Highstreett vs the Lincolnshire Business Directory: finding a place to shop or eat
The Lincolnshire Business Directory is a paid listings site for businesses that sell to other businesses — marketing agencies, IT support, HR consultants, electricians, mortgage brokers — not a place to find somewhere to eat or shop. We checked its own pricing page directly: the “Verified” badge it displays next to a listing sits under its £99-a-year paid plan, not something earned by having your ownership checked. Highstreett is built the other way round: free to list, with the badge earned against Companies House rather than bought. Last verified 12 September 2026.
| Lincolnshire Business Directory | Highstreett | |
|---|---|---|
| What it's built for | A paid listings and networking directory for Lincolnshire businesses selling to other businesses | Finding somewhere to shop, eat or spend locally, with ownership checked and labelled |
| Who it's aimed at | Businesses looking for customers, mostly marketing, professional services, IT and trade — not shoppers or diners | Shoppers, diners and residents choosing where to spend |
| Total listings | 168 businesses across the whole of Lincolnshire | Search built city by city; Lincoln live now |
| The “Verified” badge | A paid-membership perk. Its own membership page lists “Verified Business Listing” under the £99-a-year paid plan, not the free one | Earned: checked against Companies House and the PSC register, never sold |
| Cost to be listed | Free basic listing; £99 a year buys the verified badge and extra promotion | Free to list and free to claim, always |
| Finding a restaurant, café or shop | Searching “restaurant” by name returns zero of the 168 listings | Built specifically to find them |
Where it’s genuinely useful
If you run a Lincolnshire business and want to be found by other businesses, this is a reasonable place to be listed. Its categories are sensibly built for that job — Business, Professional Services, Marketing, IT, Consultancy, Automotive — it runs an annual awards programme, publishes community articles, and a listing also appears on its partner site, Business Imp. For B2B visibility in Lincolnshire specifically, it does what it sets out to do.
What we found when we checked
Its own “Membership Benefits” page splits into a free plan and a paid plan. The free plan is described as “Simple Business Listing”. The paid plan, priced at £99 a year, is described as “Verified Business Listing — Stand out from the crowd with a verified badge signifying legitimacy”. In other words, the badge that looks like a positive finding about a business is, by the directory’s own description, something that plan buys rather than something an ownership check earns.
The directory holds 168 listings in total, and its own homepage category counts show where the weight sits: 19 tagged Business, 15 Professional Services, 13 Marketing, 8 IT, 8 Technology, 7 Training, 7 Consultancy and 7 Automotive. Searching the business name field for “restaurant” returned zero results. There is a “Food and Drink” category among its services, so hospitality businesses can appear, but the directory as a whole is built around Lincolnshire businesses finding customers and suppliers, not shoppers finding somewhere to spend an evening.
What Highstreett does differently
We check who owns a business against Companies House and the PSC register. A verified independent carries a badge and comes ahead when it’s close; the badge is never sold, and listing a business with us costs nothing at any tier. Chains are labelled rather than hidden, and anything we haven’t checked yet is marked unverified rather than badged by default.
The honest bit
If you actually run a Lincolnshire business and want a Lincolnshire accountant, marketing agency or IT contractor, we’re not the tool for that search today, and the Lincolnshire Business Directory’s B2B categories are a reasonable place to look. The comparison here isn’t “which directory is bigger”, it’s that its “Verified” badge and our verified-independent badge mean two very different things, and only one of them costs money.
Browse Lincoln, independents checked
Where we fit
Highstreett is a search engine for products and places that tells you who owns what, puts independents ahead when it’s close, and points you to an independent seller wherever it can. For a listing in Lincoln, that means the badge next to a business name is a finding, not a receipt.
Questions
Is the Lincolnshire Business Directory free?
A basic listing is free. Its own membership page shows a paid plan at £99 a year that adds a “Verified Business Listing”, a detailed profile, social media integration and listing promotion, as of 12 September 2026.
Does the Lincolnshire Business Directory verify that a business is independent?
No. Its “Verified” badge is described on its own membership page as something the £99-a-year plan buys, described there as “stand out from the crowd with a verified badge signifying legitimacy” — it isn't an ownership or independence check.
Can I find a restaurant or shop on the Lincolnshire Business Directory?
It isn't built for that. As of 12 September 2026 it holds 168 listings weighted toward B2B categories — 19 tagged Business, 15 Professional Services, 13 Marketing — and a name search for “restaurant” returned nothing.
Is Highstreett free to list a business on?
Yes, always, and claiming your own listing is free too. If you're independent, we check your ownership against Companies House and give you the verified-independent badge at no charge; it isn't a feature you can buy.