How to Get a Free Website for Your Business in 2026: 10 Ways Compared (Wix, WordPress, Canva, Carrd, Google, Jobbit)

You need a website, you do not need a £2,000 invoice. Whether you are a plumber, a personal trainer, a freelance designer, a mobile hairdresser or someone with a weekend side hustle, the problem is the same: customers Google you before they call, and if all they find is an Instagram grid they call the next name. The good news is that in 2026 a free website is a genuine option, not a trick. The bad news is that "free" means ten different things across ten different tools, and most people pick the wrong one, live with a wixsite.com address and a banner ad for two years, and then pay someone to start again.

This guide compares every legitimate way to get a website for free in the UK: the free website builders (Wix, WordPress.com, Canva, Carrd, Weebly, Webador, Strikingly), the free ecommerce option (Square Online), the developer route (GitHub Pages), the free listing that outranks most websites (Google Business Profile) and the new route, an AI agent that designs, builds and hosts a real site from a description. For each you get what is actually free, the catch, who it suits and how to get found on Google once it is live. At the end there is a 90-minute plan to go from nothing to a live, searchable business website without spending a pound.

What "free website" actually means in 2026

Every free plan pays for itself somewhere. Before choosing, know the five things that are usually not free:

1. Your own domain. Free plans put you on a subdomain such as yourname.wixsite.com or yourname.wordpress.com. A .co.uk domain costs about £5 to £10 a year, a .com about £10 to £15, and every builder charges extra to connect it.

2. No adverts. Wix, WordPress.com and Weebly show their own branding or ads on free sites. Customers notice.

3. Email on your domain. hello@yourbusiness.co.uk is never in a free website plan; budget £3 to £6 a month per mailbox or use a free forwarder.

4. Storage, bandwidth and pages. Free tiers cap photos, pages and visitors. Fine for a five-page brochure site, tight for a gallery.

5. Taking payments and bookings. Forms are usually free; checkout, booking calendars and invoices are usually paid add-ons, or come with a transaction fee.

Judge each option below on those five, plus one more: how long it takes you to build and how much it costs to change later.

10 ways to get a free website, compared

Options 2 to 9 are the traditional answer and each has a place. Option 1 is new: instead of you filling in a template on a free plan, an agent builds the site to your business and keeps changing it for you. Option 7 is not a website at all but earns more phone calls for a local trade than most websites do, so do both.

The free website builders in detail

Wix

The most famous free website builder and still a good editor. The free plan gives you the full drag-and-drop tool, hundreds of templates, 500 MB of storage and Wix's own hosting. You cannot connect a domain, the site carries a Wix banner and your address is yourname.wixsite.com/yoursite, which looks amateur on a business card. Removing the ads and adding a domain starts at about £9 to £13 a month on Wix's Light plan, which is where most "free" Wix sites end up.

WordPress.com

Not to be confused with self-hosted WordPress.org, which is free software but needs paid hosting. WordPress.com's free plan gives you a blog-capable site with 1 GB of storage on a wordpress.com subdomain, with WordPress adverts shown to visitors. It is the best free option if you intend to write regularly, because its blogging tools are unmatched, but plugins, custom themes and a domain need a paid plan from about £3 to £4 a month on annual billing.

Canva Websites

If you already design your flyers in Canva, its website builder turns a design into a responsive page in minutes and publishes it free on a my.canva.site address. It is genuinely beautiful and genuinely limited: basic SEO settings, simple forms, no ecommerce and no blog. Perfect for a wedding photographer's portfolio or an event page, less so for a business that wants to rank on Google for "electrician in Leeds".

Carrd

Carrd builds fast, elegant one-page sites and gives you three free on carrd.co subdomains. Freelancers use it for a services page with a contact button; founders use it for launch pages. Forms, custom domains and embeds need Carrd Pro, which at about $19 a year is the cheapest upgrade on this list.

Square Online

The one free option built for selling. Square Online's free plan gives you a shop with a proper checkout, order management and Square's payment processing, with no monthly fee. You pay per sale (about 1.4% plus 25p for UK card payments online, more for some methods) and sit on a square.site subdomain with Square branding. If you sell a handful of products, vouchers or classes, it beats every other free plan here.

Weebly, Webador and Strikingly

All three offer a usable free tier for a small brochure site, all three keep you on a branded subdomain with adverts, and all three push you towards a £5 to £12 a month plan the moment you want a domain. Fine for a village club or a one-off event; for a business, treat them as a trial.

GitHub Pages

If you or a friend can write HTML, GitHub Pages hosts a static website free of charge, with a custom domain and HTTPS included, no ads, no limits that matter for a small business. It is the most honestly free option on the list. The cost is skill: there is no editor, no forms without a third-party service, and every change is a code commit. An AI agent removes that barrier, which brings us to the new route.

The new route: an AI agent builds your free website

In 2026 the fastest way to a proper website is to describe it. Tell Jobbit's agent "Build a website for my mobile dog grooming service in Bristol: home page, prices, service area, photos, reviews and a booking enquiry form" and it designs the pages, writes the copy from your details, generates or places the images, builds the site as real code, deploys it and hands you a live link. Then you edit it the same way: "make the header dark green", "add a Christmas price list", "put the new review on the home page".

