Yell Will Cost YouMore Than You Think
£4,000 for a templated site. £96 a month for hosting. A 12-month contract that rolls on unless you catch the cancellation window. And Yell itself admits a third of customers leave every year. The real cost? Twelve months of direct debits for a site that does not turn clicks into calls.
Yell Was Built for Lock-In, Not Leads
The complaints are not random. They come from a structure designed to keep you paying, whether the leads come in or not.
Aggressive sales. Verbal promises. Signed contracts.
Reps visit your premises or phone repeatedly. They promise a lead volume, a ranking, a return. "Limited-time" discounts push you to sign. Once you have, the written contract does not mention any of it, and there is no recourse. Trustpilot is full of owners who regretted the signup within the hour.
£4,000 for a template. £96 a month for hosting.
Yell's sites are built on a template platform. You pay roughly 550% more for hosting than a standard UK provider charges. Add SEO, display ads, sponsored listings, and the "Connect" suite and one documented case hit £1,200 a month in combined services with no measurable return.
Twelve months, no exit. Even if the leads don't come.
Standard contracts are 6 or 12 months and auto-roll monthly after that. If the ads underperform, the phone stays quiet, the rankings never move, you still pay. Every month. For the full term. You signed the paper, and the paper does not care whether the site is working.
Cancellation is the hardest part.
Within the term, Yell routinely refuses cancellation, even when owners try within hours of signing. After cancellation, direct debits keep coming, emails get ignored, and debt collectors appear. Specialist advisors tell owners to cancel their direct debit at the bank and file a GDPR data request.
Yell's own numbers
24
MPs signed a motion calling for an urgent investigation into Yell in June 2020.
33%
of customers leave every year, by Yell's own admission.
25%
of customers file a formal complaint. Their numbers, not ours.
12 Months with Yell. 12 Months with Me.
Year one total cost and what you walk away with
Yell
£4,000 build + £96/mo hosting + £200/mo SEO
£7,552
Locked in for 12 months
My build
£100/month, all-in
£1,200
Cancel any month
Same 12 months. A sixth of the spend. And if it stops working, you stop paying.
And that is before the Quality Score effect. A slow, templated landing page drags your Google Ads cost per click up. Yell is not just charging you more for the site. They are inflating the cost of every lead you do get.
Yell vs What I Build
| Yell | My build | |
|---|---|---|
| Build fee | £4,000+ | No setup |
| Hosting | £96/month | Included |
| Year one total | £7,552 | £1,200 |
| Contract | 12 months | Monthly, cancel any time |
| Design | Templated | Custom from scratch |
| PageSpeed | 30-50 | 90+ |
| Support | 6+ call centres | Direct to me |
| Conversion rate | 1-3% | 5-12% |
No 12-Month Contract. No Cold Calls. No Debt Collectors.
I build your site from scratch, point your ads at it, and bill £100 a month for the lot. If it is not working, email me and the billing stops.
One price, no upsells
£100 a month covers the lot. No £4,000 build fee. No hosting add-on. No display-ad package, no "Connect" suite, no sponsored listing. One line on your statement. No surprises.
Monthly, cancel any time
No 12-month contract. No auto-renew you have to remember to cancel. Email me, I stop the billing. No call centre, no debt collector, no GDPR request required.
Custom, not templated
Every page is built for your business. Your trade, your area, the words your customers actually search for. 90+ PageSpeed. Under 2 seconds to load. Designed to make the phone ring.
One person to call. Me.
No call centres in six countries. No ticket queues. No waiting weeks for a reply that does not fix the problem. You email me and I fix it. That is how support should work.
"Same Ads, Same Budget. 4x the Leads."
A roofer came to me spending £1,200 a month on Google Ads. His site scored 34 on PageSpeed and took 6.2 seconds to load. Conversion rate: 1.9%. That is 11 leads a month at £109 each.
I replaced it with a purpose-built landing page. Same ads. Same keywords. Same budget. Six weeks later: 9.4% conversion rate. 47 leads a month. £26 per lead. Nothing changed except the landing page.
PageSpeed
34
96
Load time
6.2s
1.4s
Conversion
1.9%
9.4%
Cost/lead
£109
£26
The Yell Cycle Every Owner Knows
A rep cold-calls or turns up at the unit. Promises leads and quick SEO wins.
You sign a 12-month contract. The verbal promises are not in it.
You pay £4,000 for a templated site. Hosting is £96 a month on top.
Leads trickle in. You raise a complaint. Support is spread across six call centres.
You try to cancel. Direct debits keep coming. Debt collectors get involved.
Your contract ends. You lose the site. You start again, somewhere else.
From Yell to Leads in 5-7 Days
Audit
I look at your Yell site, your ad spend, and your lead tracking. I show you exactly where leads are leaking and what the Yell contract is really costing you.
Build
A conversion-focused page built from scratch. Headline matched to your ads. Trust signals above the fold. Click-to-call where it cannot be missed. Live in 5-7 days.
Launch
Your ads point at the new landing page. Conversion tracking goes live. You see the difference in days, not months. Same budget, more booked jobs.
A Fraction of the Yell Spend. And It's Yours.
No 12-month lock-in. No £4,000 build fee. No upsells. Hosting, copywriting, and ongoing optimisation all included. Cancel any time.
Momentum
£100/month
No setup fee
Dedicated landing page
Custom copywriting
Hosting included
Conversion tracking setup
Ongoing optimisation
PageSpeed 90+ guaranteed
Traffic
£500/month
Add-on to Momentum. £500 one-off setup.
Google Ads/Meta Ads
Campaign setup and optimisation
Ad copy and images
Conversion tracking
Monthly reporting on leads
Ad spend direct to Google/Meta
If your landing page does not score 90+ on PageSpeed, you do not pay. That is the guarantee. Most clients see a return within the first month of pointing ads at the new landing page.
Twelve months into Yell, what has it built you?
More phone calls. More booked work. For a sixth of the spend.