📍 Citewatch
One NAP, everywhere, always, owned forever.
Citewatch at a glance
| Price | $34, once — no renewal |
| Replaces | BrightLocal at $39-59/mo — roughly $468 a year, every year |
| Type | Self-hosted web app |
| Platforms | Your own server (VPS / Docker), any browser |
| Category | Marketing & SEO |
Citewatch features
🏢 Canonical NAP profile
Name, address, phone, website and hours as the single source of truth, with multiple businesses supported.
📋 Structured audit workflow
11 seeded core and industry directories plus your own custom ones: open the directory, paste what it shows, done.
🧠 Smart diffing
Normalizes phone formats, case, punctuation and USPS abbreviations so it flags only real problems as match, formatting only, incomplete or mismatch.
✅ Auto fix-tasks
A genuine mismatch files a fix task with the exact wrong values and a deep link to the edit page, and re-auditing clean closes the task itself.
⏰ Recheck reminders
A per-listing recheck interval (default 30 days) flags overdue audits.
🔄 Optional Google Places auto-pull
Set GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY to pull your Google Business Profile listing automatically; every other directory is a deliberate manual audit with no scraping to break.
$34 once — that's the whole pricing page
BrightLocal charges $39-59/mo — roughly $468 a year, every year. Citewatch is a single payment, and it keeps working whether or not we ever sell another copy.
Or get Citewatch inside the full suite — every app in the catalog, currently $97 for the bundle. See the bundle →
Citewatch guides & pages
Honest answers
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes, Citewatch is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/local-seo-citation-tracker-mvp. The $34 buys the packaged Windows installer and 1-click setup; building from source is free.
Where does my citation data live?
In a SQLite file on your own server, with no telemetry.
Does it crawl directories for me?
No, honestly. The MVP tracks the citations you audit by hand; nothing reliable crawls directories without expensive data deals, which is what you would be renting from BrightLocal. Google Business Profile can auto-pull with your own API key.