TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    BrightLocal

    Score7.2 out of 10
    N/ABrightLocal is a search engine optimization tool that tracks search rankings, builds citations, and monitors online reviews and stresses local search performance.

    $39

    per month

    Podium

    Score7 out of 10
    N/APodium, formerly Repdrive, is a ratings and review management platform from the company of the same name in Provo, Utah.N/A
    Pricing
    BrightLocalPodium
    Editions & Modules
    Track Plan
    $39
    per month
    Manage Plan
    $49
    per month
    Grow Plan
    $59
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BrightLocalPodium
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsBrightLocal offers custom enterprise plans for businesses with more than 50 locations.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BrightLocalPodium
    Considered Both Products
    BrightLocal
    No answer on this topic
    Podium
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    86%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    58%
    Would buy again
    19 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    58%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    64%
    Happy with the feature set
    21 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    52%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    15 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    59%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    Features
    BrightLocalPodium
    SEO
    Comparison of SEO features of BrightLocal and Podium
    Feature
    BrightLocal
    6.7
    12 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Podium
    -
    Ratings
    Keyword analysis7.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Backlink management4.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    SERP ranking tracking7.711 Ratings00 Ratings
    Page grader7.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Competitive analysis7.611 Ratings00 Ratings
    Site audit / diagnostics9.98 Ratings00 Ratings
    Site recommendations6.64 Ratings00 Ratings
    Task management3.56 Ratings00 Ratings
    SEO Channels
    Comparison of SEO Channels features of BrightLocal and Podium
    Feature
    BrightLocal
    8.6
    13 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Podium
    -
    Ratings
    Local SEO8.613 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social SEO7.96 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile SEO10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Global SEO7.72 Ratings00 Ratings
    SEO Platform & Account Management
    Comparison of SEO Platform & Account Management features of BrightLocal and Podium
    Feature
    BrightLocal
    9.2
    11 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Podium
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-domain support8.59 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with web analytics tools9.910 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BrightLocalPodium
    Small Businesses
    Serpstat
    Score10 out of 10
    Affinity CRM
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Yoast
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Hunter
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Google Trends
    Score8.6 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BrightLocalPodium
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (14 ratings)
    6.9
    (43 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (13 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BrightLocalPodium
    Likelihood to Recommend
    BrightLocal
    If you are a local business owner or marketing agency catering to local businesses, BrightLocal is a must have software. It has everything you need to track your local marketing efforts and to identify opportunities to make improvements, all at a very reasonable price point. You can also create nice looking reports to send to clients which are simple to create.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    Podium is well suited for several types of businesses. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, Podium would be a great way for you to ask that customers leave you a review online sharing their awesome experience. For medium to large businesses, Podium review invites can be automated through the company's customer management system, allowing the use of Podium to be simple and not timely, even with a large customer base. It may not be appropriate for a large company to manually send out individual review invites
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    BrightLocal
    • When we use BrightLocal's citation building service, I know that we're getting quality citations done right. Their staff will email you with any questions and always double check the information before creating inaccurate citations.
    • I love that BrightLocal is very quick about making changes when requested. For example, if we can't find a city on the drop-down list, you can chat them and they'll add it. Or if a report is pulling incorrectly, they'll re-run it within a reasonable timeframe.
    • BrightLocal has a lot of different reports that are easy to send to your clients. You can even add them to a web-viewable dashboard so that your client can simply bookmark a link and view their reports when they please.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    • Maintains conversations indefinitely, so we are able to go back to confirm details from conversations.
    • Provides the ability for our company to have a 'team' messaging platform where we can communicate with one another via single person to a single person, groups where we can add/subtract members of the group... this is invaluable to our organization.
    • Until today(!), we could 'share' or forward a message to one another; oddly, that feature disappeared just today, so I'm hoping it's a glitch!
    Read full review
    Cons
    BrightLocal
    • Up and down rankings were not always right on with the local search, but only off by one or two spots
    • It felt like it was only used for local SEO, and I know there are more features, just never got to them.
    • Didn't seem useful for every single client in the way Ahrefs or Spyfu did
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    • Account manager communications: I had been asking my Podium account manager for integration with our CRM tool for over 8 months before my account manager fell silent. After another 6 months, I proactively reached out only to find out that the integration had been in Beta for months and 8 other companies had already integrated. It was frustrating that my account manager did not remember a key request and make the Beta available to me the minute that it was open.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    BrightLocal
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    Again, Podium has been so wonderful in the year and a half we have been using it, we are able to integrate it with our CRM and use alot of the available features. The most helpful has been getting TONS of reviews on MULTIPLE sites through Podium!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    BrightLocal
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    While giving our clients the ability to leave a review was there, we had much worse results and got fewer reviews through the Podium portal than we did by sending our clients simple email requests, or simply having our service staff ask for a review while still on the clients' job sites.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    BrightLocal
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    We haven't had any outages or issues whenever we need it over the last few years of use
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    BrightLocal
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    It moves quickly and has no issues with delays. Performance is good as it is a web-based tool
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    BrightLocal
    Although their customer support has always contacted me, they have not always been helpful. Many times I've had reports or information disappear with them telling me they had no record of it, even when I had reports that the information was in there. There are times when their system did have bugs and the support was able to help me there. Overall, the support staff is there but they cannot always do much and need to wait for their development team to get back to them which often takes a long time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    I have to send an email to get information. They have a chat system but I end up having to go through my rep for account questions. It was a little frustrating to not have a direct phone number to call with questions. I would like to see a helpline added.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    BrightLocal
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    We only had a hard time getting our technicians to remember to send the review invites.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    BrightLocal
    Thryv reached out to me about 3 weeks before signing up with BrightLocal. While all of their features were impressive, there were only about 3 features that I would have used. Thryv wanted $200 per month for their service, which I found to be way overpriced for what I was wanting to use it for. I selected BrightLocal because it had the features I wanted at a lower price and then add ons. After using BrightLocal for a week and speaking with Becki, a customer service executive, I have discovered more features that I would use on BrightLocal than on Thryv.
    Read full review
    Podium
    We use Digital Air Strike at our two GM dealerships because it is one of a small list of reputation management companies authorized by GM as part of their SFE program. Digital Air Strike surveys our customers and invites them to write a review about our dealership. It is not as effective or flexible as Podium so we have been using Podium at those dealerships alongside Digital Air Strike. We also recently started a trial use of ReplyPro which is a service that monitors review sites and writes customized responses to positive reviews and suggested responses to negative reviews. I'd like to see Podium add this as part of their service so we can consolidate 3rd party vendors and manage every aspect of online reputation management from one place.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    BrightLocal
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    Its easy to scale to different departments as needed. We initially began using it to solve one problem and as new features became available it was easy to scale this and include other departments who could benefit from its tools
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    BrightLocal
    • BrightLocal's ranking reports have helped us better serve our clients' SEO needs, especially local SEO.
    • Reporting is nicely accomplished with their online client report dashboards.
    • Negative: some of their software defects are glaringly obvious take forever to fix, creating a number of awkward moments when we talk our clients through their reports.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    • I am glad there are card readers now, sales team members too often try to just send a request instead of taking payment onsite.
    • It's made capturing messaging leads much easier.
    • It's worth the cost but if it did a few more things it would be worth a lot more to us. Document signatures, surveying after jobs, even geotagging of photos/reviews for SEO
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    BrightLocal Screenshots

    Screenshot of Location SummaryScreenshot of Local Search Rank CheckerScreenshot of Local Search GridScreenshot of Local Search AuditScreenshot of Google My Business AuditScreenshot of Citation Tracker