Hibu vs Thryv: small business marketing packages compared

Memorial Day weekend is a strange time to be reading marketing proposals, but a quiet holiday is often when owners finally open them. Picture an owner with two on the desk, one from Hibu and one from Thryv, asking the obvious question: these look similar, so which one is better?

They look similar on a one-page summary because both companies sell to small local businesses, both offer websites, listings and advertising, and both are used to owners who have no marketing staff. Underneath, they are built on different ideas. Hibu is mainly a service: people who do the marketing for you. Thryv is mainly software: a system you use to run the business, with marketing services available alongside it. That difference decides most of the choice.

Start with what you actually want to buy

Before comparing features, answer three questions honestly.

1. Do you want to do things, or have things done? Some owners want to log in, send a quote, book a job and text a customer from one screen. Others never want to see a dashboard and would rather someone else handle it.
2. What is the real problem? If jobs are falling through the cracks between the first call and the invoice, that is an operations problem. If the phone is too quiet, that is a visibility problem. Buying a fix for the wrong one is the most common mistake we see.
3. What do you keep if you leave? Your domain, website, listings logins, ad accounts and customer list all live somewhere. Find out where before you sign, not after.

It is also a month when search itself is shifting. Google began showing AI Overviews to everyone searching in this country on May 14, and some owners are being told a new package is the answer. It is eleven days old, so be wary of anyone, us included, who claims to know exactly what it rewards.

Hibu, in plain words

Hibu sells digital marketing to small local businesses as a managed service. The range covers the channels most owners ask about: websites, search and social advertising, listings across directories, and tools for gathering and answering reviews. The sale usually starts with a consultant, a package is agreed, and Hibu’s teams build and run it.

Its strength is that the owner does not have to become a marketer. One relationship covers several channels, and the company has a long history of working with very small businesses.

What varies is the detail. Which services sit in which package, how the advertising is managed, and who holds the domain and the site if you part ways are all questions to put to your consultant and get answered on paper.

Thryv, in plain words

Thryv puts its small business software at the center of what it sells. In one login an owner can keep customer records, take bookings, send estimates and invoices, take payments, message customers by text and email, and ask for reviews. It is aimed at service businesses that run on appointments and jobs, such as trades, salons and cleaners.

Thryv also sells marketing services, including websites, search visibility, listings and advertising, so an owner can buy the software, the marketing, or both from one company. Like Hibu, Thryv grew out of directory publishing, and both companies are used to working with owners who want to talk to a person before they buy.

Its strength is the day-to-day tool. An owner who adopts it properly gets a tidier office: fewer lost quotes, faster invoices, customers who hear back. The question to ask is which features come with which plan, and whether the marketing services are bundled or sold separately.

Hibu and Thryv side by side

	Hibu	Thryv
At heart	A managed marketing service	Business software, with marketing services available
Suits	Owners who want marketing done for them	Owners who want one system to run jobs, customers and payments
What you use every day	Mostly reports and conversations with your contact	The software itself, on a desktop or a phone
Websites and listings	Built and managed as part of a package	Offered as marketing services alongside the software
Who owns the site, domain and data	Ask in writing for your package	Ask in writing, including how to export your customer records
Reporting	Package reports; ask for a sample	Software activity plus marketing reports; ask for a sample
Ask before signing	What is included, the term and the exit	Which plan has which features, the term and the exit

Pros and cons

Hibu

• Pro: hands-off for the owner, with one contact covering several channels.
• Pro: long practice selling to very small businesses.
• Pro: advertising, website and listings bought together, so nothing has to be coordinated by you.
• Con: a package is only as flexible as it was designed to be, so ask what can be changed month to month.
• Con: you see the work through reports rather than doing it, which suits some owners and frustrates others.
• Con: who holds the site and accounts is a question to settle for your package before signing, so the paperwork matters.

Thryv

• Pro: a real operating tool for bookings, estimates, invoices and payments, not just marketing.
• Pro: customer communication and review requests in the same place as the job record.
• Pro: the option to add marketing services without changing vendors.
• Con: software pays off only if the team uses it daily; a half-adopted system is worse than a notebook.
• Con: if your problem is a quiet phone, better scheduling will not fix it on its own.
• Con: moving your records out later needs planning, so ask how export works before you start.

Which fits which owner

• A landscaper in a small town who wants a website, a listing and some ads, and never wants to log in. Hibu’s model is built for this owner.
• A cleaning company losing track of quotes, reminders and invoices across three phones. Thryv’s software solves a problem that no amount of advertising will.
• A plumbing firm that is busy but cannot tell which marketing brought the work. Neither package guarantees that answer. Ask each for a sample report that ties calls to jobs, and judge them on that.
• An owner already paying for scheduling software they like. Adding Thryv would duplicate it; buying marketing separately makes more sense.

Another way to buy the same work

Beyaoshy sits between these two shapes. We do the marketing for you, like a managed service, and we also build the customer system, usually on GoHighLevel, set up around how your office already takes calls and books work. The same small team runs local SEO, the Google profile, ads, review requests, the website and that CRM, so the marketing and the follow-up are never two companies pointing at each other.

Everything is registered to the owner from the first day: domain, site, ad accounts, the CRM and the customer list. Our reports start with calls and bookings, then show what produced them. We have worked with local businesses since 2015, and each plan is built from the pieces a business needs rather than from a package tier. Other marketing agencies also white-label the same work for their own clients, so it is built to be handed over cleanly rather than locked to us.

Before the summer season

Whichever you choose, ask for three things in writing: what is included, how long you are committed, and what you keep if you leave. Then compare the answers side by side rather than the brochures.

To see the pieces, our GoHighLevel page shows how we set up the customer system, the local SEO page covers the search side, and the page for local business owners explains how an engagement starts.