📍 Citewatch
One NAP, everywhere, always, owned forever.
BrightLocal charges $39-59 a month to remind you your Yelp listing has the wrong suite number. Citewatch is that citation-tracking core as a tool you own: set your canonical NAP once, then audit what every directory actually shows. $34, once.
Citewatch screenshot is being captured — the app is shipped and real.
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.
Citewatch vs BrightLocal
BrightLocal at $39-59/mo runs roughly $468/year — $936 over two years. Citewatch is $34, once.
| Citewatch | BrightLocal | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $34 once | $39-59/mo |
| NAP diffing w/ formatting intelligence | Yes | Yes |
| Fix-task checklist + deep links | Yes | Yes |
| Google Business auto-pull | Yes (BYO key) | Yes |
| Automated directory crawling | No | Yes |
| Your data | Your SQLite file | Their cloud |
| Self-hosted | Yes | No |
At $468 a year for BrightLocal, Citewatch pays for itself in about 27 days.
Three steps, no subscription
Buy once on Whop
One payment of $34 gets the packaged Windows installer, or clone the MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/local-seo-citation-tracker and run it yourself for free.
Deploy or run desktop
Docker-compose onto a $5 VPS to run it public, or run the desktop build locally with data in your user profile.
Set your NAP and audit
Enter your canonical name, address and phone, then work the directory list pasting what each one shows to see exactly what drifted.
Honest answers
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes, Citewatch is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/local-seo-citation-tracker. 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.
Own Citewatch forever
$34 once. Deploy on your own server — your data never leaves it. No renewal, no account with us, no meter. Or build it yourself from the MIT source — it's the same app.