Theo vs Durable for a small business website (October 2026)

The scorecard

Durable's facts come from its pricing page, help center and Terms of Service, read October 2, 2026; Theo's from its own pages the same day.

Tally: Theo 4, Durable 1, even 2, split 1. The questions asked of each round: who does the work after launch, what the owner keeps, and what it costs each month.

Round 1: Who builds the site

Durable takes a few details about the business and generates a site in about 30 seconds; the owner edits from there. On the Free plan the result is a private preview on a durable.site subdomain with a Built with Durable badge; a custom domain comes with Launch or Grow.

Theo asks what the business does in a chat, or takes the address of the site the owner already has and matches its look. Minutes is the usual wait for the first preview, a starting draft: the owner types what should change, drops photos into the chat and publishes when it reads right. That first build is free, before any plan or trial.

Round result: even.

Round 2: Who makes changes after launch

On Durable, a change goes to its AI Partner in plain words. The help center says it returns an updated website draft, asks the owner to verify the new text or image, and the owner clicks Publish. The AI chat allows 10 messages a month on Free and 1,000 on Launch, and is unlimited on Grow.

On Theo the request is typed in chat, Theo makes the change, and the owner publishes. A correction is another line of chat, and anyone the owner invites from the site's settings can ask too. Changes draw on chat credits: 1,500 a month on Basic, 4,500 on Starter and 7,000 on Pro.

Round result: even.

Round 3: Who does the SEO and growth work

Durable's on-page basics are automatic on every published site: meta tags, image alt text, heading structure, internal links, structured data, a sitemap and a robots file. Launch and Grow add a Visibility Score, listing tracking, a Keyword Opportunities tool that generates a page or post for the owner to review and publish, directory recommendations by email, and a Blog agent that drafts 10 posts a month on Launch and 32 on Grow. Each tool hands the next step back to the owner, and the Visibility Score article lists those steps: adding listings, fixing mismatches, adding missing profiles, getting reviews and keeping details consistent.

On Starter and Pro, Theo does the research, writing and site fixes those tools point at: the keyword and competitor research, the pages, blog posts and landing pages, the technical and page-speed fixes, and the Search Console submissions for the new pages, week by week. The drafts arrive in the Growth tab without the owner asking, go live when the owner publishes or turns on auto-publish, are listed in a weekly report, and use no chat credits. Basic has no growth program.

This round carries the verdict because a quiet site is common. In Theo's audit of 5,974 small business websites, 48 percent of the 4,027 sites with search data got an estimated zero visitors a month from Google search (The State of Small Business Websites 2026). The sample is the sites whose owners ran the free audit, not a random draw, and the figure describes traffic, not its cause.

An example of the two workflows, not a customer result: an electrician. Of the 373 home services and trades sites in that audit with search data, 39 percent got an estimated zero visitors a month from Google search. On Durable Launch, the week is: open Keyword Opportunities, pick EV charger installation, click Create page, fix the service area and prices, publish, then add the directories the Visibility Score lists. On Theo Starter the same week arrives as three drafts for sign-off: a page for EV charger installation written around the towns the electrician serves, a fix for a slow photo gallery, and a post on panel upgrade costs.

Search traffic builds over months, not weeks. Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO puts the payoff at four months to a year. In the first 30 days, expect the site live, the first pages published and submitted to Google, and impressions starting to appear in Search Console; clicks follow as the pages move up.

Round result: Theo.

Round 4: Sticker price

As of October 2026, Durable's pricing page lists three plans: Free at $0, Launch at $25 a month billed monthly or $22 a month billed yearly, and Grow at $49 a month billed monthly or $41 a month billed yearly. Under its Terms of Service a subscription renews for a term equal to the first and fees are non-refundable. No paid-plan trial or money-back window is advertised on its public pricing or help pages.

Round 4, continued: what each plan buys

Durable Launch includes a domain registration shown as worth up to $20, the SEO and GEO tools, 10 blog drafts and 20 lead replies a month, 1,000 AI chat messages and bookings synced to a calendar. Grow raises the domain value to $40 and the caps to 32 and 100, makes AI chat and team members unlimited, and adds a one-to-one onboarding call.

Theo Basic is the site build, managed hosting and security with 1,500 chat credits a month. Starter adds the ongoing search and content work and 4,500 credits. Pro adds 7,000 credits, more pages and posts each week, and the code access described in Round 8.

Round result: Durable.

