RatePoint

About RatePoint

RatePoint, Inc. was positioned as a provider of online reputation management and email marketing services tailored for small to medium-sized businesses. The company was co-founded by American entrepreneur Neal Creighton.

Neal Creighton's entrepreneurial journey began after serving for five years as an officer in the United States Army, including action during the Gulf War. He subsequently earned a Juris Doctor and an MBA from Northwestern University. Prior to RatePoint, Creighton co-founded the certificate authority GeoTrust in 2001, which grew to become the second-largest certificate authority in the world by 2006. This experience in internet security and identity verification shaped his subsequent ventures. He also served as CEO for ChosenSecurity, which was later acquired.

Founded to address the needs of an emerging reputation economy, RatePoint's business model was centered on a subscription-based web platform. The company's core product was a suite of tools that enabled businesses to collect, manage, and promote customer reviews and testimonials directly from their websites. This was integrated with an email marketing service that allowed clients to conduct campaigns, send newsletters, and distribute coupons and offers, with the ability to automatically post this content to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The platform also included features for creating and deploying online surveys to gather customer insights and a dispute resolution capability. Revenue was generated through tiered monthly subscriptions based on the number of email contacts and published reviews, with a free trial available to attract new users.

The company raised $25 million in venture financing and was recognized as the MITX 2010 Social Media Company of the Year for New England. However, Neal Creighton departed from his role as CEO in 2011. Within a year, RatePoint sold its email marketing division to Constant Contact, and its ratings and reviews business was discontinued.