The widget: testimonials on any website

One snippet shows a brand's approved testimonials on any page: Shopify, WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, or HTML you write yourself. It never calls the Akteora API. It reads a static document from Akteora's CDN, so a busy page costs you nothing, and it keeps working even if Akteora's API is down.

The snippet

Create a widget in the dashboard (or with POST /v1/widgets) and paste its snippet:

<div data-akteora-widget="wgt_01J8Z3Y4X5W6V7T8S9R0Q1P2N3" style="height:320px"></div>
<script src="https://cdn.akteora.com/w.js" async></script>

• The box reserves the widget's height, so nothing on your page moves when it appears. Keep the style as it is.
• One script serves every widget on a page. For a second widget, paste only its <div> (pasting the whole snippet twice also works).
• Changing a widget's layout changes its height. Paste the new snippet after changing it.

Shopify

In the theme editor, add a Custom Liquid section (or edit a template) and paste the snippet.

WordPress

Add a Custom HTML block and paste the snippet.

Webflow and Squarespace

Use an Embed element (Webflow) or a Code block (Squarespace).

What visitors get

• Four layouts: wall (a grid of cards), carousel (a row that scrolls and snaps), single (one featured testimonial) and avatars (faces and a rating, for the top of a page).
• Themes: light, dark, or auto to follow the visitor's system setting, in your brand's colour or an accent of your own.
• Video only when asked: posters load; a recording is fetched only when someone presses play. It plays in a dialog, with captions on.
• Accessible: keyboard-operable, a proper modal dialog, alt text on every image, and reduced motion respected.
• Isolated: the widget draws inside a shadow root, so your page's CSS cannot break it and its CSS cannot touch your page.
• Private: no cookies, no storage, no analytics, and no request to anyone but cdn.akteora.com. Nothing is needed for a cookie banner.

On the free plan, widgets show a small "Collect testimonials with Akteora" link. Paid plans can switch it off (show_attribution: false); on the free plan that request is refused with 402 plan_limit_exceeded.

What a widget shows

Only testimonials that are approved and public, not rejected or deleted, and processed. Nothing else ever reaches the document, however the widget selects:

At most max_items (up to 50). fields chooses what each card shows: avatar, name, title, company, rating, date. A field switched off is left out of the published document, not just hidden.

A video appears once its files are published (see Media), a few seconds after approval. When you approve, withdraw, edit or delete, the widget's document is rebuilt within a few seconds, then visitors' browsers may keep their copy for up to a minute.

How the widget changes over time

New layouts, looks and card options will be added. What already works keeps working:

• A pasted snippet never needs updating. The attribute, the script's address and the document's address do not change, and a layout keeps the height its snippet reserved. You paste a new snippet only when you change a widget's layout.
• New options are off until you turn them on, so an existing widget looks the same after an update unless you change it.
• The document only grows. Fields are added, never renamed or removed. If you read it yourself, ignore fields you do not know, and check version: it changes only for a change you would have to adapt to, announced here beforehand.

The routes

curl -X POST -H "$AUTH" -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  https://api.akteora.com/v1/widgets \
  -d '{ "brand_id": "brd_…", "layout": "carousel", "fields": { "date": true } }'

The response includes snippet, height, script_url, document_url, and published_at: null until the first publication a few seconds after creation.

The document

If you would rather draw testimonials yourself, read the widget's document_url. It is public, cached, has no credentials and no expiry, and is served with Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *.

{
  "version": 1,
  "widget_id": "wgt_01J8Z3Y4X5W6V7T8S9R0Q1P2N3",
  "generated_at": "2026-09-13T12:00:00.000Z",
  "layout": "carousel",
  "theme": "auto",
  "accent_color": "#0f766e",
  "fields": { "avatar": true, "name": true, "title": true, "company": true, "rating": true, "date": false },
  "attribution": true,
  "brand_name": "Northwind",
  "rating": { "average": 4.8, "count": 12 },
  "items": [
    {
      "kind": "video",
      "name": "Maria Garcia",
      "title": "Head of Operations",
      "company": "Northwind",
      "rating": 5,
      "date": null,
      "text": "It halved our onboarding time.",
      "video_url": "https://cdn.akteora.com/m/7kq2m9xwzr4tn8vbh3jp/video.mp4",
      "audio_url": null,
      "poster_url": "https://cdn.akteora.com/m/7kq2m9xwzr4tn8vbh3jp/poster.jpg",
      "duration_ms": 42000,
      "language": "en",
      "captions": [{ "start_ms": 0, "end_ms": 1800, "text": "It halved our onboarding time." }]
    }
  ]
}

What it promises:

• version changes only for a breaking change. Check it, and ignore fields you do not know.
• kind is video, audio or text. A written testimonial has text and no media.
• text is the respondent's own words: typed, or what was said in the recording.
• Media URLs are the permanent public addresses described in Media.
• captions are timed from the recording's transcript; null when there is none.
• A deleted widget's document returns 404.