About

Check a business before you call, buy or hire

CheckThisBiz shows what can actually be confirmed about a business: where its listing comes from, whether its phone, address and website check out, how long its domain has existed, and whether the owner has verified it.

Independent businesses only

CheckThisBiz lists independent, locally-owned businesses. National chains and franchises don't appear here, on purpose. We hold out a business if it's tagged as part of a multi-location brand, or if the exact same business name shows up in 15 or more different cities nationally, which is a reliable sign of a chain even when it isn't formally tagged as one. It's not a perfect rule, and we'd rather miss a small regional chain than exclude a real independent business by mistake.

Why we built it

Most people check a business the same way: search the name, glance at some stars, hope for the best. Reviews tell you what customers thought. They don't tell you whether the website you're about to pay on belongs to the business, whether the number in a text message matches the one on record, or whether a contractor's company has been around longer than a few weeks.

We focus on those facts. Every signal on a listing names its source, and our score only measures how much checkable information exists. We don't rate quality, and we never call a business a scam.

How it works

  • Open data. 7,704,728 business listings from the Overture Maps Foundation, an open dataset built from several major contributors. See data sources.
  • Live checks. We test whether a business's website loads, whether it uses HTTPS, and when its domain was registered.
  • Owner verification. Owners can claim their listing free. We confirm them by business email, phone or documents before marking them verified.

The full scoring rules are on the methodology page.

How we make money

Listings and checks are free for everyone. We plan to offer optional paid plans for business owners (see plans) and labeled sponsored placements. No one can pay to change a check score.

Contact

To fix or remove a listing, use the corrections page. Business owners can reach us through claiming their listing.