With the rise of medical and recreational marijuana, there has been a number of online directories popping up that focus on showing you the best dispensaries near you.

For Dispensary owners, Weedmaps and Leafly can be vital in growing your dispensary, both online and off. With over 17 million website visitors a month combined, these 2 websites can give you a lot of referral traffic and sales.

In this guide, I am going to compare Weedmaps vs. Leafly to see which directory is the best for listing your dispensary, delivery service, or medical practice.

First, I am going to go through all the features, benefits and pricing of Weedmaps.

Weedmaps

If you are a dispensary owner or even a marijuana user, then its likely that you have heard of Weedmaps. Weedmaps is one of the largest online marijuana communities that allows users to review, rate and discuss marijuana strains and local dispensaries.

They are headquartered in Irvine, CA and Denver, CO, with about 200 employees currently.  Founded in July 2008 by Doug Francis, Weedmaps has become one of the fastest growing communities of cannabis users online.

Taking a look at their traffic, you can see they get almost 6 million visits a month of highly targeted marijuana users looking to make a purchase.

Most of their traffic comes from their app and online when people search for ‘dispensaries near me’. That means that you are getting really targeted traffic coming to your Weedmaps listing, ready to buy.

They have also been able to grow by offering great ratings, reviews and features for dispensaries and marijuana brands.

Weedmaps Features

When you register your business with Weedmaps, you will get a plethora of features that make selling your product or services really easy:

• Product Menu
• Map Pin
• Full Profile
• Deals
• Customer Messaging
• Ratings / Reviews

How Much Does Weedmaps Cost?

Weedmaps used to be free to add your dispensary but now they charge a flat monthly fee to add your dispensary or marijuana delivery service. If you have a Marijuana Brand or non-dispensary business, you can add your brand page for free.

Here is a breakdown of the cost to have your dispensary on Weedmaps:

These are the prices as of 2018, but they are constantly changing their package prices as their supply and demand grow. To get listed at Weedmaps, you will have to first fill out a form, then you will need to talk with someone on the phone who will go over the plans with you. Alternatively, Marijuana SEO provides a service to submit and manage your Weedmaps listing and menu if you simply don’t have the time.

If you want to submit your dispensary to Weedmaps yourself, this is how you do it…

How to Add Your Dispensary

First, you must request to have your dispensary, delivery-service or practice added to Weedmaps. Click here to submit your dispensary for inclusion in Weedmaps.

You will need to create a free account and then add all of your business details like address, phone and business name.

Be sure to add the correct information as they will contact you to get started with your account. Once you choose your plan over the phone with the Weedmaps Sales rep, then you will sign a month to month contract with them as well as a credit card authorization form so they can charge your card monthly.

Once you are approved and added to Weedmaps, then you will have to add your product menu to Weedmaps. They offer a simple import option if you use any of the popular POS systems for the marijuana industry. If not, its pretty simple to add your products as most of them are already listed on Weedmaps.

Leafly

Leafly started out as a popular strain review website and only recently added a dispensary directory, but this has exploded their site into the highest traffic marijuana community and marijuana business directory.

Based out of Seattle, Washington, Leafly is a privately held company with over 40 million page views a month and counting. When you add your dispensary or marijuana business to Leafly, you will get seen.

Leafly Features

When you add your dispensary to Leafly, you get a number of options to get your website and dispensary seen on the platform.

Most of them are a-la-cart and cost extra but they have:

• Dispensary Profiles
• Map Markers
• Profile Upgrades
• Marketing Services
• Video Showcases
• Product Menu

How Much Does Leafly Cost?

Leafly’s pricing model is geo-specific so it can range anywhere in between $600 and $4,000 a month to advertise your dispensary or delivery service on Leafly. Obviously, Leafly is much more expensive than Weedmaps so that is something to consider when comparing the two.

If you are already listed on Leafly and claim your business then you get a cheaper monthly rate but its going to be around $500 still, just to list your business. Now, I know that Leafly gets a lot of traffic but the fact is, they may not be actually visiting your page. You can actually get a lot more traffic from the biggest traffic source for dispensaries… Google! For $500 a month, you can get a lot more local customers from Google than you would from any directory.

If you still want to add your dispensary to Leafly, here is how to get started…

How to Add Your Dispensary

First, you will need to head to the dispensary solutions page and click the button to ‘claim your dispensary’. You will need to fill out a simple form with your name, address, business and contact information.

A Leafly representative will reach out to you to go over pricing for your local area and what you will receive with your package, as its always changing.

Weedmaps vs. Leafly

The two marijuana platforms are at the top of their game but there has to be a winner of the two.

When comparing Weedmaps vs Leafly, there are a few key factors we can analyze to see which one is the best for your dispensary or cannabis business.

Weeedmaps vs. Leafly: Traffic

While Leafly does get 3x more traffic than Weedmaps does, the bulk of its traffic comes from its strain reviews and content. Since Weedmaps was made to showcase dispensaries and that’s pretty much its prime focus, you can actually get a little bit more traffic to your dispensary from Weedmaps.

Although, I wouldn’t expect to get hundreds of visitors a day or anything. You should never rely on 1 or a few sources to get and find new customers. I would suggest having a high-quality Local SEO plan alongside side the Leafly and Weedmaps listings for maximum exposure.

Google is still the number one way to get organic traffic to your website. With Google My Business, you can get your dispensary listed at the top of the search results.. before Weedmaps and Leafly.

Weeedmaps vs. Leafly: Features

When it comes to features, both competitors bring a lot of great ways to get more eyeballs on your marijuana business. Both of them feature listing pages, sponsored listings and product menus that can help bring in new customers without having to leave the two platforms.

Weeedmaps vs. Leafly: Pricing

Pricing is important to a lot of dispensary owners because its small business and your funds are all cash most of the time. That is why Weedmaps takes the cake on pricing. Simply because they offer a basic listing for $300/month and Leafly’s lowest price is about $500/month.

I believe that as marijuana becomes legal in more and more states, these prices will go down as the demand goes up but for now, if you are wanting to add your business to these platforms, you will have to pay a pretty penny.

Wrapping Up

In the end, I think that Weedmaps is much better for your money and will give you a better ROI than Leafly will.

I still believe that Google is the #1 source of free traffic for your dispensary or delivery service but Weedmaps and Leafly come in a close 2nd and 3rd.

The post Weedmaps Vs. Leafly: Which is Better For Your Dispensary? appeared first on Marijuana Marketing & SEO.