# BuiltWith vs DataForSEO: Which API Finds a Company's Tech Stack? (2026)

By [Florian Martens](https://pipe0.com/authors/florian-martens) · Published Oct 17, 2026

Source: https://pipe0.com/blog/builtwith-vs-dataforseo

> We looked up the same 20 websites in both APIs. DataForSEO is a third cheaper, but BuiltWith found a technology in five to six times as many categories.

**TL;DR:** On 10 SaaS and 10 e-commerce websites, BuiltWith found a technology in 76 to 83% of the categories that matter for prospecting (CRM, payments, email, reviews, ad pixels), against 13 to 14% for DataForSEO. DataForSEO costs $0.012 per lookup, BuiltWith about $0.018.





Tech-stack data answers two questions: (1) does this company use a tool,
and (2) what does its stack say about the company as a whole?

Both questions punish wrong answers more than missing ones. Telling a
Shopify store "I saw you're on Magento" ends the conversation.

We looked up 20 websites with [DataForSEO](https://dataforseo.com) and
[BuiltWith](https://builtwith.com).

Our test dataset consisted of 10 SaaS companies and 10 online stores.

For our test, we used BuiltWith's Domain API and DataForSEO's Domain
Technologies API.

For each website, we checked whether the tool found anything in the
categories that matter for prospecting: CRM and marketing automation, payments, email
and SMS, reviews, support, analytics and ad pixels.

<img alt="Tech-stack categories found: SaaS companies BuiltWith 83%, DataForSEO 13%; online stores BuiltWith 76%, DataForSEO 14%." src="__img0" />

|                                 | BuiltWith    | DataForSEO |
| ------------------------------- | ------------ | ---------- |
| Categories found, SaaS          | 83%          | 13%        |
| Categories found, online stores | 76%          | 14%        |
| Lookups failed or empty         | 0 of 20      | 2 of 20    |
| Price per lookup                | about $0.018 | $0.012     |

## Why DataForSEO falls short [#why-dataforseo-falls-short]

DataForSEO's lookup sees mostly the website framework: Next.js, React,
Shopify, a cookie banner. It found HubSpot, Salesforce, Klaviyo or Stripe
almost nowhere, and it can't look up a website that redirects to another
domain.

## What to watch with BuiltWith [#what-to-watch-with-builtwith]

BuiltWith finds the tools, but it never forgets them. It still listed
Magento for two Shopify stores where it last saw Magento in 2019 and 2020,
and HubSpot for companies where it hadn't seen HubSpot in two years.

It also reports entries that aren't technologies at all: popularity
rankings, CDN edge locations, server countries and currencies.

Ask BuiltWith for live technologies only (detected since its latest full
crawl) before you filter on a tool, and drop the non-tool signals.

## Using BuiltWith in pipe0 [#using-builtwith-in-pipe0]

pipe0's [tech stack pipe](/docs/pipe-catalog/company:techstack:builtwith/2)
does both by default. It cleans up BuiltWith's noisy result set and
returns technologies currently in use, grouped by type.


## FAQ

### Is BuiltWith or DataForSEO better for technographics?

In our testing, BuiltWith won the comparison. We tested 20 websites in October 2026: BuiltWith found a technology in 76 to 83% of the prospecting categories we checked, DataForSEO in 13 to 14%. DataForSEO mostly detects the website framework and failed on 2 of 20 websites that redirect.

### How much does a BuiltWith or DataForSEO tech-stack lookup cost?

DataForSEO charges $0.012 per Domain Technologies lookup. A BuiltWith Domain API lookup uses one credit, about $0.018 at 20,000 credits for $359.

### Why does BuiltWith list technologies a company no longer uses?

BuiltWith keeps every technology it has ever detected. Its own definition of live is a technology detected after its latest full crawl. pipe0's tech stack pipe returns only those by default, and drops signals that aren't tools, such as popularity rankings, CDN locations and currencies.