Page one for this question is eight guides that each quote a range and, mostly, sell nothing at it. So on 16 September 2026 I read the guides, then the pricing pages of every seller they and two further searches led to, and wrote down only the numbers a business can actually pay.
The profile itself is free — Google’s own page says so (business.google.com, read 16 September 2026). What costs money is someone managing it. Of the 24 readable pages I opened on 16 September 2026, seven sellers publish a plan price. Software that posts and answers reviews for you: $30 a month per location (renewlocal.com) and $99 a month per business (merchynt.com). A person managing one location: $99, $249 or $399 a month (gmbgorilla.com), $350 (mapranking.com), $499 (whitespark.ca), CAN$285 or CAN$475 in Canada (storytellermedia.ca), and from $500 a month here in Grand Rapids.
Of the eight guides on page one for the search, one states a price it sells at (the $99 software), one states an agency range of $300 to $1,200 a month (coloradowebimpressions.com), and six quote market ranges — $100 to $500, $125 to $400, $125 to $475 — with nothing to buy at those numbers.
Ours are on the Business Profile page: Managed Local from $500 a month per location with weekly Google Posts and Q&A, review requests and responses, and monthly rank and call reporting; a one-time Profile Tune-Up at $750; the Local Growth System from $1,200 a month. Cancel anytime, and you keep the profile and everything on it.
Every answer on page one to this question is a range, and a range you cannot buy is not a price. A business owner wants two things: the number a real seller will charge this month, and what that number buys. This page gives both, from the sellers’ own pages, with the address and the date next to every figure, and puts our own plan in the same table as everyone else’s. The full method and every extract are in the receipts at the end.
Google’s Business Profile page answers its own FAQ in one line: “Yes, creating a Business Profile and listing your business on Google is free” (business.google.com/us/business-profile/, read 16 September 2026). Its local-ranking help page adds the part that matters for this question: “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google” (support.google.com/business/answer/7091, read 16 September 2026). So every dollar in the tables below buys labour or software, never placement. One of the page-one guides (optuno.com, read 16 September 2026) describes scam calls demanding $399 to “verify” a listing Google verifies at no charge; the profile has no fee, and anyone phoning for one is not Google.
A plan price means a number on the seller’s own page that you can pay for a named service managing a Google Business Profile. Every row is what the page said on 16 September 2026; the address is in the receipts. Prices are US dollars unless marked.
| Seller (page read 16 Sep 2026) | What you get | Price on the page | What the page says it includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Renew Local (renewlocal.com) | Software | $30 a month for one location, sliding to $18 per location at 31–50; 7-day trial, cancel anytime | AI review replies, AI post scheduling, suspension monitoring, profile backup, change alerts, review analytics. One-time services: $425 per review dispute, $750 per verification, $750 per reinstatement |
| Merchynt “Paige” (merchynt.com) | Software | $99 a month per business location; $1 trial | “AI that posts” and runs the profile for you; an agency membership is $100 a month on top for agencies reselling it |
| GMB Gorilla (gmbgorilla.com) | A person, per location, “no contracts” | Monitoring $99 a month; Lite $249; Pro $399; one-time setup $499 (the separate setup service is $500 per profile) | Monitoring: daily checks of category, hours and attributes, suggested-edit review, review responses, a monthly change report. Lite adds one content update a month, photos, quarterly tune-ups, a five-keyword ranking snapshot. Pro adds four content updates a month, monthly performance reporting, an account manager |
| Map Ranking (mapranking.com) | A person, per location | “Starting at $350 per month for each location” | Multi-location profile management; its other packages show features but no price |
| Whitespark (whitespark.ca) | A person, per location, no setup fee, no contracts; prices in USD | $499 a month; a profile-plus-website plan at $1,999 a month | Optimisation and ongoing management, weekly Google Posts, review strategy and management, competitor analysis, spam fighting, monthly reports, a dedicated account manager. The page said it was “currently fully booked” with a waitlist |
| Storyteller Media (storytellermedia.ca) | A person, per location, no setup fee, cancel anytime; Canadian dollars | CAN$285 a month (Essentials); CAN$475 (Growth); two months free paid annually | Essentials: review collection, regular posts, ongoing optimisation, monthly report. Growth adds review responses and website optimisation |
| Kerr & Co. (builtbykerr.com) | A person, per location, cancel anytime, you keep the profile | Managed Local from $500 a month; Profile Tune-Up $750 one time; Local Growth System from $1,200 a month | Weekly Google Posts and Q&A, review requests and responses, monthly rank and call reporting; the Tune-Up is a one-time optimisation with a citation audit and review-strategy setup |
Two prices sit outside that table because they buy more than the profile. BrightLocal’s software tiers showed “Price on request” on the day, but its managed local SEO service is a flat “$1,299 USD / mo” (brightlocal.com, read 16 September 2026). Thrive’s SEO pricing page gives ranges rather than a plan: “Small Businesses Starting at $500/month”, and it puts local SEO at $500 to $1,500 per month (thriveagency.com, read 16 September 2026). Sterling Sky’s home page carries no service price at all, and the Semrush pages I could reach show SEO software plans but no local-listing price; both are recorded as “no price found”, not as free.
