BrightLocal vs. Trustpilot

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

Unfortunately, Trustpilot's disingenuous pricing habits and communication methods are the reason we ultimately ended our 3 year relationship with the company. In 2023, we signed a 1 year agreement for their basic plan (product reviews, Q&A, etc) at $3,800/year... Fair enough. In 2024, the price jumps to $5,040/year... Okay, steep - but we're still seeing good use of the tools, sort of justified? For 2025 it skyrockets to $8,976/year (+78% from prior)... But, after a month of haggling and threats to cancel, they 'graciously' drop it to $7,569/year. Now for 2026, Trustpilot is demanding $9,576/year for the EXACT SAME PLAN. That's a 152% increase since we started, with zero added value.

• 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

• Completing the review for the customer is a simple process which enables us to receive more feedback.
• The Trustpilot account management team is a true partner working with each department to help with adoption across the company.
• The Trustpilot development team is a trusted partner with our own internal development team, assisting them with implementation as well as integration with their API.

Incentivized

• 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

• Allow you to highlight sections of the review and respond
• Stop reviews from unverified purchasers
• Searching for a review can sometimes be hit or miss

Incentivized

It's expensive and customer service is not the best.

Incentivized

Simple user interface - easy to understand with high level overviews, but also getting into the detail with questions for those who want it. The only issue I have is the connection with LinkedIn - sometimes it fails and makes you re-enter details again which can be a bit frustrating!

Incentivized

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

I've rarely had issues and needed support. During the implementation phase we relied on their support heavily and they were very knowledgeable, responsive and helpful. Any questions I've had have been answered promptly by my account manager. They also have a great knowledgebase for self-service support.

Incentivized

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.

Selected Trustpilot because of superior integration with the website and Google SERPS. Again, my only complaint would be Trustpilot was relatively more expensive than the other technologies.

Incentivized

• 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

• Helps us to determine what our customers care about.
• We have been able to modify our marketing points based on what customers seemed confused about or the aspects of our business that they appreciate.

Incentivized