Guide
Can you get a website for your business for free?
Yes, you can get a website for free, and for some businesses it is enough for a while. But "free" almost always means a web address with someone else's name in it, their advertising on your page, and no way to use your own email. Here is what you actually get, the honest catches, and when it is worth paying.
Where you can get a free website
Website builders' free plans. Wix and WordPress.com both offer free plans. Your address looks like yourname.wixsite.com or yourname.wordpress.com, and the builder shows its own branding or ads on your site.
A Google Business Profile. Not a website, but free and often more important than one for a local business. It puts you on Google Maps with your hours, reviews and phone number. Google used to offer simple profile websites, but it shut them down in 2024, so the profile now needs somewhere to link to.
Social media pages. A Facebook or Instagram page is free and useful, but it is not a website. We explain why in why a Facebook page isn't enough.
One-page tools such as Carrd have free tiers that are fine for a single page with a phone number.
The catches with free websites
Someone else's name in your address. A customer reading yourbusiness.wixsite.com knows immediately you are on a free plan. For a plumber or a roofer, that costs trust at exactly the moment someone is deciding whether to let you into their home.
Their ads and branding, not yours. Free plans carry the builder's banner. Some place ads.
No business email. Without your own domain you cannot have an address like you@yourbusiness.com. See business email without a website.
Limits that appear later. Storage caps, no contact forms, no way to connect a domain. You usually discover them when you have already built the site.
When free is good enough
Free works if you are testing an idea, if nearly all your work comes from referrals and people already have your number, or if you just need a page to exist while you sort out something better.
It stops being enough when customers are comparing you with competitors online. That is most trades, most salons and most local services.
A useful test: if a stranger found your free site and your nearest competitor's site side by side, which would they call? If the honest answer is the competitor, it's time to pay for more.
How to make a free website look professional
If you go the free route, a few things close most of the gap. Use your own photographs, not the builder's stock images; customers can tell. Put your phone number at the top, big enough to tap. Say where you work in the first line: "Plumbing in Thornton and Northglenn" beats "Welcome to our website".
Keep it to one page. Free plans are at their best as a clean, single page with your services, your area, your hours and a way to reach you. Every extra page is another thing to keep up to date.
Link it everywhere. Your Google Business Profile, your Facebook page, your email signature and your invoices. A free site nobody finds does nothing.
Free versus paid over a year
| Option | Upfront | Per year | Your own domain | Business email |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Builder free plan | $0 | $0 | No | No |
| Builder paid plan | $0 | about $200–$360 | Yes | Extra cost |
| Domain + free page tool | $0 | about $10–$25 | Often | Extra cost |
| Built for you, one-time | $750–$3,000 | about $10–$25 for the domain | Yes | Extra cost |
Prices are approximate at the time of writing. The cheapest real setup most businesses need is a domain plus a site that looks like it belongs to a serious business.
What it costs to go past free
The minimum real cost is a domain name, roughly $10–$25 a year. A builder's paid plan adds about $16–$30 a month at the time of writing. A site someone builds for you costs a one-time fee, usually $750–$3,000 for a local business, plus a domain.
Our cost guide breaks that down in more detail.
Design free, pay only if you go live
GetDigital's builder is free to use. Type your business name and you get three finished designs written for your trade and town. Change anything, sign in with Google to save it, and come back whenever you like.
You only pay if you want it live on your own domain: a one-time $750, with no monthly builder fee. If you never go live, it costs nothing.