The Birdeye alternatives worth shortlisting for a multi-location service brand are Podium, SOCi, Yext, Reputation, BrightLocal, GatherUp, NiceJob, Broadly, LocalClarity and Cheers, and the right one depends on which part of Birdeye you're replacing: the reviews, the listings, the AI search tracking, or the team that runs it all. Seven of those ten publish a price on their own website as of September 23, 2026, and Birdeye doesn't; only four of the ten track what AI engines say about your locations.
Last verified: September 23, 2026.
Cheers wrote this guide and is one of the ten, so everything below comes from each vendor's own product and pricing pages, linked in the sources. Where we couldn't find a capability on those pages, the table says "not the focus" instead of guessing. If Cheers and Birdeye are already your final two, the Cheers vs Birdeye comparison is the shorter read.
What you're replacing
Birdeye is a broad suite. It monitors reviews from 200+ review sites, requests new ones by text or email, manages listings on Google, Facebook, Apple, Yelp and Bing, and sells AI Search, which it says covers ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and Grok at the location level. Its pricing page asks how many locations you have and then sends you to a form, so there's no list price to compare against.
That breadth matters when you choose an alternative. Most of the ten below replace one or two pieces of Birdeye well, and the table shows which. Three of the ten tie reviews to individual staff (Podium's Reviews Leaderboard, NiceJob's Team Leaderboard, and Cheers), which matters when technicians earn the reviews, and Birdeye's public pages don't mention it.
Comparison, checked September 23, 2026
Birdeye and ten alternatives
Scored from each vendor's own product and pricing pages. Open a row for who it fits, the published price, and where it falls short.
| Platform | Reviews | Listings | AI answer tracking | Staff attribution | Does the work | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birdeye (baseline) | Core capability | Core capability | Core capability | Not the focus | Partial or add-on | |
| Podium | Core capability | Not the focus | Not the focus | Core capability | Not the focus | |
| SOCi | Core capability | Core capability | Core capability | Not the focus | Partial or add-on | |
| Yext | Core capability | Core capability | Core capability | Not the focus | Partial or add-on | |
| Reputation | Core capability | Core capability | Not the focus | Not the focus | Not the focus | |
| BrightLocal | Core capability | Core capability | Core capability | Not the focus | Partial or add-on | |
| GatherUp | Core capability | Partial or add-on | Not the focus | Not the focus | Not the focus | |
| NiceJob | Core capability | Not the focus | Not the focus | Core capability | Not the focus | |
| Broadly | Core capability | Core capability | Not the focus | Not the focus | Partial or add-on | |
| LocalClarity | Core capability | Core capability | Not the focus | Not the focus | Partial or add-on | |
| Cheers | Core capability | Core capability | Core capability | Core capability | Core capability |
The short version
- One suite for reviews, messaging, surveys, and AI search, run by your own team: Keep Birdeye
- The front office lives in text messages: Podium
- Hundreds of locations and the listings data is the problem: Yext or SOCi
- A published per-location rate and an in-house operator: Reputation, GatherUp, or LocalClarity
- Local SEO plus AI answer tracking on a small budget: BrightLocal
- Staff leaderboards for an owner-run or franchise shop: NiceJob
- Someone else does the reviews, listings, pages, and AI visibility work: Cheers
Capability reads and prices come from each vendor's own public pages on September 23, 2026. Cheers published its plans after that check, and its row shows them. Not the focus means we did not find the capability on those pages, not that it cannot be configured. Cheers wrote this comparison and is one of the ten alternatives, so verify the fit in your own demos.
Which alternative fits which job
A comparable suite for hundreds of locations: SOCi and Yext
SOCi and Yext are the closest like-for-like swaps, and neither publishes a price. SOCi's Genius Local Search Agent tracks visibility across search, maps and AI-driven discovery location by location, then publishes optimizations inside rules you set, while its Reputation Agent replies to reviews and escalates the sensitive ones for approval. Generating reviews at the service moment isn't the stated focus.
Yext starts from listings. Its network reaches 200+ publishers, its reputation agent generates and responds to reviews across 80+ platforms, and Scout tracks Google Search, Google Maps, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity by location and competitor, with a free Scout check. The pricing URL returned a 404 on September 23, and every page routes to sales.
