Yell Business review (2026): the £299 and £699 a month packages, the lead guarantee, 17,036 Trustpilot reviews, and a simpler alternative
Yell, the Reading company that was the Yellow Pages, now sells managed digital marketing to UK local businesses: Amplify from £299 a month and Accelerate from £699 a month with a lead guarantee. It has 17,036 Trustpilot reviews at 4.2, with 23 percent one-star. Growth Bull is £69 a month for the Google review and ranking part, with nothing managed on your behalf.
Written by Tom Riley, founder of Growth Bull
9 min read Prices checked October 2026
Yell is the company that was the Yellow Pages. The printed directories stopped in 2019 and the Reading firm now sells managed digital marketing to UK local businesses, trades included: a website, listings, social posting and advertising, run by an account manager for a monthly fee. Its two main packages are Amplify from £299 a month and Accelerate from £699 a month, the latter with a lead guarantee. On Trustpilot it has 17,036 reviews at 4.2, with 65 percent five-star and 23 percent one-star.
Growth Bull is a much narrower thing: £69 a month of software that gets Google reviews from every paid invoice and shows where you rank. This review is for the tradesperson who has had the Yell call and wants to know what the packages cost, what the record says, and what the do-it-yourself option looks like.
Written by Tom Riley, founder of Growth Bull. Where Yell is the better choice, we say so. Facts and prices checked 1 October 2026.
For the coaching and agency options, see marketing for tradesmen compared, and for the directories, the best lead generation for tradesmen in the UK.
Growth Bull vs Yell Business
Yell is the biggest managed marketing seller to UK small businesses, with a website, listings and ads in one monthly bill, while Growth Bull is a £69 a month tool that does the one piece Yell's packages do not run from your invoices: getting Google reviews from every customer.
Choose Growth Bull if
you want more Google reviews and a clear view of your map, search and AI rankings for a fixed monthly price, with no account manager and no contract.
Starting price: £69/mo, no contract
Choose Yell Business if
Pick Yell if you want one supplier to build and run your website, listings and ads for a monthly fee, you have read the contract terms, and you have checked the one-star reviews about what the campaigns delivered.
Starting price: From £299/mo; from £699/mo with ads
Side by side
What each company says about itself, on its own website, next to ours.
Both screenshots show the public websites as they looked on 1 October 2026. The Yell Business screenshot belongs to Yell Business and is shown here for a fair, like-for-like comparison.
At a glance
Growth Bull ahead: 4Yell Business ahead: 2Level: 2
| What you get | Growth Bull | Yell Business |
|---|---|---|
| What you are buying | Software: review requests, Rank Map, Keyword Tracker, AI Visibility | A managed package: website, SEO, listings, social, ads, reviews management |
| Gets new Google reviews automatically | Yes, one text and one email after every paid invoice | Reviews management is listed; nothing triggered by your invoices |
| Runs paid ads for you | No | Yes, on the Accelerate package with a lead guarantee |
| Map and search rank tracking | Yes, Rank Map and Keyword Tracker on Complete Growth | Reporting dashboard; no grid rank map described |
| Published price | Review Builder £69 a month, Complete Growth £129 a month | Amplify from £299 a month; Accelerate from £699 a month; Local SEO from £300 a month |
| Commitment | None, 7-day free trial, cancel any month | Contract length not shown on the product pages |
| Public reviews | Growth Bull is new; see the live examples on our site | Trustpilot 4.2 from 17,036 reviews, 23 percent one-star |
| Company | UK, prices in pounds and dollars | Yell Limited, Reading, incorporated 2001; Yellow Pages since 1966 |
The tick marks the stronger option on that row. Prices per month, checked 1 October 2026.
Who are Yell and what do they sell?
Yell Limited (company number 04205228) was incorporated on 25 April 2001, is registered at Davidson House, The Forbury in Reading, and is active, with advertising agency and design SIC codes. It was called Hibu (UK) Limited between 2013 and 2017. The history is longer: the Yellow Pages began in 1966 as part of the Post Office telephone directory, BT sold the business in 2001 for £2.1 billion, the group renamed itself Hibu in 2012 and back to Yell in 2014, and the final printed directories were produced in 2019. According to Wikipedia, Yell has built more than 110,000 websites and managed 90,000 pay-per-click campaigns, and has been led since January 2023 by co-chief executives Mark Clisby and Luke Taylor.
What Yell Business sells today is a managed package. Its site lists:
- Websites of up to 30 pages, search engine optimisation and business listings management across Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta and Nextdoor.
- Paid advertising on search, display and social, with call tracking and a reporting dashboard.
- Social posting, reviews management, blog writing and an AI receptionist that answers calls.
Its homepage headline is that it is the UK's only digital marketing agency that guarantees leads, and it claims to serve more than 50,000 UK businesses, with partnerships with Google, Microsoft and Meta.
What does Yell cost and what is the commitment?
Yell publishes starting prices, which is more than most managed agencies do. Amplify, the organic package built around a website and visibility, is from £299 a month. Accelerate, which adds managed advertising and the lead guarantee, is from £699 a month. Local SEO and managed social are listed from £300 a month. The product pages do not show contract lengths or cancellation terms.
