Search Yelp businesses · Yelp API
Searches Yelp for businesses by name, service or category near a location, sorted by Yelp's recommendation, rating or review count. Paginate with `cursor`.
Using ChatGPT, Claude Code or another client? See the setup steps
curl https://api.unifapi.com/yelp/businesses/search?query=&location= \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $UNIFAPI_KEY"
Parameters
- queryqueryrequired
- Business name, service, or category to search for.
- locationqueryrequired
- City, neighbourhood, postcode or address to search near.
- sortquery
- Result order. `recommended` is Yelp's default ranking. `highest_rated` and `most_reviewed` use Yelp's own sorts.
- cursorquery
- Opaque pagination cursor from a previous response's `pagination.next_cursor`. Omit for the first page.
- The parameter for this Yelp operation. Use the URL-visible slug or id described in the docs.
This operation is part of the Yelp API in the local & maps category. It uses the same Bearer token, request tracing, error model, and billing envelope as every UnifAPI endpoint, so agents can switch between platforms without custom per-vendor glue code.
Use it when a workflow needs Yelp public data alongside other maps and local-business sources, but should still keep one API key, one account balance, and one predictable JSON contract.
Common agent workflows
- Search Yelp for public mentions, creators, posts, or topics matching a user query.
- Feed ranked Yelp results into research, monitoring, and enrichment workflows.
- Give an AI agent a stable Yelp data source without building a per-platform integration.
- Normalize Yelp responses into the same UnifAPI envelope used across the catalog.
Unified envelope, platform-native fields
- List-style responses return `data` as an array of top-level records plus optional `pagination` for continuation tokens or cursors.
- The operation has a 3 credits ($0.003) minimum charge, so `billing.records_charged` can be higher than the visible records returned.
- If the workspace balance cannot cover every result, the response can be truncated and `billing.truncated_due_to_balance` tells the caller why.
Response status codes
Billing
This operation charges 1 credit per billable record, with a 3 credits ($0.003) operation minimum. Public responses include billing metadata with credits charged, records charged, and remaining workspace balance. Incorrect Credit deductions caused by platform failures can be restored as billing corrections.
Errors and retries
Authentication, validation, rate-limit, not-found, and provider errors use the unified UnifAPI error format. Agents should log `request_id`, retry only retryable failures, and treat invalid API keys, disabled keys, and expired keys as the same public `unauthorized` error type.
Fields on each record in data
A successful Search Yelp businesses call returns data as an array; each record carries these fields (12 of 13 shown — the docs list the full schema).
- aliasstring | null
- Business alias from its Yelp URL.
- namestring | null
- urlstring | null
- rankingnumber | null
- Position in Yelp's results for this search; null for web-index results.
- ratingnumber | null
- review_countnumber | null
- price_rangestring | null
- phonestring | null
- categoriesobject[]
- addressobject | null
- coordinatesobject | null
- photo_urlstring | null
More Yelp operations
Combine endpoints from the same platform, then join the results with other UnifAPI categories without changing authentication or response parsing.
Get a Yelp business
Returns a Yelp business by alias: rating, review count, price range, phone, website, address, coordinates, categories, opening hours and amenities. Returns `not_found` when the business does not exist.
List photos of a Yelp business
Returns public photos of a Yelp business with captions and URLs. Paginate with `cursor`.
List reviews of a Yelp business
Returns public reviews of a Yelp business with rating, text, author, photos and owner replies. Choose recommended, not-recommended or removed reviews with `category`. Paginate with `cursor`.