Free AI-powered website: what you'll get and where do payments begin?

A free plan for an AI website builder is a real thing for Wix, Framer, Webflow, Durable, Lovable, Bolt.new, and WordPress. But almost everywhere, free means one of four limitations: a URL like имя.сервис.com instead of your domain, advertising or a platform badge on every page, a limit on the number of pages or AI edits, or no online payment options. 1001site AI doesn't have a free plan at all—your site launches immediately after payment, and the only concession is a discount on the first month. Below is a comprehensive table of seven services and an analysis of when the free plan is sufficient and when it will cost more than a paid one.

What can you get with a free AI-powered website builder?

Seven well-known services do offer a permanent free plan—without an expiration date and not limited to just a few days. But in each case, it only covers part of the task: you can build pages. Your own domain, the absence of third-party advertising, and accepting payments on the site are almost always reserved for paid plans.

Data from the official pricing pages, verified November 2, 2026. Squarespace, Shopify, 10Web, and Hostinger Website Builder don't have a permanent free plan at all as of this date—only a 3-14-day trial, after which the site is either locked behind a paywall or (in the case of 10Web) completely deleted unless paid. Ecwid doesn't even have a trial: the lifetime free plan ended in 2025, and now billing starts immediately, starting at approximately €5 per month. For a comparison of Wix and Shopify's paid plans, see the article "Wix or Shopify: When is it Better to Switch to an AI-Powered Website?"

What limitations are most often hidden behind the word "free"?

Domain, volume, and payment methods are the most direct ways for a service to limit free users without completely disabling the product. The same thing has been happening for years with all free online services—website builders are no exception.

According to a joint analysis by Kyle Poyar (OpenView) and Lenny Rachitsky (lennysnewsletter.com, August 1, 2023, sample of 1,000+ products), free plan users typically pay little: a good result for a service is 3-5%, while an excellent result is 6-8%. Services with a limited-time trial period pay more—8-12% and 15-25%—because the time limit encourages immediate decision-making. Free plans don't have such a timer, so the service needs a different, permanent reason to pay—and a specific limitation becomes that reason.

Hence the logic of the three typical partitions:

1. The platform's domain and brand cost the service nothing technically, but they become noticeable precisely when the site is ready to be shown to clients—printed on a sign, included in an ad.
2. The volume limit —pages, products, AI credits—is proportional to how much the service spends per free user, so it's the most direct way to keep costs under control without affecting other features.
3. Payment acceptance is the service's most expensive feature technically: it requires checking the seller and protecting against fraud, so it's almost never enabled until a subscription is paid.

Why doesn't 1001site AI have a free plan? What's in its place?

In short: it doesn't exist at all, in any form. A website on 1001site AI launches immediately after payment – €45 per month for the "All Inclusive" plan, or €25 for the first month with a promo code. You can cancel your subscription at any time, and the paid period is non-refundable because the service is digital and available immediately.

The difference from the builders in the table above is in the model itself: while they offer free entry and paid feature expansion, here you get the entire package for one price without subscribing to individual features. €45 already includes an online store or classifieds board, your own domain with SSL, Telegram and WhatsApp ticketing, 107 languages, and automatic SEO and AI indexing—features that most services in the table have in their plans above the free one. Apart from the subscription, you only pay for the domain itself at the registrar and for the AI assistant tokens (using your Gemini key, without the service's markup)—also fair, with no hidden charges.

With 1001site AI, the price is known upfront and doesn't change as you work on your website—unlike a website builder subscription, which typically grows with your business's needs.

What can I do on 1001site AI before payment?

Four steps are available before payment: create an account, select a website address, navigate through the section guide, and view the website itself—but in the standard theme, without the catalog style. Style application and AI-based website assembly based on the reference image begin only after payment.

1. Register - email, password, website name.
2. Select a website address - the system immediately shows whether it is free or taken.
3. Complete the guide to the dashboard sections—site mode, homepage, pages, branding (5-10 minutes, can be closed at any time).
4. View the website at a free business address at asd.vibevox.pro – in the standard theme, without any visual style from the catalog of 1,000+ samples.

