Can AI Really Build You a Website for Free?
"Free" gets used loosely across this entire category, so it's worth being precise about what it actually covers before you sign up anywhere.
What "free" usually covers
In most AI website builders, free typically means you can describe your site, generate a draft, and preview it, sometimes with publishing available on a subdomain of the builder's own site. What's often not included at no cost: a custom domain, removing the builder's branding, higher traffic or storage limits, and some of the more advanced editing features. None of that is unusual; it's the standard shape of freemium software, but it's worth knowing going in rather than discovering it at checkout.
Questions to check before you commit anywhere
Before you invest time building out a full draft on any platform, check whether starting requires a credit card, or whether you can actually preview for free first. Check whether you can see the finished draft before deciding whether to publish or pay. Find out which specific things move behind a paywall (the domain, the traffic limit, the editing itself) and whether there's a cap on how many pages or projects you can create. It's also worth checking whether you can export or take your content with you if you decide to leave later.
A simple way to compare free plans across tools
If you're testing more than one builder before deciding, use the same real prompt on each one rather than each tool's own demo content. That's the only way to compare fairly, since a polished example on a homepage tells you more about their marketing than about what you'll actually get. Note what each tool lets you do without paying: preview only, publish to a subdomain, or publish with a real domain. Then decide based on what you actually need right now, not what you might need eventually.
Why the free tier still matters even if you expect to pay eventually
The value of a free tier isn't just cost: it's letting you judge output quality for your specific type of site before spending anything. A restaurant site prompt and a SaaS landing page prompt produce very different results, and reading reviews of a tool won't tell you how it handles your particular case. Testing it yourself will.
What to actually do with a free draft
Use it to judge whether the tool's style and structure fit what you need before upgrading to whatever unlocks publishing or a custom domain. One thing to avoid regardless of cost: don't publish a draft with placeholder text or stock images as your real, live site just because it happened to be free to get there. Free or paid, a live site should be finished before it's public.
Hidden costs beyond the obvious
Beyond the domain and branding removal, watch for a few less obvious things: whether a free plan limits you to a single project or page, whether basic analytics (seeing how many people actually visited) requires an upgrade, and whether contacting support is even available on the free tier if something goes wrong. None of these are dealbreakers on their own, but they add up quickly if you assumed "free" meant fully unrestricted rather than a limited but genuinely useful starting tier.
A short glossary of freemium terms
Subdomain: a free address that includes the builder's own domain name (yoursite.buildername.com) rather than a standalone one of your own. Custom domain: your own address (yoursite.com), usually a paid upgrade or a separate purchase made through a domain registrar. Free trial: full access to every feature for a limited time before you must pay, which is different from a permanently free tier that has genuine, ongoing limitations. Freemium: a permanently free tier with real restrictions, offered alongside paid tiers that remove them.
Is it worth starting on a free plan even if you're sure you'll upgrade?
Usually yes. It lets you confirm the tool actually produces something you like for your specific type of site before you commit to a paid plan, which is a cheap way to avoid switching tools later after you've already invested real time building things out on the wrong one.
FAQ
This varies by tool: some keep your draft accessible indefinitely even on a free plan, others archive inactive projects after a period of time. Check this specifically before assuming your draft will sit there untouched.
For testing or a very early-stage project, it can work temporarily. For anything you're sending customers to or putting on a business card, a proper custom domain looks more established and is worth the upgrade.
Some do cap generations or edits on free tiers. Worth checking specifically if you expect to iterate heavily before settling on a final version.
Where Nova fits
Nova lets you describe your site and see a real draft before you commit to anything. Check Nova directly for current plan details, since those are the kind of specifics that change and are worth confirming firsthand rather than taking secondhand.