Yclas vs Brilliant Directories
Brilliant Directories is a hosted directory builder where many of the features a directory needs are $10-a-month add-ons. Yclas is a hosted directory with AI, review tools, deals, bookings and a cart built in, in 44 languages.
- 10 AI tools, built inIncluded in Brilliant Directories: 1 of them. The rest are paid, partial or missing.
- 26 of 40 featuresin the comparison below are paid add-ons, partial or missing in Brilliant Directories, each with its source.
- Live in about two minutesHosting, SSL, updates, backups and support are in one monthly price.
- Real businesses from day oneBusiness records from open data included in your plan every month, imported as listings their owners can claim.
Brilliant Directories is a hosted platform for membership and business directories, strong on lead selling and email marketing. Owner replies to reviews, review photos and automatic lead matching are add-ons; claimable listings and statistics for members come with its $40 to $120 plans or as add-ons. Yclas is a hosted directory and classifieds platform: the directory tools, reviews, deals and AI are part of the plan.
Last checked: 22 October 2026. Facts about Brilliant Directories come from its own website; the sources are listed at the end of this page.
AI that does the work for you.
Yclas puts AI into every part of a directory: building it, filling it, searching it and keeping it safe. Monthly AI use is included in every plan. Under each one, what Brilliant Directories offers.
Describe a change, such as "darker hero, bigger search, rounder cards", and the AI makes it in a draft you preview. 109 ready-made looks and drag-and-drop sections.
Say what your marketplace is for and the AI writes your categories, subcategories, tagline and About page in your language. Live in about two minutes.
Sellers add a photo; the AI writes the title, description and price, and picks the category and fields.
Visitors search the way they talk, such as "red bike under 300 near Valencia", and get the right filters.
Every new listing is checked against your rules for scams, prohibited items, spam and wrong categories. Risky ones wait in your queue with the reason, and buyers are warned when a message asks for gift cards or off-site payment.
On multilingual sites each listing is translated into every site language, with its own page for search engines (Professional plan).
The AI drafts a seller's reply from the listing and the conversation; the seller edits and sends it.
"What people say" from each listing's reviews, and visitors ask a question and get an answer from the listing and its reviews
The business gets a reply in the review's language and the tone it picks, and edits it before posting
A search title, description and intro for each "plumbers in Dallas" page, which you edit before saving
What changes for you.
What you get with Yclas that Brilliant Directories doesn't include.
Yclas includes all of these, on every plan unless a plan is named. For Brilliant Directories we list what its own website offers, and the add-ons it sells.
| Feature | Yclas | Brilliant Directories |
|---|---|---|
| Business listings | ||
| Opening hours and "Open now" | Weekly hours, holidays and special days, an Open now badge and an Open now filter in search | Partly A text field for opening hours; no "open now" status listed [7] |
| Several locations per business | A business adds its other branches with address and phone; they show on its listing and the map | Paid add-on Multi-Location Listings add-on, $10 a month: one member in several service areas [8] |
| Business details | Services and price list, social links, attributes such as wheelchair access or women-owned, and your own custom fields per category | Included Custom fields in the listing forms [9] |
| Events | Event dates, weekly, monthly or yearly repeats, a calendar of the month and "Add to calendar" for each event | Paid add-on Events calendar included; recurring events and "Add to calendar" are $10-a-month add-ons [10] |
| Compare listings | Visitors put up to 4 listings side by side | Not offered Not listed [4] |
| Claim your business | By a code sent to an address at the business's own domain, a code texted to its phone (with an SMS add-on), or your review; optionally only with a paid plan | Partly Claimable Business Listings: included on the $40 to $120 plans, else $10 a month; the business claims by choosing a plan; how it is verified is not stated [11] |
| Fill your directory with real businesses | Open business data from Overture Maps included in your plan each month, CSV import, Google Places with your own key, and lists pasted and sorted by AI | Included Instant Business Data: 100 records on the monthly plan, more in credit packs; CSV import of members [12] |
| Making money from the directory | ||
