only replies:
Review::query()->for($restaurant)->responses()->get();
```

Use topLevel() — or the approvedReviews / topLevelReviews relations — wherever you list reviews, so responses show under their parent rather than beside it.

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