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This guide walks you through signing up and tracking your first competitor. By the end you will have a live dashboard showing competitor ratings, review counts, and alerts. The whole process takes about five minutes.
Every new account starts with a 7-day free trial. When you choose a paid plan, a credit card is required to hold your spot — but you are not charged until the trial ends. Cancel anytime during the trial and you will not be billed.
1

Create your account

Go to neariq.io and sign up. You can register with:
  • Email and password — enter your email, choose a password, and confirm your address
  • Google — one-click sign-in with your Google account
  • Apple — one-click sign-in with your Apple ID
After signing in you will be taken directly to the onboarding flow.
2

Enter your business details

Tell NearIQ about the business you want to monitor from. Fill in:
  • Business name — the name of your location (e.g., “The Corner Cafe”)
  • Address — your street address; NearIQ uses this to find nearby competitors
  • Category — select the category that best describes your business type
  • Website (optional) — your business website
Name, address, and category are required. Click Continue when you are done.
3

Link your Google Maps listing

Connecting your own Google Maps listing lets NearIQ monitor your ratings and reviews alongside your competitors.Type your business name into the search box — NearIQ will search Google Maps and show matching results. Select your listing from the dropdown.
You can skip this step and link your listing later in Settings → Business → Google listing. Your competitor monitoring will still work without it.
4

Add your first competitor

Search for a nearby competitor by name. NearIQ queries Google Maps in real time — select a result from the dropdown and click Track to add them.You can add as many competitors as you want during onboarding (or skip and add them from the dashboard later). All plans include unlimited competitors tracked.
5

Explore your dashboard

Once onboarding is complete, NearIQ takes you to your dashboard. Here is what you will find:
  • Competitors panel — current ratings and review counts for every business you are tracking
  • Alerts feed — a chronological list of changes NearIQ has detected, including rating shifts, review surges, and listing updates
  • Health scores — a composite score for each competitor’s Google Business Profile (Starter plan and above)
  • AI intelligence — sentiment analysis and recommendations based on recent competitor reviews (Growth plan and above)
NearIQ will also automatically suggest nearby competitors based on your business category and address — you can add them directly from the dashboard.

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Next steps

Once you are in the dashboard, you can configure how you want to be notified and connect the API for custom integrations.

Notification settings

Set up email alerts, SMS, and digest frequency from Settings.

Create an API key

Access your competitor data programmatically with the NearIQ REST API.