| Paid listing levels | Plans you sell to businesses, each with its own number of photos and deals, statistics, a badge and members-only content (Professional plan) | Included Unlimited membership plans with upgrades [1] |
| Featured listings and paid categories | Featured listings, bump to top, boost bundles, paid categories and coupons, paid into your own account | Included Featured listings and pinned posts [4] |
| Sponsored results | Businesses buy a sponsored place above a category's results for a number of days | Partly Featured upsells and a Highlight Member Results add-on; no sponsored places above results [4] |
| Banner ads you sell | Advertisers buy a banner zone for some weeks, you approve it, and they see its views and clicks | Included Banner ad management [1] |
| Deals with vouchers | Offers on listings and a Deals page; each customer gets a voucher with a QR code the business scans to mark it used, with a report of vouchers given and used | Not offered Coupon codes on plan payments only ($10 a month); no deals on listings [13] |
| Charge businesses for leads | Per lead, or a number of leads included in their plan | Included Sell leads to members; prices by category through a $10-a-month add-on [14] |
| Bookings | Appointments and rentals with a calendar and instant booking (Professional plan); paid online with deposits on the Marketplace plan | Not offered Not listed [4] |
| Reviews and trust | ||
| Reviews with owner replies | Star reviews with photos and ratings by criteria, and the business replies under each one | Paid add-on Star reviews included; Reply to Member Reviews is a $10-a-month add-on [16] |
| Review invitations | The business emails customers a personal review link, or prints a QR poster for the counter | Not offered Not listed [4] |
| Rating badge and yearly awards | A badge with the listing's stars for the business's own website, and "Best of" awards for the top-rated each year | Not offered Not listed [4] |
| Fake-review protection | Reviews that look bought or self-written wait for your team, and you can put a consumer alert on a listing | Not offered Not listed [4] |
| Verified and licensed badges | ID and business document checks, and Licensed and Insured badges from the documents a business sends | Partly You set a member as Verified by hand, which shows a badge [18] |
| Leads and keeping businesses | ||
| Quote requests to the nearest businesses | One request goes to the closest matching businesses, and listings show how fast each one usually replies | Paid add-on Automatic Lead Matching add-on, $10 a month, to up to 1,500 matching members [15] |
| Messages | Visitors and businesses write to each other inside the site, with photos and PDFs | Included Member messaging included [1] |
| Statistics for each business | Views, calls, website, WhatsApp and directions clicks and the searches that found each listing, and a monthly report by email | Paid add-on Member Profile Analytics: included on the $120 Pro plan, else $10 a month; call clicks with Click-to-Call, another $10; no monthly report [5] |
| Newsletters and automated emails | One-off newsletters, and email series after signing up, a first listing or going quiet, with opens and clicks per email, sent through your own email service | Included Broadcasts, drip campaigns, autoresponders and open and click tracking [1] |
| Growth and reach | ||
| Category and city pages for search | A page for every category in every city, with your own title and intro, LocalBusiness structured data, sitemaps and IndexNow | Included SEO URLs, structured data, sitemaps and SEO pages for search results [1] |
| Maps and "near me" | OpenStreetMap with no API key, or Google Maps; search the area on the map, by distance or near the visitor | Included Search by radius; Google map results through an add-on [19] |
| Many languages | 44 languages, right-to-left included; several at once on a multilingual site (Professional plan) | Partly Only the Google Website Translator add-on; languages and right-to-left not listed [6] |
| Your own iPhone app | Your directory as a branded app on the App Store, with push notifications, published for you (Marketplace plan) | Partly "App-ready for Android and iOS"; customer apps come from a third party [1] |
| API, webhooks and MCP | An API on every plan, webhooks for Zapier and Make (Professional) and an MCP server for AI assistants (Marketplace) | Included API, webhooks and MCP on its Builder and Pro plans; Zapier [2] |
| Running the directory | ||
| Hosting, SSL, updates and backups | Included in every plan, with support | Included Hosting, daily backups and updates included [1] |
| Members-only content | Pages and listing details only members on a plan can see (Professional plan) | Included Members-only content and paywalls (Builder and Pro plans) [2] |
A working site in year one.
The plan and the add-ons that the features compared below need, from Brilliant Directories' own website.
