Tunnel = a 1-mile stretch of road you own. Zone = a neighborhood-sized area of about 0.28 square miles that you own. Background = the whole member network, no geography limit. Full glossary
Yelp Ads are a cost-per-click product. You're billed when a Yelp user clicks your ad, not when they call, message, or book. Yelp sets the per-click price dynamically based on your category, your metro, and how many other businesses are bidding for the same query.
Per Yelp's own placement documentation, ads render in three primary surfaces: Sponsored Results at the top and bottom of Yelp search pages, on competitor business profile pages (so a homeowner reading a competitor's reviews sees your ad in the sidebar), and across the Yelp Ad Network off-platform, which extends campaigns to non-Yelp properties based on the user's prior Yelp search activity. (See Yelp's Where do the Yelp Ads for my business appear?)
The competitor-profile placement is the headline structural difference from Google Search Ads. Yelp lets you intercept users inside competitor pages: the moment a user is reading reviews of a rival business is the moment Yelp can show your ad. It's a real strategic lever, and in saturated metros it is part of what makes the auction competitive. Nobody publishes a Yelp-versus-Google click-price comparison, so we do not claim one runs higher than the other.
Yelp does not publish a CPC rate card, for any category, in any market. That is the whole honest answer on price.
You will find confident-looking Yelp CPC tables all over the web: a blended average around three and a half dollars, cheap buckets for restaurants and retail, expensive buckets for legal and dental. We removed ours. Every one of those ranges traces back to a marketing agency's blog post with no stated sample and no method, and repeating them here with a tidier label would be laundering, not sourcing.
What is verifiable comes from Yelp itself: the model is cost per click, the stated floor is $150 a month, and Yelp's earnings disclosures show where the money is actually coming from. In fiscal 2024 Yelp reported services advertising revenue of $879 million, up 11% year over year and roughly two thirds of total ad revenue, while restaurants, retail and other fell 3% to $470 million and total paying advertising locations dropped 5%. Fewer advertisers paying more each is the shape of a platform consolidating around larger spenders.
The practical move for an operator: run the smallest budget Yelp will accept for a full quarter with call tracking on the profile, then compute your own cost per booked job. That number is worth more than any benchmark anyone can sell you, and on this channel it is the only one that exists.
No rate card in any category or market; the ranges online come from agencies, so we quote none
Our sourcing barUp 11% YoY; services = 68% of Yelp's total ad revenue (FY2024)
Yelp Inc. - Growth in Services Drove Yelp's 2024 ResultsRestaurants, Retail & Other, down 3% YoY (FY2024)
Yelp Inc. - Growth in Services Drove Yelp's 2024 ResultsTotal paying advertising locations declined; average revenue per location hit an annual record
Yelp Inc. - FY2024 Earnings Release| Question | What Yelp publishes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| How are you charged? | Cost per click. You pay when a user clicks the ad; impressions are free. | Yelp advertising help center |
| What does a click cost? | Not published, in any category or market. Price is set dynamically by category, metro and competing demand. | No Yelp disclosure; agency ranges do not meet our sourcing bar |
| What is the minimum spend? | $150 a month. | Yelp advertising pages |
| What should a typical operator budget? | Not published. Yelp names no recommended or typical spend, so neither do we. | No Yelp disclosure |
| How big is the ad business? | Services advertising revenue $879 million in fiscal 2024, up 11%; restaurants, retail and other $470 million, down 3%; total paying advertising locations down 5%. | Yelp Inc. fiscal 2024 earnings release |
| WilDi Maps for contrast | From $0.25 per verified delivery, set by account tier, published on the pricing page and charged only when the person claims. | Our published rate card |
The fair read on Yelp in 2026 is that it remains genuinely strong in review-discovery categories: verticals where the buying journey routes through reading reviews before contacting anyone. For those categories, Yelp's intent inside the platform is real.
Yelp's own disclosures tell the story. Services advertising revenue grew 11% to $879 million in fiscal 2024, while total paying advertising locations fell 5%. Fewer advertisers, more revenue from each: Yelp is consolidating around larger spenders while the long tail of small operators leaves for other channels.
Where did the long-tail home-services operators go? Mostly to Google Local Services Ads. Google charges per valid lead rather than per click, places LSA above standard Search Ads, and attaches the Google Guaranteed badge. In Google's own words, "you're charged for each valid lead you receive through your Local Services ad," and lead prices "may vary depending on your location, the job type, the type of lead, or your bidding mode." Google publishes no lead prices at all, so nobody can tell you what that channel costs either. One time-sensitive note: from August 2026 Google is migrating Local Services Ads into Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals, and manual maximum cost-per-lead bidding is going away, though you still pay only for valid leads. (See Google LSA: costs and eligibility.)
