Shoestring budgets are all too common for SMBs, especially one-person operations and brand-new endeavors. You’ve already invested nearly everything into starting a business and with web design agencies quoting thousands for a simple informational website, it’s no wonder people start feeling a little desperate to find a cheaper alternative. One of the most common questions asked is how do I build a free website?
While you can make a completely free website, some free website options are better than others. For example, it’s very common for free website offers to not include a domain name, have very limited capabilities or place ads on your site. In many cases, SMBs prefer to pay a few dollars for a domain name or a monthly hosting plan instead of staying on a completely free plan.
I’ve covered the step-by-step process for designing a website, making a small business website and creating an e-commerce site, so in this article, I’m going to focus heavily on finding free resources at each step of the process.
Featured Partners
1
Wix
$17 per month
Yes
Yes
2
Squarespace
$25 per month
Yes
Yes
3
IONOS
$1 per month
Yes
Yes
4
Shopify
$29 per month
3 days free + First Month for $1
Drag & drop editor, AI Tools, Customize with 8k+ apps, Sell everywhere
5
DreamHost
$3.95 per month
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How To Build a Free Website: A Step-by-Step Guide
It’s pretty easy to make a free website, but you still might need to spend a little bit on hosting or a custom domain name to get it online. That said, I have some great finds to help you minimize costs and create that unicorn goal of a completely free website.
1. Choose a Platform and Host
I’m combining picking out your platform and host because for most of us, the easiest way to create a free website without a lot of coding is to use a combination website builder and web host. While many of the best website builders out there offer free trials, very few offer truly free plans.
The providers in the chart below are some of the better (in my humble opinion) free web builders, CMS platforms and hosting options available, although none are perfect. Plan features vary widely, as does security and tech support, so I strongly encourage you to check exact plan details before committing to a specific provider. Almost every free offer will have at least one catch or limitation of some sort, and most have several.
For example, some include SSLs and submit your website to Google for you, while others don’t. This chart hits some of the most common concerns with free platforms and hosting but is in no way a complete feature comparison.
| Website Builder | Hosting | Domain Name | Plugins or Apps Available? | E-Commerce Features | What’s the Catch? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Sites | Yes | Yes | Subdomain or can connect custom domain | Severely limited | Not native, limited embedding with code | No hosting upgrades available |
| Wix | Yes, Classic and Studio | Yes | Subdomain only | Yes | Not native, limited embedding with some apps | Wix places ads on your website |
| Odoo | Yes | Yes | Subdomain only | Limited | Disabled store apps, limited embedding capability by code | Features limited by free plan often seem arbitrary and aren’t well labeled in some cases |
| Ecwid | Yes | Yes | Subdomain only | No | Yes | Limited to five products |
| Square | Yes | Yes | Subdomain only | Yes | Yes | Transaction fee per sale |
| HubSpot | Yes | Yes | Subdomain only | Limited HubSpot apps | Limited | “Build on HubSpot“ button added to your website |
| WordPress.com | Yes, but customization is severely limited | Yes | Subdomain only | No | No | WordPress.com places ads on your website |
| CloudAccess.net | Any WordPress or Joomla builder plugin | WordPress and Joomla compatible | Subdomain only | Yes | By plugin | Must log in to your control panel at least once a month or your site will be deleted |
| AwardSpace | Any WordPress or Joomla builder plugin | WordPress, Joomla and Grav compatible | Subdomain only | Yes | By plugin | Auto-opens a random advertisement tab when trying to sign up |
2. Register a Domain Name
Your domain name is your online address that makes sure servers and search engines can find your content. Unfortunately, it’s also the hardest part of a website to get for free. That said, some free plans offer subdomains.
Subdomains
Subdomains are domain names owned by the host or platform with a prefix. For example, Ecwid free accounts use the domain name “company.site” and allow users to customize a prefix, which is a name in front of the “company” part of the domain name. So while “company.site” is a domain, “greatstore.company.site” is a subdomain.
Search engines treat subdomains as separate entities so you don’t lose SEO; however, it can be a little tricky for businesses, as sometimes customers see subdomains as less reputable, especially with e-commerce. On the flip side, some businesses, such as food trucks, get a reputation boost from subdomains, as it tends to reflect the idea of a startup small business. It just depends on your customer base.
Paid Domain Names
If you are fine with a free subdomain, then, by all means, take advantage of it. However, if you are a business that needs a free custom domain, your options are limited, both for free hosting that accepts custom domain names and in finding a free domain name. With the demise of Freenom, the only other currently available legitimate way to get a free domain name is as part of a paid hosting plan.
Usually, those free offers with paid plans only cover the first year and the second-year renewal costs may be inflated. The most generous included domain offer I’ve found is Ecwid’s, where the domain is free for the life of your plan with paid hosting on annual billing.
That said, you can get a domain name very cheaply, sometimes starting at under $1 for the first year for less popular top-level domains (TLDs), although most will run $10 to $50 yearly. Even on a shoestring budget, most find it a reasonable yearly expense to buy a domain name. Be sure to check prices across multiple registrars as part of your buying a domain name process to find the best deal both for initial purchase and renewal.
