Yelp.ca's value for Canadian businesses splits sharply between free claiming and paid advertising. The free side: claiming and optimizing your Yelp listing is worth the 30 minutes — it produces a free citation, a backlink, and modest direct traffic. Skip-it Yelp listings are still indexed and shown by Google, sometimes even appearing in branded SERPs above your own site if your domain authority is weak. Claim the listing, add hours, photos, and a complete business description, and respond to existing reviews. Paid Yelp advertising is a different question. Yelp's ad platform charges by lead or by click and historically has produced poor ROI for most Canadian categories. The reason is structural: Yelp's user base in Canada is materially smaller than in the US, and most Canadian consumers default to Google (Maps and search) for local discovery. Ad-driven traffic from Yelp typically converts at 30–60% lower rates than Google-sourced traffic in our client portfolios. The categories where paid Yelp still has measurable value in Canada: restaurants in major metros (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal), beauty and personal care (salons, spas), and to a lesser extent home services in markets where Google Local Services ads aren't yet dominant. Outside those categories, the ad spend is almost always better deployed on Google Ads or organic SEO. The tactical recommendation for most Canadian SMBs: claim the listing, optimize it, monitor and respond to reviews, but decline Yelp's frequent paid-advertising sales calls. Reinvest that budget in Google Business Profile optimization and Canadian-specific directory presence.