If you are running a business out of your home, every recurring charge is a real decision. So here is the plan ladder described plainly, including the parts where the answer is "do not pay for this yet".
Current prices are on the plans page — they change with offers, so this article talks about what each tier does rather than what it costs today.
Starter — free, permanently
Not a trial. Not free for the first year. Free.
You get a public listing page, a place in your pincode's directory, category tags, and a page that search engines can index. That is the whole point of the platform, and it is not behind a paywall.
Stay here if: you are testing whether this brings you anything, or your work comes almost entirely from a source you already control. Get listed, share the link for a month, and see what happens before you spend anything.
Social — when your page looks empty
Adds a logo, an owner photo, a small gallery, a digital visiting card, and the ability to post daily updates.
The reason to move here is specific: a page with no images looks abandoned, and an abandoned-looking page loses to a populated one even when the business behind it is better. For an individual service provider the owner photo does most of the work — people are choosing a person.
The visiting card is the other real gain. One link to send on WhatsApp when someone asks what you do, carrying your photos and details with it.
Move here when: you have photos worth showing and you are regularly sending people your details.
Star Rated — when you have happy customers and nothing to show for it
Adds customer ratings, offline offers, and a larger gallery.
Ratings are the strongest trust signal available to a business with no premises. Five genuine ones move a stranger from "who is this" to "other people in my area use this person". You almost certainly already have the customers who would leave them — they just have nowhere to do it.
Move here when: you have at least five customers you could ask today and be confident of the answer. If you cannot name five, fix the work first; the plan will not help.
Lead Magnet — when you want enquiries delivered
Adds lead sharing: enquiries from people searching your category in your area come to you directly, with their requirement attached.
One thing to understand before paying: leads are shared. An enquiry may go to more than one business in your category, so whoever replies first and best usually wins it. This tier rewards responsiveness and punishes a phone left on silent.
Move here when: you can reliably answer an enquiry within the hour during working hours, and you have capacity to take on more work. If you are already missing calls, this is money spent making more people think you are unreliable.
Prime Seller — when you are selling things, not just services
Adds marketplace access and online offers on top of everything above.
This is the first tier aimed at products rather than services. If you make and sell — pickles, clothes, crafts, sweets, home decor — this is where selling online rather than only being found online begins.
Move here when: you have a product with stock and a price, not a service with a calendar.
Premium — when you want the Google side handled too
Everything above, plus managed Google Business Profile.
Note what this quietly solves. Earlier in this blog we described the storefront-photo-and-license wall that keeps individuals off mainstream maps. This tier is where someone works through that with you rather than leaving you to it.
Move here when: you have grown into premises or documentation that makes a Google profile viable, and your time is now worth more than the fee.
Three honest cautions
Do not upgrade to fix a quiet page. If nobody is finding you, the usual causes are a wrong or over-broad category, a locality nobody searches by that name, or a description that says nothing. All three are free to fix. Fix them, wait two weeks, then decide.
Do not buy leads you cannot answer. Conversion first, volume second. Always.
Do not climb the ladder in order. Nothing requires you to pass through every tier. A tuition teacher with plenty of word of mouth and no photos might stay free for a year and then jump straight to ratings. A caterer might need the gallery on day one. Pick the tier that solves the problem you actually have.
The rule that covers most cases
Pay for the thing that unblocks the next customer, and nothing else. If you cannot name the specific customer a feature would have won you, it is not time yet.
Start free. Compare plans when the free version has shown you what it is missing.