For independent local businesses
Built to send you customers, not to bill you for them.
Understead makes good local businesses easier to find, easier to follow and easier to choose — while your website, your contacts and your customer relationships stay exactly where they belong: with you.
Already on the map? Find and claim your page
The problem
Small businesses aren't failing. They're being designed out.
You can make the better thing and still lose, because the fight was never about the thing. Chains price a corner at a loss until the independent folds. Marketplaces take a cut of every sale, keep the customer relationship for themselves, and turn the person who actually made the thing into inventory with a face. A maker three miles away and a maker three thousand miles away look the same on a search engine — and that has never once helped the one down the road.
The answer isn't asking people to feel guilty about the supermarket. It's building the infrastructure that makes choosing you the easy option: enough local businesses in one place to be worth the trip, found by the people who actually live nearby.
The making was never the hard part. Being found was. That's the part we do.
What you get
Real infrastructure, working today.
Found locally
Your own page, in local search and on your town and category pages. You appear because you are near the person looking and you match what they want.
Your contacts, front and centre
Your website, phone, email and socials on your page. People reach you directly — nobody has to go through us.
Your own followers
A follow button and a printable QR sign for the stall. When you have news — a new batch, a market date — you send it to the people who chose you by name.
Useful updates, everywhere at once
Post one update and it lands on your page and the local surfaces that carry it. Freshness is how you stay visible, and it costs a minute.
The market network
Markets, food hubs and collectives are listed free forever, linked to their traders. If you trade at one, your page and theirs strengthen each other.
A town page people actually use
Your page sits on a town page that also carries what is on, community groups and markets, free. People come for everyday local life, not just shopping, and the businesses are part of what they find. We promise the reasons to visit, never the visitor numbers.
Trade demand
Local kitchens, shops and galleries post what they need; businesses within range that fit get it directly. Wholesale pricing and trade quotes come with the Trade plan.
Free business guides
94 practical guides across 8 kinds of local business — compliance, packaging, pricing, selling. Free to everyone, no paywall, whether you pay us or not.
A shop, if you want one
Selling through Understead is optional. If you switch it on, customers buy on your page, the money goes straight to you, and we take 0% commission.
The deal
Your customers stay yours. We mean it structurally.
0% commission, ever
Every sale is yours, whole. Payment goes straight to you. We make our money from small monthly plans, nothing else — so we only do well when you do.
No lock-in, by design
Your page points at your own website, your own phone, your own socials. People deal with you directly, and any relationship you build is yours to keep — on or off Understead.
Followers who chose you
Everyone who follows you here picked you by name. You reach them through Understead whenever you have news, and we stay out of the conversation.
No paying to be found
You cannot buy your way into a search you don't belong in: no ads and no sponsored slots in results. Being nearby and being right is what gets you seen. Where several businesses already genuinely match a commercial search, plan level may affect their order.
How it works
The whole loop, start to finish.
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01
Your page exists
Claim it if it's already on the map, or create it in a few minutes. Free, and useful from day one.
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02
Local people find you
They search by where they are and what they want — fresh veg, a potter, a baker — and you come up because you're near and you match.
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03
They follow you, contact you, buy from you
Through your own contacts and website, at your stall, or on your page if you've switched selling on.
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04
You post what's new
A batch, a market date, a restock. One update reaches your page, your followers and the local surfaces that carry it.
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05
The network compounds
Markets link their traders. Trade buyers post what they need. Guides bring your peers in. The more of the local economy is here, the more each page is worth.
Trade
Demand finds you, not the other way round.
Kitchens, shops, delis, galleries and gift shops can post what they're after — the product, roughly how much, how often — and every listed business within range that fits the trade gets it directly. They reply to the buyer, agree terms between themselves, and Understead never sees the order or takes a cut of it.
It's early: the doors are open and the matching works, and the volume grows as the network does. Getting listed now is what puts you in range when the next request lands.
On the Trade plan, that goes further: wholesale price lists for trade buyers, and quote requests on bulk orders — the door most platforms never open, because an order that skips their checkout is a cut they can't take.
Makers get a commissioning door too: people describe the piece they want made, and makers in that craft nearby hear about it.
The resource library
Help running the business, not just finding customers.
94 free, practical guides across 8 kinds of local business: food safety and compliance, packaging and labelling, pricing without guessing, selling to shops and co-ops, market-day craft. Written for people doing the work, with no fluff and no paywall.
They're open to everyone — listed here or not, paying or not. Shared infrastructure is the point.
Plans
Start free. Upgrade only if it earns its keep.
