User-friendly and with a range of templates, Duda is a solid candidate when it comes to getting professional-looking websites up-and-running quickly. However, it’s slightly more expensive than some of its competitors—with no free option beyond a 14-day free trial—and it’s billed in US dollars.
Pros
- User-friendly and good scalability
- SEO-optimised pages
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
Cons
- Higher cost
- E-commerce is an additional add-on
- No free domain
![Duda Review](https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/fit-in/x/https://www.forbes.com/advisor/au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Duda.jpg)
Table of Contents
Duda at a Glance
Featured Partners
3
Bluehost
Starting price
$2.95 per month
Drag-and-Drop Interface
Yes
Standout Features
Wishlists, marketplace selling, unlimited products
Established in 2009, Duda is a popular website-building platform with offices in California, Brazil, Tel Aviv and London. It’s aimed at website builders that offer design services to small businesses.
Target markets range from freelance web professionals and digital agencies, right up to large web-hosting companies and global online publishers.
The Duda platform enables users to build responsive and mobile-friendly websites at scale from simple templates and a ‘drag and drop’ editor.
Every Duda website is automatically optimised to be quick loading, although experts say the SEO (search engine optimisation) features may be more limited than those of competitors.
All websites built on the Duda platform are hosted on its own servers, provided via Amazon Web Services (AWS), and guarantee sites maintain a 99.9% uptime. You cannot import code from an external source, but you can export code from Duda if you are on the Agency or Customised plans.
Duda Pricing
Duda offers a range of pricing options starting with its Basic Plan from $US25 ($37.46 AUD) a month, if paying monthly, but drops to $US19 ($28.47 AUD) a month on an annual plan—a discount of 25%. There are four tiers of pricing: basic, team, agency and white label.
The Basic Plan offers one site with Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosting, whereas the Team Plan features expand access from $US39 ($58.44 AUD) a month on a monthly plan, unlocking access to four Duda team members with collaboration access, as well as client management and client billing tools and full access to the content library. On an annual basis, the Team Plan costs $US29 ($43.46 AUD) per month.
Meanwhile, the Agency tier costs $US69 ($103.40 AUD) a month for which you get four websites with AWS hosting, priority email, phone and chat support, plus access to up to 10 Duda team members. As well as client management and billing, you’ll have access to widget builders for your pages and you’ll be able to export zip files (images, HTML, Javascript, for example) to use on different sites. To save 25%, you can get an annual plan that will cost you $US52 ($77.92 AUD)per month.
If you truly need a bespoke package, then you may wish to opt for the ‘white label’ plan, which features a custom platform domain; branded client communication and log-in screen; and white labeled support portal, among other features. The White Label Plan costs $US199 ($298.21 AUD) per month on a monthly basis, and US$149 ($223.28 AUD) per month when on an annual plan.
The top tier of Duda is a customised plan with many unlimited features, and the pricing of such will depend on your requirements. To find out if the custom plan is the best fit for your needs, you’ll need to contact Duda directly.
Duda offers a 14-day free trial for all new users. Plus, if you need to build online selling capabilities an e-commerce option can be added to all plan tiers at an additional cost, starting at $US7.25 ($10.86 AUD) per month.
What are the Benefits of Duda?
If you are starting or relaunching a business, Duda is a fast, effective way of establishing a professional online presence. It offers templates and designs which can be customised, saved and reused across multiple projects. You can also import content from your clients’ digital assets into the library, collect data and manage content within its digital library.
Since Google’s core web vitals was introduced in 2021 as the official measure of website speeds and user experience, Duda has remained among the leading website builders that perform strongly for loading speeds, visual stability and interactivity. Websites will be SEO-ready with site maps, local business schema, meta titles, keywords and descriptions, among other features.
Is Duda the Right Choice?
Experts say the Duda platform is a solid, user-friendly option for those looking to create multiple websites at pace.
It offers a wide range of webpage templates, apps and widgets, and you don’t have to be a design expert to create attractive pages. However, those looking for maximum creative freedom may feel restricted. Duda also has fewer added features compared to some competitors, and limited ‘extras’ within the Basic Plan.
