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You felt lost in the maze of Birdeye's pricing plans. Birdeye pricing can be tricky to navigate, so I am here to demystify it all for you!
In this guide, we'll dive deep into Birdeye plan structure and let you know how much it'll cost your business.
And, of course, we'll answer the burning question on everyone's mind: is Birdeye worth the investment for your local business or marketing agency?
So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn everything you need to know about Birdeye pricing for 2023. And if you need a little liquid courage to get through it all, I won't judge if you swap out that coffee for a nice glass of wine.
We will go over the following topics:
- Birdeye Pricing Summary
- Birdeye Free Trial
- How much does Birdeye Cost for Local Businesses?
- What is the Cost of Birdeye for Partners?
- How to Cancel Birdeye?
- Final Verdict on Birdeye Cost
Birdeye Pricing Summary
If you're short on time and just need the lowdown on all Birdeye plans, here's a quick summary to get you up to speed:
How much is Birdeye for Small Business?
- The cost of Birdeye Standard Plan $299/month for one location and covers listings and reviews management.
- Upgrade to the $399/month Professional Birdeye plan and you'll also score Birdeye webchat.
- Birdeye Premium Plan, with all its fancy-sounding features like surveys, ticketing, and insights is overkill for most small to medium businesses and marketing agencies.
How much is Birdeye for Partners?
- Want to team up with Birdeye? Here's the deal: you can either become a Birdeye reseller become a Strategic Alliance partner and enter into a referral agreement.
- The catch with reselling Birdeye? Birdeye reseller pricing starts at $5000/month.
- If you're more of a team player, becoming a Strategic Alliance partner lets you co-sell and refer business to Birdeye. Confused? Check out the partner pricing section, it'll all make sense... hopefully.
Great! Now that you have a better idea of how much Birdeye costs, let's explore whether Birdeye pricing would work for you.
If you're a local business owner (like dentists/realtors/home services etc.), you can jump to the Cost of Birdeye for Local Businesses section.
If you're part of a marketing agency, feel free to skip ahead to the Birdeye cost for partners section.
Birdeye Free Trial
According to some trusty sources like TrustRadius and GetApp, Birdeye supposedly offers a trial.
However, I did some digging on their website and couldn't find it anywhere. Seems like they're trying to hide their trial option.
Instead, they offer a free demo with 12 videos. I guess they want you to watch videos instead of actually trying their product. Maybe they think we're all aspiring film critics?
But be warned, to access the demo you'll have to give them your phone, email, and business location. If you want to get straight to the videos, you can find found all the Birdeye demo videos here.
How much does Birdeye Cost for Local Businesses?
There are 3 Birdeye plans - Standard, Professional, and Premium. But unless you're running a giant corporation, you can skip the Premium - it's got more bells and whistles than a clown car, but most small businesses won't need them.
Stick with the Standard or Professional plan so you pay only for what your business needs. Would it still be worth the cost for your business, let's break it down and find out!
Most businesses use Birdeye for its review management and marketing features. Let's look at Birdeye reputation management costs...
Cost of Birdeye Standard Plan
- This is probably the best Birdeye plan for small-medium businesses with the power duo of reviews and listings.
- With the reviews feature, you can boost your reputation, respond to reviews, and share your reviews on your website and socials!
- With the listings feature, you can list your business accurately on 60+ local directories like Google and Yelp.
- The Messaging feature gives you an all-in-one inbox for your social media and website chat. This would only be useful if you have a huge number of leads coming in from different sources like Google/Website/social media.
- All this reputation and listing management goodness comes at a cost. Brace yourself, it starts at a hefty $299/month per location.
- Birdeye seems to be out of touch with their local business customers - maybe they need some reviews of their pricing strategy!
Cost of Birdeye Professional Plan
- The Birdeye Professional Plan costs $399/month. It gives you all the features included in the Standard Plan plus the Webchat feature.
- The Webchat feature moves website visitor conversations to text and lets customers take them on the go with SMS.
- But you need to shell out an extra $100/month just for a fancy chat feature.
- But paying an extra $100/month just for a webchat software feels like highway robbery!
Is Birdeye Worth the Cost for Local Businesses?
Let's be real, the answer is a big fat NO! Birdeye reputation management costs $299/month, you might as well be paying for a bird-eye view of your bank account draining.
Even if you just want to do online citation management with Birdeye, you still need to cough up $299/month.
Compare that to competitors like ReviewGain. With ReviewGain, for just $79/month, you can manage your online presence, send review requests, respond to reviews, and even show off your glowing reviews on social media and your website.
Plus, you can manage up to 20 locations and send 500 SMS review requests, all bundled into the $79/month plan. If you're up for trying out ReviewGain, you can check it out here.
What is the Cost of Birdeye for Partners?
When you partner with Birdeye, you can either become a Birdeye reseller or form an alliance, Let's quickly jump into each one...
How much does Birdeye Cost for Resellers?
