Guide.md vs Zocdoc
Zocdoc helps fill appointments. Guide.md helps patients find you everywhere else.
If you're paying for every new booking, your online presence shouldn't disappear when the spend stops. Zocdoc is a booking marketplace. Guide.md is a professional profile you control, built to be found through Google, AI assistants, specialty pages, city pages, conditions and procedures.
Search your name. Claim only if you want to change what it says.
Have your NPI? Search by NPI · Free plan · $2 one-time identity check · about 2 minutes
The difference in one minute
| Guide.md | Zocdoc | |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Professional profile + discovery | Patient-booking marketplace |
| Basic cost | Free claim; paid plans optional | Fee for new-patient Marketplace bookings |
| Paid profile plans | $20 or $49 a month | No standard subscription required |
| Cost rises with bookings | No | Yes |
| Condition and procedure pages | Yes | Visit-reason search inside the marketplace |
| City and specialty pages | Yes | Yes, inside the marketplace |
| Structured profile for AI and search | Core focus | Not its primary value |
| Expert-witness listing | Available | Not a core product |
| Lien-provider listing | Available | Not a core product |
| Industry-consultant listing | Available | Not a core product |
| Online appointment requests | Yes, to your office's email; no per-request fee | Yes, booked in the marketplace |
This isn't an apples-to-apples product comparison. Zocdoc is designed to generate and book patient demand. Guide.md is designed to publish a complete professional identity across provider, specialty, location, condition and procedure pages. Some practices use both. Zocdoc charges providers when a new Marketplace patient books, with the fee varying by specialty and location; it is generally incurred when the booking is made, not only after a completed visit, and Sponsored Results is a separate, bidding-based charge. Source: Zocdoc's own provider pages, reviewed September 2026.
Stop renting every introduction
A patient books through a marketplace and you pay for the booking. Another patient searches "interventional radiologist near me", "podiatrist who treats bunions in Los Angeles", "orthopedic surgeon expert witness" or "doctor who accepts personal-injury liens". Those are different searches.
Guide.md lets you publish the facts that help your profile match them, without charging you each time someone discovers your profile.
What stays after you stop advertising?
Ads rent attention. A complete professional profile is an asset you keep. Your Guide.md profile can carry your biography, credentials, specialties, conditions, procedures, locations, languages, FAQs, media, affiliations and professional services. Your paid plan can stop; the information you added does not cease to exist.
See what Guide.md already says about you. Search your name; claim only if you want to change it.
Have your NPI? Search by NPI · Free plan · $2 one-time identity check · about 2 minutes
When Zocdoc may be the better tool
If your immediate goal is filling open appointments from consumers already searching inside a booking marketplace, Zocdoc may be a strong acquisition channel; it positions Sponsored Results around booking volume and marketplace visibility.
When Guide.md solves a different problem
- what you treat
- what you do
- where you practise
- whether you are accepting patients
- whether you offer telehealth
- whether you take appointment requests online
- whether you consult for industry
- whether you do expert-witness work
- whether you treat personal-injury patients on lien
If you want people, and the systems answering questions about you, to understand the list above, Guide.md is built around that information.
Agencies and practice staff: claim on the provider's behalf, they approve with one click, and every account an agency brings earns 20% for 24 months through the referral program.
You don't have to choose one directory
Different platforms solve different problems. Use a booking marketplace if it profitably fills appointments. Use a legal referral network if it sends good cases. Use an expert-witness directory if attorneys find you there.
And use Guide.md as the professional record that ties the pieces together: your clinical work, procedures, locations, telehealth availability, industry consulting, lien work and expert-witness experience in one place, on one profile you control.
Claim the profile first. Decide what else you need afterward.
Questions
Does Guide.md book appointments?
It takes appointment requests. A patient sends their name, phone, insurance, reason and preferred times through your profile; the request goes to your office's email and your office confirms. There is no per-request fee; the form is part of the Pro and Premium plans.
Do I have to leave Zocdoc to use Guide.md?
No. Many practices use a booking marketplace for demand and Guide.md as the professional record patients, attorneys and AI assistants read. They do different jobs.
What does Guide.md cost?
Claiming is free, with a one-time $2 identity check. Pro is $20 a month ($200 a year), Premium $49 a month ($490 a year). Expert-witness and treats-on-lien listings are $29 and $49 a month as add-ons, or included in Premium.
Claim the profile first. Decide what else you need afterward.
See what Guide.md already says about you. Search your name; claim only if you want to change it.
Have your NPI? Search by NPI · Free plan · $2 one-time identity check · about 2 minutes
Plans & pricing · Referral program · Conditions · Procedures · Doctors on lien · Expert witnesses · Industry consultants · How ordering works