8 Birdeye Alternatives for Local
Business & Agencies: 2023's Best?

 

I'm writing this article for local business owners and marketing agencies serving small-medium businesses.

 

If you're looking to explore Birdeye alternatives, you will find a tool that works for you in this article.

We'll compare and contrast features, pricing, strengths, and weaknesses of the top 8 Birdeye competitors so you can make an informed decision on the platform that fits your business's needs.

 

So kick back, fix yourself a cup of your favorite beverage (tea, coffee, or a well-deserved beer, it's all good), and join me as we navigate the world of Birdeye alternatives.

 

We'll cover the following topics; if you're impatient, you can jump over to the last section to find out the best Birdeye alternative for your agency or business.

 

 

Before we dive into Birdeye competitors, let's see why Birdeye would be wrong for your business.

 

👉 One of Birdeye's biggest problems is its bumpy onboarding process, which can be quite frustrating for new users. Look at this review:

 

 

👉 Hidden and expensive pricing, they recently hid their pricing plans from public view and only offer custom quotes. The lowest plan started at 299$/month when the pricing was public. If you're interested in the full Birdeye pricing, I wrote about Birdeye Pricing 101 recently.

 

👉 Getting help from customer support is a nightmare, one of their reviews mentions this

 

 

👉 Not easy to set up a Birdeye whitelabel platform for marketing agencies. They don't provide specific instructions on how to onboard clients, so you're left to figure things out on your own.

 

👉 It's plain confusing: Birdeye is cluttered with a lot of features, which makes the platform buggy and hard to use.

 

When deciding whether you need a Birdeye competitor, ask yourself these questions:

 

Do you want a clear pricing plan from the start or are you looking for custom quotes and hidden fees?

 

Do you want to struggle with customer support every time you run into an issue or would you rather have someone help you out as you figure out the tool?

 

If you're short on time, here's a complete comparison table between different Birdeye alternatives:

 

 

If you now feel like diving directly into the top 8 Birdeye alternatives, you can jump here.

Here are the criteria we will use to evaluate each tool:

 

 

The tool should help you collect reviews on all major reviews sites and social media.
It should also allow you to send automated review campaigns via SMS and email.
In short, it should help you get many great reviews and a glowing 5-star rating.

 

Hey, if you're someone who takes charge of their own online reputation, you may find my 5-step google reputation management blog helpful.

 

 

To keep your online reviews from becoming a nightmare, you need to review them regularly. The tool should have a reputation alert feature that notifies you when new reviews are posted.

 

You can't improve if you don't know where you stand.
The tool should provide easy-to-understand reputation analysis that helps you gain an insight into what people think of your business.

 

This one is pretty simple, we all want to make more money.
The tool should help you market your reviews to increase your sales/bookings/visitors.

 

 

Having a good reputation is more valuable than money.
The tool should protect your brand reputation by helping you to respond to reviews quickly.
It should also nudge customers to send negative feedback directly to your customer service rather than on public platforms.

 

Even if the tool is great, you will need help when you first use it.
The company should work with you to provide guidance and timely resolution to all issues.

 

When we spend money on a tool, we want to get the most value for our investment. Affordable pricing is important for small business owners on a budget.

 

Now that you know how we will evaluate each tool, let's look at some top Birdeye competitors.

 

I want to make it clear that this blog is hosted on reviewgain.io, so of course, I think that ReviewGain is the best reputation management tool out there. But I'll back it up with facts and you'll agree that ReviewGain is great for your business.

 

ReviewGain offers a 14-day trial with access to all features. You just need your email (no credit card!).

 

 

ReviewGain is a robust Birdeye alternative for marketing agencies and small-medium businesses built for speed of use and ease of management. Check out the features below:

 

 

The lowest plan for businesses having less than 10 locations is just 49$/month.

For businesses having more locations, ReviewGain has a 79$/month plan.

Both plans offer unlimited email review requests.

You're billed monthly, with no long-term contracts.

You can cancel your subscription anytime.

 

 

 

If you want to offer reputation management to your clients hassle-free, you need to look at ReviewGain:

Ready to dive in? Check out the ReviewGain whitelabel platform, along with the pricing info.

 

Definitely YES! 

With ReviewGain, you'll never be upsold on features you don't need and it's all you need to build a solid online reputation and get more sales using your reviews.

 

Additionally, it's got great customer support guiding you through every step.

 

You can check it out for free here to see if it's right for you.

 

Podium is an all-in-one reputation management platform. It offers hundreds of features, integrations, and tools to help you succeed using the power of text messages. Btw, if you're looking for an in-depth comparison, I recently wrote an article on Podium vs Birdeye.

• It will help you get more reviews by supporting text and email review campaigns.
• It has a central dashboard that makes it easy to respond to all your reviews.
• All-in-one inbox across text and social media channels.
• Podium dashboard helps you identify trends in reviews.
• Competitor analysis features.
• If you're interested, you can check out the complete 2023 Podium review.

• The all-in-one Podium inbox lets you reply to all customer conversations in one place.
• A unified dashboard for viewing and responding to customer reviews
• You can ask for reviews on both text and email.

• No personalized onboarding if you don't pay for their $450/month plan.
• It costs an arm and a leg; the most basic Podium plan starts at $289/month.
• For small business owners, a platform with too many features can be difficult to use.
• Annual contracts - they start at $3,000/year and bind you to the terms for the entire year.
• Podium's customer support is a weak spot, with most of Podium's bad reviews relating to poor customer service.

Is it a good Birdeye alternative for local business?