On the plus side however, Duda hosts the website on your behalf—minimising extra cost and admin.
Pros and cons should be weighed up against the monthly subscription cost which is relatively high compared to the competition—particularly for users who want enhanced features or to significantly customise sites. Customer service is also restricted to email for those on the Basic plan.
When choosing any website builder, keep in mind the amount of storage you need, how much traffic is expected on the website, and whether the web host has reliable uptimes—in other words, whether it regularly functions smoothly.
How do I Cancel My Duda Contract?
Duda says customers can cancel—or downgrade—their monthly subscription at any time. Go to the dashboard on the Duda site and head into your account and click on ‘payment’, then ‘cancel account plan’. Users have to select a reason for cancellation, then click ‘cancel account’.
Sites and templates created will remain on your dashboard in the event you want to reactivate your account, according to the platform.
You can cancel site subscriptions by disabling auto renewal. Your site will remain live until the end of the billing period. To take your site offline immediately, you’ll need to unpublish your site.
Can I Transfer My Domain to Duda?
Yes. The Duda site builder does not host the user’s domains, but Duda says you can purchase a domain and connect it to your published site by creating a CNAME and two A records in your DNS settings.
Featured Partners
3
Bluehost
Starting price
$2.95 per month
Drag-and-Drop Interface
Yes
Standout Features
Wishlists, marketplace selling, unlimited products
FAQs
Do you have to pay for Duda?
Yes, Duda is a paid platform. There is no free option, with its cheapest plan starting at $US19 ($28.47 AUD) a month when subscribed to an annual plan. New users can have a 14-day free trial, but after those 14-days, you will be charged if you do not cancel your subscription.
What is Duda used for?
Duda is pitched at web design professionals and agencies who service small to medium-sized businesses in building professional-looking websites with high uptimes. It features client management portals and tools, as well as e-commerce capabilities at an additional cost.
Which companies use Duda?
It is estimated that some 200,000 companies use the Duda platform, most of which are based in the US with revenue between $1 and $10 million. They include Tumblr, Taos Mountain, and Avcorp Industries Inc.
Is Duda good for e-commerce?
Duda does offer e-commerce capabilities on all of its plans, but these come at an extra cost. This means that it may be more cost-efficient for an online business to host their website elsewhere, where the e-commerce capabilities are in-built.
Where is Duda based?
Duda was founded in Palo Alto, California. As of 2024, it has five offices around the world, including the US, UK, Israel and Brazil.
Is Duda better than Wix?
In our independent research, we found that Wix is most likely a better suited website builder for Australians. It has ranked highly from our data analysis as evident in our pick of the best website builders of the year, ranking 4 stars over Duda’s 3.5 stars.
You can read more about Wix here: Wix Review 2024: Features, Pros & Cons
The information provided by Forbes Advisor is general in nature and for educational purposes only. Any information provided does not consider the personal financial circumstances of readers, such as individual objectives, financial situation or needs. Forbes Advisor does not provide financial product advice and the information we provide is not intended to replace or be relied upon as independent financial advice. Your financial situation is unique and the products and services we review may not be right for your circumstances. Forbes Advisor encourages readers to seek independent expert advice from an authorised financial adviser in relation to their own financial circumstances and investments before making any financial decisions.
We do not offer financial advice, advisory or brokerage services, nor do we recommend or advise individuals to buy or sell particular stocks or securities. Performance information may have changed since the time of publication. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Forbes Advisor provides an information service. It is not a product issuer or provider. In giving you information about financial or credit products, Forbes Advisor is not making any suggestion or recommendation to you about a particular product. It is important to check any product information directly with the provider. Consider the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), Target Market Determination (TMD) and other applicable product documentation before making a decision to purchase, acquire, invest in or apply for a financial or credit product. Contact the product issuer directly for a copy of the PDS, TMD and other documentation. Forbes Advisor adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. To the best of our knowledge, all content is accurate as of the date posted, though offers contained herein may no longer be available. The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and have not been provided, approved or otherwise endorsed by our partners. For more information, read our Advice Disclaimer here.