Any Reccomendations for a company that will build and host a website for free/cheap

gibboking

Can anyone reccommend a company that will build and host a website?
Or advise me to stay away from.
The site that I would like building would need to be able to accept payments via card or paypal and would allow customers to add items to it. So I dont know if this is an easy or harder kind of site to build ( ive got the vision in my head but I think I would be useless at doing it myself lol)

Thanks in advance for any advice

Charityworker

You can build a free one for yourself at https://www.tripod.com. It's not great but it's ok and free. The site on my profile was built on there.

Other than that you can buy a Mr Site kit really cheap on eBay.

pitkin2020

You won't get anyone to actually build you one and host it for free. Secondly if your selling something and you are looking at taking card payments you will need a merchant account and security for the site, if your using paypal only its not too bad as security can be handled by them and you won't need a merchant account.

If its actually an eCommerce site your looking for try opencart or if its just a normal website with the ability to take the odd payment try wordpress both are free to use. You will need hosting which can be obtained cheaply (£30 per year) you will also need a domain name (£7 ish for 2 years).

Personally if you are setting up a business website then avoid free hosting, its unreliable and isn't cost effective. If the website is down more than it is live it won't be earning you anything so you may aswell not bother with the website.

Miss_Beaumont

Completely agree with pitkin2020.

You'll probably pay around £45 per page, depending on how good and professional you want the site to look (I know a few "cheap" companies who will charge around £20 a page, but they aren't that visually appealing).

e-commerce is obviously a lot more, however PayPal is very easy to set-up, so don't expect to pay too much for this. If you want Visa etc, expect to pay much more.

In terms of hosting, I know a local company that offers £2.97 a month for start-ups, and you can usually get the first three months free (if you don't ask, you don't get). So shop around )

Like most things, you get what you pay for, but do shop around and ask to see examples/portfolios of a couple of sites they've done before.

Good luck!

InsideInsurance

Why would a company build you a site for free? There are site builder applications out there that you can build a site yourself for free from preset templates but that is a very different beast. On the basis customers/visitors can "add things to it" after paying a fee suggests its evidently not either a brochureware or standard ecommerce site so you may struggle getting a site builder type thing to give you the functionality you want.

Be very cautious of any design/development company that charges simply per page. Creating the template, logos, navigation, sitemaps etc is a massive burden and what takes time, adding copy to a template is very lite and with a CMS in place something the client can do. If a company charges £40 a page, get them to do the 5 or so heavy functionality pages for that and 1 page in a CMS then add the other 40 or so pages yourself so the site costs £240 rather than the £5,000 a small development agency would have charged.

Miss_Beaumont

Further thinking since last night, a possible way to get one for less, is if you find someone (ie. a college graduate etc) who is looking to build their portfolio.

But asking "for free" is rather cheeky

I know people who have offered quite a substantial discount for the first five or ten sites they've built, whereby you're both getting something out of the deal. If anything, it's worth asking or looking into, but again, you get what you pay for...

And yes, valid point "Inside Insurance" if you want LOTS of pages, please definately do them yourself from the pages they've created, as it's very very easy. It's perfectly fine (and normal) for people to ask for six or ten pages, then add all the other (high volume) pages themselves.

(However in my experience, where a designer knows they'll be a large case of "rolling out" the design (i.e. duplicating pages) they'll definately be willing to charge much less... so mention this also when you meet with them).

In my experience, the only downside is where clients have "messed things up", and they've been charged by the original designer for fixing things (obviously) so bear that in mind... do lots of "back-ups" if possible just in case...

Hope this helps further.

gibboking

Thanks all for your replies, very much appreciated.

My next question is:

Are there any other or possible hidden costs involved in running a website? I am aware of the domain cost and the hosting but is there anything else?
Also what can or should I expect from the hosting side of things?

Here is a quick example of 1 quote: Set up content Management System and website to include payment option via paypal for subscriptions.

Create xxxxxx related interface.
Set up admin area for easy updates.
Secure the domain name xxxxx.co.uk @ £9.50 for 2 years
Provide hosting @ £60 per annum
Provide training to use the admin area.

Total cost £The cheapest Ive been quoted yet!

I have spoken to this lady and she lives locally to me, and is willing to support me in getting used to managing the website.

But before I agree to anything with any of the people who I have had quotes from.....what questions should I be asking? Bearing in mind that I know how to use the internet but I am totally clueless about all of the jargon behind it.....but I am willing to learn

pitkin2020

The only other costs really would be if the company you use make changes they will more than likely charge you for that and any fees relating to the card services (credit cards etc).

To be totally honest from your above quote I would rather have control of the hosting myself and you could get a decent level of service of £30 a year and your domain would be £2.99 +VAT min 2 years. £60 isn't massively expensive for hosting but you won't have as much control, they will more than likely be reselling hosting and if they are only a small company will they be able to contact the hosts on your behalf 24/7 if a problem arises.

If you don't have control of the hosting make sure they have things in place to ensure maximum uptime and 24/7 support. Its no good having a website that goes down on a bank holiday friday for example. I would also make sure you have FTP access so you can make backups of the site so if you ever decide to change hosts you can move it.

I would buy the domains yourself, there is no reason to let any third party get involved with that. The domain will be the key to your website and the last thing you want is someone else to have control of it. Visit oneandone.co.uk and you can buy your domain through them (loads of others sites you can buy from too). If you lose control of the key any work you may have done in building that name could be lost!!

Don't go with anyone just because they are the cheapest, go with the company that will give you the most bang for your buck. Make sure they optimise your site for search engines, you may save £100 going with the cheapest but if its been poorly made you'll end up having to pay twice for it. Ask to see previous work, designers generally have a style, and that style may not be suited your requirements.

IrishGypsy

From having hosted websites for the last 13 years - with the same company - I can recommend checking out 1and1.co.uk as I've just upgraded to their unlimited hosting and bandwidth package and is only £6.99pm (and I believe the first 3 monbths are free). Their admin panel gives full FTP access (across multiple users if needed), 2gig e-mail inbox space (per e-mail account), webmail, free web templates, e-commerce options and I've never had a jot of downtime in the whole 13 years (that I'm aware of). 24/7 telephone support too. They also do really cheap .co.uk and .com domain names

Best of luck.

steve1980

Try https://www.hostsphere.co.uk. They offer three different packages for hosting with prices starting at £1.99 per month upto £4.29 per month for unlimited.

Customer service is outstanding and they are always on the other end of the phone or email.

pitkin2020

IrishGypsy wrote: »

From having hosted websites for the last 13 years - with the same company - I can recommend checking out 1and1.co.uk as I've just upgraded to their unlimited hosting and bandwidth package and is only £6.99pm (and I believe the first 3 monbths are free). Their admin panel gives full FTP access (across multiple users if needed), 2gig e-mail inbox space (per e-mail account), webmail, free web templates, e-commerce options and I've never had a jot of downtime in the whole 13 years (that I'm aware of). 24/7 telephone support too. They also do really cheap .co.uk and .com domain names

Best of luck.

I use 1&1 and have done for several years and can't say I have had any issues with them. The only downside I have found with 1&1 is the customer service can be hard work. I also use godaddy and found their customer service to be excellent but I much prefer the 1&1 setup for hosting over godaddy.

steve1980 wrote: »

Try https://www.hostsphere.co.uk. They offer three different packages for hosting with prices starting at £1.99 per month upto £4.29 per month for unlimited.

Customer service is outstanding and they are always on the other end of the phone or email.

I'll check them out!!! Thanks