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What free really means on an AI website builder
On an AI website builder, “free” can mean four different things: a free plan with no end date, a time-limited trial, a private preview that the public cannot see, or a paid plan with a refund window. Only the first leaves a site online without payment, and it does so with a predictable set of limits attached.
The four offers that get called free
Section titled “The four offers that get called free”| Offer | What you get | If you never pay | How to recognise it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | A public site with permanent limits | The site stays up, limits and all | No end date anywhere on the page |
| Free trial | The paid product for a set number of days | The site goes offline or is deleted | A number of days, or “choose a plan to publish” |
| Free preview | A generated site that only you, or people you invite, can open | Nothing is ever public | The words “preview” or “private” in the free column |
| Refund window | A paid plan you can cancel for your money back | You are charged up front | “Money-back guarantee” in place of “free” |
A page headed “start for free” can describe any of these. The sign-up button looks the same in every case. Three vendors’ own pages, read on 13 November 2026, show how differently the word is used:
- A free plan with strings. Wix says “You can start building your site with AI for free”, and on the same page that for a custom domain or online payments “you’ll need to choose a Premium Plan”.
- A trial. Squarespace answers “yes” to whether its AI builder is free to use, then explains that you can explore the site “during a free Squarespace trial” and that “you need a paid Squarespace website plan to publish the site”.
- A preview. Durable says its free plan “lets you build and share a private preview” of the site.
None of the three is misleading once you read the sentence after the headline. The habit to build is reading that sentence.
The eight kinds of limit on a free plan
Section titled “The eight kinds of limit on a free plan”Free plans are assembled from the same parts. Learn the parts and you can read any vendor’s page.
| Kind of limit | What it means for you | Words to search for |
|---|---|---|
| 1. A vendor subdomain | The address belongs to the builder and cannot move with you | domain, subdomain, URL |
| 2. Vendor branding | An ad bar, a footer badge or a “made with” label on every page | badge, branding, ads, remove |
| 3. An AI allowance | A fixed amount of generating and editing by prompt | credits, tokens, messages, requests |
| 4. Content and traffic caps | Ceilings on pages, storage, bandwidth, file size or form submissions | pages, storage, GB, bandwidth, submissions |
| 5. No custom domain | Connecting a domain you own is held back for paid plans | custom domain, connect |
| 6. No payments | Checkout, bookings with payment and stores are switched off | payments, ecommerce, sell |
| 7. Use and inactivity rules | The plan may be for personal use, and idle sites may be removed | commercial, personal, inactive |
| 8. Export locks | The site only runs on the platform that made it | export, download, code, transfer |
Three of these deserve a closer look.
The shape of the AI allowance matters more than its size. An allowance that refills every day suits slow, steady editing. One that refills monthly suits a burst of work. One that is granted once is a demonstration: when it is gone, the AI part of the product is over until you pay. The pricing FAQ is where “one-time”, “expires daily” and “does not roll over” appear.
The custom domain is the limit that ends most free plans. A vendor subdomain is fine for a draft. It is awkward on a business card, and you lose it the day you change builders. Because nearly everyone wants their own address eventually, this is where vendors put the paywall.
Use rules are easy to miss because they are not in the feature table. A plan described as being for personal or non-commercial use may not be the place for a shop window, even if nothing technical stops you. Look in the plan description and the terms of service.
The eighth kind has its own page: Exporting your site and lock-in.
How to read a pricing page in ten minutes
Section titled “How to read a pricing page in ten minutes”Do this with the vendor’s own pages before you write a single prompt.
- Open the pricing page and find the full comparison table. It is usually behind a “compare plans” link below the plan cards. The cards show what each plan adds. The table shows what the free column lacks.
- Check for a time limit. If you find a number of days, you are reading about a trial.
- Search the page for the words in the table above, one row at a time. Write down the answer for each of the eight kinds, or “not said”.
- Read the pricing FAQ. The awkward details live there.
- Search the help centre for “export” and “cancel”. The answers tell you what you keep if you leave or stop paying.
- Publish a one-line test page on the free plan and open it on your phone. You will see the address and the branding exactly as a visitor would.
If an answer is missing, ask the vendor’s support before you commit. A vendor that cannot say what happens to your site when you stop paying has told you something as well.
Free hosting has limits too
Section titled “Free hosting has limits too”The open-source route swaps a builder’s free plan for a host’s free tier, and the same reading applies. These are the published limits of the two hosts used in Build a website for free with AI, as documented on 13 November 2026.
| Kind of limit | Cloudflare, Workers Free plan | GitHub Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Address | A workers.dev subdomain, or your own domain |
A github.io address, or your own domain |
| Branding | None | None |
| Size and traffic | 20,000 files, 25 MiB each; requests to static files are not billed | A 1 GB site and a soft limit of 100 GB of bandwidth a month |
| Use rules | No rule of this kind in the pages we read | Not allowed as free hosting for an online business or e-commerce site |
| Export | Not needed: the files are in your repository | Not needed: the files are in your repository |
Several of the eight kinds of limit fall away on this route: there is no branding, no charge for connecting a domain and nothing to export. The price is the skill it takes.
What to do with the answers
Section titled “What to do with the answers”If the limits are acceptable for what you are making, such as a personal page, a class project or a draft to show a client, stay free and stop worrying. If you need your own domain, work out the true yearly cost using Free plan vs. paid. If you would rather own the site outright and can work with code, build a website for free with AI describes the route with no hosting bill.
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell a free plan from a free trial before I sign up?
Look for a number of days. A free plan has no end date and its limits are permanent. A trial names a period, such as 7 or 14 days, and says what happens afterwards. If the page says you must choose a plan to publish, or mentions a refund window, it is not a free plan, whatever the button says.
Will my free website be deleted if I never upgrade?
On a real free plan, usually not, although vendors commonly reserve the right to remove sites that nobody has visited or edited for a long time. On a trial, yes: the site goes offline or is deleted when the period ends unless you subscribe. The vendor's help centre says which, normally under a heading about cancelling or inactivity.
Do free plans and free hosting allow commercial use?
Not always, so read the terms before you try. Free tiers are often meant for personal use and usually switch off payments. Free hosting can carry the same rule: GitHub states that Pages is not allowed to be used as free hosting to run an online business or e-commerce site. A business site normally needs a paid plan or a host that permits commercial use.
Do unused AI credits roll over on a free plan?
Often not. A free AI allowance usually resets each day or each month, and what you did not use is lost. Some are granted once and never refill. Search the pricing page and its FAQ for the words expire, roll over and one-time to find out which kind you have.
Does free static hosting have limits as well?
Yes, though they are generous for a small site. As documented on 13 November 2026, GitHub Pages limits a published site to 1 GB with a soft bandwidth limit of 100 GB a month, and Cloudflare's free Workers plan allows 20,000 static files of up to 25 MiB each while serving requests to them at no charge.