Comparison · Websites
Your website probably shouldn't cost $612 every 3 years
Here's the quiet truth of the website industry: most small business sites are brochure sites. Your services, your hours, your phone number, some photos, maybe a contact form. They change a handful of times a year. Builders like Wix and Squarespace charge a monthly subscription forever for that — and in 2026, there's a genuinely free alternative that's faster and yours outright.
The options, honestly compared
| Option | Advertised / mo | After promo / mo | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Pages Free (the Scout stack) Scout's pick | CA$0US$0 Genuinely free — unlimited bandwidth, global CDN, HTTPS included. | same | Static business sites: your services, hours, contact, portfolio You build the site yourself (or with AI help — see our guide). Add a Spaceship domain and your total web presence runs about CA$15 (US$10) a year. | — |
| Hostinger Premium | ≈CA$4.19US$2.99 | ≈CA$15.39US$10.99 | WordPress sites you want cheap hosting for | ⚠ The US$2.99 rate requires paying 48 months upfront (US$143.52); it renews at US$10.99/mo. |
| GoDaddy Websites + Marketing Basic | CA$13.99US$9.99 | same | People already locked into GoDaddy (you don't have to be) | ⚠ Promotional first-term price; renews higher. Domain costs extra. |
| Squarespace Basic | CA$21US$16 US$192/yr (CA$252/yr), billed annually. Monthly billing costs more. | same | Design-heavy sites where templates matter and budget doesn't | — |
| Wix Light | ≈CA$23.80US$17 US$204/yr, billed annually — before you add anything. Wix geo-prices; Canadians see a CAD figure at checkout. | same | Drag-and-drop editing if you truly need it (most brochure sites don't) | — |
How is free actually free?
Cloudflare runs one of the world's largest networks and offers static site hosting free — real free, not trial free: global CDN, HTTPS, unlimited bandwidth. They make money on enterprise customers; hosting your brochure site costs them nearly nothing and builds goodwill. Notably for our credibility: Cloudflare has no affiliate program — we earn $0 recommending them. We recommend them because the product is the best deal on the internet. (This very site runs on it.)
The catch, such as it is: you bring your own website files instead of using a drag-and-drop editor. Five years ago that meant hiring a developer. Today, AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can build a polished small-business site from a plain-English description — we wrote a step-by-step guide.
When a builder IS the right call
We're not anti-builder — we're anti-overpaying. Pay for Wix/Squarespace/Shopify when you actually use what the subscription buys:
- ✓You update the site weekly and want to do it visually from your phone — blogs, menus, event calendars.
- ✓You sell products online with inventory, shipping, and taxes — that's e-commerce, a different animal. See our e-commerce guide.
- ✓You need bookings, memberships, or client portals baked into the site.
If none of those describe you — and for most local service businesses they don't — the subscription is buying you a drag-and-drop editor you'll open twice a year.
The Scout stack
Versus ≈CA$290+US$204+ per year on Wix Light — before their domain and email upsells. Read the full walkthrough →