I am building two websites for free this month.
I am Howard Kessa. I build websites from scratch, in code I write myself. No page builder, no bought template, and no licence you keep paying for after I am gone. I am building my local portfolio right now, so the first two businesses in West Palm Beach, Florida that fit get one at no charge.
The free build
What free actually means
$0
Normally $1,500. No design fee, no deposit, and no invoice at the end.
Say this part back to me before we start. The build is free. Running a website is not free for anybody, so you will pay a domain registrar about $15 a year and a hosting company somewhere around $5 to $12 a month, both directly, both in your name. I do not take a cut of either and I do not mark them up. I would rather lose the project than have you feel caught out on the first bill.
What I ask for in return
- Permission to show the site in my portfolio, with your name on it.
- An honest testimonial, only if you genuinely love it. If you do not, you keep the site anyway and we shake hands. It is not owed.
- Photographs of the real place within five days. Taken on a phone in daylight is genuinely fine.
- Two rounds of changes, then we go live. Not an open-ended project.
When I publish a testimonial from a free build, I say on the page that it was a free build. You should know that a review was given in exchange for something, and so should anyone reading it.
What you get
A real website, not a business card with a phone number on it
Every site I build does these six things, whether you paid nothing or paid full price.
Built for a phone first
Most of the people looking you up are standing outside on a phone. That is the version I design first, not the one I shrink down afterwards.
One tap to call you
Your number is a button, not a line of text somebody has to copy. On a phone it dials. That single detail is most of what a local site is for.
Fast on a bad connection
No page builder means the browser only downloads the code your site actually uses. Pages open in well under a second on ordinary hosting.
Ready for Google
Proper page titles, real headings, your address and hours marked up the way Google reads them, and a sitemap it can find.
Yours, in your name
The domain and the hosting are registered to you, not to me. If we never speak again you keep everything and any developer can pick it up.
Ordinary WordPress underneath
No proprietary builder, no locked theme. That is the difference between owning a site and renting one, and it only shows up the day you want to leave.
How it works
Seven days, four steps, no presentations
Fifteen minutes on the phone
No pitch deck. I ask what the business does and who rings you. If a one page site is all you need I will say so, and if you would be better off spending the money on photographs than on me, I will say that too.
You send photographs and words
Six to ten pictures of the real place, and a few sentences about what you do. This is the part that decides whether the site is good. A real shop photographed on a phone beats stock photography every single time.
I build it
Designed around your trade, not a template with your logo dropped on the top. A barber, an electrician and a law firm are not selling the same thing, so their sites should not be built the same way. You see it on a real address before anybody else does.
Two rounds of changes, then live
It goes on your domain and your hosting, both in your name. The code is yours whatever happens between us afterwards.
Why from scratch
A cheap website is usually a rented one
Most inexpensive sites are a bought template dropped into a page builder like Elementor or Divi. It is quick, and it hands you a yearly bill plus a site no other developer wants to touch. I built one of each on the same afternoon to be sure I was right about that.
| How I build | A template kit | |
|---|---|---|
| Yearly cost | Nothing. There is no licence. | About $59 before it renders a single header |
| If you leave me | Ordinary WordPress. Anyone can pick it up. | Tied to that builder for good |
| Speed | Only the code your site uses | The whole builder loads on every page |
| Changing colours | One file, about a minute | Fight the builder |
| Who it was built for | Your trade, specifically | Whoever bought the kit before you |
The prices
Three numbers, and which one applies to you
The free run is how I am starting. It is not a permanent price, and I would rather show you the whole ladder now than surprise you with it later.
Running now
$0
Two builds, for portfolio permission and an honest testimonial. Currently two left.
After those go
$349 plus $49 a month
The introductory price for the next five local builds. The monthly covers hosting, updates and security, weekly backups, uptime monitoring, and thirty minutes of edits.
Ordinarily
$1,500
What a site like this costs once I am not building a portfolio any more.
Straight answers
The questions people actually ask
What is the catch on the free ones?
There is no design fee and no invoice at the end. The two things that genuinely cost you money are the domain and the hosting, and you pay those directly to the companies that provide them, in your name, at their price. Roughly $15 a year and $5 to $12 a month.
The other cost is your time. I need photographs and a few sentences from you within five days, or the week slips.
Why would you work for nothing?
Because I have no local clients to show yet, and I would rather build two real West Palm Beach businesses than keep showing made-up demonstrations. Your finished site in my portfolio is worth more to me than $349 is.
That is the whole trade. If it stops being worth it to me I will stop offering it, which is why the count at the top of this page is a real number and not a permanent banner.
What if I hate it?
You keep the site and you owe me nothing, including the testimonial. I would rather have no review than a polite one you did not mean.
Two rounds of changes are included before we go live, so in practice most of what you dislike gets fixed before it is ever public.
Do I actually own it?
Yes, and it is worth being precise about what that means. The domain is registered in your name. The hosting account is in your name. The site is ordinary WordPress with a theme I wrote, so any developer can open it and work on it without buying anything.
There is no licence key, no subscription of mine to cancel, and nothing that stops working if you and I fall out.
I already have a website. Is it worth redoing?
Sometimes it is not, and I will tell you. If your current site loads quickly on a phone, your number dials when tapped, and Google shows your hours correctly, you may not need me at all.
Pull it up on your phone while we are on the call. That is usually enough for both of us to know within a minute.
What do you need from me?
Six to ten photographs of the real place, a few sentences about what you do and who you do it for, your hours, your service area, and the phone number you actually answer.
You do not need to write anything polished. I would rather have your plain words than something that sounds like a brochure.
Who is this not for?
Online shops with a large catalogue, anything that needs bookings tied into other software, and businesses outside about twelve miles of West Palm Beach, because I want to be able to drive to you.
If that is you, say so on the call and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person.
Next step
Tell me about the business
Fifteen minutes on the phone and I will tell you straight whether I can help. No pitch, and no follow-up sequence if the answer is no.