A custom domain do make your website look much more professional.
Instead of sending visitors to something like yourbusiness.platform.com, you can use a domain such as yourbusiness.com while keeping your website builder or hosting costs at $0.
The catch is that not every free website builder supports custom domains. Some only allow custom domains on paid plans, while others let you connect a domain for free but require you to purchase the domain separately.
If you're looking for a way to build a website without paying a monthly website-building fee, here are some platforms worth considering.
1. Soloist
Best for: Simple personal and business websites
Soloist is a website-building platform designed for creating simple websites.
It's worth considering if you want a lightweight website rather than a complicated content management system. You can use it for a personal website, portfolio, small business, landing page, or online presence.
One of the biggest attractions for people looking for a free website solution is the ability to use your own domain while avoiding the recurring cost associated with many traditional website builders.
Best for: Personal websites, portfolios, freelancers, and simple business sites.
Catch: Small “Built with Soloist” branding on your website.
2. Payhip
Best for: Selling products from a simple website
Payhip is primarily an ecommerce platform, but it can also function as a website, blog and storefront for creators and small businesses.
You can use Payhip to sell digital products, courses, memberships, and physical products without building a traditional ecommerce website from scratch. It is particularly interesting if your main reason for creating a website is to sell something.
Payhip allows sellers to connect a custom domain to their store on their free plan, making it possible to have a branded web address rather than relying entirely on a Payhip URL.
Best for: Digital products, courses, memberships, and small online stores.
Catch: 5% transaction fees aside Stripe/PayPal fees.
3. Beehiiv
Best for: Newsletters and content websites
Beehiiv started off as an email newsletter platform but has expanded into a broader publishing platform.
You can create a publication website around your newsletter, publish blog articles, collect subscribers, and build an audience from the same platform.
For bloggers and newsletter creators, this can be an appealing alternative to paying separately for a website, email marketing platform, and publishing system.
A custom domain can also help make the publication feel like an independent brand rather than an extension of another platform.
Best for: Newsletter creators, publishers, bloggers, and media businesses.
Catch: Small “Powered by Beehiiv” branding at the bottom of your site and in your email newsletters.
4. Systeme.io
Best for: Websites, funnels and online businesses
Systeme.io is an all-in-one platform designed for entrepreneurs who want to build and market an online business. It includes tools for websites, landing pages, sales funnels, email marketing, online courses, and digital products.
Its free plan lets you to start an online business without paying for several separate marketing platforms. You can connect a custom domain to your online presence, although some features and limits vary depending on the plan.
Best for: Online businesses, digital products, courses, sales funnels, and email marketing.
Catch: Static “Powered by Systeme” on your website.
5. Kit
Best for: Creator websites and newsletters
Kit is primarily an email marketing platform for creators, but it also provides landing pages and creator websites. This makes it possible to establish a simple online presence while building an email list.
If you're a blogger, author, coach, creator, or digital product seller, you may not need a complicated website at the beginning. A simple homepage, newsletter signup, links to your products, and a custom domain can be enough.
Kit supports custom domains for creator pages and landing pages, although availability depends on the specific feature and plan.
Best for: Creators, bloggers, authors, newsletter writers, and digital product sellers.
Catch: ”Built with KIt” branding at the bottom of your email newsletters, creator page and landing pages.
6. GetResponse
Best for: Websites combined with email marketing
GetResponse is best known as an email marketing and automation platform, but it also includes website-building tools. You can use it to create a website, landing pages, signup forms, email campaigns, and automated marketing workflows.
That makes it useful for someone who wants their website and email marketing to work together rather than managing them through several different platforms.
Custom-domain support is available, but you’ll need to connect it before publisihing your website.
Best for: Small businesses, creators, marketers, and businesses focused on email marketing.
7. Google Sites
Best for: Completely free basic websites
Google Sites is one of the simplest options if your priority is keeping website costs as close to zero as possible. You can create pages using a straightforward drag-and-drop interface without dealing with hosting or complicated technical setup.
Google Sites is particularly useful for simple websites, portfolios, internal resources, event pages, school projects, and basic business websites. You can connect a custom domain, although you'll still need to own or purchase the domain itself.
The biggest limitation is that Google Sites isn't designed to compete with a full website CMS. Design and customization options are relatively limited.
Best for: Simple websites, portfolios, projects, resources, and basic business pages.
8. Fourthwall
Best for: Creator websites and online stores
Fourthwall is designed specifically for creators who want to build an online presence and sell products. You can create a storefront, sell physical products, digital products, memberships, and other offerings while maintaining a branded website.
