What free website hosting actually gives you

Free website hosting is not a trick. Serving a small static site genuinely costs a provider very little, and the free tier is how they meet you.

But "free" is never unlimited, and providers differ enormously in where they put the limit. Some cap bandwidth. Some cap builds. Some are free until you want a domain. Some are free until someone actually visits.

This is a guide to reading those limits — including ours, which we will be specific about rather than vague.

The five limits that actually exist

Nearly every free tier is defined by some combination of these. If a provider does not state one, that is the one worth asking about.

Storage. How much your files take up. A text-and-images site is usually under 10 MB. Video will blow through any free tier, which is why people put video on YouTube and embed it.

Traffic. Usually counted in visits or in bandwidth. This is the one that surprises people: a site can be free forever and then suddenly not be, because it got popular.

Number of sites. One free site is common. It is limiting the moment you want a second one.

Custom domains. Very often the free/paid line. Free gets you yourname.provider.com; your own yourname.com costs.

Server-side code. Static pages are cheap to serve. Code that runs on every request is not, so it is usually restricted, metered, or paid.

What happens when you hit a limit

More important than the number, and much less often stated. There are three behaviours, and they are very different:

• The site goes offline until the period resets or you upgrade.
• You get billed for the overage, sometimes without a cap.
• The site slows down but keeps serving.

The middle one is the dangerous one. Stories of surprise four-figure hosting bills almost always come from a service with no spending ceiling. If a provider does not tell you what happens at the limit, assume the worst and ask.

We stop serving. Your sites return an error until the month resets or you upgrade. That is worse for your uptime and better for your bank account, and we think that is the right trade for people publishing a personal site.

Our limits, specifically

Free:

• 3 websites
• 100 MB storage
• 100,000 visits a month
• A free bldeploy.run address, with HTTPS
• No credit card

Paid, if you outgrow it — Starter is $4.99 a month or $49 a year, Pro is $14.99 or $149. Those add custom domains, more storage and more traffic.

What free does not include:

• A custom domain. That starts on Starter.
• Automatic access to server-side code. Static sites publish immediately. Anything that runs code on a server — a login, a form that stores what people submit, an API — needs a verified account first. Verification is free and takes a minute; it exists because running untrusted code is the expensive, abusable thing, and it is gated behind proving you are a person rather than behind paying.

That last point catches people out, so: paying does not unlock server-side apps. Verifying does. A Pro subscriber who has not verified still cannot run code, and a free user who has verified can.

The questions worth asking any provider

Whoever you end up with:

1. What happens when I hit the limit — offline, throttled, or billed?
2. Is there a spending cap, and can I set it?
3. Is a custom domain included, and what happens to my site if I stop paying?
4. Can I get my files back out?
5. Is HTTPS included, or is that the upsell?

A provider that answers all five plainly is telling you something about how they will behave later.

Where free is genuinely enough

For a large number of sites, the free tier is not a trial period — it is the permanent answer:

• A portfolio
• A small business page with hours and contact details
• A wedding or event page
• A menu
• A landing page for something you are testing
• A calculator or small tool that runs in the visitor's browser

None of these are close to 100,000 visits a month. If yours is, that is a good problem, and $4.99 is not the obstacle.

Where it is not

Be realistic about when you will need to pay:

• You need your own domain — that is the most common reason, and it is reasonable.
• Your site stores data — bookings, accounts, submissions.
• You are running something with real traffic.

The useful question is not "is it free" but "what does it cost when it works". A host that is free at zero visitors and unpredictable at ten thousand is worse than one that is $4.99 and boring.