What is free: the free plan gives you 100 credits a day, which is enough to build and publish a simple business site and make changes, and a small hosting pool so the site is live on a Jobbit address at no cost. What is paid: always-on hosting with a custom domain, automatic SSL, more storage and the stronger models come with Plus at £15 a month, which is what a free Wix site costs the moment you remove the ads and add a domain, except that here the agent also does the building and every future edit. Our comparison of the best AI website builders puts the agent next to Wix, Squarespace, Framer, Durable and Lovable, and how much a website costs a UK small business shows what you are saving against an agency or a freelancer.

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Manus and Meta's Muse can all draft your website copy, but none of them designs, builds and hosts the site; that is the step that used to cost money. Two other advantages matter for small businesses. The same agent that built the site writes your Google Business Profile, your Jobbit Pro profile and your social posts from the same information, so everything says the same thing. And when you need a human, a designer or photographer from the Jobbit Pro network can polish the result with escrow-protected payment.

Do not skip Google Business Profile

Google closed its free "website from your Business Profile" builder in March 2024, but the profile itself is still the single most valuable free listing a local business can have. It is what appears in the map pack when someone searches "plumber near me", it shows your reviews, hours, photos, services and a call button, and it links to your website. Set it up with your exact business name, category, service area, hours and ten good photos, post an update every fortnight (the agent can draft them) and ask every customer for a review. For a local trade, a complete Google Business Profile plus a simple free website beats a beautiful website with no profile every time. Our guide to getting local trade leads in the UK covers the rest of local marketing.

How to get a free website found on Google

A website nobody finds is a business card in a drawer. Whatever you build, do these six things:

• Put your service and your town in the page title and first heading. "Emergency Electrician in Leeds | Smith Electrical" outranks "Home | Smith Electrical" for the search that brings customers.

• One page per main service. Boiler repair, boiler installation and landlord certificates are three searches; give each a page with prices, photos and a call to action.

• Add your business name, address and phone number on every page, identical to your Google Business Profile.

• Get a custom domain as soon as you can afford £8 a year. Subdomains rank, but a yourbusiness.co.uk address earns more clicks and more trust, and it moves with you if you change builder.

• Collect reviews and show them on the site. Reviews are the most persuasive content you will ever publish and Google reads them too.

• Make it fast and mobile-first. Most local searches are on a phone. Compress photos, avoid sliders and test the contact button with your own thumb.

An AI agent will do all six from a single instruction; on a template builder you do them yourself, page by page, and that is where most free sites quietly fail.

A 90-minute plan from nothing to a live website

• Minutes 0 to 15: gather. Business name, what you do, where, prices or "from" prices, five photos of your work, two customer quotes, your phone number and email.

• Minutes 15 to 30: claim your Google Business Profile at google.com/business and fill in every field. Request verification.

• Minutes 30 to 60: build. Describe the site to Jobbit's agent, or pick Carrd for a one-page site or Wix for a multi-page brochure if you prefer a template. Home, services with prices, about, reviews, contact with a form.

• Minutes 60 to 75: check on your phone. Tap every button. Read every price. Fix the typos.

• Minutes 75 to 90: connect and share. Put the link on your Google Business Profile, Instagram bio, Facebook page, WhatsApp Business profile and Jobbit Pro profile. Text it to your last ten customers with a review request.

Buy the domain when the first customer arrives through the site. It will be sooner than you think.

Frequently asked questions

Can I really get a website for free in 2026?

Yes. Wix, WordPress.com, Canva, Carrd, Weebly and Webador all have free plans, Square Online offers a free shop, GitHub Pages hosts static sites free, and Jobbit's AI agent builds and hosts a site on its free plan. The trade-off on free plans is a branded subdomain, adverts on some builders, and paid upgrades for a custom domain and email.

What is the best free website builder for a small business in the UK?

For a business that wants a proper multi-page site without doing the design work, Jobbit's agent builds it from a description and hosts it free to start. For a template you fill in yourself, Wix is the most complete free editor, Carrd is best for a one-page site and Square Online is best if you sell products. Whatever you choose, set up a Google Business Profile as well.

Is a free website good enough for a freelancer?

For most freelancers, yes, provided the site has a clear services page, prices or "from" prices, examples of work, reviews and a contact form. Move to your own domain, about £5 to £15 a year, as soon as you can, because it looks professional on proposals and stays with you if you switch tools.

Does a free website rank on Google?

It can, especially for local searches such as "dog groomer in Bristol", if the page title and headings name the service and the town, the content is specific and your Google Business Profile links to it. A custom domain and fast mobile pages help, and a site on a builder's subdomain will usually rank below an equivalent site on its own domain.

What does a domain name cost and do I need one?

A .co.uk domain costs about £5 to £10 a year and a .com about £10 to £15 from registrars such as Namecheap, Cloudflare or GoDaddy, and Jobbit can register one for you inside the same chat that builds the site. You do not need one on day one, but it is the first thing to buy once the site brings in work.

How do I get a free website with a booking form or online payments?

Forms are free almost everywhere. For bookings, connect a free Calendly or Google Calendar booking page, or have Jobbit's agent build the booking form into the site. For payments, Square Online is free with per-sale fees, or add a Stripe or PayPal payment link to any page.

Can an AI agent build my website for free?

Yes. On Jobbit's free plan the agent designs, writes, builds and publishes a simple business website from your description, and you edit it by asking. Always-on hosting with your own domain is part of the Plus plan at £15 a month. Start free at jobbit.uk and describe your business.