Dirstarter is a Next.js business directory template for local and niche directories. Businesses submit their listing, pay for a featured spot and verify they own it, and you get SEO, multi-language support and an admin dashboard, all as code you own after a one-time payment.
One caveat first: Dirstarter has no built-in map or near-me search, so a local business directory needs some location work on your side. I list exactly what below. AgenturScout, a directory of agencies across Switzerland, shows what the base can do.
What a local business directory needs
A local business directory sells visibility to businesses that want more customers in one area. To work, it needs:
Location browsing
Visitors search by place first: a city, a canton, a neighborhood. Each location needs its own page that can rank. AgenturScout lists its agencies by canton, with a count for each region.
Category browsing
The second axis is the type of business. AgenturScout uses categories like web design, SEO and branding agencies.
Verified, owner-managed listings
Business owners want to update their own details, and visitors trust listings that someone has checked.
Paid upgrades
A featured spot at the top of a category or city page is the core product.
Local SEO
Pages with clear titles, structured data and sitemaps, so "web design agency in Zurich" lands on your page.
A map (optional)
Useful for restaurants or venues, less so for agencies that work remotely.
How Dirstarter covers it
Categories and tags. Listings belong to categories and tags, each with its own page and sitemap entry. Without custom code, the practical approach is to use categories for the business type and tags for the city or region. Collections, which are saved filters in one config entry, can build combined pages on top.
Ownership and verification. A business verifies its listing through an email on its domain or a one-time code. Verified listings show a badge, and only the owner can manage them.
Paid listings. Free, Standard (one-time) and Premium (monthly, featured spot) tiers run through Stripe. You set the prices, and the monetization docs cover setup.
Structured data. Dirstarter adds JSON-LD across the site, including business information such as products, pricing, ratings, opening hours and locations. The SEO docs explain the rest.
Multiple languages. next-intl translates the interface, metadata and form validation. That matters for markets like Switzerland, where AgenturScout covers German, French and Italian-speaking regions.
What you'd build yourself:
- Address, latitude and longitude fields in the Prisma schema.
- A map view with a library like Leaflet and geocoding for addresses.
- Radius or near-me search.
- A dedicated location model, if tags don't give you enough structure for city pages.
The built-in AI automation scrapes a business website and writes its listing, which works for any business with a site. For a business without one, you'd fill the listing in by hand.
How to make money with a local business directory
Local businesses have smaller budgets than software companies, so price for them.
- Featured listings. In my experience $29-99/month is the realistic range locally. On OpenAlternative I charge $197/month, but my customers are software companies.
- Sponsor packages. Bundle a homepage spot, a newsletter mention and a category sponsorship for the few businesses with real marketing budgets.
- Paid submissions. A one-time fee to get listed faster with a do-follow link.
- Ads. Display ads only add up with real traffic. On OpenAlternative, ads and sponsorships are about 65% of roughly $6,500/month, with about 200,000 monthly visitors.
As an example: 30 businesses at $49/month is $1,470/month. The full playbook is in how to start a local business directory, and the models compared in directory revenue models.
Launch checklist
- Buy Dirstarter and follow the introduction to set up the database, auth and environment variables.
- Pick one city or region and one business type where Google's first page is weak.
- Decide how you'll model locations: tags for a quick start, or new fields and a map if your niche needs one.
- Seed 50-100 businesses from public sources and check each one by hand.
- Create your Stripe products with prices that fit local budgets.
- Turn on the languages your market speaks.
- Deploy, submit your sitemap and email every business you listed so they can verify and upgrade.
A business directory template saves you weeks of setup, and for a local business directory the location layer is yours to shape. See the pricing, browse the other templates, or read how Dirstarter compares to Brilliant Directories in my side-by-side comparison.
