Nextdoor for business: is a free business page worth it?

What a Nextdoor business page gives you

• A listing with your phone number, address, website, hours, products and services.
• Recommendations from neighbours, shown on your page.
• Messages and comments from neighbours.
• Business posts and announcements, once your page is verified.
• A place in Nextdoor's business search results.

Nextdoor says over a quarter of conversations on Nextdoor are about sharing recommendations for local businesses.

How to claim or create your page

1. Log in to Nextdoor and search for your business. Nextdoor creates pages automatically for many local businesses.
2. If a page exists, use the claim link near the top of it. No claim option usually means someone has already claimed it.
3. If there's no page, select your profile icon, then "Add business page", and enter your details. Nextdoor checks for a match before creating a new page.
4. Verify your page so you can post updates.

What's free and what costs money

The self-promotion rules

Nextdoor restricts business owners promoting themselves from their personal accounts. Its self-promotion FAQs say:

• Posts about your business from family, staff or close friends count the same as posting about it yourself.
• Naming your own business in a post about your field, or adding contact details or prices, tends to get flagged.
• Promotion inside groups is up to the group's admin.
• Job posts aren't counted as self-promotion.

Recommendations should come from real customers. Ask happy customers whether they're on Nextdoor and, if so, whether they'd mention you when neighbours ask.

Is it worth it?

• Worth claiming for almost every local service business: it's free, and neighbours may already be talking about you.
• Worth paying for if you're a home-service business in an area where neighbours post lots of requests, and you can reply quickly.
• Less useful for businesses that don't serve a local area, or where few of your customers use Nextdoor.