Round 5: Site plus the work, per month

This round prices getting the weekly search and content work done, not the tools for it. Durable does not sell that work at any price: its paid plans supply tools and drafts, and its people are support chat and, on Grow, an onboarding call. The Grow bill is $49 a month, or $41 a month on yearly billing, for the tools alone; an owner who wants the pages written and submitted each week does it personally on top of that or hires someone, and since no Durable service for it is priced anywhere, no number is put on it here.

On Starter and Pro the pages and posts are written and submitted by Theo, and the Boost checklist walks the owner through the listings and reviews. Theo Starter at $69.99 a month is one bill for the site, hosting, chat edits and the weekly work, with the first 30 days free; Pro, $129.99 a month, adds more pages and posts each week.

Round result: Theo.

Round 6: Online store

Durable has no online store, cart or product catalog. Its pricing FAQ says it is not designed specifically to support e-commerce businesses, and its own recipe for selling is a product page per item with a Buy button that opens a payment link from the owner's Stripe account, plus an optional shop page.

Theo does not process payments either; the difference is the cart. A Shopify or Wix store connected on any Theo plan puts its products, prices and stock on the Theo pages with a cart, sends the buyer to the store to pay, and refreshes when the owner clicks Refresh my products after a product change. For a new store Theo recommends Shopify. Shopify Basic is $39 a month, or $29 a month on yearly billing, as of October 2026; with Shopify paid monthly the combined bill is $68.99 on Theo Basic, $108.99 on Starter and $168.99 on Pro (arithmetic).

For an owner selling through Durable payment links, Theo's order of options is the same as for any platform store, and it starts with Shopify: move the products there, and the Stripe records stay in the owner's Stripe account. If not, the Durable site and its Buy buttons can live on at shop.yourdomain.com while the Theo site takes the main domain. If that too is too hard, the Durable site stays where it is and a separate Theo site on a subdomain such as blog.yourdomain.com carries the pages written on Starter and Pro.

Round result: Theo.

Round 7: Domain and email

Every paid Durable plan includes a domain registration, shown on its pricing page as worth up to $20 on Launch and $40 on Grow; the Free plan stays on a private preview address, and an owner can connect a domain they already own instead. A Durable-registered domain leaves under its transfer policy, updated April 30, 2026: three consecutive months of active subscription, no outstanding payments, and a request to support for the authorization code, in a transfer its FAQ says takes a couple of weeks. Durable provides no email; a mailbox comes from an outside provider connected through the domain settings.

Theo includes no domain. The owner connects one they already own or buys one inside Theo, and Theo walks them through pointing the root and the www version at the site, turning off forwarding and parking at the registrar, and leaving the email records alone so the mailbox keeps working with whichever provider runs it. A new site gets a registration with a paid Durable plan, under the transfer terms above, or buys its domain through Theo; an existing site keeps its domain at its current registrar and connects it on either product.

Round result: split.

Round 8: Ownership and leaving

Durable's Terms say the customer owns all output, and that the images Durable generates are for use within its service only. No website export is documented on its pages: the help center's one export article covers the customer list as a CSV, and the delete-account article says the website, customers and assets are permanently removed, with no backup step. Cancellation is from the dashboard, access runs to the end of the billing period, and refunds are not automatically issued.

A Theo site belongs to its owner on every plan, and the owner can copy the pages and images out at any time; the pages written on Starter and Pro are the owner's content too. Pro adds read-only access to the site's code through GitHub. A cancellation runs to the end of the paid period and the confirmation screen shows the date.

Round result: Theo.

How to move from Durable to Theo

With no site export documented on Durable, the move starts from the live site, which Theo reads at its address; the Durable site stays up until the domain points at Theo. The free audit reports the live site's estimated search traffic without a login, and the moving a website to Theo hub covers redirects and rankings. Four steps:

1. Give Theo the Durable site's address; it builds a matching preview, usually within minutes, for the owner to refine in chat.
2. Check every page and drag in anything missing; the old Durable addresses that still get traffic are given redirects once Search Console is connected.
3. Point the domain at Theo when the new site is ready. A domain registered through Durable is transferred to the owner first, after the three paid months its policy requires.
4. Connect Analytics and Search Console on the live domain. On Starter and Pro they are the switch that starts the weekly work.

The bottom line

Theo wins the tally, four rounds to one with two even and one split, and the round the decision rests on: on Starter and Pro Theo initiates the weekly research, writing and fixes and reports them, while every Durable plan leaves the owner to run the tools, carry the drafts through and submit the pages. Durable takes the sticker-price round on its own facts, and the domain round splits by whether the site is new. For a small business owner who wants the site to bring in customers, the recommendation is Theo: Starter, free for the first 30 days, or Pro for the weekly work, and Basic for the site and hosting alone. Prices and terms as of October 2, 2026.

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