The LSA Money Back Guarantee is gone. What to say instead
Google discontinued it in October 2025 and replaced the badge rather than the protection. If your copy still promises it, it is promising something that does not exist.
- The Money Back Guarantee was discontinued on 20 October 2025.
- A single Google Verified badge replaced four labels. Nothing replaced the money-back element.
- Final consumer claims closed on 7 December 2025.
- Check service pages, ad extensions and call scripts. Stale claims live longest there.
What changed, with dates
Google announced on 20 August 2025 that a single Google Verified badge would launch from October 2025, replacing Google Guaranteed, Google Screened, License Verified by Google, and the Money Back Guarantee.
Effective 20 October 2025, the green checkmark became blue and the terminology consolidated. Google’s own community announcement states that “the Money Back Guarantee associated with the Google Guarantee badge will also be discontinued”.
Consumers had until 7 December 2025 to file a final claim, within thirty days of service completion. Nothing replaced the money-back element. Only the badge was replaced.
Why this matters more than a badge change
The Money Back Guarantee was doing real persuasive work. It let a homeowner hire a stranger with a backstop, and it was the single most quotable thing about Local Services Ads.
A lot of contractor websites and ad copy still reference it, because it was written once and never revisited. Promising a guarantee that was withdrawn ten months ago is a trust problem rather than a compliance one, and the person who discovers it is a customer with a complaint.
Check your site, your ad extensions, your email templates and anything a call handler reads from. This is the kind of claim that survives in the places nobody audits.
What to say instead
Say what is still true. Google Verified still means background and licence checks were run, and that is worth stating plainly rather than dressing up.
Then say what you offer, because that is now the differentiator. A platform-level guarantee is gone; a workmanship warranty you actually stand behind is yours and is specific.
Resist replacing one borrowed proof with another. The reason this change hurts is that a lot of businesses were leaning on Google’s credibility rather than building their own, and the fix is to build your own.
What we would check today
Every page mentioning the guarantee, including service pages written years ago.
Ad copy and callout extensions, which is where stale claims live longest.
Review responses and email templates that cite it.
Any third-party directory profile you control, since those get copied and quoted.
“A lot of businesses were leaning on Google's credibility rather than building their own.”
Questions owners ask
Youssef runs visibility work for established local businesses: Google Maps, organic search and AI answers, measured monthly against a published protocol. Where a number cannot be checked, it does not go in the report.
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