Agencies offering to build company websites completely free of charge: what is missing compared to a real site?

I've been in this industry for twenty years, and I've never seen a free website model that didn't screw over the client. They waive setup fees because they lock you into paying 50 EUR every single month for at least two years under the guise of "maintenance." Read the fine print in their contract and you'll see what's actually going on.

A plumber friend of mine in Madrid fell right into this trap. They built the site for free, and 6 months later demanded an extra 35 EUR a month claiming his email quota was full. When he objected and tried to leave, they refused to release the domain, and he had to pay a 600 EUR exit fee just to get his domain back.

They usually just copy-paste a ready-made template into their own proprietary CMS. They won't give you cPanel, FTP, or database access. Down the road, when you want to add a new field to your contact form or update your Google Maps location, they'll bill you a separate service fee for every single minor tweak.

The site is free, sure, but having a working contact button is 20 euros a month, uploading photos of your cleaning services is 30 euros. Next thing you know, the monthly upkeep on this "free" site rivals office rent in downtown Madrid.

When you spoke on the phone did they mention how much the mandatory annual maintenance or hosting fees are? Also, did you explicitly ask under whose name they'll be registering the domain?

Don't even waste your time. Register your domain under your own name for 12-15 EUR a year. Grab hosting from a solid independent provider for around 50-60 EUR a year. Then pay a freelance dev you know a one-off 300-400 EUR to build the site. That way, you're the one holding all the cards.

From the perspective of corporate integrity and data security, leaving your company's commercial data, customer communication logs, and domain rights at the sole discretion of a third party creates significant legal and operational liabilities. You should never sign any agreement that does not grant you full ownership.

edit: I wrote something wrong above, sorry about that.

I think it's hard to be that definitive about company website free. Mistakes made on the company website free side are usually reversible but expensive.

That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

My perspective changed after experiencing that. Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

Let me clarify the technical side. If you get three different answers on a topic, the question was asked wrong.

My questions are cleared up, thanks. Every "we'll look at it later" in a meeting means unbilled work.

Implementing a change request process doesn't slow things down, it speeds them up. Good luck with that.

Let me share my experience. Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's right.

The opposite happened to me, that's why I'm writing. Code without setup documentation isn't yours even if you have it.

Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later as both sides remember it differently. This is my opinion, I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

I've been dealing with this for a long time. If scope grows either time or budget must grow. There is no third option.

Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

Absolutely. If I were to add anything: Everyone rushing into company website free gets stuck at the same point.

I went through the same thing.

You're right.

Let's separate the concepts, they're getting mixed up. Solutions that work at a small scale collapse when you grow; I learned this late.

I'm also curious if anyone does it differently.