If you run a business on the Sunshine Coast, it is probably one of the 12,685 listed in the Sunshine Coast Business Guide, and a system checks your listing every morning. We built the guide and we run it. It covers Noosa to Caloundra, the hinterland and Gympie, and the work that keeps it accurate is 99% automated.
What is the Sunshine Coast Business Guide?
A free directory of local businesses, checked and validated every morning by a system we built and run.
As of 23 September 2026 it lists 12,685 businesses across 223 suburbs and 393 categories. Listings are free, and no business pays for position. The one ordering rule is that owners who have claimed their page appear first. We run it as one of our working examples of what a custom AI system can automate day to day, and it is the newest one we have made public.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Businesses listed | 12,685 |
| Suburbs covered | 223 |
| Categories | 393 |
| Listings with a website | 7,800 |
| Listings removed after their website was unreachable | 2,802 |
| Pages claimed by their owners | 42 |
Source: the Sunshine Coast Business Guide homepage, 23 September 2026.
How does the guide stay up to date?
Every listed website is checked every day, and the ones that are inactive are removed.
That covers the 7,800 listings that carry a website. A listing whose website is not reachable is removed after three failed checks in a row, and 2,802 listings have gone that way so far. Where a trade needs a licence, the number is checked against the Queensland register, and where a business has traded for years, the ABN register shows it. Each morning the site is rebuilt with the results, so what someone reads that day has already been checked.
Some listings arrived with no description or opening hours. For those, we ran a one-off pass that filled both in from the business's own website, using only what the business had published itself. Any listing an owner has claimed was left alone, because what the owner writes always comes first.
What happens when an owner claims their listing?
The page becomes theirs, and from then on they can change it themselves without emailing anyone.
Say you run an electrical business in Nambour and you find your listing. You click This is my business and confirm from an email address at your business, which is how the guide knows the page is yours. From then on, a link sent to that inbox lets you change your phone number, hours, website, street address, suburb, the suburbs you service, your category and your social links. The suburb and category boxes suggest as you type, so the same suburb never ends up spelled two different ways.
Your changes go live at once, and an email confirms your listing has been updated. Anything the system cannot verify itself is checked by a real person first. So far 42 owners have claimed their pages.
| Job | Who does it |
|---|---|
| Check every listed website | The system, every morning |
| Remove listings whose website is not reachable | The system, after three failed checks in a row |
| Check licence numbers against the Queensland register | The system |
| Update a claimed listing | The owner, from a link in their own inbox |
| Confirm the change | The system, by email |
| Anything the system cannot verify | A real person, before it goes live |
Why does a local directory need to be checked every day?
Because someone looking for a local business needs details that are still true today.
Your next customer might have just moved to Buderim and need a plumber, and they are not searching the whole country. They want the plumbers near them, with a phone number that works, current hours and a website that still loads. A guide built for one coast can hold that level of detail across 223 suburbs, and because it is checked every morning, it stays current. Each owner who claims a page makes their own listing more accurate.
Can a small business run on the same kind of system?
Yes. The same approach can run any business that has details to keep right and people waiting on answers.
Look at what the guide does each day. It checks what is true, removes what has gone stale, lets each business update its own listing once it has proved the page is theirs, confirms every change, and brings a person in only for the few things it cannot check itself. Most of the admin in a small business follows that same pattern.
If you are a plumber or an electrician, the system keeps your hours and prices the same on your website and your Google Business Profile, logs and answers every enquiry, follows up every quote, and sends a report each morning showing what needs your attention today. An allied health clinic gets the same kind of system working on new patient enquiries and rebooking reminders, so the front desk no longer has to find the time. It runs on your own small piece of hardware in the cloud for a small monthly fee, under accounts in your name.
Where to start
The guide is one example of what automations can do. Every business is unique, so what we build for yours is customised to how you work, and the only limit is your imagination. The Engine is $3,500 and each element pack is $950, listed on the automations we build for small business.
We are based on the Sunshine Coast and work Australia-wide by screen share. Answer a few short questions and we will provide a free custom audit of your business. If we can help, the next step is the 60 minute consult, $295, credited to any build.
Sources
Sunshine Coast Business Guide homepage, all figures as of 23 September 2026. Our own system records for the daily checks, the removal rule and owner edits.
What we build AI search and SEO · Email marketing · AI automations · Web design