Birdeye Alternative #3 - NiceJob

• Automatic review marketing on social media and website.
• Review generators using text & Email.
• Referral invite requests.

• Soliciting reviews via SMS and email.
• Social proof widgets to increase your sales.

• No customer sentiment analysis to help you understand what customers want.
• NiceJob allows reviewers to leave reviews on their own site instead of public review sites, which can lead to the loss of great reviews. Here's an example:
 

“We have lost a number of great reviews, from customers who have gmail accounts but instead left a great review on NiceJob which no one will ever see.” ― G2 Review

 
• NiceJob doesn't listen to your online reputation 24/7. Also, it doesn't alert you when someone gives you a bad review to let you know it's time to clean up your act.
• They charge a minimum of $500 to use any of the website redesign features.

Is it a good Birdeye alternative for local businesses?

Birdeye Alternative #4 - GradeUs

• Review request campaigns on text and Email.
• Instant email review alerts for new reviews.
• Reputation marketing on social media and website.
• Central dashboard to respond to reviews on multiple sites.

• Good review generation features with custom templates and multichannel review campaigns on SMS/Email.
• Reputation marketing features that help you convert your reviews into money.

• Far too expensive with the starter plan at 110$/month.
• No smart replies feature to let you respond to reviews quickly.
• For the complete whitelabel, there's an additional 440$ one-time setup fee.

Is it a good Birdeye alternative for local businesses?

Birdeye Alternative #5 - ReviewPush

• Email review campaigns.
• Lets you monitor over 50 review sites.
• All review activity is reported centrally.
• Ability to respond to all your reviews from one place.
• Email alert to let you know when a new review is posted on any review site.

• The features are easy to use, and you can get started right away.
• Review and profile alerts notify you when you get a new review.

• Doesn't support text campaigns, SMS has a much higher response rate than email.
• They have no local reputation marketing features to get you more sales using your reviews.
• They only report reviews separated by rating, but don't provide in-depth customer feedback analysis.
• ReviewPush costs more than other Birdeye alternatives like ReviewGain, which supports up to five locations for 59$ per month compared to 450$ per month plan by ReviewPush.

Is it a good Birdeye alternative for local business?

Birdeye Alternative #6 - Review Tool

• Run automated review campaigns on SMS, MMS, and Email.
• Customized review cards to ask for reviews offline.
• Monitor reviews on all relevant review sites.
• Review widgets to showcase testimonials

• Omnichannel review campaigns on three channels - MMS, SMS, and Email.
• Dedicated toll-free phone numbers for SMS review invites.
• Review sentiment analysis and competitor insights.

• ReviewTool is much more expensive than other Birdeye alternatives like ReviewGain, which provides up to 5 locations for 59$/month compared to ReviewTool's 149$/month.
• They provide toll-free numbers while 10DLC numbers are best for text outreach.
• Limited review requests, ReviewGain offer unlimited email review invites.
• They offer single and scheduled review invitations but no drip campaigns.
• No social media review marketing features.

Is it a good Birdeye alternative for local businesses?

Birdeye Alternative #7 - Brightlocal

• All-in-one tool for local SEO management and tracking.
• Reputation management and review generation.
• Citations tracking and building.

• Single Business: For $35/month, this plan is perfect for small businesses and agencies managing up to 3 locations.
• Multi Business: Now we're talking mid-sized businesses and growing agencies! For $60 a month, you can manage up to 6 locations.
• SEO Pro: This plan is for the big players, businesses, and agencies managing up to 100 locations. It comes at $90 a month.
• But beware, some add-ons can be a bit pricey, like the Active Sync at $8 per location, per month. You also need to pay extra for SMS review requests.

• Citation Building: Brightlocal does a good job with citation building. It helps you create and manage online listings across various directories and platforms.
• Review Monitoring: It lets you stay on top of customer reviews from different platforms.
• Easy user interface: It's simple and intuitive.

• Data Inaccuracy: Now, here's where things get a bit dicey. Some users have complained about Brightlocal's reporting tool being inaccurate. With more than 80% of the data being inaccurate, it's hard to make informed decisions based on that.
 
• Manual Reporting Fixes: Picture this - You're using a reporting tool to save time and effort, but then you find out you have to manually fix errors for each client. What's the point?
 
• Limited Customer Service: Users have expressed dissatisfaction with Brightlocal's customer service. They have reported a lack of responsiveness and limited support when encountering issues or seeking assistance.
 
• Expensive add-ons: Some users have found the add-ons to be expensive, and some add-ons were unclear, making it difficult for them to understand the value they would provide.
 
• Refund Policy: Brightlocal's refund policy is a bit of a downer. According to their terms and conditions, they won't refund your subscription fees, no matter the reason. So, even if the product turns out to be a dud, you're stuck with it.

Is it a good Birdeye alternative for local business?

Birdeye Alternative #8 - Broadly

• Monitor and respond to reviews from a central dashboard.
• All-in-one inbox for webchat and other channels.
• Email and text campaigns for review generation.
• Web chat and payment features.
• Website design features.

• The product is simple and easy to use for small businesses.
• All-in-one inbox and central dashboard make replying to customers easy.

• The pricing is not public and you need to schedule a demo with their rep to get a quote.
• Their drip campaigns are too general, they don't focus on getting more reviews.
• No sentiment or reputation analysis features to help understand customer feedback.
• No reputation marketing features to help you convert your reviews into cash.

Is it a good Birdeye alternative for local businesses?

Birdeye competitors that didn't make it to the top 8 list

Which is the best Birdeye competitor for
local businesses or marketing agencies?