Free
£0
Get found. Plenty never need more.
- Your public page, in local search and on town and category pages
- Your address, hours, website, contacts and socials
- Photos, follows and updates
- The free business guides
Shop
£5/month
6 months free, then £5/month
Start selling on your page.
- Everything in Free
- A real shop on your page — customers buy there and then
- The money goes straight to you. 0% commission, ever
- Orders, discounts and earnings in your own dashboard
Trade
£12/month
6 months free, then £12/month
Sell at scale, including to trade.
- Everything in Shop
- Wholesale pricing for trade buyers
- Quote requests on bulk orders
- Unlimited products
Markets, food hubs and collectives are different: they're listed free, forever, with no cart and no checkout — a market is a container of producers, not a seller. List a market or food hub
How ranking works
Relevance is never for sale.
You only ever appear in searches you genuinely match — the right kind of business, in the right place, within the distance someone asked for. No plan changes that, in either direction.
Within genuinely relevant results, paid plans can rank above Free listings. That's the honest version of the deal: payment can order a list you already belong on. It can never buy your way onto one.
Why local is worth building around
The money that stays, works.
Somebody measured this properly in Totnes: the town and its parishes spend about £30m a year on food and drink to eat at home, and £22m of it is imported from the rest of the UK and overseas. Shifting just a tenth of that imported spend to local producers keeps another £2m a year moving through the town.
Totnes & District Local Economic Blueprint, 2013 — Transition Town Totnes REconomy Project with Totnes Town Council and the Chamber of Commerce.
Local food shops support around three times the jobs of the main supermarkets for the same money through the till, and local food producers employ about half as many people again as the average farm.
Campaign to Protect Rural England, From Field to Fork (2012).
That's why we take no commission: every pound that would have gone to a platform fee keeps moving through the local economy instead of leaking out of it.
Where we are
The map is drawn. The doors are opening.
17,423independent producers and makers already mapped
520markets and food hubs listed, free forever
0%commission, at every tier, always
We're honest about the stage we're at: the map is deep, the tools work, and the audience is being built town by town, starting with Totnes. Early businesses aren't buying reach that already exists — they're taking the best positions in infrastructure that's being assembled around them. Claiming your page costs nothing and takes minutes.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions
Who is Understead for?
Independent local businesses: growers, producers, makers, bakers, craftspeople, independent shops, food and drink businesses, and the markets, food hubs and collectives they trade through. If you make, grow or sell something good near where people live, it's for you.
Is listing really free?
Yes. A free listing gets you a public page, local search, your own contacts and website links, photos, follows and updates, and the business guides. It stays free.
Does Understead take commission?
No, and it never will. Money goes straight from the buyer to you through your own payment account. We make our money from the small monthly plans instead.
Can people contact me directly?
Yes — that's the point. Your page shows your own phone, email, website and socials, and nobody has to go through us.
Do I need a website?
No. Your Understead page can be your online home. If you have a website, your page points people at it.
Can I sell through Understead?
Yes, optionally. The Shop plan puts a real shop on your page: customers buy there and then, and the money lands directly with you, with 0% commission.
What is Shop?
6 months free, then £5/month. It adds the shop itself, your own orders-and-earnings dashboard, and priority over Free listings in results you already belong in.
What is Trade?
6 months free, then £12/month. Everything in Shop, plus wholesale pricing for trade buyers, quote requests on bulk orders, and unlimited products.
Can I change or cancel?
Yes. Upgrade, downgrade or cancel any time; your page and its data carry over.
How does ranking work?
You appear where you genuinely match — category, place and distance. Within relevant results, paid plans can rank above Free listings. Nobody can pay to enter a search they don't belong in.
What happens to my followers?
People follow your business by name, and you reach them through Understead whenever you have news. The direct relationships you build with customers — through your own contacts, website and sales — are yours everywhere, always.
Are markets free?
Free forever, unconditionally: page, dates, stall applications and their trader list. A market is a container of producers, not a seller — no cart, no checkout, ever.
What are the Resources?
Free, practical business guides — compliance, packaging, pricing, selling, craft-specific know-how — open to everyone with no paywall.
How do trade and supply requests work?
A local buyer posts what they need; listed businesses within range that fit the trade get it directly and reply to the buyer. Terms are agreed between you — we never see the order or take a cut.
Be part of it
If you make, grow, bake or sell something good, come and find your people.
We got tired of watching good local businesses get designed out, so we're building the thing that helps them compete. Come build it with us.
Ollie and Lucy