To illustrate, I searched the sample domain name “whatsthiscost” across several popular domain registrars with very different pricing philosophies to show the difference in costs by TLD, first-year rates and renewal costs. Remember that some cost differences may come from included extras such as CDNs and SSLs.
| Top-Level Domain (TLD) | Domain Registrar | Introductory First-Year Offer Domain Registration Cost Example | Renewal Cost Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| whatsthiscost.com | Cloudflare | $10.44 | $10.44 |
| Namecheap | $6.49 | $14.98 | |
| IONOS | $10.00 | $20.00 | |
| Spaceship | $6.98 | $9.98 | |
| whatsthiscost.tech | Cloudflare | $40.18 | $40.18 |
| Namecheap | $34.99 | $58.48 | |
| IONOS | $1.00 | $80.00 | |
| Spaceship | $7.22 | $46.58 | |
| whatsthiscost.xyz | Cloudflare | $11.18 | $11.18 |
| Namecheap | $2.00 | $13.98 | |
| IONOS | $12.00 | $15.00 | |
| Spaceship | $1.86 | $11.39 |
3. Select a Template
A website template, sometimes called a theme, is another potential cost. Most builders with free plan options include some free templates, but those can be limited. Sometimes, the free plans even lock down free templates so that you can’t change basics such as color palettes. WordPress.com is one example of that kind of restriction. Other free plans have a very limited number of templates available.
One of the first things you should check after creating an account with a free website builder is what themes are available and how customizable they are.
At the very least, you need to be able to change the overall color scheme, change menu items, adjust headers and footers, add a favicon and change text and photos to your own. Preferably, you’ll be able to adjust the locations of photos and text, add or delete sections on pages, add and delete pages and adjust SEO features.
Most websites at least need pages (or sections) for a homepage (the first page your visitors see), “About Us,” products, “Contact Us” and legal notices.
Theme availability is one of the bigger benefits of WordPress.org-powered websites, as there are thousands of free and low-cost templates available from third-party designers. Many of these are found through your WordPress dashboard or you can import a theme from another source. However, be sure to look at when a theme was last updated. More recent updates suggest the developer is supporting the theme and adjusting it to match WordPress updates.
Since so many people use free themes with whatever host or builder they choose, there is an overuse problem. Free websites (and paid) can start to look alike because so many are using the same theme. A quick tip to avoid looking like everyone else’s websites is to avoid the first page of results on searches and anything in the popular search results.
4. Create Content
Text is free, right? Well, creating content yourself is technically free, but it is time-consuming, and many people turn to stock photography or AI for help. However, there are a lot of misconceptions about what photos are free and how to use AI. Plus, if it’s free, there’s a good chance hundreds or thousands of other websites have the exact same assets.
Stock vs. Original Images
Stock photography is easy, but it rarely performs as well as custom images. Two big factors play into this, originality and believability. Stock photos are generally “too perfect” when compared to real life. Consumers expect companies to use them, but use them sparingly.
Taking your own photos doesn’t mean becoming a professional photographer. If you can get it in focus without a color tint (skin tones having a green cast to them, for example) and have it reasonably bright, it is usually well received.
Much of this is thanks to social media adjusting perceptions so people are used to seeing photos that are closer to real life instead of carefully staged shots. Although we all know influencers stage much of what they do, the vast majority of social media accounts have unplanned, unstaged and imperfect graphics and photos, so consumers have begun to equate this lack of quality with authenticity.
If you are looking for low-cost photography help, consider checking local colleges where students generally work for lower rates as they are building portfolios and gathering experience. This doesn’t mean you should expect them to work for free, just that they won’t be charging the same rates as professional photographers yet.
Copyright-Free vs. Royalty-Free vs. Creative Commons
Probably the biggest copyright misconception I see is that all online photos are free. In the U.S., every photo is copyrighted the moment it is taken; no registration is required. Registration only affects how much the photographer can sue for and in which courts.
It gets especially confusing when people search for free photos in a search engine, and they are often served results labeled “royalty-free.”
Royalty-free is not free. Royalty-free means you pay a (usually) small licensing fee one time and can use the photo as many times as you like. It’s the cheaper photo licensing option compared to rights-managed licensing where the fee you pay depends on how you are using the image and how many times it will be seen.
Copyright-free means it is in the public domain, and anyone can use it for any reason without payment or credit. Websites such as Unsplash, Pixabay and Pexels started out as copyright-free and still host many public domain images but have mostly moved to a free limited license where you don’t pay but still have to follow certain usage rules. Unsplash also offers royalty-free images as well now.
Creative Commons is a system of labeling usage rights, not a marker meaning copyright free. Creative Commons is made up of six levels of rights, and most come with specific usage rules. CC0 is the public domain license, but all others have specific rules you must follow, often including adding the Creative Commons logo when you publish the image.
