Sections
01Who we list
Independently owned
Owned and run locally. The Independent label shows once a dated source confirms who owns the business.
A local address
An address in the town or county the business is listed under.
Local roots on record
A dated source that shows the roots: the year it opened, a documented local operation or team, local ownership, or a documented history in the community.
Licensed where Virginia requires it
A current license from the state board for that trade, with its number and expiry date recorded. For contractors that's Virginia DPOR, and we record the license class too.
02Who we don't list
- Franchises and national chains. If a future plan allows them, they'll carry the label Franchise or National.
- A business in a licensed trade without a current license.
- A business with no address in the town or county it would be listed under.
- A business we can't back with 4 dated sources.
03How we check
Every profile rests on at least 4 sources, each with the date we read it: the business's own website or official Facebook page, a state license or registration record, its Google Business Profile, and one more source such as the BBB, a news story, a county record or its Facebook page.
The business's own site or page is never optional. If one of the other three is still missing (at most one of them), or we haven't confirmed who owns the business yet, the profile can stay up only while we're working on it, for at most 62 days. Until the owner is confirmed, the Independent label doesn't show. If the gap isn't closed in time, the profile fails our checks. The same limit applies when an owner has claimed a listing but hasn't confirmed the facts yet; until they do, it shows as Source-checked, not Owner-confirmed.
We copy the name, address and phone exactly as the business writes them on its own site. Each profile shows the date we last checked it, and its Sources list shows what we checked it against.
- Source-checked: We matched this profile against the dated public records in its Sources list.
- Owner-confirmed: The owner also confirmed these facts with us, on the date shown.
04How the order is set
Every service list starts in editorial order: the order our editor places businesses in the directory. It's the same for every visitor. It doesn't use star ratings, and payment never changes it. On a service's list for a town, the numbers on the cards (01, 02, 03) show that order.
On search you can switch to A to Z, or narrow the list to owner-confirmed or licensed businesses.
05What Featured means
Featured is a box above a service's list in a town. It says "Paid placement. Doesn't change the order below." If more than one business pays for that service in that town, every one of them is in the box, each labeled Featured, in the order they started Featured. Each business also keeps its normal place in the list.
Only a business that's already listed there and independently owned can be in the box, and only while a paid term we've recorded is running. It comes out of the box when the term ends. Each entry links to the business's profile here and its phone number, nothing else.
06Claiming a listing and fixing a fact
Claiming your listing is free. To claim it, or to report a wrong fact on any page, email us at austin@buildleansaas.com. We check the change against a source before the page changes, and a correction to a published fact goes in the log at the bottom of this page.
07How we make money
Being listed is free. Owners can pay for Featured ($79 a month or $499 a year), or for our marketing plans: Plus ($299 a month), Pro ($999 a month) and Legend ($2,499 a month). Those plans work on the owner's own website and Google profile.
None of them buys a listing, a better position in a list, or a label like "best".
08How we use AI
We use AI tools to help research and draft. The facts our checks track (ownership, license, hours, founding year, credentials and FAQ answers) must each cite a dated source, and a profile missing one fails the directory check we run before we publish a change.
09Corrections log
No corrections yet. This log started on Oct 29, 2026; every fix to a published fact will be listed here with its date and source.