WillItSurvive
Financial data and information services · Australia

Built With

builtwith.com ↗

BuiltWith tracks what technology websites run, sold as lookup and lead data since 2007.

Defensible for now
Assessed 21 July 2026 · Evidence as of 21 July 2026
Real protection, with named pressure against it.
On the recordSince 21 July 2026 · Checkable from May 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Shopify's llms.txt rollout could make tech-stack data self-published and free
The call

BuiltWith's long crawl archive still sets it apart, but free tools and funded rivals are closing in on the part of the business that used to be easy money.

BuiltWith finds out what software and tools websites use by looking at their code. It has been doing this for 18 years and has a huge collection of historical records that newer competitors do not have yet. However, free tools like Wappalyzer and cheaper paid services can now do basic tech detection almost as well, and larger companies like ZoomInfo and Similarweb are spending money to build their own historical databases and compete directly. The main thing that could change everything is if large companies finish building their own old data archives or if artificial intelligence tools get good enough to quickly scan websites without needing Built With's records.

Why
01
AI pressure: LLM-based scraping and classification agents. AI agents can now detect and classify site tech on the fly, threatening the point-in-time lookup that used to be BuiltWith's hook. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.
02
Bigger players: Similarweb (via SimilarTech) and ZoomInfo. Both sell historical tech-install data bundled with broader sales intelligence platforms, undercutting BuiltWith on price and reach. Could a giant copy it? Yes, easily.
03
What protects it. 18 years of crawl history back to 1985 across hundreds of millions of domains, which nobody can backfill.
What would change this call
Similarweb or ZoomInfo launches a historical/install-base data product priced below BuiltWith's tiers. Would show funded rivals directly targeting BuiltWith's archive moat, not just point-in-time detection.
Shopify's llms.txt/agentic-commerce rollout (from May 2026) becomes widely adopted by other platforms. Would show tech-stack data becoming self-published and free, eroding the value of BuiltWith's crawl archive.
Gary Brewer's public involvement or statements about BuiltWith stop appearing. Would show key-person disengagement with no visible successor running the company.
Key numbers
  • Revenue estimated $4.6M to $22.6M/year, unaudited (2026)
  • Runs with reportedly zero employees (2022-10-18)
  • Tracks 113,000+ technologies across 400M+ domains (2026)
Named risks
  • Single-founder key-person dependency on Gary Brewer with no visible operating successor. Severity: high
  • Point-in-time tech detection commoditized by free tools like Wappalyzer and WhatRuns. Severity: high
  • Revenue and headcount figures vary up to 5x across sources with no audited disclosure. Severity: medium
  • Platform-native disclosure standards like llms.txt could make tech-stack data self-published and free. Severity: medium
Rivals, as read in July 2026
RivalDirectionEvidence
Similarweb (SimilarTech)gaining onSimilarTech tracks 8,000+ technologies across 100M+ sites, pairs with traffic data, as of June 2026
Wappalyzergaining onFree crowdsourced tool with ~8,000 technologies eroding basic lookup use case, April 2026
ZoomInfocontestingBundles technographics as one signal in full go-to-market suite, comparison published June 2026
HG InsightscontestingSells enterprise spend-level technographics at roughly $40,000 per year, July 2026
PredictLeadsgaining onCovers 87.8M+ companies via multi-source technographics, per July 2026 comparison
Questions people ask
Is BuiltWith profitable in 2026?
Yes. BuiltWith is bootstrapped with no outside funding and reported roughly $22.6M in annual revenue as of April 2026, run by a tiny team, a structure that implies high profitability rather than venture-subsidized growth.
How many employees does BuiltWith have?
Very few. BuiltWith's LinkedIn page listed just 4 employees as of February 2026, though other broker estimates range from 3 to 16, and the company ran for years on essentially one full-time employee, founder Gary Brewer.
Who owns BuiltWith?
BuiltWith is privately owned and founder-controlled by Gary Brewer, who launched it on July 22, 2007 in Australia and has never taken outside venture funding, keeping the company fully bootstrapped through 2026.
Could AI replace BuiltWith?
AI agents can already replicate BuiltWith's basic point-in-time tech detection, per 2026 competitor comparisons, but its 18+ years of historical crawl data back to 1985 is harder to reconstruct, and BuiltWith itself shipped MCP and llms.txt support in February 2026 to serve AI agents directly.
Who is BuiltWith's biggest competitor?
Similarweb's SimilarTech unit and ZoomInfo are the closest rivals; as of June 2026 SimilarTech tracked 8,000+ technologies across 100M+ sites, while free tools like Wappalyzer (about 8,000 technologies, per an April 2026 comparison) undercut BuiltWith on price.
What does BuiltWith actually do?
BuiltWith identifies the technologies running on websites, CMS, analytics, hosting, ecommerce and advertising tools, and sells market-share, lead-generation, and historical trend data covering 400M to 670M+ domains as of 2026.
Timeline
  • 2026-07-06ZoomInfo profile lists BuiltWith revenue as under $5 million
  • 2026-05-11Shopify ships native llms.txt and agentic-commerce discovery infrastructure
  • 2026-04-19Starter Story estimates BuiltWith revenue at about $22.6M per year
  • 2026-02-25BuiltWith LinkedIn announces MCP stream, llms.txt file, WHOAMI endpoints and new modules
  • 2022-12-01Medium profile details BuiltWith generating $14M a year with zero employees
  • 2022-10-18Hacker News discussion highlights BuiltWith at $14M ARR with no employees
  • 2022-05-20Startup Daily profiles BuiltWith as run with effectively zero staff
  • 2015-10-04Co-founder Andrew Rogers publishes account of joining BuiltWith around 2011 as advisor
  • 2007-07-22Gary Brewer founds BuiltWith in Australia
Revision history
21 July 2026
First assessed. Defensible for now. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
In the same band
East Money InformationNICE Holdings (NICE Information Service)Muck Rack
More in Financial data and information services →
Sources