As a final quick note on a topic that could literally fill a library, please don’t rely on Fair Use. Fair Use is not just about whether or not you sell an image, nor is educational use a guaranteed pass. For example, you usually can’t republish someone else’s content on your public classroom website. On top of that, judges regularly take different views on what Fair Use means, and Fair Use lawsuits get expensive quickly with appeals.
Releases
Ready for more hoops to jump through to get free photos and graphics? Even free public-domain imagery may not be safe to use. Photographs (and sometimes drawings) of people, trademarks and certain buildings or landmarks often need releases to be used. For example, even giants such as Virgin Mobile have been sued for using photos without model releases.
A release is a legal document giving permission for a likeness to be used or published. These are especially important if you use a photo with a potentially embarrassing subject.
AI Hazards
Generative AI is quick, but it is a minefield. AI-generated images often violate copyright on the images they used for “inspiration,” and AI text has been known to plagiarize, get facts wrong in critical situations by fabricating court citations, defame individuals and even horrifyingly suggest children murder their parents. If you use generative AI, it is vital that you fact-check everything and run it through a plagiarism check such as Grammarly or Copyscape at the very least.
5. Test, Publish and Market
Most of us spend several days creating even a basic website and possibly weeks working on the content. By the end of the process, it’s very tempting to hit publish and never look back. However, that is a good way to push live a lot of errors. Once you are finished, take a day or so break and then come back to proofread and test all the features and links. If you have friends or staff willing to help out, all the better.
After you finally publish your website, it’s time to let people know it’s there. Yes, you hope for good search results, but you still need to market your website as well.
Start by submitting your site to Google if your host doesn’t do it for you. While not absolutely necessary, it can speed up the process of getting indexed instead of waiting for the crawlers (bot programs search engines use to find websites) to stumble across your site.
Other free ways to get the word out include:
- Social media posts.
- Word of mouth.
- Branding. Add your website to your ads, business cards and company branding next time you order supplies.
- Ad credits. Advertise online using ad credits from special offers for new accounts such as Google Ad credits. Normally, you have to spend a certain amount to get extra free credits, but sometimes Google offers promotional credits to try out the service with no spending required.
While not free, there are also plenty of ways to market your website at a low cost. Some of these include:
- Inserts. Printing small half-page or quarter-page inserts announcing your new website and inserting them into orders is a great low-cost way to announce your new website.
- Blipboards. A pay-per-display digital billboard service that provides good visibility for $20 or less a day in some areas. It also doesn’t require long-term contracts, so you could advertise specifically for Saturdays or only during drive time to reduce costs. Use as part of a general advertising campaign for your company.
- Podcast advertising. While you can reach out directly to your favorite podcaster, using automatic placement ads on your favorite platforms, such as Spotify, is often low-cost and gets your message to a new audience.
- Social media ads. Take the time to carefully target your audience, and results are usually pretty reasonable for $15 to $20 per four-day run. However, remember that for many businesses, desktop viewers click through far more than mobile users.
6. Continue Maintenance
Ongoing costs usually come from ongoing maintenance. Even if you have free hosting and are using a free subdomain, expect to invest time in maintaining your website. Updating content, updating apps, monitoring analytics and working on your SEO strategy usually have no upfront costs, but you’ll have to spend the time to get the tasks done.
So, the bottom line is that making a free website is absolutely possible, but the trade-off is often functionality and the extra time you spend creating and maintaining it.
Featured Partners
1
Wix
$17 per month
Yes
Yes
2
Squarespace
$25 per month
Yes
Yes
3
IONOS
$1 per month
Yes
Yes
4
Shopify
$29 per month
3 days free + First Month for $1
Drag & drop editor, AI Tools, Customize with 8k+ apps, Sell everywhere
5
DreamHost
$3.95 per month
Yes
Yes
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Can I upgrade my free website to a paid hosting plan?
Yes, almost all free websites can be upgraded to paid plans, with the notable exception of Google Sites, which doesn’t offer paid hosting plans. Most free website offers are designed to work as a limited free trial and push you to upgrade to paid hosting plans later on to get more server resources, access to features, the ability to add a custom domain and remove caps on e-commerce or the number of websites allowed per account.
Are free websites worse than paid websites?
Free websites aren’t inherently worse or lower quality than paid websites. Much of that tends to depend on the skill and time taken by the person building the website. That said, free websites do tend to have limited features and customization. E-commerce and SEO tools are two areas where free websites specifically tend to have fewer options than paid websites. However, using a CMS platform, such as WordPress, with free hosting can help even the playing field.
Is WordPress free?
Yes, WordPress is a free open-source CMS. There’s a lot of misinformation out there because people confuse WordPress.org and WordPress.com. WordPress.org is the CMS platform that can be hosted elsewhere (including some free options mentioned earlier in this article). WordPress.com is WordPress.org hosting offered by Automattic. The free hosting plan for WordPress.com is limited, with most features gatekept behind a paywall.
