Why we built our own platform detector Cloudflare Worker.

The brief

For each of our the client URLs, detect what ecommerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento) and what CMS (WordPress, WordPress, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, Cloudflare Pages, Next.js, Joomla, HubSpot CMS, Wagtail, Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby) the live site is running. Cross-reference with Xero invoice data per client to compute trailing-3mo and trailing-12mo revenue per detected platform.

Why not BuiltWith or Wappalyzer

Three reasons:

1. BuiltWith API pricing. BuiltWith is excellent for high-frequency lookups against a large URL set, but the pricing didn't justify a one-off internal audit.
2. Network egress matters. some Australian sites rate-limit repeated automated checks from a single network. A Cloudflare Worker fetches from CF edge with different DNS resolution, bypassing the local network issue.
3. Custom signature patterns. We needed to detect WordPress (which surfaced as 22% of revenue, an unexpected discovery), Cloudflare Pages (Marrambi pattern), Wagtail, and other less-common platforms. Custom regex patterns in our own worker were faster than tuning a third-party API to detect them.

What the worker does

The worker is ~200 lines of JavaScript on a private Cloudflare Worker endpoint:

• Accepts POST {urls: [.]}
• Fetches each URL with browser-like UA + Accept headers
• Runs regex pattern matching against the response body for known platform signatures
• Returns {results: [{url, status, platform, signals, error}]}

Signature patterns cover Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress (non-Woo), Cloudflare Pages, Joomla, HubSpot CMS, Wagtail, Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby, Next.js. Detection signals include CDN URLs (cdn.shopify.com), generator meta tags, plugin path patterns (/wp-content/plugins/woocommerce), framework-specific JS bundles.

What the data showed

• WordPress: a meaningful share of revenue (unexpected, one healthcare portfolio dominates this number)
• WooCommerce: 16.3%
• WordPress (non-Woo): 14.1% (our WA-based clients)
• Shopify: 9.1%
• Webflow: 1.7% (a couple of brands)
• Mix of Cloudflare Pages, Wix, Squarespace, Next.js custom, others: ~36% combined

Total Shopify + WooCommerce: 25.4% of trailing-12mo services revenue. The empirical answer to Adam's question. The website now reflects the answer.

For other agencies wanting to do this

The CF Worker pattern is reproducible. Three operational requirements:

1. A list of client URLs (we maintain ours in a curated JSON, updated when new clients sign)
2. A Cloudflare Workers account (free tier suffices for ~100K requests/month)
3. Xero / accounting-system data export with per-client revenue (we use our standard 24-month invoice export)

Read more:

• Why ecommerce became our third specialist vertical →
• Why we track platform mix as an operating metric →
• The book in public numbers →