Does free website hosting make sense for a small business, or will it end up costing more down the road?

If you're not paying for the product, you are the product. Serving your clients a sluggish site plastered with third-party ads isn't saving money—it's losing business.

In our first year we signed up for a free platform just to save 6 EUR a month. In year two, when we wanted to switch to our own domain and migrate the data, they wouldn't give us an export. We ended up having to pay a web designer 450 EUR to rebuild the entire site from scratch.

Tech-savvy folks can spin up a static HTML site and host it on developer platforms for zero cost—that’s totally doable. But running a cleaning and maintenance service means you'll need a CMS, mailboxes, and working contact forms. You can't even set up a professional business email on free hosting.

If you don't mind a corporate client landing on your site for an office cleaning quote and seeing pop-up ads for gambling or diet tea then sure, go for it.

Register your domain in your own name through an independent registrar, no exceptions. That runs about 10-15 EUR a year. Get separate hosting somewhere reliable for around 50 EUR a year. If you're ever unhappy with the service you can move your site elsewhere in a single day.

Since you already budgeted 120 EUR a year don't gamble on this. 10 EUR a month isn't even the cost of lunch... The peace of mind for you and your partners, knowing the site won't crash in the middle of the night, is worth way more than that.

The most critical point being overlooked here is corporate reputation and email deliverability. IP blocks of free hosting providers are usually blacklisted. Any proposal emails you send to clients from them will go straight to the spam folder, and then you'll find yourself having to call to check if they even received it.

Here's how it went for us. People defend habits, not processes. Resistance comes from there.

Mistakes made on the free website hosting side are usually reversible but expensive.

There's one point I'm curious about. The biggest time-waster for us was not knowing who had the final say.

If I were you, I'd go this route.

I have a question, don't want to go off-topic though. Weekly written progress reports are much more useful than asking for dates.

If you don't write this down from the start, it leads to arguments later. Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

There's a trap here, let me mention it. The system lives on after delivery; maintenance is a separate line item.

Proven by experience.

The opposite happened to me, that's why I'm writing. Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's right.

I've been dealing with this for a long time. The real issue isn't the number, but what it's based on.

Trying to do this alone is the most expensive way. Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

You're right. The system lives on after delivery; maintenance is a separate line item.

This is my opinion, I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

i'd appreciate it if you shared the outcome.

Let me summarize the topic, since several different answers were given. People defend habits, not processes. Resistance comes from there.

Correct.

I have a question. Weekly written progress reports are much more useful than asking for dates.

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