Why free hosting is real (not a trick)
When I tell a local business owner their website hosting is free, they’re rightly suspicious. Free usually means “free until we hook you.” But for a static site — the fast, simple kind I build — platforms like Netlify and Vercel genuinely cost nothing at local-business traffic levels. They give away the small stuff because it’s cheap for them and it gets bigger companies in the door.
Your only real recurring cost is the domain name — about $15 a year. That’s not hosting; that’s renting your address, and it’s the same anywhere.
For a plumber, shop, or service business in Oakland or Genesee County, the free tier isn’t a starter plan you’ll grow out of. It’s the plan.
Where the free tier actually stops
Being honest, though, there are edges. I’ve been digging into exactly where they are. You’d hit one of these only in specific situations:
1. Bandwidth (huge traffic)
Free plans include a monthly bandwidth allowance that’s enormous for a local site. You’d only blow past it with tens of thousands of visitors a month, or by serving big video/downloads directly — the kind of “problem” most local businesses would love to have.
2. Heavy build minutes
These platforms rebuild your site when you change it. Free tiers cap the monthly build time. A normal site updated normally never comes close; you’d only feel this with constant automated rebuilds.
3. Serverless functions at scale
If your site runs backend logic on every visit — not just a contact form, but real app-style features with lots of usage — that’s where free plans start metering. A brochure-plus-forms site doesn’t touch this.
4. Team features and commercial rules
Some advanced collaboration features, analytics, or specific commercial use cases live on paid tiers. These are conveniences, not requirements to keep your site online.
What to do if you ever hit an edge
Here’s the reassuring part: hitting a limit isn’t a crisis, and it’s not lock-in. Your options are all good ones:
- Move the heavy thing. Big videos belong on YouTube or a media host anyway — that alone solves most bandwidth worries.
- Pay a modest tier. If your traffic genuinely got that big, a small monthly fee is a rounding error against the business that traffic represents.
- Move hosts entirely. Because you own your code and domain, you can pick up your site and move it somewhere else in an afternoon. No permission needed.
That third point is the whole philosophy: the reason I can promise free hosting and no lock-in is that you own everything. Free today, and free to leave tomorrow.
The bottom line
Don’t let anyone scare you into an expensive hosting contract “so you don’t outgrow it.” A static site on Netlify or Vercel will almost certainly stay free for the life of your local business. And on the rare chance you ever bump an edge, it means things are going well — and you’ll have simple, cheap options because you own the site.
Want to know where your current site sits — who hosts it, what it costs, and whether you actually own it? Book a free conversation and I’ll walk through it with you.