B12 vs Durable: which AI website builder suits your business?

The short version

Durable is the quicker and cheaper choice for a simple local service business: a cleaner, plumber, personal trainer or solo consultant who needs a clean site, online bookings, invoices and a tidy list of customers. Its Launch plan costs $22 a month billed yearly.

B12 costs more but goes further on client paperwork. Its Website + Client Engagement plan ($78 a month) adds intake forms, contracts with e-signatures, invoicing with automatic payment reminders and email marketing. B12 also sells done-for-you plans where its own designers and writers finish the site. It suits accountants, therapists, lawyers and other professional services that onboard clients formally.

Neither is built around a product catalogue. If selling physical products is the main job, you will be happier with a proper store, and we cover that further down.

B12 and Durable at a glance

Features as listed on each vendor's site in October 2026, with what independent reviewers report where the vendor is vague.

How fast and how good is the first draft?

Durable says it builds a site in about 30 seconds, and reviewers broadly agree. B12 says its first draft takes about two minutes. The 90 seconds between them makes no practical difference: you will spend hours, not minutes, turning either draft into something accurate.

What matters is what the draft gets right. Reviewers say Durable's sites follow a recognisable template structure built for local services. B12's drafts are a reasonable start, but reviewers warn they need checking for accuracy and generic claims, and specialist niches can need heavier rework.

The fairest test is to give both the same short description (what you do, where, for whom and what makes you different) and compare the drafts:

• Did it get your services and service area right, or guess?
• Did it invent claims you never gave it, such as years in business, awards or guarantees?
• Are the pages sensible for your business: services, about, contact, booking?
• Is there one clear next step for visitors, such as book, call or request a quote?

Both have free plans, so this test costs you half an hour and nothing else.

Design range and editing

Durable is made for local service businesses and it shows. Templates are grouped by industry, from home services to health and wellness, and reviewers describe the result as mostly one long scrolling page with a few extra pages. You cannot add your own code, and changing the structure beyond what the templates allow is limited. For a five-page service site that is fine. For dozens of pages or a busy blog, it starts to strain.

B12 gives you two ways to edit: chat with its AI agent to change copy, swap images, add pages or rework the design, or click any element in the visual editor. Reviewers rate its design freedom as moderate, more than Durable but less than Webflow or a custom WordPress site, with a default look they call clean but not distinctive. On its expert plans, B12's designers will polish the draft for you.

Neither tool gives you a distinctive brand on its own. Your own photos, logo and a consistent colour palette do most of that work, whichever builder you pick.

SEO tools

Both cover the basics most small sites need: mobile-friendly pages, page titles and descriptions, and a sitemap so Google can find your pages.

Durable includes metadata, a sitemap and robots.txt even on its free plan. Launch adds what it calls advanced SEO and GEO (optimisation for AI answers in tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI results), an AI blog writer and a link to your Google Business Profile. Reviewers say it handles local search well, but the blog is basic, without scheduled publishing or multiple authors, so it is not the tool for a content-heavy site.

B12 gives you page titles, meta descriptions, social sharing settings, a blog and built-in analytics. Its done-for-you plans add SEO specialists who write search-optimised pages or articles each month, which is the main reason some owners pay for them.

Be realistic about what any builder does for rankings. For a local business, these matter far more than which tool you choose:

• One page per service, with the service and town in the page title.
• A complete, active Google Business Profile with the same name, address and phone number as your site.
• Real reviews from real customers, collected steadily.
• Useful answers to the questions customers actually ask you, in your own words.

Booking, payments and CRM

This is where the two differ most, and where the price gap comes from.

Durable puts the essentials on its $22 Launch plan: unlimited bookings synced to your calendar, a built-in CRM with no limit on customers (the free plan stops at 10) and payments through Stripe. Once payments are switched on, every invoice includes a secure pay link and is marked paid when Stripe confirms. The payment methods your customers see depend on your country. Grow adds unlimited team members and site translation with a language switcher, which helps if you serve customers in two languages.

B12 has a built-in scheduling tool: clients book on your site, both of you get confirmation emails, and you set your availability, appointment length and the gap between appointments. Its Website + Client Engagement plan then adds the paperwork a professional service needs:

• client intake forms and file uploads
• a contact manager with notes, segments and AI-drafted follow-up emails
• email newsletters and follow-up sequences
• contracts with e-signatures
• card and ACH payments, invoices and automatic payment reminders
• a custom email address

B12's plan line-up changed during 2026 and reviewers note that its help articles vary by platform version, so confirm which plan includes scheduling before you pay for it.

On CRM depth, reviewers call Durable's basic, and B12 calls its version a contact manager. For a solo owner that is usually enough. If several people chase leads for you, look for deal stages, tasks and lead scoring, and test them before you commit.

