Yes, almost all website builders offer free plans and that’s not to say you shouldn’t use them. Many of the best ones on the market offer free plans as a starter. Pretty much all website builders, in general, offer a free plan in order to acquire new business. It’s a great marketing strategy for them. It works, and drives millions of signups. After all, who wouldn’t want something for free?
Even HostGator offers a free plan with their new
website builder. So, why this post against free website builders?
The problem with most free website builders is that while they are a great starting place, they’re typically inadequate for fully building out a professional website.
In most cases, you’ll sign up and invest a lot of time and effort building your free site, only to find the result to be inadequate. At this point, you will either have to upgrade or switch to a new service and repeat the process all over again. Either way, you’ve caused yourself a lot of undue frustration.
This is one of many ways HostGator’s builder is different. They offer a free plan like everyone else, but once you decide you want to unlock additional features, it’s a seamless upgrade and all of your previous work is saved. HostGator didn’t want to come out with just another website builder. Instead they sought to improve upon what was already out there.
In reality, a business cannot—and in my opinion, should not—offer you a service for completely free. Everyone needs compensation for offering a service.