“I want a website, but I want it for free.” We hear that from businesses every week. The good news: you can have one. The bad news: a free website is almost never free in the place you expect. Below are three honest routes that cost nothing up front, and the bill that arrives later.
Route one: a website builder’s free plan
The easiest option. You sign up with a website builder, pick a template and type in your copy. No money, an hour of work, and the site is live.
What you get: an address like yourcompany.wixsite.com, the builder’s ad on your pages, and limits on storage and bandwidth. It tends to look like a business card designed by someone who was very tired.
What it costs later: your own domain (typically $10 to $20 a year), removing the builder’s branding (a subscription), and above all, lock-in. Everything you type stays on the platform. Moving elsewhere means rewriting the whole thing from scratch.
Who it’s for: non-commercial projects, testing an idea, a site for a one-off event. Not for a business that wants to be taken seriously.
Route two: Google Sites
The oldest trick in the book, and it still works: a site on Google Sites, zero cost, live instantly. You can connect your own domain if you have one.
What you get: a simple, clean site with no ads. Ownership of your content is better than with commercial builders, because it all lives in your own Google account.
What it costs later: looks. Google Sites looks like a document, not a business website. The design options are minimal, and over time the site has nowhere to grow.
Who it’s for: a technical subpage, an internal policy page, a temporary information sheet.
Route three: hosting with a built-in site builder
Plenty of hosting providers bundle a site builder and a free domain for the first year. You only pay for the hosting, often somewhere around $50 to $100 a year.
What you get: your own domain from day one, hosting and a builder. A reasonable compromise for a small business.
What it costs later: hosting companies’ builders can be clunky, with fewer templates than the ads promise. Switching providers after two years usually means starting from zero, because exporting that kind of site is patchy at best.
Who it’s for: a business that wants to tick the box and is fine with an average look.
The bill you don’t see
A free website charges you in three currencies.
Someone else’s advertising. Ever seen a site with a “Make your free website” banner across the top? That’s not your ad. You’re paying for someone else’s service with your own credibility.
Lock-in. Owning your content and being able to take it elsewhere is worth more than the price of a domain. Businesses usually find this out the first time they want to make a serious change.
Lost customers. A site without its own domain, with a builder’s ad and a generic template look, doesn’t sell. If it could bring in one enquiry a month and doesn’t, it’s costing you exactly one enquiry a month.
So where do we fit in?
Webomat isn’t free, and we won’t pretend it is. But part of the service is: we take a snapshot of your current website and run a mini audit at no cost, with no card and no phone number required. You see how your site looks on a phone, how heavy it is and what needs fixing. The first version of your new homepage is free too.
After that, if you want the new site, prices start at $29 net, one-off, with hosting and SSL free for the first year. That’s not zero, but it’s the range where “free” stops mattering and design and speed start to.
When you really should stick with free
To be fair, not everyone needs to be sold something:
- the site just needs to exist, not sell (a hobby, a club, a community group),
- your launch budget is genuinely zero,
- it’s a one-month experiment, not the foundation of a business for years to come.
How to set up a free website, step by step
Route one (a builder), from nothing to a live site:
- Choose a builder and create an account (email plus password).
- Pick your type of business; the builder will suggest matching templates.
- Choose the template with the simplest structure you can find. Hardly anyone regrets this.
- Fill in the basics: name, a short description of what you do, phone, address, opening hours.
- Upload your logo, or for now just type your business name as text.
- Publish. The address is borrowed, but it works.
Realistic time for a first version: one evening. A tip: write your copy in a document first, then paste it in. Builders like to lose drafts, and if that happens you’ll lose your motivation along with the text.
When to move from free to paid
Concrete thresholds, not gut feelings:
- customers start finding you through the site and enquiries are growing (the site is earning its keep),
- you need your own domain because the builder’s address won’t fit on a business card,
- the builder’s ad bothers you enough that you find yourself apologising for it to customers,
- you want to compete in Google seriously.
At that point you either pay the builder a subscription or move to a one-off solution. The maths is simple: a $20 monthly plan is $720 over three years. A Webomat site from $29 net, paid once, plus $29 a year for hosting from the second year, comes out cheaper within the first couple of months, and it belongs to you.
Free things most people don’t know about
Three things that are free and perfectly legitimate, yet people still pay for them:
- SSL certificate. Any decent host includes one for free. If someone wants $50 a year for it, change hosts.
- Your business on Google Maps. A Google Business Profile is effectively a free business page in its own right, with your phone number and reviews. Set it up before you spend a cent on anything else.
- Visitor statistics. Free analytics tools will serve a small business for years.
The story of one move
A three-person service business. Two years on a builder’s free plan: the builder’s address, an ad at the top, 60 visits a month. Then the move: their own domain for a few dollars a year and a site rebuilt for a fraction of the usual price. Three months later: 400 visits a month and the first enquiries from Google. What changed? Their own domain, a faster site, and copy written around the phrases customers actually search for.
Starting free wasn’t a mistake. Staying there for a third year would have been.
In every other case, work out what missing enquiries are costing you. It almost always comes to more than $29.
Frequently asked questions
Can you really make a website for free?
Yes, there are three routes: a website builder’s free plan, Google Sites, or the builder that comes with a hosting package. Each has limits: an address on someone else’s domain, the platform’s ads, or restricted design options.
What are the risks of a free business website?
Three things: the builder’s ad on your brand, your content locked into someone else’s platform, and lost customers, because a site without its own domain doesn’t sell.
How much does your own domain cost?
Usually $10 to $20 a year for a standard domain. An SSL certificate is free with any decent host, so if someone wants extra money for it, switch providers.