Yext vs BrightLocal

Truly own your listings
Bespoke solutions for every business
API connections at a fraction of the cost
00.hero Yext Vs Brightlocal.

Why people choose BrightLocal over Yext

"I like the control and the communication BrightLocal offers over Yext. I have more access to my listings and more ability to correct them."
Noelle Geiger - Ameravant
Noelle Geiger
Ameravant
"Having been a Yext Partner for 3 years, I feel that the value I'm finding in BrightLocal far exceeds what was available in Yext."
Mary Mangold - Wild Web West
Mary Mangold
Wild Web West
"More human interaction and validation of data. You don't get that with Yext's APIs."
JCarter Bush - Bipper Media
JCarter Bush
Bipper Media

Don’t settle for one-size-fits-all

Every business is different, but Yext doesn’t see it that way. Its templated approach leads to endless compromise at every angle. BrightLocal offers true listings flexibility for every budget.

No recurring fees. Your listings are yours

✔️ With BrightLocal, you own your listings. Once they’re created, we hand them over and they are yours to keep. They won’t revert back if you leave.

❌ Yext requires costly annual fees and holds your listings to ransom. If you decide you want to leave, they’ll change back and you lose control. Escape the cycle.

02.no Recurring Fees.
03.yext Only Payfor What You Need.

Only pay for what you need, with a custom solution for your business

✔️ Build the listings that really matter for your business, paying a low cost for each one. 

❌ Yext offers a cookie-cutter approach to local listings, with the same set, no matter who you are. An approach that doesn’t cut it anymore.

Don't miss out on powerful sites critical to your industry

✔️ BrightLocal uncovers niche sites specific to your industry and/or location.

❌ With its limited network, Yext often overlooks valuable listing opportunities perfect for your business.

03.sites Critical To Your Industry
We have built hundreds of citation campaigns with the team and are thrilled with the speed, quality, and professionalism they constantly provide.
Jason Mcmahon - Digital Strategist
Jason Mcmahon
Digital Strategist

Managed by experts, not bots

✔️ Direct submissions allow us to ensure every listing is updated and managed accurately. Our customers love the personal approach.

❌ Yext is fully automated but offers zero flexibility and no human touch.

Support your listings management with powerful local marketing tools

✔️ BrightLocal offers a suite of tools specifically created for local businesses, to help improve your local marketing.

❌ Yext has no local rank tracking or other local-specific analytics tools.

White-label reporting

✔️ Our agency-friendly white-label options allow you to customize client reports with your logo and brand colors.

❌ Yext offers no white-label solutions for agencies.

When we were working with the 'other tool', we had to take a portion of our client's budget every month to afford those services. Now, with BrightLocal and the one-time fee, we're able to account for that in one month of service and it doesn't really impact the client's budget."
Rachel Tinker - SEO Team Lead, Blue Corona
Rachel Tinker
SEO Team Lead, Blue Corona

Direct connections to the big four sites

When we launched Active Sync, we made managing your listings simple and cost-effective. We offer direct connections to the key listing platforms and let you manage them in one place, for a fraction of the cost of providers like Yext.

So, how does BrightLocal stack up?

The table below compares Yext pricing for the ‘Complete’ plan against BrightLocal’s Citation Builder service.

Click and drag to scroll
Feature
BrightLocal
Yext
Cost
$2-3.20 per site
$499/yr
Pay Once, No Recurring Fee
No. of Sites in Network
1,000+
84
Manual Submissions
Data Aggregator Submissions
Price Aggregator Submissions
$100/year
$499/year
Ability to order Aggregators individually
Build New Listings
Update Existing Listings
Claim Listings
Data is Permanent
Remove Duplicate Listings
Detailed Reports
Countries Available inbl-flags
50+

How much does Yext cost vs BrightLocal?

See how much you could save per location vs Yext

Our cost-effective, one-time fee means that you’ll be saving from year one, and as much as $2,495 over 5 years!

Where Yext charges you $499 per year, per location, you can create an equivalent campaign with BrightLocal for just a $208 one-off payment, per location.

Yext would cost as much as $50k a year to a brand with 100 locations. With BrightLocal you’d pay $20.8k, just once.

See how we helped one agency reduce their annual spend on listings by as much as 79%.

Build and manage your listings with BrightLocal today

Why BrightLocal is the perfect Yext alternative

You own your listings

We claim and verify your listings, and pass the login details to you so that you own them forever and can update information anytime.

Best value pricing

With listings from $2 per site, we’re more cost-effective than all other providers, including Yext, and there are no recurring fees.

Managed by experts, not bots

Direct submissions allow us to ensure every listing is updated and managed accurately. Our customers love the personal approach. We have over 300 reviews on Trustpilot with an average of 5 stars!

Listings don't revert back

Our submissions are permanent—unless you want to update them—so you’ll never have to worry about listings reverting back or disappearing altogether.

Global reach

We’ve expanded our reach to 1,000+ sites. These include top directories, industry sites, and specialist sites in over 10 countries.

White-label reporting

Our agency-friendly white-label options allow you to customize client reports with your logo and brand colors.

Great reviews from our happy Citation Building customers

starstarstarstarstar
"I like the fact that I can pick the citations I want based on my budget and your team helps do the rest. The one thing I like the most is that once the citation is created you give us access an ownership of that citation. Not many citation tools allow you to do that."
Michael Richmond
Owner, Orange SEO
starstarstarstarstar
"We love that Brightlocal offers an easy way to track and manage local citations. It has provided us with so many important sites to get our clients listed on."
Tatiana Borisanova
SEO Specialist/Project Manager, 9thCO
starstarstarstarstar
"This is an easy-to-use method of adding citations for my client. The cost is reasonable - the execution is rapid and elegant. The citations built with the tool belong to my customer and not BrightLocal. Others keep those links in their name, which is not a good thing."
Robert L Donnell
President, P5 Marketing, Inc.