If a style was selected from the catalog on 1001site.com, it is "remembered" for the site and will be applied automatically immediately after payment. The AI agent will create the homepage and pages in this style in 2-7 minutes. Until then, the site is a draft without a style from the catalog: it's too early to show it to clients as a finished store or landing page.

Without its own domain, a business loses credibility and search engine rankings.

The short answer: customer trust and some search engine weight. A URL like имя.wixsite.com or имя.wordpress.com signals to the visitor that the site is still being tested. This is also how search engines evaluate this.

John Mueller, Google search spokesman, explained this very story with free subdomains in January 2026: "A free subdomain hosting service attracts a lot of spam and low-effort content... For you, this means you're basically opening up shop on a site that's filled with potentially problematic flatmates" (quoted in Search Engine Journal, January 19, 2026). A site on someone else's subdomain is technically neighboring someone else's spam on the same platform domain—this is part of what search engines take into account when evaluating a page.

The same logic works in reverse: as long as a website lives on someone else's subdomain, the business doesn't own that address. If the service blocks the account, the limit is reached, or the company decides to switch platforms, the address already distributed to clients in an ad or on a sign is lost along with the account.

For a detailed explanation of how to connect your domain and a free SSL certificate, see the article "Your Own Domain for Your Website: How to Connect and Issue an SSL Certificate."

When is a free AI website really enough?

The free option fulfills the task fairly in three cases: a one-time promotion lasting one or two weeks, testing an idea before investing money, and a landing page without sales. This is a conscious choice for a specific task.

• A one-time promotion or short-term campaign. A link from Instagram or Telegram for a couple of weeks—the site doesn't need to look like a permanent business; page limits and AI-based editing won't become an issue over such a short period.
• Testing the idea before investing. The question at this stage is whether the necessary structure will actually be assembled and whether the AI designer will understand the task; the appearance can wait. Platform advertising and a subdomain don't interfere with testing the product itself.
• A landing page with no sales or payment processing. "We exist, here are our contacts" for a warm audience—friends, subscribers, and acquaintances—who don't form their first impression of the brand through this address.

When does a free website become a risk?

Risk arises when several factors coincide: online payment acceptance is required, the website is provided to clients as a permanent address, the content volume is already approaching the limit, or the business plans to operate on this domain beyond the trial period. At this point, the free plan ceases to be a cost-saving measure.

An extreme, but real, example is 10Web's behavior: after a three-day trial with 5 AI credits, the site, store, or app is completely deleted unless a paid plan is selected. Similar frustrations are familiar to users of other services. In a Hacker News thread about Bolt.new, one user wrote after adding a database: "After adding the sqlite database, I ran out of free tokens and there were some errors preventing the app from running" (mimim1mi, news.ycombinator.com, October 15, 2024). The token limit cut off the site's functionality literally the next step after it became useful.

How much does it cost to get out of a free dead end?

Two options with no hidden fees: €45 per month for the "All Inclusive" plan (€25 for the first month with a promo code) or €1,650 for a one-time payment for the "Turnkey" plan. With the "Turnkey" plan, your entire website is built for you—all you need is a domain, and 12 months of hosting is included free.

€45 already includes an online store with payment options via Stripe and Monobank, a classifieds board, Telegram and WhatsApp applications, your own domain and SSL, automatic SEO, and 107 languages—something the builders in the first table typically only offer with paid plans. An additional website on the same account costs an additional €20 per month.

For a detailed breakdown of how this price compares to a studio and a classic builder with a subscription fee, see the article "Turnkey Website: How Much Does it Cost for Small Businesses." You can compare plans and design your website at 1001site.com /#create.

Sources

• Wix - Official Pricing
• Wix - Storage and traffic on the free plan
• Framer - official rates
• Webflow - official pricing
• Durable - official rates
• Lovable - official rates
• Bolt.new - official rates
• WordPress.com - Official Pricing
• 10Web - official rates
• Ecwid - official rates
• Kyle Poyar, Lenny Rachitsky - What is a good free-to-paid conversion rate, August 1, 2023
• Search Engine Journal - John Mueller on Free Subdomain Hosting, January 19, 2026
• Hacker News - Show HN: Bolt.new, October 15, 2024
• 1001site AI Pricing - Knowledge Base