If this is your first foray into the world of website building, you should know that things have improved dramatically in the past few years – especially if you lack experience, time, or money.

Once upon a time you needed finely-honed design and development skills, or the budget to hire expensive skilled experts. No longer.

Now website builder platforms are so user-friendly that anyone can build a professional website in a matter of hours. Better yet, many of the top site builders allow you to create a website for free.

Reasons to Choose a Free Website Builder

There are plenty of good reasons to choose a free website builder. These are the big three:

Experience

Free site builders are a great way to test the waters. You can try out the product to make sure it has all the functionality you need, and put your own skills to the test, without spending a dime. Then, if your final website meets your expectations, or your business idea shows potential, it’s easy to upgrade to a paid package without having to start from scratch.

Speed

Whether you opt for the website builder free of charge or the paid plan, website builders make building an attractive site much less time-consuming than the traditional developer and designer route. They offer hundreds of modern templates to get you started, drag-and-drop tools to customize the look, and plugins and widgets to add any type of functionality you might need. All the user-friendly tools mean you can build a site in just a few hours.

Cost

If you’re creating a website for a business or product, the top free website builders give you everything you need to check the market while minimizing upfront costs. There are a few limitations, but you can get an attractive, functional site online without spending any money.

What you get with Free Site Builders

There are lots of great website builders out there. Although they all differ in their details, all offer a user-friendly graphical interface designed to make all the complicated coding and design work of creating a website simple. Luckily, most of the key functionality of paid website builders is available even if you opt for a free package. Below are some features you will need in order to create a free website. 

Drag-and-Drop Editor

These are what make website builders perfect for first-timers and those who don’t want to pay a web design agency to create their site. Drag-and-drop editors allow you to piece together websites to your exact specifications using a simple graphic interface – no HTML or Photoshop required.

Templates

Alongside the drag-and-drop editor, a solid collection of professionally-designed templates is one of the most important things to look for in a good website builder. The best free website builder will offer hundreds – if not thousands – of modern, mobile-optimized templates. If you’re building a site for your business you should find plenty of options for your specific industry. You’ll also have a choice of blog and portfolio templates. Once you’ve found a template you like, you can add your own images, add and remove pages and widgets, and generally customize it to your precise needs.

Free hosting

As well as the tools you need to actually build a site, you also get free hosting as part of the package. That means potential customers will actually be able to visit your site. Without hosting the only person who’ll be able to see your site is you!

What You Don’t Get with Free Website Builders

There’s no doubt that you get a lot for nothing with free site builders, but it’s important to know what functionality you only get with a paid plan.

Dedicated Domain Name

Unlike with a paid website builder, with a free plan you don’t get the option to have your own distinct domain name. So instead of www.yourbusiness.com, you’ll get something along the lines of www.websitebuildercompany.com/yourbusiness. You can find out more about the difference between domains and sub-domains here.

Ad-Free Site

Another downside of a free website builder is that your site will include irremovable adverts placed by the website builder company. This is a way for the company to recoup some of the cost of hosting your site for free.

eCommerce Capabilities

If you’re planning on selling a product or accepting payments on your website you’ll have to pay up for a premium plan to get shopping cart and payment processing functionality.

Despite the limitations that inevitably come when you get something valuable for nothing, we think free website builders are a great tool for many people. There’s no better way to get started with creating a website.

If you think you might need the full functionality that comes with a premium website builder plan, check out our Top 5 ranking of the best website builders of 2017. If you’re planning on setting up a web store, we’ve also put together a list of the best eCommerce builders on the market.