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Whitespark vs BrightLocal

Hero Whitespark To Brightlocal

Level up your local SEO with BrightLocal

Complete local SEO and GBP auditing

All the tools you want and need in a single, cost-effective subscription.

Powerful visual Google Maps rank tracking

Complete oversight of your rankings with two high-impact, visual ways to report.

Flexible citation management

Manual submissions and API options give the best of both worlds.

Reputation management tools

Monitor, grow, and showcase reviews with a full suite of review management tools.

GBP Post scheduling and distribution

Schedule posts and bulk post to multiple locations with streamlined GBP management.

Why people love BrightLocal

"BrightLocal tools provide best-in-class data. Their tools are a must-have for marketers looking to optimize their local search results."
Neilson Hall - iProspect
Neilson Hall
iProspect
"If you want to save time and money, then BrightLocal must be part of your local SEO toolkit."
Susan Hallam MBE - Hallam Internet
Susan Hallam MBE
Hallam Internet
"BrightLocal is one of the best internet marketing tools out there... It is fast, accurate, and produces excellent reports."
Colan Nielsen - Sterling Sky
Colan Nielsen
Sterling Sky

6 reasons BrightLocal is the best Whitespark alternative

Whitespark is well respected in the local search industry for its small business services and rank tracker. We tip our hats to them for that. But, when it comes to game-changing features, services, and support, BrightLocal is the best destination for agencies and marketing professionals.

1. A unified solution: all essential local SEO tools in one platform

✔️ With BrightLocal you have everything you need in one subscription. Audit, monitor, manage, and improve your local SEO in one place.

❌ With Whitespark you have access to fewer tools, and each has to be purchased separately. Why pay more for less?

2. Powerful, visual local rank tracking

✔️ Local rank tracking has evolved, and our tools have evolved with it. We go beyond basic rank reporting, giving access to not one, but two powerful rank-tracking tools that cover every inch of the map.

❌ Whitespark’s traditional rank tracker is well known to offer beautiful visuals, but it offers no geo-grid rank tracking like our own Local Search Grid. Grid tracking is now understood to be an industry standard, so without one you’re really missing out on key insights.

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"Showing them "you're #2" in a table didn't allow for our clients to really see the impact and value of what we do for them in SEO. BrightLocal's Local Search Grid has changed all of that. And we can show them each month how their footprint is expanding. We love it!"
Jonathan "Jono" Long
Owner, Faithworks Marketing

3. Advanced citation building at lower prices

✔️ BrightLocal gives you complete control over your citation building and the sites you want to get listed on, so you can choose the citations you want at low prices.

❌ Whitespark is known for its citation building, but they offer set packages that work out far more expensive. A whole 33% extra per listing, in fact!

4. API connections to manage all your important listings, not just GBP

✔️ BrightLocal’s Active Sync lets you manage, update, and protect your data on GBP, Apple, Facebook, and Bing via an always-on API connection.

❌ Whitespark only provides access to GBP, leaving all your other listings out at sea, requiring significant time to manually monitor and update them.

5. Custom-built technology you can trust

✔️ BrightLocal invests time and knowledge in its own tools. We build all our services here in-house for rank tracking, review management, listings management, GBP, and every aspect of local.

❌ Whitespark currently white labels some of their local tool capabilities, like review management. Some work gets outsourced too!

05.custom Built Technology

6. A full house of local SEO auditing capabilities

✔️ BrightLocal offers unrivaled local SEO auditing capabilities. Our Local Search Audit tool analyzes over 300 different local search signals to pinpoint the issues and opportunities for you to build your SEO strategy around.

❌ Whitespark has some useful tools, but they don’t offer a full local audit tool. So if you need to fully understand your SEO situation and know where to focus your efforts, it’s not the platform for you.

See how we stack up

Click and drag to scroll
BrightLocal
Whitespark
Rank Tracking
Geo-Grid Rank Tracking
GBP Auditing
Local SEO Auditing
API Listings Management
Review Management
Citation Monitoring
Citation Building$2-$3 per site
$4-5 per site
Aggregator Submissions$100 for 5 Aggregators
$125 for 3 Aggregators
Can Order Aggregators Individually
G2 Rating4.6/5
4.6/5*
- No. of Reviews201
19*
Capterra Rating4.8/5
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- No. of Reviews268
0
Trustpilot Rating4.9/5
-
- No. of Reviews678
0
*This score is based on their local rank tracker tool.

Explore our plans

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Essential Local SEO Tools
Track local rankings
Audit citations, GBP and on-site SEO
Monitor GBP and website performance
Competitor Insights

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Everything in Track, plus:
Listings Management
Sync business data across Google, Bing, Facebook and Apple
Suppress external edits
Schedule GBP Posts
Bulk post to multiple profiles

Grow

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Everything in Manage, plus:
Review Management
Monitor and respond to reviews
Run review generation campaigns
Create a review widget for your site

Simply Listings

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Access to Citation Builder
From just $2 per site, pay-as-you-go
Access to Active Sync and GBP Post Scheduler
$50 per Location, per year
Active Sync
GBP Post Scheduler
All plans include access to:

Customisable white-label reporting

Agency Lead Generator

Start improving local SEO with a 14-day free trial!

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All features
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Unlimited access
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No card required
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4.6 stars out of 5

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4.8 stars out of 5

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4.5 stars out of 5

FAQs

What is Whitespark?

Whitespark are a service based in Canada that offer citation building, audit, and cleanup services for local businesses and SEOs. In partnership with OptiLocal, Whitespark offer citation building services in 11 countries worldwide. A lot of SEOs use Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder, as well as their other citation services, to help improve their local SEO ranking.

What is Whitespark's pricing for citation building?

Whitespark offers a manual citation-building service, with costs starting at $20+ for a custom package. They also offer a fixed-price ‘Citation Audit & Cleanup Service’, which ranges from $349, to $599 for the Comprehensive Package, and a larger $999 Ultimate package. There is a one-time fee for each package.

This service equates to about $4 per citation, whilst BrightLocal is $3 per site.

What are the Pro's of using Whitespark?
  • Offer a custom citation clean-up and research service
  • One-time cost
  • Submits to aggregators and direct
  • Create accounts on directories which the client owns/can access
  • You can select the quantity of submissions and sites used
What are the Cons of using Whitespark?
  • They outsource some of their citation work to a third-party and use white-labeled services for their tools
  • More expensive than BrightLocal for manual submissions (33-66% more)
  • More expensive than BrightLocal for Data Aggregator submissions (114% more)
  • No option to choose Aggregators individually
  • No integration with social media platforms