Are free websites worth it for a new business?

Let's start by being fair to free website builders, because most articles on this subject are written by people selling the alternative (and yes, I sell an alternative — judge what follows on its honesty). Free builders are legitimate technology: Wix, Weebly, Google Sites and friends will genuinely put a working website on the internet for £0, in an afternoon, with no technical skill. For some situations, that's exactly right. The question is whether a new business trying to win its first customers is one of those situations — and mostly, it isn't. Here's why, specifically.

What "free" actually gets you

• Someone else's address. Free tiers don't include your own domain — you get yourbusiness.wixsite.com or similar. To a customer deciding whether you're legitimate, that address whispers "hobby" before they've read a word.
• Someone else's adverts. The platform's branding and ads sit on your pages. You're marketing the builder while trying to market yourself.
• A look thousands share. Templates are templates — your site will resemble every other free site, at the exact moment you're trying to look distinct and established.
• A ceiling on being found. Free tiers limit the SEO fundamentals, and a subdomain on a builder was never going to compete in local results anyway. You'll exist online without being findable — which for customer acquisition is nearly the same as not existing.
• Lock-in. The content lives on their platform. Outgrow it — and a successful business will — and you're rebuilding from scratch, having built your early Google presence on an address you're about to abandon.

The real cost: paid in trust

Here's the part that matters most for a startup specifically. An established firm with reviews, reputation and word-of-mouth can survive a mediocre website — their proof lives elsewhere. A new business has none of that: the website is the proof. When your only evidence of being a real, competent business is a free-tier site with a borrowed address and platform ads, you're spending your scarcest asset — credibility — to save £50 a month. Every customer who looked, hesitated and quietly chose someone who seemed more established is the invoice for "free". You'll never see it itemised, which is exactly why it feels cheap.

When free genuinely is the right call

Honesty cuts both ways, so: use a free builder if you're testing an idea before committing to it, running a hobby or side project that doesn't need to win strangers' trust, or you need a placeholder this week while something proper is arranged. In those cases, free is smart — no business should pay for a website its idea hasn't earned yet. The line to watch: the day the venture becomes real — you're asking strangers for money and trying to be found on Google — is the day free starts costing more than it saves.

The upgrade path that makes the whole dilemma disappear

The reason this used to be a genuine dilemma was that the alternative to free meant £1,500–£5,000 upfront — real money for an unproven business. Pay-monthly removed that: for around £50 a month, nothing upfront, a new business gets a bespoke professional site on its own domain, with hosting, updates and SEO handled — the credibility of the expensive route at pocket-money monthly cost, cancellable on 30 days' notice if the venture doesn't work out. Against that, "free but looks it" is a much harder case to make. The full comparison of every route a startup can take is on my startup websites page, and here's what a startup should actually spend.

The verdict

Free websites are worth it for ideas, hobbies and placeholders — and honestly not for a business that needs strangers to trust it and Google to find it. If the £50 a month genuinely isn't there yet, that's a real constraint and free is your bridge; just register your own domain from day one (£12 a year, in your name) so your address and your Google history survive the upgrade you'll eventually make.