For creators who already have an audience on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or another platform, Fourthwall can be an attractive way to combine a website and ecommerce store.
A custom domain can also be connected to your Fourthwall site.
Best for: Content creators, influencers, YouTubers, artists, and online communities.
9. Blogger
Best for: Free blogging with a custom domain
Blogger is one of the oldest free blogging platforms still widely known today, and one of its biggest advantages is simplicity. You can create a blog without paying for hosting and connect a custom domain that you own.
For someone whose main goal is to publish articles rather than build a complex business website, Blogger can still be a practical option. You also get Google's infrastructure without having to manage servers, updates, or hosting yourself.
The downside is that Blogger's design and functionality are more limited than platforms such as Ghost or Feather.
Best for: Bloggers, personal websites, hobby sites, and content-focused websites.
10. HubSpot
Best for: Business websites and CRM-powered marketing
HubSpot offers more than a website builder. Its broader platform includes CRM, marketing, sales, customer service, and other business tools. Its CMS tools can be useful for businesses that want their website closely connected to their customer and marketing data.
HubSpot offers free tools, but it's important to pay attention to which CMS and custom-domain features are included in the free tier because HubSpot's product structure and feature limits can vary.
For businesses already interested in using HubSpot's CRM, having website and customer data in the same ecosystem can be useful.
Best for: Small businesses that want a website connected to CRM and marketing tools.
11. JustBlogged
Best for: Simple blogging websites
JustBlogged is a blogging-focused platform aimed at people who want to publish content without dealing with the technical side of website management. It's worth considering if you want something simpler than a full CMS and your primary goal is maintaining a blog.
The platform can also be useful for people who want to establish a branded web presence without taking on traditional hosting and website-management costs.
Best for: Bloggers and content creators looking for a simple publishing platform.
12. Softr
Best for: No-code websites and web apps
Softr is a no-code platform for building websites, client portals, directories, internal tools, and web applications. Rather than focusing solely on traditional websites, Softr is particularly interesting when you want your site to have functionality beyond static pages.
For example, you could create a directory, membership portal, client dashboard, or other database-powered website without traditional programming.
Best for: Directories, portals, internal tools, membership sites, and no-code web apps.
13. Vercel
Best for: Developers and custom websites
Vercel is different from most of the other platforms on this list. It isn't a traditional drag-and-drop website builder. Instead, it's a cloud platform for deploying websites and web applications, particularly projects built with frameworks such as Next.js.
For developers or people using AI coding tools such as Claude Code to build websites, Vercel can provide free hosting while allowing you to connect a custom domain.
You can therefore build a website with your preferred technology, deploy it to Vercel, and use your own domain without paying for traditional hosting. The tradeoff is that you'll generally need some technical knowledge or a tool that can generate the website for you.
Best for: Developers, AI-built websites, startups, web apps, and custom projects.
Which Free Website Builder Should You Choose?
The right choice depends on what you're actually trying to build.
- If you simply need a basic website, Google Sites is one of the easiest places to start.
- For a blog, Beehiiv is worth considering if you want free hosting, newsletters and a custom domain without dealing with technical maintenance.
- If you're building a newsletter, Kit is a perfect fit for you.
- For digital products, Payhip gives you ecommerce functionality without requiring you to build a traditional online store.
- If you're building an online business, Systeme.io combines websites with funnels, email marketing, and digital products.
- For creators, Fourthwall is designed around selling products and building a creator storefront.
- If you need a directory, portal, or web application, Softr can give you considerably more functionality than a basic website builder.
- And if you're comfortable with development or using AI to build your site, Vercel gives you much more control than a conventional drag-and-drop builder.
Don't Forget the Domain
There's an important distinction when looking for a "free website builder with a custom domain."
Free website builder doesn't necessarily mean free domain.
In most cases, you'll still need to purchase the domain name itself. What you're avoiding is the monthly or annual fee charged by the website builder for hosting your website or enabling custom-domain functionality.
So you might pay something like $10–$20 per year for your domain while paying $0/month for the website platform.
That can be a great setup when you're starting a blog, portfolio, small business, newsletter, or online store and want to keep your recurring expenses low.
Before choosing a platform, always check its current custom-domain rules. Free plans change, and some platforms may limit custom domains, remove certain features, or require an upgrade as your website grows.
If you don’t have a domain yet, I recommend you get one from Namecheap. It’s where I purchase mine from and a reliable platform for hosting your domain.
