Local Business Discovery — Araptus Local Directory
The discovery engine — a Highlander product
A local business discovery platform you own and operate. Business profiles, event listings, search, and subscription billing — you sell the listings and keep the revenue.
You pick the city. Businesses light up the map, searchers route through your directory — and every listing is recurring revenue you keep.
A Directory You Own
A fully operational local business directory that you own and operate. Not a WordPress theme with a listing plugin — a production platform with subscription billing, admin controls, business profiles, event listings, and search.
You pick the city. You pick the niche. We deploy the platform. You sell listings. Businesses pay monthly. You keep the revenue.
The directory runs on the same infrastructure as every Araptus ecosystem deployment. Need something a directory doesn't cover? We build custom platforms too.
What Is a Local Business Discovery Platform?
A local business discovery platform is software that helps people find businesses in a place or a niche — search, categories, maps, profiles, events — rather than just storing a list of them. A directory records who exists. A discovery platform answers "who should I call?"
The difference is not cosmetic, and it decides whether the thing earns money. Businesses do not pay to be filed. They pay to be found. So every design decision below is about the moment a resident types "plumber near me" — or asks an assistant the same question — and something has to come back.
Discovery, not storage
Search across categories, service areas, and attributes — plus event listings and announcements, so there is a reason to come back between purchases. A local platform nobody browses twice is a database with a logo on it.
Findable by people and by assistants
Every profile is a real, server-rendered, indexable page carrying structured data. AI crawlers do not execute JavaScript, so a discovery directory built as a single-page app is invisible to exactly the systems people now ask for recommendations.
Why that second point decides the whole business. Local recommendation is moving from a list of ten blue links to a single synthesized answer. When an assistant is asked for a plumber in your city, it fires several searches and assembles a reply from whatever comes back. A discovery platform whose listings are statically rendered with clean markup can appear in that answer. One whose listings only exist after a browser runs JavaScript cannot — the crawler never sees a business at all.
That is the entire argument for building this on the same foundation as every other Araptus Highlander deployment rather than on a listings plugin: the listings your members pay for are only worth what they can be found through. The same reasoning drives our work on agent-readable business infrastructure.
How It Works
For Businesses
- Create a listing with details, photos, hours
- Choose a subscription tier
- Self-service dashboard management
- Post events and announcements
For You (Operator)
- Admin dashboard — approve, feature, remove
- Stripe handles all subscription billing
- Tier management and pricing controls
- Analytics on traffic and engagement
For Visitors
- Search by category, location, keyword
- Business profiles with photos and reviews
- Mobile-responsive on any device
- AI Context Layer for AI discoverability
Subscription Tiers
Configurable per deployment. You set the prices. The platform handles billing.
Basic
$19/mo
- Business listing with details
- Name, description, hours, contact
- 3 photos
Featured
$29/mo
- Everything in Basic
- Featured placement in search
- 10 photos + event posting
Premium
$49/mo
- Everything in Featured
- Homepage spotlight + priority search
- Video, enhanced profile, analytics
The Math
| Scenario | Listings | Avg. Revenue | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 30 businesses | $25/mo | $750/mo |
| Growing | 100 businesses | $30/mo | $3,000/mo |
| Established | 250 businesses | $35/mo | $8,750/mo |
No platform takes a cut. Stripe's processing fee is the only cost.
What Makes This Different
Config-Driven Deployment
One config sets the city, categories, branding, tier pricing, and feature toggles. New directory deployable in days, not months.
Real Infrastructure
Astro SSR, Supabase, Stripe, Vercel. Security middleware, rate limiting, honeypot traps built in. Not a WordPress plugin.
AI-Discoverable
AI Context Layer generates structured data about every listed business. AI assistants cite your directory when users ask for local recommendations.
Revenue Is Yours
No platform takes a cut. No marketplace fee. 100 businesses on the Featured tier generates $2,900/month. You keep it.
Use Cases
City-Wide Directory
All local businesses in a metro area. The "shop local" platform your chamber of commerce wishes it had.
Niche Directory
Wellness practitioners, wedding vendors, creative professionals. Vertical focus means less competition.
Community Hub
Pair the directory with events and announcements. Businesses list and promote to the community.
Multi-City Network
Deploy directories in multiple markets. Same platform, different configurations, shared learnings.
Build a Directory. Own the Revenue.
Book a call. We'll scope your market, configure the platform, and get your first listings live.
Book a Consultation