Google Business Profile: the listing is free, so the only real decisions are who owns it and what you pay somebody to run it

A Google Business Profile is the free listing that puts your business on Google Maps and into the local results, and the product itself costs nothing: no licence, no tier, no minimum spend. Everything you can be charged for sits around it: setup and verification, keeping it accurate and answering reviews, rescuing it from a suspension, and the ads that appear beside it. Four separate purchases at four separate prices, and the decision that matters more than any of them is whose Google account the profile lives in.

This page is about owning and operating the profile, including what the work is worth paying for. For how local position is actually won, including the category and review levers and the location pages that support them, see our complete local search method.

Ownership first, because this is the mistake that is expensive to undo

The profile belongs to whichever Google account holds the primary owner role. Not to whoever filled in the form, not to whoever pays the invoice. Three rules follow.

• Create the profile under a company controlled Google account that survives staff turnover, tied to a company domain rather than a personal address.
• Agencies and developers get manager access, never primary ownership. Manager access does everything the work requires.
• Audit the user list twice a year. Former employees, a previous agency and a contractor from three years ago are all still in there on most accounts.

Recovering a profile from a lapsed account or an uncooperative former supplier runs through Google support rather than through anything you can settle yourself. Preventing it costs five minutes at setup.

Claiming and verifying, in order

1. Search for your business first. Most established businesses already have an unclaimed profile built from other data, and claiming it keeps the reviews and photos already attached. Creating a second one makes a duplicate you then have to get removed.
2. Claim it from the company account, working through the ownership request if somebody else holds it.
3. Complete verification. Google picks the method: a video call, a recorded walkthrough, a postcard, a phone code or an email. The video route has become common and it wants signage, the inside of the place, equipment or stock, and proof you are authorised to represent the business. Have all of it ready, because a failed attempt means a wait.
4. Match the name on the profile to the name on your signage exactly. Adding a service or a city to the name is the commonest cause of a suspension.
5. Choose a precise primary category, set either a street address or a service area, and only then fill in the rest.

Businesses that travel to customers rather than receiving them should hide the street address and set the areas served. A visible address with no staffed premises behind it invites a suspension.

What actually costs money

The ranges below are my own read of what US suppliers charge for this work, built from quotes and scopes I have seen rather than any published index, and local rates move a long way between a metro and a small town. Treat them as a way to recognise a quote that is out of line.

What you are buying	Typical US price	What a fair scope includes
The profile itself	Nothing	Every field, posts, products, services, messaging, the performance report
One time setup and cleanup, single location	300 to 1,200 dollars	Claim, verify, category research, all fields completed, duplicate removal, photo upload, a written handover of the login
Ongoing management, single location	200 to 600 dollars a month	Review replies inside a day, monthly posts, question and answer upkeep, hours and holiday updates, a monthly report on calls, direction requests and searches
Multi location management	75 to 200 dollars per location per month at ten or more locations	Bulk management, a consistent category and description scheme, a per location report, duplicate and rogue listing monitoring
Suspension reinstatement	500 to 2,500 dollars one off, or 150 to 300 dollars an hour	Diagnosis of the cause, documentation pack, the appeal, and the fix that stops it recurring
Photography for the profile	250 to 900 dollars a shoot	Exterior that helps somebody find the door, interior, team, work in progress, correctly sized cover and logo

Two paid things get confused with the profile. Local Services Ads are billed per lead, commonly 20 to 150 dollars depending on the trade, and the badge they carry comes from a background and licence check rather than from your free listing. A full local search retainer, usually 800 to 3,000 dollars a month, adds your own location pages, citations and links on top of the profile work.

Suspension: what triggers it and what to do

A suspended profile disappears from Maps and the local results while the appeal runs, so this is worth understanding before it happens rather than after.

• The usual triggers: keywords or a city in the business name, a virtual office or coworking address, premises with no permanent signage, two profiles at one address, a category that does not match what the place obviously does, a sudden name or address edit, and review activity that looks solicited in bulk.
• What to do first: stop editing. Record the profile as it stands, then gather proof of the business at that address: a utility bill, a lease, a licence, photographs of the signage and premises, the registration documents.
• Appeal once, properly. Several appeals telling different stories slow everything down. One submission with full documentation and a plain account of the change you made is the fastest route back.
• Fix the cause before you reappear, or the next suspension is harder to reverse.

Keep review collection inside both Google policy and US advertising rules. Google prohibits incentivised and purchased reviews, and the Federal Trade Commission treats fake or paid for consumer reviews as deceptive advertising the business itself answers for. Asking every customer the same way on the day the work finishes is the compliant method and also the one that produces a steadier flow.

Doing it yourself, and when that stops making sense

A single location business with one person who will actually log in can run this profile well for nothing. The honest workload is an hour to set it up, then twenty minutes a week: reply to new reviews, check nobody has suggested an edit to your hours, post if you have something to post, answer the questions people leave. Paying somebody becomes worth it at four points: past about five locations, where consistency and bulk editing become the job; when the review flow has got ahead of you, since unanswered complaints are read by the next customer; when competitors are suggesting edits and spinning up duplicates, which needs weekly watching; and after a suspension or a bad merge, which is specialist work and the one case where paying by the hour is plainly cheaper than learning it.

Running a Business Profile: the questions that keep coming up

Has Google My Business been replaced?

Yes. Google renamed the product and retired the separate desktop dashboard, so management now happens in Search and Maps when you are signed in to the owning account, or in the app. Older guides and agency proposals still use the old name, which is worth knowing when you compare two quotes written years apart.

What slows verification down?

A video or phone check can clear the same day when the material is ready to show. Postcards take a couple of weeks, and a profile pushed into manual review after a failed attempt sits longer than either. Gather the evidence before starting rather than halfway through.

Can one business have more than one profile?

One per physical location that has its own staff and signage, and additionally a profile per practitioner in professions where individuals are sought by name, such as doctors, lawyers and agents. Multiple profiles for one location, or one per service you sell, is the pattern that gets accounts suspended.

Which numbers on the profile dashboard matter?

Calls, direction requests, website clicks and messages, all read as a trend rather than a snapshot, plus the split between searches that used your business name and searches that used a category. That last line is the interesting one, because growth in category searches is the part representing demand you did not already have.

Should an agency own the profile while they manage it?

No. Grant manager access, keep primary ownership in a company account, and write into the contract that access is returned within a set number of days of the engagement ending. This is the single clause most worth insisting on in a local marketing agreement.

Where the profile data goes after Google has read it

Your profile is a structured, public description of the business, which makes it one of the easiest things about you for a language model to read and repeat. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Google AI Overviews for the best option nearby and what comes back is two or three names with a line of reasoning, and that list is not the map pack. It is assembled from whatever text the assistant can reach: your site, review platforms, directories, local news, and the facts you published on the profile. So a well kept profile can still be absent from the answer a buyer actually reads, and asking the question is the only way to find out. That is what AI Knows Us is for, a standing check on the short answer a nearby buyer gets handed and on where it came from. Try it on your own city and trade at aiknowsus.com.