Yelp itself acknowledged the competitive dynamic when it filed an antitrust suit against Google in the Northern District of California on August 28, 2024, alleging Google used its general-search monopoly to dominate local-search advertising. The legal merits aside, the filing is corporate confirmation that Yelp views Google's local-search products as the structural threat to its ad business. (Public filing: Yelp v. Google.)
Two structural facts shape the Yelp-versus-Google review dynamic. First, by raw volume Google dominates local reviews, and no source at our sourcing bar publishes a share split, so we give none. Second, Yelp's review filter (the algorithm that hides reviews it deems unreliable) has been the source of two decades of operator frustration.
The filter complaint is straightforward from the operator side: a five-star review from a real customer gets hidden as "not currently recommended," sometimes the same week a sales rep calls offering paid ads. The Federal Trade Commission looked at review-manipulation allegations and closed its investigation in 2015 without enforcement action, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the related extortion class actions on the legal ground that even assuming review manipulation occurred, it did not meet the legal definition of extortion. Yelp has consistently denied any link between ad spend and review filtering. We do not publish a complaint count here: the figures that circulate come from press summaries of records we cannot open at source.
The legal outcome is what it is. The operator perception that paying or not paying Yelp affects which reviews get shown has nonetheless persisted for fifteen-plus years and shows up routinely in BBB and contractor-forum complaints. That perception is itself a real cost: it makes the channel feel coercive even when individual outcomes can't be litigated.
Yelp Ads price an auction signal: a click. The advertiser pays Yelp's bid price for the chance that a click becomes a contact, and the platform sits between the operator and the customer at every step (including, in the operator's experience, deciding which reviews to show).
WilDi Maps prices a different signal entirely. Cost Per Verified Delivery (CPVD) charges only when an offer is delivered to an opted-in person's phone, GPS-verified, as they drive through geography you chose. There are three products: a corridor (a one-mile stretch of road you claim), a zone (a one-square-mile area), and background rotation across the metro. Background starts from $0.25 per verified delivery, set by your account tier; tunnels and zones are priced higher for the tighter targeting. When a person claims a delivery, they can drive to you, open your website, or open your page in the app. Not a click into a profile someone else controls.
The architectural distinction is who owns the customer touch. Yelp keeps the user inside Yelp's domain and Yelp's review filter; WilDi delivers the user directly to the operator's driving route, site, or app. For the broader argument on operator-owned distribution see What is the Middleman Tax? and What is Cost Per Verified Delivery?
Two genuinely different products. Yelp prices clicks inside a review platform; WilDi prices verified deliveries to phones of people while they're driving in geography the operator owns.
| Dimension | Yelp Ads | CPVD (WilDi Maps) |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Cost per click, price set by Yelp's auction | Cost per verified delivery, a published rate rather than an auction |
| Unit price | Not published, in any category or market | From $0.25 per verified delivery on background, set by account tier; tunnels and zones priced higher |
| Where the ad runs | Yelp search results, competitor profile pages, off-platform Yelp Ad Network | A corridor (1-mile road strip), a zone (0.28 square miles), or background rotation across the metro |
| Where the user lands | Operator's Yelp business profile (still inside Yelp) | Direct-drive route, operator website, or operator app page |
| Strongest categories | Restaurants, auto, salons, dentists, lawyers (review-discovery verticals) | Any service vertical where physical-corridor presence matters |
| Weakest categories | Home services (most share lost to Google LSA since 2020) | Pure-online services with no geographic catchment |
| Minimum commitment | $150 a month stated minimum; 12-month purchase orders still sold, auto-renewing month to month per the master terms | Pay only for deliveries that are verified and claimed; deposits start at $50 |
| Review and reputation exposure | Bookings depend on Yelp's review-filter algorithm | Your creative on a corridor you claimed; no review-platform dependency |
| Best fit | Review-discovery verticals where people actively search Yelp | Service operators who want verified delivery to people driving through their service area |
The product
WilDi Maps is not a single flat-rate product. You pick the tier that matches how local you need to be. All three are GPS-verified per claim, with no auction, no exchange rake, no Middleman Tax.
1-mile road strip
Premium
Hyper-local, just-in-time
Claim a one-mile stretch. When a member enters the strip, they get a just-in-time message, perfect for emergency services, on-route specials, and anything where being right there now beats brand awareness later.
Best for
0.28-square-mile area
Premium
Hyper-local, area-based
Claim a one-square-mile block, not tied to a single road. Catches the residential cluster, retail district, or industrial park where your work actually lives. Same just-in-time delivery as tunnels; different geometry.
Best for
City-wide rotation
From $0.25
per claim, tier-based
City-wide brand presence on rotation. Highest reach for the budget; best when familiarity beats precision. Per-delivery rate drops by tier (Enterprise: $0.25 / Pro: $0.32 / Local: $0.40 / Starter: $0.50). See /pricing for the live rate card.
Best for
What the member gets when an ad is claimed
If the member wants to act on the ad, the app navigates them straight to the advertiser's location.
Click-through to any URL: ordering page, brand site, blog post, lead form.