The lead guarantee is that Yell agrees a lead target with you and refunds credits if it is not met. In our view that is worth having, but the definition of a lead, the size of the target and the form of the refund all sit in the contract, so get them in writing. And remember that "from £699 a month" is the fee before the money spent on the ads themselves, so ask how the ad budget is split out.
What do customers say about Yell?
Yell has 17,036 reviews on Trustpilot with a TrustScore of 4.2: 65 percent five-star, 7 percent four-star and 23 percent one-star. That is a large record and a split one. The five-star reviews are mostly about the people. A recent one reads "Excellent service. Explained clearly and in great detail what our business needs" (Jon Swain, Trustpilot, September 2026).
Trustpilot's summary of the whole set praises the staff's helpfulness and guidance, and names the complaints in the one-star reviews: unfulfilled promises on lead generation, communication delays and website setup problems. Yell's own site claims more than 10,000 five-star Trustpilot reviews, which the count supports. We could not retrieve Google or Facebook review counts from public pages, so they are not published here.
Who does Yell suit?
Yell suits a trades business that wants one supplier and one monthly bill, and that values the account manager relationship, which is what the positive reviews praise. If you have no website, no listings and no time, and £299 to £699 a month is affordable before ad spend, a managed package gets everything built and running without you learning any of it.
It suits a sole trader on a tight budget less well, and anyone who wants to own their marketing even less. The one-star share is the thing to read before you sign: nearly a quarter of reviewers were unhappy, mostly about what the campaigns delivered. Ask Yell for references in your own trade and ring them.
Where Growth Bull fits instead
Growth Bull does the piece a managed package tends to leave to you. Growth Bull's Review Builder connects to Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, HubSpot or Pipedrive and sends one text and one email asking for a Google review after every paid invoice. More reviews lift you in the map pack (the box of three businesses with a map at the top of Google), which is where local enquiries come from before any ad is clicked. It is £69 a month, with a 7-day free trial and no contract.
Complete Growth at £129 a month adds Rank Map, which scans a grid of points around your town and names who holds number one for your trade; Keyword Tracker, which follows your search positions week by week; and AI Visibility, which asks ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI who they recommend in your town and shows whether you are named. If you are paying an agency, those are also the numbers to hold them to.
Growth Bull does not build websites or run ads. If you need both done for you, a managed supplier is the right purchase and Yell is the largest, and running the tool alongside costs a fraction of the package.
Verdict
In our view, Yell is a credible one-stop option for a trade that wants everything managed and can afford it, with published starting prices and a lead guarantee that is unusual in this market. The record is the caution: 23 percent one-star reviews on a very large sample, with lead delivery the recurring complaint. Get the contract length, the lead definition and the ad budget split in writing before you sign.
If you would rather start with the part you can run yourself, Growth Bull's Review Builder is £69 a month with a 7-day free trial at growthbull.io/signup, or book a call with Tom.
Questions people ask
How much does Yell cost?
Yell Business lists two main packages: Amplify from £299 a month, built around a website and organic visibility, and Accelerate from £699 a month, which adds managed advertising with a lead guarantee. Local SEO and managed social are listed from £300 a month. The product pages do not show contract lengths or cancellation terms, so ask for them in writing (checked October 2026).
What is the Yell lead guarantee?
Yell's site says that on its managed advertising it agrees a lead target with you and refunds credits if that target is not met. The detail of what counts as a lead and how the credit is applied is in the contract, not on the public page, so read it before you rely on it.
Is Yell worth it for tradesmen?
Yell can suit a trade that wants everything done by one supplier and can afford £299 to £699 a month before any ad spend. Its Trustpilot record is large but split: 17,036 reviews at 4.2, with 65 percent five-star and 23 percent one-star. Trustpilot's summary praises the staff and flags unfulfilled promises on lead generation and website setup. In our view, work out what you would pay for the website, the listing and the ads separately before you sign a package.
Who owns Yell?
Yell Limited, company number 04205228, was incorporated on 25 April 2001 and is registered at Davidson House, The Forbury in Reading. It was called Hibu (UK) Limited from 2013 to 2017. The business descends from the Yellow Pages, which BT sold in 2001 for £2.1 billion. The last printed directories were in 2019, and Yell now describes itself as a digital marketing agency for local businesses, led since January 2023 by co-chief executives Mark Clisby and Luke Taylor.
Does Yell get Google reviews for you?
Yell lists reviews management among its services, but its packages are built around a website, listings and advertising, and nothing on its product pages describes a review request triggered by each paid job. Growth Bull's Review Builder does exactly that: one text and one email after every paid invoice, from your accounting or CRM software.
What is a cheaper alternative to Yell?
If what you need is more Google reviews and to know where you rank, Growth Bull's Review Builder is £69 a month with a 7-day free trial and no contract, and Complete Growth at £129 a month adds map, keyword and AI visibility tracking. That is a fraction of a managed package and you keep control of your own Google Business Profile.