BuiltWith: $14M ARR with Zero Employees
895K
Monthly Visitors
$19M
Traffic Value/yr
86
Domain Rating
23.6K
Ref. Domains
Gary Brewer generates $14 million per year with zero employees.
That's not a typo. BuiltWith—the platform that tells you what technologies power any website—runs almost entirely on automation. No sales team. No customer support staff. No engineers besides Gary himself.
Every day, Brewer works three jobs: founder, lead developer, and customer support. He's been doing this since 2007, building what might be the most successful solo-founder bootstrapped business on the internet.
With 895,000 monthly organic visitors, $19 million in traffic value, and 250+ million websites indexed, BuiltWith has become the definitive tool for anyone who wants to know what technology powers a website.
The Challenge
In 2007, discovering what technologies a website used was tedious manual work.
Gary Brewer had a habit while visiting startup websites: he'd view their source code to see what frameworks, analytics tools, and payment providers they used. It was curiosity—the kind of thing developers do.
But nobody had built a tool to make this easy. You had to manually inspect code, search for telltale signs, and piece together a technology profile yourself.
So Gary built BuiltWith as a side project, coding every evening after his day job. For four years. Every evening.
Directory Overview
| Website | builtwith.com |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Founder | Gary Brewer |
| Niche | Technology detection for websites |
| Business Model | Freemium SaaS ($295-$995/month) |
| Employees | 1 (Gary + some content contractors) |
Key Metrics (Ahrefs, January 2026)
Monthly Organic Traffic
894,666
2M+ total monthly page views
Traffic Value
$19M/yr
Would cost this much in Google Ads
Domain Rating
86/100
Elite authority level
Referring Domains
23,596
23.4M total backlinks
Search Performance
Monthly Organic Traffic
894,666
Traffic Value
$19,000,000/year
Business Scale
Annual Revenue
$14M+
Websites Indexed
250M+
Traffic Sources
What The Numbers Tell Us
250 million pages = 250 million SEO opportunities: Every website has a BuiltWith profile page. Each can rank for searches like "[company name] technology stack" or "[competitor] what CMS." Programmatic SEO at massive scale.
Zero paid advertising: BuiltWith doesn't run ads. All 2 million monthly page views come from organic search and word-of-mouth. The free tier does the marketing.
17 years of compounding: Launched in 2007, BuiltWith has accumulated 23.4 million backlinks and an 86 DR over nearly two decades. This authority is essentially impossible for new competitors to replicate quickly.
Monetization Strategy
Revenue Model
BuiltWith's model: give away single lookups forever, charge for bulk data and enterprise features.
Free Tier (Forever)
Look up any individual website free. See basic tech profile. Available forever. Drives 2M+ monthly page views and awareness.
Paid Subscriptions ($295-$995/mo)
Bulk exports, lead generation lists (e.g., "all Shopify sites"), historical tracking, API access, advanced filtering.
Sales Intelligence Use Case
"Show me all sites using [competitor]" = instant prospect list. This utility justifies premium pricing for sales teams.
Enterprise Self-Service
Users sign up, pay, and access data without sales calls. No sales team needed.
Why This Model Works: The free tier isn't a trial—it's permanent. This generosity drives traffic, builds awareness, and creates goodwill. Users who need bulk data (sales teams, marketers, competitive analysts) convert to paid plans naturally.
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Top Ranking Keywords
| Keyword | Volume | Position | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| builtwith | 12,000 | #1 | 11,666 |
| built with | 8,500 | #1 | 8,476 |
| totalsportek | 91,000 | #2 | 1,898 |
| buildwith | 700 | #1 | 657 |
SEO Insights
Natural citation machine: When journalists, analysts, or bloggers reference technology data, they cite BuiltWith. These natural backlinks (23.4 million) built domain authority over time without any link-building strategy.
Brand = category: BuiltWith has become the default tool for technology detection. When people want to know what a site uses, they "BuiltWith it." This brand recognition drives direct searches.
Programmatic SEO at scale: 250 million website profiles = 250 million indexed pages. Each captures searches about that specific website's technology stack.
Competitive Landscape
Key Competitors
| Competitor | Focus | Differentiation |
|---|---|---|
| similartech.com | Technology detection | BuiltWith has larger database, longer history |
| wappalyzer.com | Browser extension | BuiltWith has bulk data, enterprise features |
| stackshare.io | Self-reported tech stacks | BuiltWith detects vs. relies on self-reporting |
| whatruns.com | Browser extension | BuiltWith has comprehensive historical data |
Why BuiltWith Wins: 17 years of head start. 250 million websites indexed. 23.4 million backlinks. The combination of scale, history, and SEO authority creates a moat that well-funded competitors can't quickly cross.
Key Lessons for Directory Builders
1. Build for Yourself First
Gary started BuiltWith because he was curious about website technology. He built a tool he wanted to use. That personal interest sustained four years of evening work before going full-time.
2. Free Forever Creates Permanent Value
BuiltWith's free tier isn't a trial—it's permanent. Anyone can look up single sites forever. This generosity drives traffic and converts power users to paid plans naturally.
3. Automate Everything Possible
The reason BuiltWith works with one person is automation. Crawling, processing, billing, account management—all automated. What's left is what requires human judgment.
4. Match the Business to Your Life
Gary didn't want to manage employees or raise funding. He built a business matching his preferred way of working: solo, automated, profitable. $14M/year proves you don't need scale to build wealth.
5. 17 Years Compounds
Seventeen years of continuous operation, content accumulation, and backlink earning created an asset no well-funded competitor can quickly replicate. Time is the ultimate moat.
6. Utility Creates Natural Links
When people reference technology data, they cite BuiltWith. This wasn't a link-building strategy—it was a consequence of being useful. Build something people reference, and links follow.
Conclusion
Here's what BuiltWith taught me: You don't need a team to build a massive business. You need automation, patience, and a product people genuinely need.
Gary Brewer spent four years coding every evening while working a day job. He didn't raise money, hire engineers, or build a sales team. He built a tool that solves a real problem, automated everything possible, and let time do its work.
Seventeen years later, BuiltWith generates $14 million annually with essentially no employees. Gary is the founder, the developer, and the customer support team. The business matches his life, not the other way around.
For directory builders, the lesson challenges conventional wisdom: Venture capital isn't required. Large teams aren't required. Rapid scaling isn't required.
What's required is a product that solves a genuine problem, an architecture that enables automation, and the patience to let compound growth work.
Could you build a one-person directory worth millions?
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Sources: Ahrefs (traffic data, January 2026), Starter Story, Colin Keeley blog, TechCrunch.