These are the ten results Brave Search returned for the exact question on 16 September 2026: Google’s own page, a Reddit thread I could not read as served HTML, and eight guides. For each guide the question was the same: does this page state a price its owner sells at?
| Page-one guide (read 16 Sep 2026) | States a price it sells at | What it quotes instead |
|---|---|---|
| mdmmarketing.io | No | Setup $300–$499; management $125–$475 a month; “premium plans are custom-priced” |
| mbadv.agency | No | $0 for the profile, then cost-per-lead figures for Google’s ads; no management price |
| merchynt.com (post) | Yes — its own software at $99 a month | Agency or freelancer “$125–$400 / month”; setup “$300–$500 once” |
| ignitingbusiness.com | No | “A Google Business Profile (GBP) is free”; no dollar figure for management |
| earningcoachmarketing.com | No | $125–$475 a month for “common managed plans”; $1,000–$5,000+ multi-location |
| optuno.com | No | “A few hundred to a few thousand dollars per month depending on scope” |
| coloradowebimpressions.com | A range “from a Colorado agency” | $300–$1,200 a month; setup $250–$750; basic $300–$600, full program $800–$1,200 |
| marketing1on1.com | No | “$100 to $500 per month” for optional professional management |
| Eight guides | 1 plan price, 1 agency range, 6 market ranges | Every quoted floor is $100 or $125; every ceiling is $400 to $1,200 |
The reading is not that the guides are wrong. Their ranges bracket the seller prices above almost exactly: the sellers’ per-location prices for a person run $99 to $500, and the guides say $100 to $500. The reading is that six of eight pages answering “how much does it cost” do not sell the thing, so the number you are given is a number nobody will invoice. When the same eight Grand Rapids SEO agencies were read for their own prices, one of eight stated one; this niche is more forthcoming, and it is still the sellers’ pages, not the guides, that carry the figure.
A range you cannot buy is not a price.
The word covers two different purchases, and the price tells you which one you are looking at.
One of the page-one guides is useful precisely because it describes the labour rather than the price: at minimum, “weekly Google Posts, photo uploads, Q&A response, review responses within 48 hours, attribute updates, and monthly insights review”, which it puts at “roughly 4–6 hours per month of skilled work” (coloradowebimpressions.com, read 16 September 2026). Five hours a month at a sensible hourly rate is the arithmetic behind every mid-range figure in the first table, and it is the question to ask any seller: how many hours, doing what, each month?
| Your situation | What to buy | Price on the pages read 16 Sep 2026 | What to check before paying |
|---|---|---|---|
| You will write the posts and answer reviews yourself, but keep forgetting | Software | $30 a month (renewlocal.com) or $99 (merchynt.com) | Whether the AI replies sound like you; whether you can cancel monthly (both say yes) |
| One location, you want a person, and you mostly want it watched | The monitoring tier | $99 a month (gmbgorilla.com) | How many content updates are included — at that tier, none |
| One location, you want a person posting weekly and a monthly report | Managed, per location | $399 (gmbgorilla.com Pro, four updates a month), $499 (whitespark.ca, weekly), $500 (Kerr & Co., weekly plus Q&A and review requests) | Posts per month in writing; who replies to reviews and how fast; that you stay the profile’s primary owner |
| The profile is a mess and you want it fixed once | Setup or tune-up, one time | $499–$500 (gmbgorilla.com), $750 (Kerr & Co. Tune-Up) | That citations and duplicates are in scope, not just the profile fields |
| Several locations | Per-location pricing with volume discounts | $18–$28 per location (renewlocal.com); discounts above ten locations (gmbgorilla.com); “by volume” (whitespark.ca); scoped per location here | The per-location figure, not the headline; one report per location |
| You were quoted $1,000 or more a month for one profile | Ask what else is in it | The only four-figure monthly prices found were broader services: $1,299 managed local SEO (brightlocal.com), $1,999 profile plus website (whitespark.ca) | Whether website, citations and content are included — if not, the price is above every seller page read |
The plan is on the Business Profile page: Managed Local from $500 a month per location — weekly Google Posts and Q&A, review requests and responses, monthly rank and call reporting — with a one-time Profile Tune-Up at $750 for a full cleanup, citation audit and review-strategy setup, and the Local Growth System from $1,200 a month when you want the review-and-lead automation built for your business. Cancel anytime; you keep the profile and everything on it. If you are deciding whether the profile alone is enough, 40 of 40 top-ranked Grand Rapids trades also have a website; if you are deciding whether reviews are the lever, 3 of 12 top map spots have under 60; and the twelve free listings are the citations most of the plans above charge to build. How long it takes and what to ask before signing are the two questions to settle next.