Open a specific page inside the WilDi app: promo details, daily specials, claim instructions.
See the full pricing breakdown on the pricing page.
Yelp Ads bill on cost per click, and Yelp publishes no CPC rate card for any category or market, so the honest answer is that nobody outside Yelp knows. The category CPC tables you will find online (a blended average near three and a half dollars, cheap buckets for restaurants, expensive buckets for legal and dental) all trace to marketing-agency posts with no stated sample or method, so this page shows none of them. What Yelp does publish is a stated minimum of $150 a month, and financials: services advertising revenue of $879 million in fiscal 2024, up 11%, against total paying advertising locations down 5%. To find out what it costs you, run the minimum for a quarter with call tracking and divide by the jobs you booked.
Depends entirely on your category. For review-discovery verticals (restaurants, auto repair, salons, spas, dentists, lawyers) Yelp still draws genuine search intent, and putting your ad on a competitor's profile page is a real lever no Google product replicates. For home services (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing) most lead-generation share has migrated to Google Local Services Ads, and Yelp's own fiscal 2024 disclosures show total paying advertising locations down 5% even as services revenue grew 11%. Nobody can tell you the cost per acquired customer in advance on either channel, because Yelp publishes no click prices and Google publishes no lead prices. Start at Yelp's $150 minimum, track calls, and judge it on your own booked jobs.
By raw volume, Google, though no source at our sourcing bar publishes a share split so we do not put a percentage on it. By category strength, it varies: Yelp retains primary review-discovery role for restaurants, auto, salons, and certain medical and legal categories; Google Reviews dominates home services, retail, and most general-purpose local search. Most operators in 2026 manage both proactively, claiming and responding on Yelp, Google Business Profile, and any vertical-specific review platform (Healthgrades, Avvo, etc.), rather than choosing one.
Yelp's publicly stated minimum is $150 a month, about $5 a day. Above that floor Yelp publishes no recommended or typical spend, and the tiered budget advice you will find elsewhere comes from agencies rather than from Yelp, so we do not repeat it. One thing worth checking before you sign: Yelp's Master Advertising Terms permit 12-month commitments and month-to-month auto-renewal after the initial term. Read the purchase order.
Three structural reasons. First, the pricing model: Google charges for each valid lead in its own words, while Yelp charges per click, and operators preferred paying for a contact over a click. Second, placement: Local Services Ads render above standard Search Ads and the map pack, owning the first screen on mobile, while Yelp Ads compete inside Yelp's own platform, which is not where most homeowners start a plumbing search. Third, the trust signal: the Google Guaranteed badge carries a reimbursement backstop Yelp has no equivalent for (we do not quote the dollar cap here, since it varies by country and job). Yelp's August 2024 antitrust filing against Google is corporate confirmation that Yelp itself views Google's local-search dominance as the structural threat to its ad business. Worth knowing either way: from August 2026 Google is folding Local Services Ads into Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals, and manual maximum cost-per-lead bidding goes away.
Cost Per Verified Delivery is WilDi Maps' pricing model: you pay only when an offer is delivered, GPS-verified, to an opted-in person's phone as they drive through geography you chose. There are three products: a corridor (a one-mile road strip you claim), a zone (one square mile), and background rotation across the metro. Background starts from $0.25 per verified delivery, set by your account tier, and tunnels and zones are priced higher for the tighter targeting. When someone claims a delivery they can drive to you, open your website, or open your page in the app. A delivery is not a click and it is not a lead, so the right comparison is your own cost per booked job rather than unit against unit.
The Starter tier opens with a $50 deposit, and that deposit becomes your ad budget. Background deliveries on Starter run $0.50 per verified delivery, so the first deposit buys 100 GPS-verified deliveries to the phones of real local people out on the road. There is no auction and no platform fee stacked on top.
One verified delivery of your offer to the phone of one real person who was physically inside your chosen geography at that moment, confirmed by GPS on the device itself. That person also taps to acknowledge the offer, so a delivery is never an invisible impression. Bots, background tabs, and off-screen impressions cannot generate one. You are billed only when a verified delivery happens.
Four public tiers: Starter ($50 minimum deposit, background only), Local ($250, up to 2 tunnels and 1 zone), Pro ($1,000, up to 8 tunnels and 5 zones), and Enterprise ($3,000, up to 25 tunnels and 15 zones). Per-delivery background rates step down by tier, from $0.50 on Starter to $0.25 on Enterprise. An Agency tier is available through sales.
The pilot market is Jacksonville, Florida, live now. New metros open as our opted-in local audience grows there. If you want your market next, talk to sales.
About this analysis
Written by Timm Ross, founder of WilDi Maps · Jacksonville-based · Veteran-owned. Sources cited inline; numbers updated as the underlying research updates.
Published · Last updated
More about Timm RossFixed from $0.25 per GPS-verified delivery. No auction, no exchange rake, no Middleman Tax.