Reviews as the main job: Podium, Reputation, GatherUp, NiceJob and Broadly
Podium publishes plan prices now: Core is $399 a month and Pro is $599, with a custom Signature tier. Every plan card also tells HVAC businesses to contact sales for applicable pricing, which matters if you run a home-services brand. Review requests go out by text, AI review responses are in every plan, and a Reviews Leaderboard tracks individual and team performance. We didn't find listings management or AI answer tracking on its pricing or reviews pages.
Reputation's Rep Core is $80 per location a month and includes review requests by SMS or email, AI replies and business listings. Rep Core plus Pulse is $115 and plus Surveys is $150, per location, and enterprise pricing starts at 125 locations. Its AI visibility offer is a free readiness report rather than ongoing tracking, and premium review sources such as Yelp and TripAdvisor cost extra.
GatherUp is the per-location option for operators who run the program themselves. One location is $124 a month, or $99 billed annually, and the per-location rate falls with volume, from $75 at 2 to 10 locations to $31 at 101 or more on monthly billing. Each location gets up to 300 SMS and 3,000 email credits a month and review monitoring on 100+ sites, and listings are a $40 per location add-on. Grade.us publishes identical per-location tiers on its own plans page.
NiceJob is built for owner-run shops and franchisees: Starter is $75 a month and Pro $125, with automated review requests by SMS and email and a Team Leaderboard that shows which staff members drive the most 5-star reviews. Franchise and multi-location pricing goes through sales. Broadly sells one visible package, the AI Workforce Package at $799 a month, which bundles missed-call text-back, review requests by text, replies, and listings on 70+ sites. Franchises and multi-location brands are sent to its parent company, Vendasta, for a custom package.
Local SEO and AI tracking on a budget: BrightLocal and LocalClarity
BrightLocal's Grow plan, the one with review requests and monitoring, is $49 a month billed annually for one location and $222 a month billed annually for 21 to 30 locations ($296 on monthly billing). Every plan includes its Local AI Visibility tracker, which covers ChatGPT, AI Overviews and AI Mode with up to 20 prompts per location; BrightLocal says more engines are coming. If you'd rather BrightLocal's team did the work, its Managed SEO Service is $1,299 a month.
LocalClarity has the lowest published per-location rate on this list: $16 per location a month, or $12 billed yearly, for listings sync to Google, Apple, Bing, Facebook and Trustpilot and reviews from 50+ sources. We found no AI answer tracking on its product pages, so it replaces Birdeye's listings and reviews, not its AI Search. The AI visibility software price guide lists what adding a separate tracker would cost.
Someone else doing the work: Cheers
Cheers is a managed program rather than a software seat. We track ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode answers by location, prompt and cited source, tie reviews to the technician who earned them, and do the page, profile, listing and review work ourselves. We've since published our plans: Visibility is $750 a month for up to 3 locations, Managed starts at $3,000 a month and is priced to your scope, and bigger brands get a contract price. Cheers doesn't do web chat, payments, surveys or mass texting, so a brand that bought Birdeye for customer messaging should keep that part.
Next step
Is AI recommending your business?
Find out how visible you are across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews.
What 25 locations cost at published rates
Only four of the ten publish a per-location rate you can multiply out. At 25 locations on monthly billing, Reputation's Rep Core comes to $2,000 a month ($80 per location), GatherUp to $1,100 ($44 per location at 17 to 25 locations, or $875 billed annually at $35), LocalClarity to $400 ($16 per location, or $300 billed yearly at $12), and BrightLocal Grow for 21 to 30 locations to $296 ($222 billed annually).
