How many small businesses still have no website, slow load times, or broken security certificates in 2025? We aggregated data from seven independent research sources to find out — and the numbers are still surprising.
The conversation around small business digitalization has been going on for fifteen years. You'd think the gap would be closed by now. It isn't. According to BrightLocal's 2024 Local Consumer Review Survey , 28% of US small businesses still have no website — a figure that has dropped from 46% in 2018, but has been slowing considerably since 2022, declining by roughly 1.5 percentage points per year.
Against the backdrop of 33.2 million small businesses in the US alone , 28% equals approximately 9.3 million businesses without a basic web presence. Add to that the businesses that have a site but that site is functionally broken — too slow to load, not readable on mobile, or flagged by browsers as insecure — and the addressable market for digital services is closer to 18–20 million businesses in the US.
28%
No website at all
≈ 9.3M US businesses
36%
Failing Core Web Vitals
Below Google's speed threshold
41%
Not mobile-friendly
Fail Google's mobile test
17%
SSL certificate issues
Flagged as "Not Secure"
Not all industries are equal. Restaurants and trades have far higher digital gaps than professional services. This table shows the estimated percentage of businesses with each defect type, aggregated from BrightLocal, Google Search Central, and industry surveys.
Sources: BrightLocal 2024 · Google Search Central 2024 · HTTP Archive CWV Report
| Industry | No Website | Slow Sites |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurants & Food Service | 38% | 44% |
| Landscaping & Lawn Care | 33% | 38% |
| Personal Services (Salons, Spas) | 31% | 35% |
| Auto Repair & Body Shops | 29% | 40% |
| Plumbing & HVAC | 26% | 36% |
| Dental & Medical Clinics | 18% | 29% |
| Legal Services | 14% | 26% |
| Real Estate Agencies | 12% | 31% |
| Electricians & Contractors | 30% | 37% |
| Photographers & Videographers | 22% | 28% |
Total Gap Score = sum of the four defect percentages. Higher = more opportunity for digital service providers. Data represents estimates based on aggregated surveys and is not a direct measurement.
Digital adoption rates vary significantly by country. The US has the largest absolute opportunity by volume. UK and Australia lag behind on adoption but ahead on per-capita web design spending, making them strong markets for premium pricing.
33.2M total small businesses
28%
without website
~9.3M businesses without a website
Largest absolute market gap globally
Source: SBA + BrightLocal 20245.6M total small businesses
18%
without website
~1.0M businesses without a website
Higher digital adoption than USA average
Source: Federation of Small Businesses 20232.5M total small businesses
22%
without website
~550K businesses without a website
Regional businesses skew the average up
Source: ASBFEO Digital Economy Report 20231.2M total small businesses
25%
without website
~300K businesses without a website
French-speaking provinces show higher gap
Source: Statistics Canada 2023The percentage of US small businesses without a website has dropped 18 points over seven years. At the current rate, reaching under 20% will take until around 2028 — meaning the window for prospecting-based outreach remains wide open for the foreseeable future.
2018–2024 data: BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Surveys. Full survey methodology. 2025 projection based on linear trend extrapolation.
This report does not represent original primary research. It aggregates and synthesizes data from seven publicly available, peer-reviewed or institution-published sources. Where sources provide ranges, we used the midpoint. Where sources define "small business" differently (e.g., by employee count), we normalized to the US SBA definition (< 500 employees, though most data here covers businesses under 20 employees).
Defect percentages for Sections 2–3 represent estimates based on available published benchmarks. They are not derived from a single, unified sample. Industry-level breakdowns for slow sites, mobile, and SSL were calculated by cross-referencing BrightLocal data with HTTP Archive's CWV Technology Report and SSL Labs' monthly SSL Pulse data .
Last updated: April 2025. We review this data quarterly.
With 38% of restaurants and 33% of landscaping businesses having no website, these categories consistently generate the most qualified prospects per scrape. They also have lower average ticket values than legal or dental, but faster close cycles.
While 28% of businesses have no site, 36% have a site that fails Core Web Vitals. Slow-site leads often have higher budgets (they've already invested in a site) and a concrete, measurable problem you can demonstrate with a screenshot.
At the current adoption rate, there will still be 7–8 million US businesses without websites in 2027. The prospecting opportunity isn't disappearing — but early movers in a given geographic market will have an advantage as saturation increases.
UK and Australian agencies have a higher average web design spend per project than US equivalents, and the market is less saturated with Google Maps-based prospectors. Both markets are worth targeting if you can handle international time zones.
The 9.3 million businesses without a website are right there on Google Maps. MapsLeadExtractor helps you find, filter, and contact them — with defect detection built in.