Nearly half run WordPress. We checked the websites of 511 local contractors named by ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews across 72 trade-and-city boards, and 49.3% run on WordPress (95% confidence interval 45.0–53.6%)[1]. Another 15.9% show no known website builder, meaning a custom or hand-coded site, followed by Duda at 6.8% and Wix at 6.5%; all point-and-click builders together account for 22.5%[1]. AI engines named contractors on every common platform, so the platform alone does not rule a business in or out. The bigger gap is upstream: in 59% of contractor mentions, the engine’s answer did not cite the business’s own website at all[1].
BaaDigi builds websites, mostly on Next.js. Sites we built are excluded from the headline figures below so they cannot tilt the result; the full breakdown is in the methodology section.
Which website platforms do AI-recommended contractors use?
| Platform | Sites | Share | 95% CI |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 252 | 49.3% | 45.0–53.6% |
| No known builder (custom, hand-coded, headless) | 81 | 15.9% | 12.9–19.3% |
| Duda | 35 | 6.8% | 5.0–9.4% |
| Wix | 33 | 6.5% | 4.6–8.9% |
| Next.js | 19 | 3.7% | 2.4–5.7% |
| GoDaddy Website Builder | 15 | 2.9% | 1.8–4.8% |
| Squarespace | 14 | 2.7% | 1.6–4.5% |
| Hibu (built on Duda) | 13 | 2.5% | 1.5–4.3% |
| Webflow | 11 | 2.2% | 1.2–3.8% |
| GoHighLevel site builder | 10 | 2.0% | 1.1–3.6% |
| Other (React, Astro, Weebly, HubSpot CMS, Drupal, Framer and more) | 28 | 5.5% | — |
Point-and-click builders combined (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, Weebly, Duda, Hibu and Hostinger) account for 115 of the 511 sites, 22.5% (95% CI 19.1–26.3%)[1]. Eleven WordPress sites also carried a GoHighLevel chat widget, a sign that the CRM and the website are often separate tools[1].
How often do AI answers link to a contractor’s website?
Less often than you might expect, and it depends on the engine. Across 1,835 business mentions on the published boards, ChatGPT cited the business’s own website in 36.0% of its business mentions, while Perplexity did in 58.5%[1]. On contractor boards, 59.4% of mentions came without the business’s website among the cited sources[1].
Google AI Overviews barely featured. Every published board asked Google too, yet AI Overviews named only 21 of the 1,835 businesses, too few to analyse by platform[1][2].
The practical takeaway: being named is only half the job. If an engine names your business but has no website to cite, a customer has to go looking for you. Make sure your site is the obvious, consistent source for your name, services and city.
Does ChatGPT favour different platforms than Perplexity?
Not measurably. WordPress made up 46.2% of the sites ChatGPT named (n = 236) and 48.5% of those Perplexity named (n = 470), and the confidence intervals overlap almost completely[1]. The mix of platforms looks the same whichever engine you ask. (These two figures include BaaDigi-built sites, which the engine split could not exclude without leaving the samples too small.)
Does the platform mix change by trade?
| Trade | Sites | WordPress share | 95% CI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing, drain and septic | 45 | 55.6% | 41.2–69.1% |
| General and custom building | 37 | 54.1% | 38.4–69.0% |
| Roofing | 57 | 50.9% | 38.3–63.4% |
| Paving and pavers | 56 | 50.0% | 37.3–62.7% |
| Remodeling | 44 | 38.6% | 25.7–53.4% |
| Tree, lawn and landscape | 48 | 35.4% | 23.4–49.6% |
Remodeling and landscaping lean less on WordPress than plumbing or building, but every interval here is wide and they overlap. The trade figures include BaaDigi-built sites.
What do national franchises use?
Something else entirely. Of 30 franchise and national-brand sites the engines named, 46.7% ran no known builder, meaning custom national platforms, and only 23.3% ran WordPress[1]. They are excluded from the local contractor headline because a franchise location does not choose its own website.
What does this mean for your contractor website?
- Your platform does not disqualify you. AI engines named contractors on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Duda, GoDaddy, Webflow and custom builds alike.
- This study cannot show that any platform helps you get recommended. It describes the businesses that were named; it has no comparison group of businesses that were not.
- What the data does show is a citation gap. Most contractor mentions did not cite the business’s own website, which points to the basics: a site that clearly states your business name, services and service area, and that engines can find and quote.
How was this study done?
We started from BaaDigi’s published AI recommendation boards: for each trade and city, the same customer-style questions are asked of ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, and the businesses each engine names are recorded[2][3]. The 85 boards that pass our publication gate were checked between July 28 and September 16, 2026; 72 cover contractor and home-service trades[1].
- Population: 1,835 business mentions, 768 unique website domains. We set aside 134 non-contractor sites, 39 franchise or national brands and 5 directories, leaving 589 local contractor domains[1].
- Fetch: each homepage was requested once on September 21, 2026 with a standard browser user agent. 552 loaded; the rest failed on blocks, dead domains or certificate errors. Eight sites were dropped because the page no longer matched the business name[1].
- Detection: the platform was identified from signatures in the raw HTML, such as WordPress content paths or a builder’s asset host. Scripts were not executed, so a builder that only reveals itself after JavaScript runs is counted as "no known builder"[1].
- Accuracy: a random sample of 20 classifications was checked by hand against the saved pages; 19 were correct. The one miss revealed a missing rule, which was added before the final count[1].
- BaaDigi-built sites: 33 of the 544 matched sites link to baadigi.com, 23 of them on Next.js. They are removed from the headline (n = 511)[1].
Limits: the boards come from trades and cities people chose to check with our free tool, weighted toward our prospects and markets, so this is not a random sample of US contractors. AI answers vary from run to run[2]. Please cite as: BaaDigi, "What Website Platform Do the Contractors AI Recommends Actually Use?", September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
- What website platform do most AI-recommended contractors use?
- WordPress. In BaaDigi’s September 2026 check of 511 local contractor websites named by ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews, 49.3% ran on WordPress. Custom or hand-coded sites were next at 15.9%, then Duda at 6.8% and Wix at 6.5%.
- Do I need WordPress to be recommended by ChatGPT?
- No. AI engines named contractors on every common platform, including Wix, Squarespace, Duda, GoDaddy and Webflow. The study describes who was named; it cannot show that any platform causes a recommendation.
- How often does ChatGPT link to a contractor’s website?
- In this study ChatGPT cited the business’s own website for 36% of the businesses it named, compared with 58.5% for Perplexity. On contractor boards, most mentions did not cite the business’s website at all.
- Are Wix and Squarespace bad for AI search?
- This data does not show that. Point-and-click builders made up 22.5% of the sites AI engines named. What matters more is whether engines can find and cite your site in the first place.
Related reading
Sources
Every source was opened and read on the date shown. Vendor prices change; check the vendor's page before buying. How we research: methodology.
- BaaDigi website platform study, raw results and summary (run September 21, 2026) — checked 2026-09-21
- BaaDigi methodology: AI recommendation boards — checked 2026-09-21
- BaaDigi AI search visibility boards by trade and city — checked 2026-09-21