WhatCMS
WhatCMS is a technology detection tool that tells you which CMS and other software power a web page, for marketers, researchers and sales teams qualifying accounts.
Updated October 2026
Overview: What is WhatCMS?
Single lookups on whatcms.org are free, and API plans run from a free 500 detections a month to $20 a month for 10,000 (checked October 2026).
It fetches a page and looks for the traces a system leaves behind, such as generator meta tags, image paths, custom headers and session names, and says it can detect over 1,200 technologies. In outbound it's a qualification check: confirm an account runs the platform your offer depends on before it goes into a sequence. It checks URLs you give it rather than searching a database of companies.
Fit: Ideal customer profile.
Agencies, freelancers and B2B teams that sell to companies on a particular platform (WordPress, Shopify, Drupal) and want to check accounts before outreach. It isn't a contact database: you get technologies, hosting and social profile links, not names or emails, so it pairs with an enrichment tool.
- Account qualification
- Batch tech lookups
- Web agencies
Capabilities
Key features.
01
CMS and technology detection from a single URL, checked per page rather than per domain
02
Batch detection: upload a list of URLs and download results as JSON or CSV
03
Tech API returning CMS, version, programming language, database and web server
04
Social profile links (X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube) returned with API results
05
Hosting provider and WordPress theme detection through sister sites on the same API key
06
Tech Reports: lists of sites filtered by technology, host, theme, language and traffic rank
07
Private detections on paid plans, kept out of public lists and reports
Usage
How to use WhatCMS.
Paste a URL on whatcms.org for a one-off check, or get an API key and call the Tech endpoint with the URL. One subscription also covers Who-Hosts-This.com (hosting) and ThemeDetect.com (WordPress themes). There are no native CRM integrations listed, so teams call the API from a spreadsheet script, Clay or n8n and write the result back to the account record.
Cost
Pricing.
$20/ month
API plans are priced by detections per month, in USD, and can be cancelled any time (checked October 2026). Intermediate plans run from 50,000 detections at $80 a month to 900,000 at $760. Accounts revert to the free plan when a subscription ends.
Free
$0.00
- 500 detections a month
- 1 API request per 10 seconds
- No batch processing
10,000 detections
$20.00
- 1 API request per 5 seconds
- Batch processing
- Ad-free interface
20,000 detections
$40.00
- 1 API request per 2 seconds
- Private detections
100,000 detections
$150.00
- 1 request per second
- Private detections
1,000,000 detections
$800.00
- 4 requests per second
- Private detections
At a glance
Quick facts.
- Stack position
- Enrichment
- Best for
- Account qualification, Batch tech lookups, Web agencies
- Pricing
- From $20/month
Questions
Frequently asked.
Is WhatCMS free?
Single checks on the website are free, and the free API plan includes 500 detections a month at one request every 10 seconds. Batch uploads and private detections need a paid plan.
Does WhatCMS have an API?
Yes. The Tech endpoint takes a URL and your API key and returns the CMS, version, language, database, web server and any social profile links it found, as JSON.
How accurate is WhatCMS?
It checks each page for thousands of known artifacts, and detection is per page, so a WordPress blog under a custom-built homepage reads as two systems. When it finds no known artifact it returns "not detected", and pages it can't reach return an error.
WhatCMS vs BuiltWith: what's the difference?
WhatCMS answers what a given page runs, cheaply, by URL or batch. BuiltWith keeps 18 years or more of adoption history and sells lists of sites by technology, at a much higher price.
What are the alternatives to WhatCMS?
Wappalyzer and WhatRuns detect technologies in the browser, BuiltWith adds lists and history, PublicWWW searches page source code across sites, and TheirStack finds companies by technology and hiring signals from job posts.
Compare
WhatCMS alternatives.
Talk to us: Pick the tool. We run the system around it.
WhatCMS is one part of a stack. We build and run the revenue system it plugs into.
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