Page one, Brave Search, query “how much does google business profile management cost”, read 16 September 2026 (13:25 UTC). mdmmarketing.io · business.google.com/us/business-profile/ · mbadv.agency · merchynt.com/post/… · reddit.com/r/smallbusiness (not readable as served HTML) · ignitingbusiness.com · earningcoachmarketing.com · optuno.com · coloradowebimpressions.com · marketing1on1.com.
Seller pricing pages, all read 16 September 2026 (13:31 UTC), served HTML with a browser user agent. merchynt.com/pricing · renewlocal.com/prices/ · mapranking.com/google-business-profile-management-services/ · storytellermedia.ca/google-business-profile-management/ · gmbgorilla.com/google-my-business-management-service/ · gmbgorilla.com/google-my-business-setup-service/ · whitespark.ca/seo-services/ · thriveagency.com/seo-pricing/ · sterlingsky.ca · brightlocal.com/pricing/ · semrush.com/pricing/ and semrush.com/local/ (no local-listing price on the pages served) · 99calls.com/learn/… (no own price; its pricing address returned 404) · dotit.io and mrandmrssmithpr.com (market ranges only) · builtbykerr.com/services/local-seo-google-business-profile.html. Raw extracts, with status, time and every dollar figure in context: ops/search/measurements/gbp-management-prices-2026-09-16.json.
Google’s own pages quoted. “Is a Business Profile on Google free? Yes…” at business.google.com/us/business-profile/; “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google” at support.google.com/business/answer/7091; both read 16 September 2026.
Our own prices. The Business Profile page on this site as published: Profile Tune-Up $750 one time; Managed Local $500 a month starting, per location; Local Growth System $1,200 a month starting; cancel anytime, you keep the profile.
On the pricing pages read on 16 September 2026, software that posts and answers reviews for you is $30 a month per location at Renew Local and $99 a month per business at Merchynt. A person managing one location is $99, $249 or $399 a month at GMB Gorilla, $350 at Map Ranking, $499 at Whitespark, CAN$285 or CAN$475 at Storyteller Media in Canada, and from $500 a month at Kerr & Co. in Grand Rapids. Setup on its own runs $499 to $750 one time on those pages. The eight guides on page one quote market ranges of roughly $100 to $500 a month, and six of them sell nothing at any number they quote.
Only if the work gets done. The profile is free and Google says there is no way to pay for a better local ranking, so every dollar buys labour: posts, photos, review replies, Q&A, category and hours checks, and a report. One agency page read on 16 September 2026 puts the minimum at roughly four to six hours a month of skilled work. If you will do those hours yourself, $30 to $99 a month of software removes the chores. If you will not, a person at $250 to $500 a month per location is the going rate on the pages that publish one. Ask what is done each week, in writing, and whether you keep the profile if you stop.
No. Google’s own page, read on 16 September 2026, says creating a Business Profile and listing your business on Google is free, and its local-ranking help page says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Anyone who phones asking for money to verify or keep your listing is not Google; one page-one guide describes scam calls demanding $399 for a verification Google performs at no cost. The only money Google takes is for ads.
Send me the quote. I'll tell you which of the tiers above it matches, what should be in it at that price, and what to ask for in writing before you pay — in plain words.
Works whether or not you end up working with me.