You don’t need to rely on huge corporate platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to have an online presence: You can create a website. Small businesses spend good money on top website builders to create online destinations that customers can’t resist, but you don’t have to follow in their steps. Free website builders lets you build a site without spending a dime.
A free website builder is, more often than not, the no-cost tier of a larger paid website builder. Not all website builders offer free tiers, instead offering affordable base tiers that cost a few dollars per month. Other services let you access some features for free, while locking more powerful functionality behind premium paywalls. If you don’t need those extra perks, though, the free tier may be more than enough.
What can you expect from a free website builder? Let’s use Tilda as an example. Tilda’s free tier lets you make one website with up to 50 pages and 50MB of storage. You can access a built-in image and icon library, and your site will carry a tilda.ws subdomain. Meanwhile, the paid tier increases the limits, lets you create a custom domain, offers e-commerce features, enables coding, and more. The paid tier may be “better,” but the free tier is a respectable hosting offering. This is the typical experience across free website builder tiers.
We’ve tested many website builders, and here are the best ones that offer a free tier. For a more robust experience, you’ll need a traditional web hosting service. If you’re on a budget, check out the best cheap web hosting services.
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Our 4 Top Picks
As an Editors’ Choice pick, Wix is one of the best website builders, period. The fact that it has a free tier only sweetens the deal. With just an email address, you can make a free site using Wix’s powerful, mobile-friendly editing tools and template options. That said, you must be okay with ads. Upgrading to a paid hosting tier removes those ads, and unlocks custom domains and e-commerce options.
GoDaddy is one of the most recognizable names in the hosting business, and it offers robust free features. With a free tier, you’ll enjoy unlimited storage and monthly data transfers, an SSL certificate for web security, a PayPal button and business phone number, and 24/7 customer support. If you want to make more than one website, use a custom domain, or integrate social media platforms, you must move up to a premium plan.
Weebly, from Square, has a free tier with highs and lows. With a free Weebly hosting accounting, you’ll receive a generous unlimited monthly data transfer plan, and the ability to switch themes without rebuilding your website. However, your site will have ads, a Weebly domain, a 10MB maximum file size, and 500MB of storage. For more, including the ability to sell digital goods, you must upgrade to one of Weebly’s paid tiers.
Strikingly is a bit limited, even among free tiers. You’ll get a Strikingly-brand site with 5GB of data throughput per month, but you’ll need to pull out the plastic to create multi-page sites, sell products, or even integrate third-party widgets. Think of Strikingly more as a paid website builder with a robust free trial, which alone makes it more useful than the free tiers from some competing services.
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