- Thinking of white-labeling Birdeye? Buckle up, it's gonna cost at least $5000/month just to get started.
- But hey, once you're in, you'll get access to a partner dashboard and a complete whitelabel platform.
- But Birdeye reseller pricing is so opaque that I'm not sure if Birdeye offers volume discounts. Maybe if you buy more seats, you'll pay less per seat - or maybe not? It's like a game of pricing roulette! Are you feeling lucky?
Cost of Birdeye Strategic Alliance
- Are you ready to be Birdeye's right-hand partner? If you've got what it takes (and Birdeye agrees), you could be their Strategic Alliance Partner.
- You can do co-selling, this means teaming up with Birdeye to attract new customers. They'll give your salespeople resources, and you can give theirs some expert tips.
- You could even become Birdeye's go-to vendor for referrals (or vice versa) and score some sweet affiliate fees. As expected, Birdeye doesn't disclose its affiliate fee. But seriously, Birdeye, can we talk about your pricing transparency?
Is Birdeye Worth It for Small-Medium Marketing Agencies?
Okay, so here's the deal: Birdeye is charging an arm and a leg for their whitelabel package - $5000/month?! That's just outrageous, especially for a small-medium marketing agency.
You're better off with a tool designed and priced for smaller marketing agencies, like ReviewGain.
ReviewGain offers a 100% whitelabel review management + marketing platform starting at just $29/month for each client. And get this: we won't even charge you a setup fee for whitelabel. That's right, $0!
What's the catch? There's none, Birdeye cares about making money for their investors while we care about giving you a great margin on your whitelabel platform.
Btw, if you're looking for an in-depth analysis of Birdeye and ReviewGain, I recently wrote an article on Birdeye vs ReviewGain vs Podium.
You're better off with a tool designed and priced for smaller marketing agencies, like ReviewGain.
ReviewGain offers a 100% whitelabel review management + marketing platform starting at just $29/month for each client. And get this: we won't even charge you a setup fee for whitelabel. That's right, $0!
What's the catch? There's none, Birdeye cares about making money for their investors while we care about giving you a great margin on your whitelabel platform.
Btw, if you're looking for an in-depth analysis of Birdeye and ReviewGain, I recently wrote an article on Birdeye vs ReviewGain vs Podium.
So if you're ready to get more bang for your buck, head on over here to check out ReviewGain whitelabel platform.
How do I cancel my Birdeye subscription?
So you've paid for Birdeye but it's not working out? Well, canceling your subscription is like trying to break out of a high-security prison. Birdeye doesn't make it easy for you.
Here are some of the weirdest clauses:
- Want to opt out early? Sorry, unless you have an opt-out clause in your contract, you're stuck.
- Want to pause your subscription? Nope, unless there's a pause clause in your contract.
- And if you're not happy with the tool? Get ready for multiple meetings and a bunch of emails to their support team.
Their cancellation page was a fun (but dreadful!) read. If you're interested, you can read the full Birdeye cancellation policy.
Final Verdict on Birdeye Cost
I'll give my final verdict on whether Birdeye is worth it for any small-medium business or agency.
Short answer, NO! Check out this review by a small marketing agency owner:
“In my experience, they force you to pay the balance of the agreement even though you have no need for their service anymore. In my experience, they threaten you with legal action for also voicing your opinions on the service they provide.”
Nuff said! But let me recap everything wrong with Birdeye and its pricing in a nutshell:
❌ It's crazy expensive!: Starting at $299/month, Birdeye's reputation management pricing will make you want to sell a kidney just to afford it.
❌ Opaque pricing: Birdeye really doesn't want to tell you their agency or small business pricing upfront. What are they hiding?
❌ Rough cancellation policy: Their cancellation policy is full of sneaky traps. You'll need a Ph.D. in contract law just to get out unscathed.
❌ Atrocious customer support: They show no empathy and are more interested in snatching your money than helping you.
To conclude, Birdeye is not a good fit for most small businesses and marketing agencies. And don't just take my word for it, look at this heart-wrenching review from Sherene:
“In April 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a huge drop in revenue for our personal services business. This coincided with my 1-year re-up for my Birdeye premiums, but for us it was a choice between renewing a software license and paying our employees. But when we reached out, they informed us that they had MORE THAN DOUBLED their pricing during the pandemic, and we no longer qualified for our prior plan. They have zero sympathy for recovering small businesses whatsoever.”
What's the Alternative?
I recently wrote a blog post on the top 7 Birdeye alternatives. TL;DR - if you're a marketing agency or local business owner, you'll find a tool that fits your specific needs.
For small-business owners, ReviewGain has got you covered with reputation management and marketing plans starting at just $49/month. And for local agencies, we have a 100% whitelabel reputation management tool starting at just $29/month.
Did I answer all your questions? If you're loving what you're hearing about ReviewGain, click here to learn more or start a free trial. It's as easy as entering your email, no credit card or phone number required. You'll be up and running in just 30 seconds - faster than a cheetah on roller skates!