A Google Business Profile is free. Creating it, claiming it, verifying it, and keeping it live costs nothing, ever. What people are really asking when they search this is where the money goes: your own unpaid hours writing posts and answering reviews, or a fee to a freelancer or agency who does that work for you, typically $100 to $1,500 a month depending on how much they handle.
Every few weeks someone asks us, half-apologetically, "so what does it actually cost to get on Google Maps?" They're braced for a number. There isn't one, not from Google's side. The listing is free the same way a phone number is free: the tool costs nothing, but somebody still has to answer the phone. That's the part people are paying for, whether they realize it or not.
Yes, completely. Google doesn't charge to create a profile, claim an existing one, verify it, or keep it active indefinitely. There's no tier, no premium unlock, no fee hiding behind a "Pro" button. You can add photos, write posts, respond to reviews, list your services, and update your hours at 11pm on a Sunday, all without a credit card anywhere in the process. If a business owner tells you they paid Google directly for their profile, someone billed them for something Google gives away.
Where confusion creeps in is that Google sells other things nearby: Google Workspace subscriptions for business email, and Google Ads for paid placement above the map pack. Neither is required to have or run a Business Profile, and neither is what shows up when someone searches "your business + city" and sees your hours, photos, and reviews on the right side of the results.
Three places, and only one of them involves paying someone else.
| Option | What you pay | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| DIY | $0, plus roughly 2 to 5 hours a month of your own time | Full control, but only as consistent as your schedule allows |
| Freelancer | Typically $75 to $400 a month depending on scope and experience | Basic upkeep: posts, photo uploads, occasional review replies. Quality varies widely |
| Agency management | $399 to $1,299 a month (Sol Agency's own range, scoped to what's actually included) | Ongoing optimization, review monitoring and responses, regular posts, photo strategy, and reporting tied to a broader marketing plan |
The DIY column isn't a trick, either. Plenty of owners run a tight profile themselves, especially early on, by blocking out twenty minutes every Friday to post an update and clear out new reviews. Where DIY quietly fails is consistency: the profile goes stale the exact month you get busy, and a stale profile is worse for local rankings than a merely average one. That's the tradeoff, not a free option versus a scam, just your hours versus someone else's.
If you want the specifics of what a managed plan covers month to month, our Google Business Profile management service breaks down what's actually included at each of our three price points, and you're welcome to book a free 20 minute call to see what your specific listing needs before committing to anything.
Assuming they're doing the job properly, not just logging in once a month: keyword-aware category selection, a posting cadence that doesn't go dead for six weeks, photo refreshes so the listing doesn't look abandoned, review responses written fast enough to matter, and enough ongoing attention to catch problems like a suspended listing or a duplicate profile before they cost you visibility. That's real, recurring work. It's reasonable to pay for it. It's also reasonable to decide your business doesn't need it yet and to do it yourself for a while first.
This is the part worth reading twice, because the scams are common enough that Google has public warnings about them.
The general rule holds up well: Google will never call you asking for money related to your Business Profile. If a caller claims to be from Google and wants payment, verification fees, or your account password, it's a scam, full stop. Report it and hang up.
Start with an honest read of your own time, not your budget. If you've got twenty consistent minutes a week and don't mind writing your own review responses, DIY works fine, especially for a single-location business without much competition. If your listing has sat untouched for months, or you're juggling it alongside actually running the business, that's the signal to price out a freelancer or an agency plan instead of letting the profile quietly decay. For most owners, the tipping point isn't a specific dollar figure, it's the moment upkeep stops happening at all.
We work with salons, wellness studios, childcare centers, and pet groomers across the Sacramento area and San Diego, and profile management is usually one piece of a broader plan alongside local SEO and email marketing. If you're weighing DIY against paying someone, we're happy to give you a straight answer even if that answer is "you don't need us yet."
And once your profile is claimed and the cost question is settled, the next one is usually "okay, now what do I actually do with it," which is exactly what our guide to optimizing your Google Business Profile covers step by step.
We'll tell you honestly whether DIY, a freelancer, or full management makes sense for your business before you spend a dollar.
Book a free 20 minute callNo. Creating, claiming, and verifying a Google Business Profile costs nothing, and Google does not charge a subscription fee to keep it active. The only costs that show up are indirect: the hours you spend maintaining it, or a fee you choose to pay a freelancer or agency to manage it for you.
Google My Business is the old name for Google Business Profile, and the price hasn't changed: zero. If anyone calls or emails asking for payment to set up, claim, or verify your Google My Business listing, that's not Google, and it's worth reporting as a scam attempt.
For almost any local business, yes. It's the listing that shows up in Google Maps and local search results, it's free to maintain, and it gives customers your hours, photos, reviews, and directions without them ever visiting your website. The only real cost is time, and if you don't have that, paying someone to manage it is usually cheaper than the leads you lose from a stale or unclaimed listing.
The profile itself costs nothing per month, indefinitely. What you might pay monthly is a management service if you hire one out, which typically runs anywhere from under 100 dollars for a freelancer doing light touch-ups to over 1,000 dollars a month for full agency management with posts, review responses, photo updates, and reporting included.