Brilliant Directories
| Monthly plan, hosting included [1] | $1,164 |
|---|---|
| VIP Add-Ons Club: the 75+ add-ons, including those compared below [3] | $95 a month, $1,140 |
| Or single add-ons, as needed [3] | $10 a month each |
| Or a plan from $40 to $120 a month, with some add-ons included [2] | $240 to $720 a year, paid yearly |
| More business records, beyond the 100 included [12] | Paid credit packs |
| Year one | About $2,304 |
The monthly plan plus the VIP Add-Ons Club; with only some add-ons, $120 a year each. Brilliant Directories also sells a $997 lifetime plan, which its pricing page says is going away, and lists $40 to $120 a month plans on a separate page.
Yclas
| Starter up to 5,000 listings · $19 a month for 3 months, then $69 a month | $678 |
|---|---|
| Professional up to 100,000 listings · $99 a month | $1,188 |
| Marketplace up to 300,000 listings · $149 a month | $1,788 |
| Included in the price | Hosting, SSL, updates, backups, support |
Year-one totals for each plan, from the pricing page. 15 days free first, with no credit card, and a 30-day money-back guarantee on every plan. Prices in US dollars; EU customers pay VAT unless they add a VAT number.
Brilliant Directories and Yclas, point by point.
| Topic | Brilliant Directories | Yclas |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A hosted directory and membership website builder | A hosted directory, classifieds and marketplace platform |
| Software price | $97 a month, or a $997 lifetime plan; add-ons about $10 a month each | $19 a month for 3 months, then $69 a month (Starter). Every plan includes hosting. |
| Server | Hosting, daily backups and updates included | Included, with SSL on your own domain |
| Filling the directory | Instant Business Data: 100 records on the monthly plan, more with credit packs | Open business data included every month (200 in the trial, 1,000 on Starter up to 20,000), CSV, Google Places and AI-sorted lists |
| Selling to businesses | Membership plans, featured listings, banner ads and leads | Paid listing levels, featured listings, sponsored results, banner ads, deals and leads |
| Reviews | Star reviews; replies and photos are add-ons | Replies, photos, ratings by criteria, invitations, a website badge, awards and fake-review checks |
| Selling online | Digital products and services through an add-on | Bookings (Professional); paid bookings with deposits and a cart (Marketplace) |
| Languages | Google Website Translator add-on for the front end | 44 languages, right-to-left included, with listings translated |
| AI help | AI creator tools for pages, emails and SEO text | Ten AI tools with monthly use included, from the page builder to review summaries and reply drafts |
| Phones | Owner app; customer apps from a third party | Your own branded iPhone app on the App Store (Marketplace plan); mobile-first themes |
Also on every Yclas plan
- 44 languages, right-to-left included, multilingual sites and any currency
- Your own domain with one DNS record, and SSL set up automatically
- 17 payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, Mollie, Mercado Pago and Razorpay
- A money wizard that sets up paid posting, featured listings and plans in a few clicks
- Cookie consent that holds back analytics and ad code until visitors accept
- Reporting of illegal listings with a review queue, as the EU Digital Services Act asks
- Captcha with no setup, listing drafts that save themselves, and favourites
- Custom CSS and code, conditional custom fields and a catalogue of add-ons
- Ready-made connections for Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, Mailchimp, Slack and HubSpot
- A share kit with WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram and X buttons and a social image for every listing
The AI features and the page builder work with the Nova theme, the default for new sites. Compare plans →
Make it yours without hiring a developer.
With Brilliant Directories, a design beyond the theme's options usually means paying a developer or designer. Yclas includes a page builder you use yourself: describe what you want, or change it by hand.
The Yclas page builder
- Describe the change in plain words, such as "darker hero, bigger search, rounder cards", and the AI makes it in a draft you preview before you publish.
- Start from 109 ready-made looks for cars, property, jobs, services, equipment and more, then change colours, fonts, buttons and spacing.
- Build pages from a library of sections: hero with search, categories, latest listings, how it works, locations, map, text, image and text, features, testimonials, FAQ, stats, call to action and logos, plus custom code sections for anything else.
