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Free website builders are an excellent way to start building your online presence. They allow you to create, design, edit, and publish content online that can solicit clicks, build reputation, and even drive product sales, all without costing you a single cent.
As you can imagine, though, there are some downsides. Free website builders have limited customization features, poor visibility, and generally don’t operate as effectively as their paid-for counterparts.
All in all, the viability of a free website builder largely depends on what you need it for. In this guide, you’ll learn about the pros and cons of using free website builders, and the importance of understanding when it’s the right time to transition to a paid plan. in this guide, we cover:
The Pros of Free Website Builders
While some believe that free website builders are merely an extended free trial, there are a few good reasons to stick with a free plan over a paid plan. Here are some of the pros of free website builders:
Flexible customization
If you’re in the early stage of building your online presence and still aren’t entirely sure what direction to go in, free website builders are a dream. They allow you the creative freedom to pick up elements, drop them, find new ones, and generally reinvent yourself online as many times as you want without any repercussions.
On top of that, some options like Wix don’t allow you to change your template, the core design decision for all websites, if you’ve made it live, so going with a free plan to test out your options beforehand is a great way to get started without too much pressure.
Wix offers a wide variety of templates, which you can chop and change if you’re on the free plan, but not after you’ve paid and pushed the site live. Image: Tech.co testing
No long-term commitment
Free websites are all about no commitment. You can build your site, tear it down, build it back up with an entirely new design, and then completely erase it, all without having to worry about monthly contracts, cancellation fees, or anything that could prevent you from testing out your site.
Paid website builders require you to subscribe to monthly and even yearly contracts sometimes, so you don’t have the same level of flexibility in terms of your flexibility. That’s why a free website builder can help because you can bounce around until you find a platform that fits your particular needs without the financial burden and time restraints.
Affordable price (free)
We probably don’t need to explain much more here – obviously, the biggest benefit of free website builders is the price tag, or rather, the lack of one. These platforms will help you get your site designed, edited, and published with basic elements and functionality at no cost to the user.
This makes it perfect for individuals and businesses looking to showcase basic information or content yet don’t necessarily need to be discovered on search engines or display their professionalism.
For example, you can quite easily build a free Wix site that displays basic information about your restaurant, such as where it’s located and who founded it – but you might have to get a free plan if you don’t want to rely on a third party to handle your bookings.
Check out our Wix pricing guide for more information
As is often the case with free services, there are some caveats that potential users need to be aware of when it comes to free website builders. Here are some of the cons of free website builders.
- Comparatively Limited Functionality
- Poorer Search Engine Visibility
- They Look Less Professional (Permanent Ads)
Comparatively limited functionality
As you can safely assume, free website builders don’t have all the functionality of a paid-for website builder, which can be a bit of an issue depending on what you actually need to use it for.
For example, virtually all website builders do not offer ecommerce features in their free plan, so if you want to set up an online store, you’re going to have to pay for a website builder. Square Online is the exception to this rule, although you will still have to endure hefty transaction fees cutting into your sales.
Customizability is often a bit limited as well in free website builders. If you’re not looking for a website builder for beginners and instead want to add advanced elements, like calendars, booking pages, carousels, and other design features, you’ll likely be out of luck with a free plan.
Poor search engine visibility
If you’re creating a website to get discovered, particularly on search engines like Google, going with a free option can be a big obstacle. That’s larger because your site won’t be equipped with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools designed to help you rank higher in search queries. Even worse, your non-custom URL will actively make Google rank you lower, making it hard for visitors to find your site at all.
On top of that, websites from free services often limit your bandwidth. This essentially means that only a certain number of users will be able to visit your site within a given period. If you’re limited to 5 GB bandwidth per month, this means that after users have loaded 5 GB worth of data from your site, it will stop responding.
As you can probably imagine, a hard-to-discover website combined with a lack of availability due to bandwidth restrictions doesn’t make for a good user experience at all, so the few users that do stumble across it certainly won’t be giving your site a second chance.
Check out our guide to the best website builders for SEO for more information
The Wix free plan requires your URL to be branded, making it harder to rank on search engines like Google. Image: Tech.co testing
They look less professional
It may seem trivial, but some elements of free website builders can be a major turn-off for potential visitors from a professional standpoint.
For one, free website builders almost always force the websites in question to host ads on their pages, often for that very website builder. Given the state of the internet today, this may seem like a small issue, but it’s an immediate sign that you don’t fully own your page. Plus, you don’t get paid for the ads, even if visitors click on them, so it’s really a lose-lose.
Wix’s free plan includes an ad for the website builder which will be visible to all your site’s visitors. Image: Tech.co testing
Additionally, as we mentioned above, free website builders force you to use a branded URL, so you don’t even get to own your own domain. In addition to being bad for SEO, this simply won’t convince a potential visitor that you are a legitimate business. After all, who is going to buy shoes from “www.nike.wixsite.com,” right?
Simply put, if you want your business to grow and look professional, you’re going to have to make a financial commitment to your website builder of choice.
Why You Should Pay for Website Builders
Now that you understand some of the pros and cons of free website builders, it might be helpful to understand exactly what kind of situation would require a paid website builder rather than a free website builder. Here are some of the reasons you would need to pay for a website builder:
- You need to get discovered – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools are virtually non-existent for free website builders, so being discovered online becomes very difficult, particularly with a non-custom URL.
- You have an online store – Most free website builders don’t allow you to sell products online without a paid plan, and the ones that do take a big cut in the form of transaction fees.
- You require advanced customization – If you want to take advantage of all the customization of website builders, free plans aren’t going to cut it, as they often limit advanced functionality like calendars and appointments.
- Your site gets a lot of traffic – Many free website builders have bandwidth limits that can’t handle large amounts of traffic, so you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan if you end up going viral.
- You hate ads – Free website builders have to make money somehow, and many do so by putting big ads on your website, which makes you look notably less professional to visitors.
Suffice to say, a free website builder is great when you’re just starting out small, but when the clicks start rolling in and you require a bit more functionality to keep operating, going with a paid option is always a good idea.
What Are the Best Free Website Builders?
If you’re looking for the top website builder for businesses of all types and sizes, Wix is definitely the way to go. Our research found it to be the best website builder overall, thanks to a massive feature catalog, intuitive interface, and an excellent free plan that can get you started and online at no cost.
In fact, we found Wix to be the best of both worlds when it comes to free website builders, because it’s robust free plan can get you started with a surprising amount of functionality. Then, once you need to scale up, you can easily upgrade your plan and take advantage of all the advanced features as you need them.
It’s not the only option out there when it comes to free website builders, though. As we mentioned earlier, Square Online is an ecommerce website builder than can get you started for free and even sell products online. You’ll have to pay transaction fees, though, which can get expensive, but it’s a great way to get started as an online store with limited available resources.
Beyond that, other website builders like Squarespace offer an excellent experience that can help you build a great brand. However, instead of a free forever plan, these options offer free trials that allow you to full design and edit your website, although you won’t be able to get it online until you pay for a subscription.
We’ve done a lot of research on the best website builders, so check out the table below to learn about some of your other options. If you want to learn more, check out our in-depth research guide to find out about our process.
| Paid plan Monthly | Free Plan | Pros | Cons | Try it Today | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BEST OVERALL  |  |  |  |  | ||
| GoDaddy | Square | Site123 | Jimdo | |||
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| Claim 10% off | Try GoDaddy | Try Square | Try Site123 | Try Jimdo |
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