Budget example
25 locations, published rates
Monthly list price at 25 locations, monthly billing
$80 per location per month
$44 per location at 17 to 25 locations; $35 billed annually
$16 per location; $12 billed yearly; no AI answer tracking
Reviews, listings, and AI visibility; $222 billed annually
Vendor pricing pages read September 23, 2026: reputation.com/pricing, gatherup.com/pricing, localclarity.com/pricing, brightlocal.com/pricing. USD, list price times 25 locations.
| Vendor and plan | Monthly price, USD |
|---|---|
| Reputation Rep Core | $2,000 ($80 per location per month) |
| GatherUp | $1,100 ($44 per location at 17 to 25 locations; $35 billed annually) |
| LocalClarity Professional | $400 ($16 per location; $12 billed yearly; no AI answer tracking) |
| BrightLocal Grow, 21 to 30 locations | $296 (Reviews, listings, and AI visibility; $222 billed annually) |
That's a nearly sevenfold spread for tools that all request and monitor reviews, and the cheaper two leave AI answer tracking out or limit it to ChatGPT and Google's AI. The other six alternatives publish no rate you can multiply by 25: SOCi and Yext quote through sales, Cheers prices brands past 3 locations by contract, NiceJob and Broadly send multi-location buyers to sales, and Podium's plan cards don't say whether $399 covers one location or many. Budget a demo, not a spreadsheet, for those, and for Birdeye itself.
What to test before you switch
Bring each vendor the same local sample: two priority locations, two service lines, two competitors, and the questions a buyer would type into ChatGPT or Google in those markets. Ask to see the raw AI answer, the sources it cited, the review gap against the competitor, and the next action for each location. A demo built on your brand name alone tells you nothing about the branch that isn't getting recommended.
Then ask what moves and what breaks. Confirm who owns each Google Business Profile after the switch, whether review-request history and templates export, how long listings take to re-sync, and what happens to the review widgets on your location pages. For home-services brands choosing mainly on review workflow, Best Review Management Software for Home Services goes deeper on technician attribution and field requests, and Podium Alternatives for Home Services covers the messaging-first side.
What to do this week
Write down the one job you're buying for, because each vendor above is strongest at a different one. Pull your location count and your three most important service questions, then request written quotes from the three vendors that match the job, including at least one that publishes a price so you have an anchor. If AI answers are the job, run a free baseline first, with Yext's free Scout check or our AI Visibility Grader, so the demos have something to beat.
How we compared them
We read each vendor's own product and pricing pages on September 23, 2026. A price counts as published only if it appears on the vendor's site without a form or a sales call; per-location totals are the published rate times 25, or the published price for that location band. Capability marks reflect what each vendor says on those pages: "core" when it's a named feature, "partial" when it's an add-on or an automated agent rather than people, and "not the focus" when we couldn't find it. We didn't use review sites, analyst reports, or third-party price lists, and we didn't request quotes. Cheers is one of the ten, so treat the Cheers row as the vendor's own claim, the same as every other row.
Sources
- Birdeye AI Search, review management, listings and pricing. Engines covered, 200+ review sites, no published price. Read September 23, 2026.
- Podium pricing and Podium Reviews. Core $399, Pro $599, HVAC pricing through sales, Reviews Leaderboard. Read September 23, 2026.
- SOCi Genius Local Search Agent and Genius Reputation Agent. Location-level AI visibility and review replies; demo only. Read September 23, 2026.
- Yext Scout, Reviews and Listings. Surfaces tracked, 80+ review platforms, 200+ publishers. Read September 23, 2026.
- Reputation pricing. Rep Core $80 per location a month, Pulse $115, Surveys $150. Read September 23, 2026.
- BrightLocal pricing and Local AI Visibility. Grow by location band, AI tracking included, Managed SEO Service $1,299. Read September 23, 2026.
- GatherUp pricing and Grade.us plans. Per-location tiers, credits, Listings Hub add-on. Read September 23, 2026.
- NiceJob pricing. Starter $75, Pro $125, Team Leaderboard. Read September 23, 2026.
- Broadly pricing. AI Workforce Package $799 a month, 70+ listing sites, multi-location via Vendasta. Read September 23, 2026.
- LocalClarity pricing. Professional $16 per location, $12 billed yearly. Read September 23, 2026.
- Cheers vs Birdeye. Cheers' own side-by-side, including where Cheers is the wrong choice.
Dylan Allen-Arnegård is the CEO & Co-Founder of Cheers, the local search platform for multi-location service businesses.