Is Wix really free?
There is a real free tier, with real catches: your site lives at a username.wixsite.com address, shows Wix ads, and cannot connect your own domain. Fine for testing the editor or a hobby page; wrong for anything representing a business. The cheapest ad-free Wix with a custom domain is the Light plan at around $17 a month.
Wix free is a genuine product and an effective funnel, and understanding both halves keeps your expectations straight. What you get forever, free: the full editor, hundreds of templates, hosting, SSL, and the ability to publish a working site today. What marks it as free: the wixsite.com subdomain in your address bar, a Wix banner advertising the platform on your pages, no custom domain connection, and storage caps that a media-rich site meets quickly.
The psychology is worth naming: you invest hours building in the free editor, and the investment itself becomes the argument for upgrading (the site is done, the upsell banner is right there, and rebuilding elsewhere means starting over: the lock-in begins before the first invoice). That is not a scandal, just a design you should walk into knowingly. If you suspect you will want a different platform, decide before you build, not after twenty polished pages.
Where free Wix genuinely fits: testing whether you like the editor before paying (its best use), school and hobby projects, and internal or temporary pages where the address does not matter. Where it does not fit: any business purpose, because the subdomain and ads broadcast exactly the wrong message at first contact. For business use, the real entry prices are Light at ~$17 a month, or our budget alternatives: Hostinger’s builder around $3 (intro), WordPress.com at $4, or Carrd at $19 a year if one page suffices.