FAQs

How does BrightLocal differ to Yext?

Unlike Yext, we don't:

  • Charge expensive, annual fees.
  • Hold your listings to ransom — we give you full ownership of every listing we build, we even give you the keys to them (well, the username and passwords at least).
  • Ignore duplicate listings and inaccuracies — as part of our service we offer a clean up of duplicate listings and remedy inaccuracies.
  • Offer a pre-packaged, 'one size fits all' solution — instead, we give you complete control of the sites where you are listed.
  • Miss important, niche, industry sites — we help you uncover the perfect sites for your business type.
How much does a BrightLocal Citation Builder campaign cost?

Unlike Yext we offer full flexibility in the choice of sites that you can build listings on. This allows you to build on 100s of sites, or just a select few.

For an equivalent campaign to Yext, the breakdown would look like:

  • 30 x Manual Citations = $90
  • Duplicate Removal = $18
  • Local Data Aggregators (x 5) = $100
  • Total = $208 (one-off payment)

I’m currently with Yext, how can I change?

For details on switching from Yext to BrightLocal, see our Yext Replacement Service.

What does Yext do?

Yext is location management software that can automatically update business information across major online directories and search engines. The company itself is situated in New York City, NY in the US. The software the company provides can update existing citations on the web or create new listings for your business. The types of information which can be inputted include:

  • NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number)
  • Business categories and location labels
  • Opening hours, including holiday closures
  • Business photos, videos, menus, and staff bios
  • As well as listing management services, Yext software also provides additional features. Depending on your Yext package, these may or may not be available upon signing up. These include tools such as Yext Reviews (Review monitoring), Yext Pages (Web page creation), and Yext Analytics (data dashboard).

    Compare Yext against BrightLocal and 5 alternative citation building services.

How does Yext work?

Yext works by submitting your business information to its listing network (known as the PowerListings network). Depending on the data you provide, it will fill out the forms needed to get your business found across multiple sites.

These sites include search providers such as Apple, Bing, Facebook and Google and local directories like Yelp, CitySearch and MapQuest, giving you better exposure for potential customers to find you, and assisting your website’s search engine rankings.

The Yext PowerListing network currently contains 84 total sites, but submissions may vary depending on which country your business is in, as not all listings will be relevant.

What are the Pros of using Yext?

Quick submission: You can get your business information up and running on listings within 72 hours of submitting to Yext.

Automatic distribution: One of the reasons Yext can submit quickly is due its automatic platform. Input your business info and nothing further is required.

Review monitoring: If you’re on the Yext Premium plan, you gain the ability to monitor reviews across the web, which can be useful for your company’s reputation management

Listing analytics: Yext analytics provides the ability to easily monitor how your listings are appearing in search, how many clicks they gain, and terms which bring up your business.

What are the Cons of using Yext?

You are locked into paying an annual subscription to keep your listings live: Even if you don’t need to make any changes to your business listings, each year you still have to pay an annual fee to keep your listings live on the Yext network.

Listings will revert back to their pre-Yext state upon cancellation: One of the biggest Yext disadvantages is that if you decide to no longer subscribe, your listings will go back to how they appeared pre-Yext. This means you’re continually tied in to the Yext system instead of more flexible and more affordable alternatives.

Complicated dashboard: The user interface for Yext is largely focused around single businesses, so if you have a business with multiple locations you may find navigation on the platform quite challenging.

Limited network of websites for listings: When using Yext, you’re tied into the submission network which they operate. There is a huge amount of citation sites that Yext don’t cover in its network and your only option to submit to these would be manual input – which obviously takes up precious time!

Inconsistent review monitoring: Although Yext does offer review monitoring as an option – it is very limited. The review network does not contain many sites so reviews are often missed or not shown.

No local ranking tracking: Many SEO experts say that by listing your local business on citation sites your overall search rankings will increase. Having a ranking tracker is therefore particularly useful in order to see rankings increase and optimize where necessary.

No white-label support: If you are running an SEO or marketing agency then the chances are you require an open book when it comes to white-label support. Unfortunately, Yext reports contain icons unique to them, meaning your clients can easily discover Yext and go direct to them instead.

Limited API: If your business is looking to integrate with the API from Yext then you will notice some fairly inconsistent data missing which is still present within the Yext dashboard itself.

Yext will overwrite profiles: If you’ve set up existing business listings which Yext submits to, then they will be overwritten when you request submissions through Yext. So that great Yelp description you spent ages writing? It will be completely gone.

Yext Pricing - How much does it cost?

Yext offers four plans, starting at $199 a year.

Emerging Plan - $199/yr

The 'Emerging' Yext plan includes listings on MerchantCircle, ELocal and 30 other non-premium websites.

Essential Plan - $499/yr

The 'Essential' Yext plan includes listings on key sites, including Facebook, Google, Yelp, and more.

Complete Plan - $499/yr

The 'Complete' plan includes the full 'Emerging' and 'Essential' packages alongside PowerListings+ and Analytics.

Premium Plan - $999/yr

The 'Premium' Yext plan contains everything from the other three packages, plus Review Monitoring and Yext Pages.