Free website builders like Wix, WordPress.com, Weebly, and Google Sites let you launch a basic site without upfront costs. You get drag-and-drop editors, mobile-responsive templates, and hosting included. The catch is your site lives on a subdomain like yourname.wixsite.com/business, which looks unprofessional and kills trust with potential customers. Most free plans also plaster the platform's branding across your footer or corner. SEO limitations are the bigger issue. Free tiers restrict meta tag control, page speed optimization, and schema markup. Google treats subdomains as separate entities from the root domain, so you inherit zero authority from the platform. You also can't install analytics properly or run retargeting pixels on most free plans. For a service business competing in Ottawa or Toronto local search, this means you're essentially invisible. Storage and bandwidth caps mean you'll hit walls fast if you add project photos, testimonials, or a blog. Most free plans allow 5-10 pages maximum. Customer support is usually email-only with 3-5 day response times. The actual cost to go professional is minimal. A .ca or .com domain runs $15-20 per year through Namecheap or Cloudflare. Shared hosting starts at $4-8 monthly on providers like SiteGround or Hostinger. Installing WordPress yourself takes 20 minutes and gives you full control over design, plugins, and SEO configuration. You're looking at $65-115 annually versus fighting platform restrictions. At Ottawa SEO, we see free sites work temporarily for solopreneurs testing an idea or running a hyper-local operation where 100% of business comes from foot traffic or referrals. The moment you want Google to send customers, you need a real domain, proper hosting, and clean code. Free tools are good for learning the basics but bad for growth. If budget is truly zero, spend time building a Google Business Profile and getting reviews instead of wrestling with a crippled website builder.