Is Duda Good for a Contractor Website?

Why do so many contractors end up on Duda?

Through a marketing vendor, usually without choosing it. Duda says more than 23,000 agencies, hosting companies, media publishers and software platforms use it to build and manage their clients’ sites^[1]. Its named partners include Thryv, Hibu, Italiaonline, IONOS and UOL^[2]. On the White Label plan, the agency can put its own logo and colors on the platform, so a contractor may never see the Duda name^[3].

That changes who you deal with. Duda’s help center says its support does not transfer sites, and that a client who needs ownership of a site has to go to the site’s account owner, which is usually the agency^[7].

Not sure what your site runs on? Ask your agency in writing which platform it uses and whose account the site sits in. The answer decides everything in the section on leaving below.

What does Duda cost?

Annual plans are charged upfront^[3]. Each extra published site costs $19 a month or $171 a year on Basic, and $17 a month or $168 a year on the higher plans^[3]. There is no free plan; Duda offers a 14-day free trial with no card and a 30-day money-back guarantee^[3].

• Renewal: plans renew automatically, and Duda’s terms let it change prices at any time, with notice to subscribers of any increase^[9]. The pricing page shows no intro-to-renewal price jump^[3].
• Domain: every self-serve plan includes a free domain worth up to $12 for the first year, registered through IONOS^[3]. The renewal price after year one is not published.
• Email: the pricing page lists no business mailbox product^[3].
• Bookings: sold separately per site. As of October 2, 2026, Duda lists a limited-time free tier with one staff calendar, with booking free until October 20, 2026; paid tiers run $7–$45 a month billed annually, and charging customers for appointments needs the Advanced tier ($20–$22 a month) or higher^[10].
• Transaction fees: Duda advertises a 0% transaction fee on its store and booking plans^[10]. That page does not list payment-processor fees.
• AI Visibility add-on, which tracks mentions in AI answers: from $19 a month after a 14-day trial^[3].

What an agency charges a contractor for a Duda site is set by the agency and is not public. Duda’s own wholesale price for an extra site is the $17–$19 a month above^[3].

What happens to your Duda site if you leave your agency?

Under Duda’s current documented rules you cannot move it out on your own. Read this before you sign with, or leave, an agency that builds on Duda.

• Transfer needs the agency: a site moves to another Duda account through a Site Transfer run from the account that holds it, and the receiving account must have an active subscription^[7]. Duda support will not transfer a site for you^[7].
• The site goes dark during the move: on transfer the old subscription is canceled and the site is unpublished until the new account pays for it^[7].
• Some sites cannot be transferred while these conditions apply, and the help pages we read do not say whether each can be removed: sites set up under the agency’s Client Billing, Site-for-Life sites, sites with paid add-on subscriptions such as paid apps, and sites with an unpaid invoice^[7]. Contact form responses might not transfer^[7].
• Export is limited to Agency plans and higher, to published sites up to 1 GB, and only users with the account owner or staff member role can run it^[8].
• The export is incomplete: the blog comes out only as an RSS file, store products as CSV, and dynamic pages are left out. Contact forms and other dynamic features stop working^[8].
• An exported ZIP cannot be imported back into another Duda account, and the exported code may not be unminified^[8].
• Duda will not referee a dispute between you and your agency: "Under no circumstances shall Duda act as an intermediary, arbiter, or adjudicator between You and any third party"^[9].
• Sites abandoned for six months may be deleted^[9].

Dynamic pages are how Duda builds many pages from one template, such as a page for every city you serve^[11]. If your service-area pages are dynamic, they will not be in an export.

Duda’s terms say it does not own or claim the text, photos and other content on your site^[9]. It does take a worldwide, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable license to use that content for the purposes of its agreement^[9], and the "You" in that agreement is the account holder, usually the agency^[9].

Domains: the free first-year domain is registered through IONOS^[3], but we found no Duda help article on whose name it is registered in or how to transfer it out. Check the WHOIS record yourself.

Put the exit in your agency contract before you sign: who owns the site and the domain, that the domain is registered in your name, that the site will not be set up under Client Billing, and that the agency will run a transfer to your own Duda account within a set number of days if you leave.

Can AI search engines read a Duda website?

Yes, and by default Duda lets AI companies do more than read it.

• Default AI-training signal: Duda’s default robots.txt now carries a Content-Signal line saying search=yes, ai-input=yes and ai-train=yes, meaning AI companies are told they may use the content for search, for AI answers and for model training^[6]. That is a permission signal; it does not show that any model trained on your site or can technically reach it. The line is live on Duda’s own hosted blog^[12].
• Opting out: there is no per-bot switch. To block AI crawlers you replace the whole default robots.txt with a custom file you upload^[13]. Duda does not check the file for mistakes^[6].
• llms.txt: generated automatically on every published site since June 2025, listing pages, dynamic pages, blog posts and store pages with their descriptions^[6][14].
• The paid AI Visibility add-on has a per-site switch, but it turns tracking on or off; it does not change which crawlers can reach the site^[15].

If you do not want your site used to train AI models, you or your agency must upload a replacement robots.txt. Test it after uploading, because a typo can block search engines too.

How fast are Duda websites?

Fast by any common measure. In August 2026, 86.0% of Duda origins passed all three Core Web Vitals on mobile (45,113 origins measured) and 87.5% on desktop (15,874 origins), according to the HTTP Archive Core Web Vitals Technology Report^[4]. The whole-web baseline in the same report is 53.0% on mobile and 60.2% on desktop^[5].

Duda has improved over time. The HTTP Archive Web Almanac’s 2025 dataset shows Duda’s mobile pass rate rising from 62% in 2023 to 73% in 2024 and 85% in 2025^[16].

What SEO controls does Duda give you?

