How businesses in Brazil's capitals answer on their websites: 27 capitals ranked
We checked 3,486 local business websites in 27 Brazilian state capitals between 7 and 10 October 2026, drawn from Google Maps searches for the same six kinds of business in each capital: restaurants, trades, shops, professional offices, dentists and estate agents.
With Google's data from real visitors on phones (1,171 sites), 40% take more than 3 seconds to show their main content. Fewest slow sites: Florianópolis (24%); most: Porto Velho (61%).
WhatsApp is on the home page of 83% of the sites across all capitals. The highest share is in Belo Horizonte (90%); the lowest in Macapá (73%).
The typical business is closed 118 of the week's 168 hours (of the 1,349 sites that publish their hours).
8% have no clear next step on their home page: no call link, WhatsApp link, booking link or form. The highest share is in Belém and Salvador (13%).
The ranking
Ordered by the share of sites with WhatsApp on the home page, measured in all 27 capitals. The capitals differ most on phone speed: from 24% to 61% slow sites, against 73% to 90% on WhatsApp. Each capital’s place in each column is in brackets; we do not add the columns into one score. Closed hours have no place: most capitals tie on the same value.
| Capital | Sites | With WhatsApp | Closed hours a week (median) | Over 3 s on a phone (real visitors) | No clear next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belo Horizonte | 181 | 90% (1st) | 118 | 31% (6th) | 7% (7th) |
| Curitiba | 182 | 89% (2nd) | 118 | 36% (7th) | 4% (1st) |
| Florianópolis | 160 | 89% (2nd) | 118 | 24% (1st) | 10% (20th) |
| João Pessoa | 115 | 88% (4th) | 117 | 56% (21st) | 10% (20th) |
| Porto Alegre | 172 | 88% (4th) | 118 | 28% (3rd) | 8% (11th) |
| Goiânia | 143 | 85% (6th) | 114 | 40% (10th) | 7% (7th) |
| Porto Velho | 97 | 85% (6th) | 118 | 61% (23rd) | 12% (24th) |
| Natal | 113 | 84% (8th) | 118 | 43% (12th) | 7% (7th) |
| Rio de Janeiro | 196 | 84% (8th) | 118 | 29% (4th) | 9% (14th) |
| Belém | 110 | 83% (10th) | 115 | 36% (7th) | 13% (26th) |
| Brasília | 172 | 83% (10th) | 118 | 27% (2nd) | 8% (11th) |
| Maceió | 101 | 83% (10th) | 118 | 55% (20th) | 9% (14th) |
| Recife | 166 | 83% (10th) | 115 | 41% (11th) | 7% (7th) |
| Rio Branco | 60 | 83% (10th) | – | – | 10% (20th) |
| São Luís | 109 | 83% (10th) | 115 | 50% (17th) | 12% (24th) |
| Aracaju | 102 | 82% (16th) | 118 | 52% (18th) | 5% (3rd) |
| Fortaleza | 125 | 82% (16th) | 114 | 53% (19th) | 9% (14th) |
| Manaus | 97 | 82% (16th) | 118 | 44% (13th) | 4% (1st) |
| São Paulo | 232 | 82% (16th) | 113 | 30% (5th) | 11% (23rd) |
| Teresina | 84 | 82% (16th) | 114 | 46% (14th) | 6% (4th) |
| Palmas | 99 | 81% (21st) | 118 | – | 9% (14th) |
| Cuiabá | 122 | 79% (22nd) | 118 | 57% (22nd) | 6% (4th) |
| Salvador | 150 | 79% (22nd) | 118 | 49% (16th) | 13% (26th) |
| Vitória | 141 | 78% (24th) | 118 | 47% (15th) | 9% (14th) |
| Campo Grande | 121 | 76% (25th) | 118 | 38% (9th) | 9% (14th) |
| Boa Vista | 65 | 74% (26th) | 118 | – | 8% (11th) |
| Macapá | 71 | 73% (27th) | 118 | – | 6% (4th) |
| All capitals | 3,486 | 83% | 118 | 40% | 8% |
Why phone speed matters
In this study, 40% of the sites with real-visitor data take more than 3 seconds to show their main content on a phone. What third-party studies say about that wait:
- Google analysed mobile sites and found that 53% of visits are likely to be abandoned if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Source: Google, “The need for mobile speed”, 8 September 2016.
- Vodafone compared two versions of the same page, identical except for speed: the one whose main content appeared 31% faster sold 8% more. Source: web.dev (Google), “Vodafone: A 31% improvement in LCP increased sales by 8%”, 17 March 2021.
Each capital’s numbers (in Portuguese)
Belo Horizonte · Curitiba · Florianópolis · João Pessoa · Porto Alegre · Goiânia · Porto Velho · Natal · Rio de Janeiro · Belém · Brasília · Maceió · Recife · Rio Branco · São Luís · Aracaju · Fortaleza · Manaus · São Paulo · Teresina · Palmas · Cuiabá · Salvador · Vitória · Campo Grande · Boa Vista · Macapá
How we measured
- In each capital we searched Google Maps for the same 18 terms in Portuguese (restaurants, bakeries, cafés, plumbers, electricians, air-conditioning repair, clothing, furniture and shoe shops, law and accounting firms, insurance brokers, dentists, dental clinics, orthodontists, estate agencies, realtors and property managers), with the capital and its state, and checked the websites Maps lists.
- Hours: read from the site itself; the closed hours a week add up the time when no location is open.
- WhatsApp: a WhatsApp link on the home page, or the WhatsApp the site gives.
- Speed: Google’s data from real visitors on phones (the Chrome UX Report), which exists only for sites with enough visits.
- Next step: a call link, a WhatsApp link, a booking link or a contact form on the home page.
- No business is named. A capital, a kind of business or a column appears only with 20 measured sites or more.
Limits
- Google Maps also lists businesses in the metropolitan area; they count for the capital.
- The samples do not stand for every business in a capital; they show what we found on the sites we checked.
- We look at the home page and the pages it links to; a chat that loads a few seconds later can be missed.
For journalists
You may use these numbers and charts with credit to Betterlane and a link to this page. For the breakdown by kind of business in one capital, or to talk to Thiago Cavalcanti, who ran the study, write to thiago@betterlaneagency.com.
WhatsApp by capital, chart (PNG, in Portuguese) · Phone speed by capital, chart (PNG, in Portuguese) · All totals as CSV
