The Free Website You Pay for With Leads: How It Works, and the Catch
By Alexey Chasin · Updated October 16, 2026 · 7 min read
A free website paid for with leads means the developer builds the site for $0 up front, charges a monthly hosting fee, and collects the build fee only once the site has produced a set number of tracked leads. At Velour Web that is hosting at $50 a month with a 12-month minimum and a $999 build fee due after the fifth lead, never if the fifth lead never comes. The three things to check in any such offer are what counts as a lead, who owns the domain and the code, and what happens when you leave.
Three kinds of 'free website', and only one of them is yours
Search 'free website for my business' and you meet three different offers wearing the same word. The first is a DIY free plan (Wix, Weebly, Google Sites): free because you build it, it carries the platform's ads and lives on their subdomain, and the paid plans that remove the ads run $17 to $50 a month. The second is a rent-a-site or lead-gen site: a marketing company builds you a site for nothing, keeps the domain, keeps the code, sometimes keeps the phone number, and charges monthly for as long as you want the leads to keep coming. Leave and the site, and the rankings, stay with them. The third is a developer who defers the build fee and ties it to results. That is the one worth reading the terms of, because it can end with you owning a real site.
| DIY free plan | Rent-a-site | Deferred build fee (ours) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up front | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Monthly | $0 with ads; $17–$50 without | $200–$1,500, for as long as you want leads | $50 hosting, 12-month minimum |
| Build fee | none | none | $999, only after 5 tracked leads |
| Who owns the domain | You, if you bought it | Usually them | You, from day one |
| Who owns the code | Nobody; it cannot leave the platform | Them | You, after 12 months or when the $999 is paid |
| What happens if you leave | Site stays on their subdomain | Site and rankings stay with them | You take the site and the domain |
| Speed and SEO | Slow on phones, limited | Varies; often a template | Hand-coded, under one second, page per service |
How the deferred-fee model works, step by step
The developer takes the risk the client used to take. Instead of asking for $3,000 to $8,000 before the site has proven anything, the build is done at $0, the site is hosted for a monthly fee, and the build fee is invoiced only when the site has demonstrably produced business. At Velour Web the trigger is five tracked leads: form submissions from the site, excluding spam, vendors and existing customers, plus calls over 30 seconds if the client adds call tracking. The month the lead report shows the fifth one, the $999 is invoiced once. If the site never gets there, the fee is never due, and the client still ends the year with a fast, search-first site.
The hosting fee is what makes the math work for the developer. Twelve months at $50 is $600, which covers the build time on a design-system site; the $999, when it comes, is the margin, and it comes only when the site worked. The client's downside is capped at $600 and a site they own; the developer's downside is the build time on a site that did not produce. Both sides have a reason to want the site to rank.
What counts as a lead, and why you should insist on a definition
Every performance deal lives or dies on this sentence. 'Lead' can mean a pageview, a click on the phone number, a form of any kind, or a qualified inquiry from a new customer. Ask for the definition in writing, ask how it is measured, and ask who can remove a bad one. A fair definition counts only actions that could have become a job: a form submitted on the site, or a call long enough to have been a conversation, from someone who is not spam, not a vendor and not already a customer. A fair measurement is one both sides can see: form submissions logged by the site, calls logged by a tracking number if one is in place (a number that forwards to the owner's phone and records the duration), and a monthly report that lists each lead with its date and source. A fair process lets the owner strike a lead that was not one.
- Define: forms from the site, and calls over 30 seconds if a tracking number is in place; no pageviews, no clicks
- Exclude: spam, vendors, existing customers, and anyone who says they did not find you through the site
- Measure: a report both sides see, with date and source for every lead
- Dispute: the owner can strike a lead and the developer takes it off the count
The ownership questions
A free website is only a good deal if it can become yours. Three assets matter: the domain, the code and the Google Business Profile. The domain should be registered in your name from the first day, whatever the offer; if a company insists on registering it, walk away, because that is the lever rent-a-site schemes use. The code should have a hand-over date in writing: at launch if you pay the build fee then, or after the hosting term if you did not. The Business Profile should list you as the primary owner, with the developer as a manager at most. Our terms put the domain and content in the client's name from day one and hand over the repository after twelve months of hosting or the day the $999 is paid, whichever comes first.
The catch, honestly
There is one in every free offer. In ours it is the twelve-month hosting term, which is the price of the free build: leave inside the term and the remaining months are due, after which the code is handed over anyway. The design is built on a design system rather than drawn from a blank page, which is how a hand-coded site can cost nothing up front; it is still designed for the business and approved on desktop and phone before any code. And the scope is fixed at five to ten pages: a store, a booking system with payments, or a thirty-page local SEO site is a different project with a different price.
The test for any free website offer: can you name the day the domain, the code and the Business Profile are yours, and is it in writing? If the answer is no, it is not free. It is rented.
When to pay the build fee at launch instead
If the business already has a lead flow and the website is an upgrade rather than a bet, paying the $999 at launch is simpler: the code is yours on day one, hosting is optional and month to month, and there is no lead count to track. The deferred deal is for the business starting from nothing, or moving off a builder site that has never produced, where the owner would rather let the site prove itself before paying for it.