Google Sites for Business: Is the Free Website Enough?

Google Sites is good enough for a free, simple information page about your business: what you do, where you are and how to reach you, with a Google map and photos, on any phone. It falls short when customers should book, pay or send a request in one tap. There's no booking or payment feature, forms come in as an embedded Google Form, and a custom domain must include a subdomain like www.

To make one: open Google Sites on a computer, pick a template, add your name, number, map and photos, click Publish, and set the site to Public. If customers should book or ask for a quote from their phone, a one-page builder fits better. For many pages and a store, pay for Wix or Squarespace.

Checked October 2026 against Google's help centers for Sites, Forms and Calendar, and the Wix, Carrd, Squarespace and InBio pricing pages.

When Google shut down its free Business Profile websites in 2024, it pointed owners to a short list of builders, Google Sites among them. That's where "just use Google Sites, it's free" comes from. It's half right.

What Google Sites does well

It's $0 to build and publish. There's no Sites plan to buy. Google doesn't print a price for it anywhere; Workspace plans simply list it as included. The costs sit around it: a domain if you want one, and Google's paid subscriptions for the booking extras below.

It works on phones. Google says the automatic grid layout "scales perfectly on any device." You place blocks; Sites rearranges them for a phone. Preview has layout options at the bottom right, so you can check the phone view before you publish.

It starts from a template. Pick one under "Start a new site", swap the words and photos, publish.

It plugs into Google's other tools. The Insert panel adds a Google Map of your place, YouTube videos, a calendar, and Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms or Charts. Buttons link to a page on your site or any web address. Analytics is one box in Settings: paste your Google Analytics property ID, and data can take up to 24 hours to appear.

It can be found on Google. A site published as Public is open to search engines unless you tick "Request public search engines to not display my site". Leave it unticked.

Where it falls short for a business

The free address is long. Without a domain, a personal site typically lives at sites.google.com/view/yourname (Google's help shows only the Workspace version, sites.google.com/yourdomain/sitename). Fine behind a button. Awkward on a van.

A custom domain has two rules. Only the site's owner can connect one, and "Your URL must include a subdomain, like "www"." So you connect www.joesplumbing.com, not joesplumbing.com.

You can bring a domain from any registrar, or buy one inside Sites, which requires a Google Workspace plan. Setup is Settings → Custom domains → Start setup. If Google asks you to prove ownership, you add a TXT record from Google Search Console at your registrar. Changes "may take up to 48 hours" to show. Not sure a domain is worth it? Do you need a domain name? has the real yearly prices.

Forms are Google Forms. Sites has no form builder of its own, so you build a Google Form and insert it. In Forms, "Get email notifications for new responses" emails you when a request arrives, and "Link to Sheets" keeps every response in a spreadsheet. It works. It just looks like a Google Form inside your site.

No booking, no payments. There's no booking block and no checkout. The workaround is a Google Calendar appointment schedule, whose help page lists Google Sites among the sites that can embed a booking page. A personal Google account gets "a single booking page." Email reminders, more than one schedule and taking payment need an eligible Workspace or Google One subscription.

Some basics aren't documented. Google's help doesn't say whether a button can dial a phone number, whether a Google footer shows on your published site, or how to set your own search title and description. Before you print the address anywhere, open the site on your phone and tap your number.

Make a one-page business site in Google Sites: 10 steps

You need a computer: Google's steps start "On your computer", and Calendar booking pages can't be created in the phone app either.

1. Open Google Sites at sites.google.com, signed in to your Google account.
2. Pick a template under "Start a new site".
3. Write the top section: your business name, then what you do and where. "Mobile dog grooming in North Austin" beats "Welcome".
4. Add your phone number and email in large text right under it.
5. Insert → Map, and choose your business so customers get directions.
6. Insert → Forms for a quote or contact form. Build the Google Form first and switch on email notifications in its Responses tab.
7. Add one Button for the main action: get a quote, order, or book. For booking, link it to your Calendar booking page.
8. Add photos of real work: upload .jpg, .png or .gif files.
9. Preview, pick the phone layout at the bottom right, and fix anything that wraps badly.
10. Publish: click Publish, type the web address, click Publish again. In Share, set the published site to Public.

Then the optional jobs: Settings → Analytics for your property ID, and Settings → Custom domains if you own a domain.

If something's wrong. Customers can't open the site: it's still Restricted, so set it to Public in Share. Your domain doesn't load: wait up to 48 hours, then check the records the setup screen asked for. Tapping your number does nothing: keep it as large plain text near the top so people can copy it.

Google Sites vs a one-page builder vs Wix

For a local business there are three realistic routes. (A fourth is no website at all: the website field on a Business Profile is optional.) We compared them on what decides it for a customer on a phone, each from the vendor's own pages.

Google Sites wins on price and on Google tools you may already use. Every feature is a Google product dropped into a page, so a customer who wants to book or pay leaves for another Google screen.

A one-page builder puts what a customer does on one phone screen. On InBio that's in.bio/yourname with a tap-to-call icon (SMS, WhatsApp and email beside it), a map card from your Google Maps place link, your photos, a quote form on Pro and bookings on Business. It's live in minutes, the same kind of page as a link in bio, set up for customers instead of followers. The limits: no custom domain, no opening-hours block (write hours as text), no reviews embed, and bookings send no reminders and charge in US dollars. Carrd is the other well-known one-pager: free for three sites with its branding, or $19 a year for a custom domain and forms.

Wix and Squarespace are full builders: many pages, a store, your own domain. Wix's free plan can't use a custom domain, and Wix says its US-dollar prices are "for reference only" and vary by country. Squarespace has no free plan, only a 14-day trial.

Which to pick, and what the first year costs

Yearly prices below; InBio's yearly plans cost ten months.

• People call you and you want a free site on Google: Google Sites. First year: $0, or about $10.46 for a .com at Cloudflare, which sells domains at cost. That rises to $11.17 on 1 November 2026, when the .com registry fee goes up.
• Customers find you on their phone and should ask for a quote or book right there: a one-page builder. On InBio that's Pro at $90 a year for the quote form, or Business at $290 for bookings. Compare the plans.
• You need a store, a blog and your own domain: Wix or Squarespace. From about $213 a year on Wix Light or $228 on Squarespace Basic; Wix's scheduling starts on Core at about $357.

Whichever you build, put the address in your Business Profile's website field today. For the full decision by business type, read how to make a website for your business, or browse a website for your business.

We make InBio. Every tool here, InBio included, was checked the same way: on its own pricing page or help center, October 2026.