The real cost after the first month

A note on B12's entry price. When we checked its pricing page in October 2026 it listed the Website plan at $24 a month, but several reviews published this year quote $49 a month (about $42 billed yearly). Vendor pages can show different prices by region and they change often, so go by the figure you see at checkout. B12's paid plans cost $1 for the first seven days. Reviews this year put the expert plans at about $199 and $399 a month plus a one-off setup fee of about $2,000. Durable's yearly billing saves about 15% compared with paying monthly.

Here is year one for a typical solo service business that needs a custom domain, online bookings and invoices customers can pay online:

• Durable Launch: 12 months at $22 = $264.
• B12 Website + Client Engagement (the plan that lists invoicing and payments): 12 months at $78 = $936 at the listed monthly price.

That is a gap of roughly $670 a year. B12's extra cost makes sense if its contracts, intake forms and email marketing replace tools you would otherwise pay for separately, such as an e-signature app and a newsletter tool. If you would not use them, Durable is the better value. On either platform, card processing fees come on top and vary by country.

Both also ration AI credits, which are used when you ask the AI to write or redesign. The allowances are not comparable, so check what happens when you run out if you plan to lean on AI edits.

Which one should you choose?

Choose Durable if you run a local service business, want to be online today, need bookings and simple invoices, and would rather spend $22 a month than $78. It is also the better pick if you serve customers in two languages and can stretch to Grow.

Choose B12 if you onboard clients formally with intake forms and contracts, want email marketing in the same place, or would rather pay B12's designers and writers to finish the site for you.

Look elsewhere if you sell physical products with sizes, stock and shipping (a dedicated ecommerce platform will serve you better), you plan a large blog or content site (WordPress is the usual answer), or you want full design control (Webflow). Our guides to B12 alternatives and Durable alternatives cover those options, and our round-up of the best AI builders compares the wider field.

A third option if you also sell products or need a fuller CRM

WebNewBiz is our own platform, so weigh this section with that in mind. It starts the same way: you describe your business, the AI drafts a complete website, and you change it by chatting with the AI Copilot rather than dragging boxes around. The difference is what sits alongside the site on higher plans.

• Lite, $9 a month: one website with the AI builder and Copilot. No store and no CRM.
• Starter, $29: adds the Design Studio visual editor and an online store with checkout by card, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
• Growth, $79: adds the AI CRM, which reads and scores leads and handles deals, tasks, bookings and invoices that chase themselves, plus an AI funnel builder. Website enquiries and store buyers land in the CRM as contacts (up to 3,000, with 3 team members).

Every plan includes hosting, SSL, mobile optimisation and 24/7 chat support, and every plan costs $1 for the first month. There is no minimum contract.

The honest limits: WebNewBiz is a young platform with a much smaller app ecosystem and community than the big names, and there is no free plan. The CRM starts at $79, which is more than Durable's Launch plan and about the same as B12's client plan, so if all you need is a service site with bookings, Durable is cheaper. And like every AI builder, the first draft still needs your own edits, photos and facts. It earns its place when you want a store, a sales pipeline and funnels in the same account as your website.

What every AI first draft still needs from you

1. Your own photos of you, your team and your work. Stock images make a site look like everyone else's.
2. A line-by-line check for invented facts. Delete any years in business, awards, guarantees or numbers you did not supply.
3. Real prices or price ranges, service areas and opening hours.
4. Contact details that match your Google Business Profile exactly.
5. Genuine testimonials, used with permission. Never publish AI-written reviews.
6. A privacy policy, plus terms and a refund policy if you take payments.
7. A test booking and a test payment from your own phone before you share the link.

Quick answers

Is B12 or Durable better for a small business?

Durable is better for a simple local service business that wants bookings, invoices and a customer list for little money ($22 a month billed yearly). B12 is better for professional services that need intake forms, contracts, e-signatures and email marketing, which come on its $78 a month plan.

Which is cheaper, B12 or Durable?

Durable. Both have free plans on their own subdomains, but Durable's Launch plan with bookings, a CRM and a custom domain costs $22 a month billed yearly, while B12's plan with invoicing and payments costs $78 a month at the time of writing (October 2026).

Can B12 and Durable take bookings and payments?

Yes. Durable offers unlimited bookings synced to your calendar and Stripe payments, with a pay link on every invoice. B12 has built-in scheduling, and its Website + Client Engagement plan adds card and ACH payments, invoices and automatic payment reminders.

Can I run an online store on B12 or Durable?

Only a simple one. B12 has basic commerce that suits services and simple sales, and reviewers call Durable's ecommerce weak. If products are your main business, use a dedicated store platform or a website builder with a full store and checkout.

Do I still need to edit an AI-generated website?

Yes, on every platform. Expect to add your own photos, delete any claims the AI invented, add real prices, service areas and opening hours, and test bookings and payments before you share the site.

See what a third draft looks like

If you are already comparing drafts from B12 and Durable, adding one more costs nothing. Our free AI Website Preview designs a homepage from one sentence. You can also read how the WebNewBiz AI website builder works, and if it suits you, start for $1 for the first month and cancel any time.