By Blessed Majome, Founder, JomeTech Africa
Free hosting is fine for practice or a personal page, but a business needs paid hosting: your own domain, professional email, no ads, backups and someone to call. Paid hosting now starts at about $3 a month in Zimbabwe.
Side by side
| Free hosting | Paid hosting | |
|---|---|---|
| Your own domain | Usually a subdomain like yourname.freehost.com | yourbusiness.co.zw |
| Business email | Rarely included | Included |
| Adverts on your site | Often | Never |
| Speed and limits | Slow, strict limits | Faster, more resources |
| Backups | Usually none | Daily |
| Support | Forums only | WhatsApp, phone, tickets |
| Free SSL | Sometimes | Yes |
The hidden cost of free
Free hosts can suspend or delete sites with little notice, and moving away later takes time. Customers also trust a business less when its website shows someone else’s ads or its email is a free address.
When free hosting makes sense
- Learning to build websites
- A short-lived personal project
- Testing an idea before spending money
When you should pay
As soon as customers will see the site or you need email on your own domain. Read cheap web hosting in Zimbabwe from $2.99 and what hosting should cost.