• Titles and meta descriptions: editable per page, and Duda’s AI can generate page titles, meta descriptions and image alt text across a site^[3]. Custom meta tags can go on one page or the whole site^[17].
• 301 redirects: built in, with 301 as the default, wildcards, and CSV import of up to 200 redirects per file^[18]. That makes moving an old site with ranking pages manageable.
• Canonical tags: set automatically and not editable^[17].
• Sitemap: generated automatically and includes pages, blog posts, dynamic page records and store products^[6].
• Schema: Duda generates several types automatically depending on the widgets used, including LocalBusiness, FAQ and Article^[17], and you can paste your own JSON-LD into a page header^[19].
• Custom code: developer mode and an HTML widget are on the Team plan and higher. There is no server-side code such as PHP^[20].

Does Duda have the local business features contractors need?

• LocalBusiness schema: generated from the site’s business info, but it must be switched on for each site^[21] and covers only one location. Multi-location businesses have to turn it off and add schema by hand^[19].
• Click-to-call: a native Click To Call widget places a call when tapped on mobile^[22].
• Forms: unlimited form submissions on every plan^[3].
• Booking: Duda Bookings has staff calendars that sync with Google, Apple and Outlook, plus email and SMS reminders^[10].
• Location pages: dynamic pages can build one page per city from a collection. The Team plan allows one collection of up to 10 rows; Agency and up allow up to 100 collections, including Google Sheets and Airtable^[3][11].
• Reviews: the Google Reviews widget cannot be installed on new sites since October 11, 2024^[23], and the Yelp widget shows only three positive reviews^[24].
• Google Business Profile: Duda advertises keeping data such as business hours in sync between the site and the profile^[1].

Do not assume your Duda site has LocalBusiness schema. Check your homepage’s raw JSON-LD (view source) or a schema validator as well as Google’s Rich Results Test, since an empty test result alone does not prove the schema is missing; if it is absent, ask your agency to switch it on in the site’s business info.

How many AI-recommended contractors use Duda?

More than any builder except WordPress. In BaaDigi’s September 2026 study of 511 contractor websites named by ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews, 6.8% ran on Duda (95% confidence interval 5.0–9.4%) and a further 2.5% on Hibu, which is built on Duda (95% CI 1.5–4.3%)^[25]. Together that is 48 of the 511 sites, 9.4%^[25]. Only WordPress (49.3%) was more common among named platforms; Wix was 6.5%^[25]. A count, not a cause: the study cannot show that Duda helps or hurts a contractor’s chance of being recommended.

Across the web as a whole, W3Techs puts Duda on 0.7% of all websites, a 1.1% share of sites whose content system it can identify^[26].

What do users complain about?

That it is built for agencies. A Software Advice reviewer describes Duda as a wholesale platform that agencies resell, not a platform for one business running a single website^[27]. One recent Trustpilot reviewer reported waiting days for a support reply, though Trustpilot’s own summary of reviews praises Duda’s support^[28].

What changed at Duda in 2025–2026?

• June 27, 2025: automatic llms.txt rolled out to all published sites^[14].
• January 29, 2026: "Populate Template with AI" announced, filling a template’s content with AI without changing its layout^[29].
• July 23, 2026: Duda Vibe, a conversational editor for building web tools, plus AI-built custom widgets^[30].
• August 20, 2026: the AI Visibility add-on launched, tracking brand mentions in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI^[15].
• September 2026: terms of service updated^[9], and a deeper integration with Google’s measurement and analytics tools for client reporting^[31].
• Plans now include monthly AI credits^[3].

Should a contractor use Duda?

• Yes, if you work with an agency you trust, want a fast, well-structured site with real 301 redirects and click-to-call, and have the exit terms in writing.
• No, if your agency sets the site up under Client Billing or will not commit to a transfer if you leave. You would be renting a site you cannot take with you while those terms apply.
• Think twice about buying direct. It is possible from $19 a month, but Duda is built for agencies managing many sites, and export only arrives on the $52-a-month Agency plan.
• Either way: check that the domain is in your name, that LocalBusiness schema is switched on, and whether you are happy with the default AI-training signal in robots.txt.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Duda cost?

Duda’s own plans are Basic at $19 a month, Team at $29, Agency at $52 and White Label at $149 when billed annually, or $25, $39, $69 and $199 billed monthly. Most contractors pay an agency instead, and what agencies charge for a Duda site is not public.

Can I take my Duda website with me if I leave my agency?

Not on your own, under Duda’s current documented rules. The agency has to transfer the site to a Duda account you pay for, and the site is unpublished until that account pays. Sites set up under an agency’s Client Billing cannot be transferred while that setting applies. The export tool, available only on Agency plans and higher, exports the blog only as an RSS file and leaves out dynamic pages and working contact forms.

Is Hibu built on Duda?

Duda names Hibu as a partner, and BaaDigi’s September 2026 study of 511 AI-recommended contractor websites detected Hibu sites as built on Duda: 2.5% ran on Hibu, alongside 6.8% on Duda directly.

Does Duda let AI train on my website?

Its default robots.txt says so, as a signal. Duda’s default robots.txt includes a Content-Signal line that permits search, AI answers and AI training; that does not show any model trained on your site. To opt out, you or your agency must upload a replacement robots.txt, since there is no per-bot switch.

Does Duda add LocalBusiness schema automatically?

Only if it is switched on. Duda generates LocalBusiness schema from the site’s business info, but it must be enabled for each site and covers only one location. Multi-location businesses need to add their schema by hand.

Related reading

• Best website platform for contractors
• What platforms AI-recommended contractors use
• Is WordPress good for contractors?
• Is Wix good for contractors?
• Is GoDaddy Website Builder good for contractors?
• AI crawlers and your contractor website’s robots.txt
• What is an llms.txt file?