Free website, 200-franc website: what nobody tells you before you sign

The “free” website: what it doesn't really tell you

Platforms like Wix or Squarespace do offer a genuine free plan, that's not a lie. But free doesn't mean without a catch.

• “Build your site for free” — the platform's ad banner displays at the top of every page, along with its logo in the browser tab.
• “Publish online right away” — your address looks like mycompany.wixsite.com instead of mycompany.ch, which doesn't look very professional and only serves the platform's own search ranking.
• “Storage included” — often limited to a few hundred megabytes, nowhere near enough once you add quality photos.
• “Support available” — reserved as a priority for paid accounts. On the free tier, you wait, or you look for the answer alone in the documentation.
• “Free domain name” — generally offered for one year only, and only if you've already taken out a paid subscription. After the first year, it reverts to the standard price.

None of this is scandalous in itself — these platforms have to make a living. The problem is that these conditions are almost never highlighted at the moment you click “start for free”.

The 200-franc website: the other version of the same problem

A very low price charged by a provider, freelancer or small outfit, isn't necessarily dishonest. But to hold that price, something is almost always cut somewhere else.

• “Complete professional website” — often a generic template barely adapted, with just your logo and text dropped onto it.
• “Fast delivery” — often only a single round of edits included. Any change requested afterward is billed extra, sometimes steeply.
• “Hosting included” — hosting and the domain name are frequently billed separately, every year, without being disclosed in the starting price.
• “Your website, yours to keep” — sometimes only the provider actually has access to the files or the hosting account. If you want to leave, you start from zero.

The real test. Just ask: “if I want to switch providers in two years, what do I take with me?” If the answer is vague or awkward, that's the most reliable signal there is.

What to check before signing anything

• Does the listed price include hosting and the domain name, or is that billed separately?
• How many rounds of edits are actually included before it becomes billable?
• Who actually owns the domain name and the technical access, you or the provider?
• What concretely happens if you stop paying a subscription?
• Is the design genuinely suited to your business, or just a template dressed in your colors?

A low price isn't a problem in itself, and an expensive website isn't automatically better. What matters is knowing precisely what's included in the price, and especially what isn't, before signing rather than discovering it six months later on an invoice.

Read what isn't written. The listed price is never the problem. It's everything that isn't listed alongside it that ends up costing the most.