Abstract We prove sharp pointwise blow-up estimates for finite-energy sign-changing solutions of critical equations of Schrödinger–Yamabe type on a closed Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ of dimension $n \ge 3$. This is a generalisation of the so-called $C^{0}$-theory for positive solutions of Schrödinger–Yamabe-type equations. To deal with the sign-changing case, we develop a method of proof that combines an a priori bubble-tree analysis with a finite-dimensional reduction, and reduces the proof to obtaining sharp a priori blow-up estimates for a linear problem.