- Drag sections into place, edit text right on the page, and check it on desktop, tablet and phone, next to your live site.
- Write and rewrite text with AI, and use free photos from Pexels and Unsplash or your own.
- Add pages, save blocks to reuse, undo any step, restore an earlier version, schedule publishing up to 90 days ahead, and share a preview link for 7 days.
Included in every plan. Want us to do it for you? Our team also does custom design and development.
The usual route with Brilliant Directories
| Design themes included with the plan [1] | Included |
|---|---|
| Setup and design services by Brilliant Directories [1] | Price on request |
Hourly work adds up with every change: a new section, a seasonal banner or a fix after an update is another job to brief, wait for and pay for.
Moving from Brilliant Directories
Brilliant Directories exports your members as a spreadsheet, and Yclas imports CSV.
- Export your members and their listings from Brilliant Directories as a CSV file.
- Start a free trial, choose a business directory in the sign-up wizard, and open Move your site to Yclas, then choose CSV.
- Match the columns, check the dry run (a preview with any errors, nothing is saved yet), then import.
Listings come across with their categories, addresses, websites and photos from their web addresses, and members as accounts. Passwords are not copied: imported users set a new one. You can undo the latest import within 7 days.
When Brilliant Directories may be the better choice
- Your directory is mainly a paid membership community with members-only areas and content.
- Selling leads to many members at once is your main business, and you want its lead-matching portal.
- You want a lifetime plan with a single payment.
- You want Android apps, or an app for managing the site from your phone.
If none of these fit, and you would rather spend your time on your directory than on a server, try Yclas.
Is Brilliant Directories cheaper than Yclas?
On its $97 plan, no: owner replies to reviews, review photos, member statistics and lead matching are add-ons at about $10 a month each. Its plans from $40 to $120 a month include claimable listings, and the $120 plan member statistics; replies, review photos and lead matching are still add-ons. Yclas starts at $19 a month for 3 months, then $69 a month with all of them built in.
Can I fill a new Yclas directory with businesses?
Yes. Search open business data from Overture Maps, such as "plumbers within 10 km of Austin", and import the results as listings their owners can claim. Each plan includes a number of records every month. You can also import a CSV file or search Google Places with your own key.
Can businesses claim their listing on Yclas?
Yes, by a code sent to an address at the business's own domain, a code texted to its phone (with an SMS add-on), or your review. You can also ask for a paid plan before the listing moves to them.
Can I move my Brilliant Directories site to Yclas?
Yes. Export your members and listings as a CSV file and bring them in with the Yclas CSV import, after a dry run you can check. You can undo the latest import within 7 days.
Does Yclas do email marketing?
Yes: one-off newsletters, and automated email series after someone signs up, posts or goes quiet, with opens and clicks for each email, sent through your own email service. Businesses also get a monthly email with their listing's views, calls and clicks.
Sources
Checked on 22 October 2026. Prices change: the vendor's own page is always the latest word. If something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
- Brilliant Directories pricing: monthly and lifetime plans, features
- Brilliant Directories: Essentials, Builder and Pro plans
- Brilliant Directories: VIP Add-Ons Club
- Brilliant Directories: VIP Add-Ons Club and add-on list
- Brilliant Directories: Member Profile Analytics add-on
- Brilliant Directories: Google Website Translator add-on
- Brilliant Directories support: hours of operation
- Brilliant Directories support: Multi-Location Listings
- Brilliant Directories support: custom form fields
- Brilliant Directories: Simple Events Calendar add-on
- Brilliant Directories: Claimable Business Listings add-on
- Brilliant Directories: Instant Business Data
- Brilliant Directories: Easy Coupon Codes add-on
- Brilliant Directories: Lead Price by Category add-on
- Brilliant Directories: Automatic Lead Matching
- Brilliant Directories: Reply to Member Reviews add-on
- Brilliant Directories: photos in member reviews
- Brilliant Directories support: verified members
- Brilliant Directories support: radius search
- Yclas pricing
Product names belong to their owners and are used only to identify the products compared. Yclas is not affiliated with them.
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