cheapest web hosting
a boring short post. save it for reference!
TLDR: Webador is the cheapest option. It includes a free URL and is easy to use, customizable as far as colors and typefaces. BUT you have to have the same title and menu on every page. They cannot be removed.
This is going to be boring and short. You should save it for reference if you one day wish to run your own basic website. I’m going to tell you everything I know in 2025, which isn’t much. I’m sure many potential readers already have this info, and maybe I should be embarrassed that I didn’t. I’ve had an angelfire site, a blogspot site, an Etsy store, a few other free websites (along with planetout, friendster, makeoutclub, myspace, livejournal, etc.). In 2002 I helped Nomy Lamm make their first website on a contract as an Evergreen student. Keeping up hasn’t been my priority, in the age of social media, and now Substack. I’ve never had my own URL. But with 4 minor fiction publications (my flash piece on Right Hand Pointing will be out next weekish!), it seems to be time.
Last week I posted in a Substack note and an Instagram story, asking folks (especially early career writers) who run their own websites what hosting system they use. No two people said the same thing. No one strongly recommended what they did use.
I used to use Wix for free, but stopped once I learned they are being boycotted under the BDS movement, which I do my best to follow. I moved the website for Local Smoke Press to Webador, for free. I recently realized I couldn’t make a new website for myself as a writer on Webador without upgrading to a paid account.
I foolishly assumed that since WordPress was a big name AND they offered the cheapest option, it was my best bet. I went for it. I even found a 50% off coupon, so I felt like a winner! But I did not research thoroughly!! Do not make this mistake!! Or do, because I have now done the research for you.
WordPress offered a $4/month plan, while Webador’s “Lite” plan was $5/month. However, WordPress only offers you a free URL for the first year, $12+ thereafter. Webador’s “Lite” plan offers a free URL.
But the WORST PART is that I discovered WordPress does not allow you to change the color or typeface under their cheapest plan! I already had 3 websites set up exactly how I wanted them to look on Webador. I just couldn’t update or publish the new one without an upgrade.
I went to get a refund from WordPress, which you can do for up to 14 days. Then I learned that even though the first year of the URL was “free,” WordPress would not refund my $13 for the URL unless I gave up the URL. And you cannot transfer a URL for 60 days after registering it (“industry regulations”). And you cannot get a refund from WordPress on the URL after 4 days. They really had me over a barrel.
I decided to essentially donate $13 to WordPress for my lack of thoroughness. There aren’t any $13 sacrifices I can make to regain that $13 in my mental budget, so I carefully carved the eyes out of four potatoes1 as penance instead of throwing them out. “Is that a Catholic thing?” Kaden asked. I was offended. “I mean, you don’t seem to have much Catholic trauma,” he said. “It’s a convenient way to get over something,” he said. “Do the ritual, then you don’t have to think about it.” I roasted the potatoes and they turned out great.
But I’m still thinking about it. I am thinking about whether I need the URL localsmokepress dot com with Kaden’s and my personal websites off of that, or if as an early career writer, I should use liinakoivula dot com or if it matters at all, because who goes around typing names of writers into the address bar? The address bar is the search engine!
Since writing this draft, I set up the rest of my pages and figured out that in Webador, you have to have the same title and menu bar on EVERY page/subpage. You can’t even remove it. I circumvented this by leaving my pages with no title, and just putting the three pages I wanted to host on the menu bar: Local Smoke Press, Liina Koivula, Kaden Jelsing. It’s probably unprofessional, maybe even gross for a couple to host their “professional” websites together. But as Kaden once put it, we are kinda rough. And we are, above all, frugal.
Luckily, 4 potatoes do not equal $13. YET.