Are Free Website Builders Really Free?

Online website builders gain more popularity as a cheap, fast and easy alternative to the traditional website creation methods. Indeed, they are fantastic tools that can help you build a decent website in mere minutes without any prior webmastering experience.

But are these tools as advantageous as they’re advertised? Are there completely free web builders? What about hidden fees and other payments? Because all these fears do have grounds, I’ve decided to write this post. Hopefully, it will help you calculate exactly how much it costs to make a website using a website builder.

uCoz uses a ‘freemium’ pricing policy. You can use it free, and your account will never expire, provided that you don’t abandon your website. Free version gives you access to the basic tools and even allows you to connect your own domain. However, in a month or so you’ll have to display a pretty noticeable banner ad on your pages as a pay for the free service.

If this poses inconvenience to you and damages your image, you can get rid of the ad by upgrading your account (the cheapest ad-free package will cost you only $3.09). Actually, the cost is even cheaper than the average hosting plan. So, let’s do some math: $10(domain name) + ($3.09*12months)=$47.08 per year.

The final sum may be higher in case you decide to use a paid uCoz template: $47.08+$10(template)=$57.08. However, if you don’t mind using a subdomain (sitename.ucoz.com) and displaying a banner, the website will cost you $0.

Zoho Sites is another ‘freemium’ site building platform. It offers a rather decent free plan that provides users with enough tools to create a good-looking website. There are only two types of accounts on Zoho Sites: Free and Pro ($39/year). Both include free hosting, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited pages, mobile website and 5 mailboxes on one domain.

Free plan is good for testing, but it’s not suitable for serious undertakings. For those hesitating, there’s a 15-day worthwhile check with money-back guarantee. So, at Zoho Sites you’ll get a website at $39+$10=$49 per year. You may also use their free package with limited functionality and Zoho Sites copyright. It will always remain free.

MotoCMS has a very straightforward pricing policy. It sells templates (HTML and Flash) and doesn’t require any monthly payments. Along with purchasing one of their templates you get a MotoCMS license, free support and lifetime updates. Each template comes with an inbuilt admin panel, drag-and-drop editing tools and numerous easy-to-integrate widgets (you may also develop and use your own extensions).

Thus, your MotoCMS-based website will cost you $139 (the cost of a template). Once you have purchased a template, you’ll have to pay for the chosen hosting plan and domain name. MotoCMS websites can be hosted anywhere, but if you choose BlueHost which is an official partner of this website builder, you’ll get a discount ($3.95/month).

Most website builders do have free plans and don’t require entering any credit card details during registration. However, in most cases you’ll have to ‘pay’ by displaying the system copyright/using subdomain of the platform.

You should treat free plans as an excellent opportunity to try your hand at website building, but not as the optimal solution. To build a professional-looking, ad-free website with a custom domain you’ll have to upgrade your plan. Luckily, website builders are very affordable, and even the priciest packages will hardly ever hurt your wallet.