A free custom website build
We build the whole thing first. You look at the finished site, then decide whether to keep it.
Freedom35 Web Design builds custom websites for small businesses, studios and personal projects at no upfront cost: no deposit, no build fee, nothing to pay before you have seen the finished site. The build takes about seven days. If you like it, you keep it on an annual plan — $180, $600 or $1,200 a year, prices published. If you don't, you walk away owing nothing and we delete it. We are a US studio based in Michigan, working entirely online with clients anywhere English is spoken.
Looking for a free website builder instead? Then this is the wrong page, and we would rather say so on the first screen than waste your afternoon. If you want to build it yourself with a drag-and-drop editor, the free tiers of Wix, Weebly and Google Sites are real and genuinely cost $0 — they put their branding and an address like yourbusiness.wixsite.com on your site, which we explain honestly in is a free website ever really free? This page is about the other kind of free: we do the building, and it is a finished custom site rather than a template you fill in.
What does "free build" actually mean?
It means the design and build of the entire site — every page, written into code by us, tailored to your business — happens before you are asked for any money, and happens whether or not you end up paying. There is no deposit, no setup fee, no "free consultation" that turns into a $3,000 proposal, and no card requested at any stage of the intake.
What you pay for, if you decide to go ahead, is keeping the site alive and looked after: hosting, the SSL certificate, and the update requests you send us during the year. That is the annual plan, and it is the entire business model. The build is what we spend to earn it.
What do you pay before you see anything?
This is the number that actually separates the options, and it is rarely printed on the same page as the others.
| Route | Typical cost before you see a finished site | What you are committing to |
|---|---|---|
| Web design agency | A deposit, commonly 30–50% of a $3,000–$10,000 project, against a proposal and a portfolio of other people's work. | The full project fee, usually on a signed contract, before anyone has built your site. |
| Freelancer | Often 50% up front, sometimes milestone payments. | The agreed fee, plus the risk that the person goes quiet mid-build — the single most common web-design horror story we hear. |
| "$0 down" subscription vendors | $0 up front, genuinely. | $99–$249 every month, typically on a 24–36 month term, often with the domain and the site staying theirs. We did the three-year arithmetic. |
| DIY builder | $0, plus your own evenings. | Nothing financially. The cost is time, and the result looks like the template it came from. |
| Freedom35 (this) | $0. The finished, custom-coded site exists and you have clicked through it before money is mentioned. | Nothing, until you say yes. Then $180–$1,200 a year, prepaid, 12-month minimum. Say no and there is no invoice. |
The arithmetic worth doing before you talk to anyone: at $99 a month, three years costs $3,564 and the site is usually still not yours. Our Hobby plan over the same three years is $540, Business is $1,800, and your domain is in your name the entire time. We publish that comparison because it is the strongest honest argument we have, and because a vendor who won't put their prices on a page is telling you something.
Why would anyone build a website for free?
Because the normal way asks you to pay a deposit to find out whether we understood your business. We would rather you find out first.
It only works because we are fast, and we are fast because we do not start from a blank page. We maintain our own toolkit — the layout system, the booking and payment code, the accounts and dashboard machinery — so your site is assembled from parts that already work and then tailored to you. That is what makes seven days realistic and what makes giving the build away survivable.
And it is a real bet, not a trick: when someone takes the free build and says no, we have spent about a week and earned nothing. We think that is the right way round, because we are the ones claiming to be good at this.
So what is the catch?
There is one, and we wrote it out in full on its own page rather than burying it here: is a free website ever really free? The short version — the site lives on a temporary preview address until you decide, the annual plan is prepaid with a 12-month minimum, and if you stop paying, the site comes offline at the end of your paid term. Your domain and your content are yours throughout, and we send you a copy of everything on request.
Who is this for — and who is it not for?
It works well for small businesses, service providers, studios, schools, clubs and personal projects that need a site which loads fast, reads well on a phone, and can take enquiries, bookings or payments without a pile of plugins behind it.
It is a poor fit for anyone who needs a large online store, a marketplace with two sides to it, or a multi-location operation — those we quote individually rather than build free. And we screen every request personally: we build for legal businesses and hobbies, and we turn down work we can't do well or can't stand behind. You will get an honest answer either way, usually within one business day.
What is in the free build?
- A custom-coded site — not a template with your logo dropped in, and no page builder underneath it
- Written to work properly on phones, tablets and desktops
- Contact or enquiry forms that arrive in your inbox
- Fast by default: no tracking pile, no chat widget, no cookie banner you didn't ask for
- A private preview link you can click through, test on your phone, and send to whoever else needs to see it
Pro-tier machinery — booking, customer accounts, card payments, a staff dashboard — is built in a second stage once you are on the plan. You still see a finished website before paying anything; how it works explains where that line sits and why.
How long does it take?
About seven days from the point we have agreed what we are building and have your content. That second half is the one that actually controls the calendar — waiting on photos and copy is the most common reason any build runs long, and it is the half you hold. We broke the week down day by day in the 7-day build.
Do you own your domain?
Yes, and we insist on it. You buy your own domain, in your own name, for about $12–15 a year, and we help you point it at the site. If you ever leave us, you keep it and the site can be rebuilt anywhere. This is the single most important line in the whole arrangement, and it is the one some vendors quietly reverse — we wrote about who actually owns your domain because the answer surprises people at the worst possible moment.
What happens if you say no?
Nothing happens. There is no invoice, no cancellation fee, no "onboarding cost" recovered afterwards, and no follow-up sequence pretending to be a person. We take the preview down and delete it. You keep your domain and anything you sent us. That is the deal as published, and honouring it cleanly is worth more to us than arguing one person into a plan they don't want.
How do you start?
The intake form takes about ten minutes. It asks what your business does, what the site needs to do, what you like the look of, and when you need it — every question on it is one we would otherwise have to ask you later, and answering them up front is what makes a seven-day build possible. No card, no phone call, no obligation. We read it properly and reply within one business day.
The build is free. The worst case is a website you didn't want.
Ten minutes on the form, a finished site in about a week, and a decision that is entirely yours to make afterwards.