Free hosting guide: Cloudflare
Put your one-page website online for free with Cloudflare
Cloudflare runs a free hosting service called Cloudflare Pages. You put the website I send you on it by dragging the folder into a web page. No commands, nothing to install, and you don’t need to know anything about websites.
Before you start
This is the easiest way I know to host your page for free. Getting it online on a free address takes about 15 minutes. Putting it on your own domain is the fiddly bit, and it’s optional.
- An email address. You’ll use it to make a Cloudflare account.
- Your website folder. The folder or zip file I send you. Save it somewhere easy to find, like your Desktop.
- A Windows PC or a Mac with an internet connection. Dragging a folder is much easier on a computer.
- Your domain login, if you have one. Only needed for the last step, if you want the site on your own address like yourbusiness.com.au.
Step by step
Getting your site online
Step 1: Make a free Cloudflare account
Go to the Cloudflare sign-up page, type your email address and a password, and click Create Account.
Cloudflare then sends you an email to check the address is yours. Open it and click the link before you carry on.
Step 2: Start a new Pages project
In the Cloudflare dashboard, go to Workers & Pages. Click Create application, then Get started on the Pages option, then Drag and drop your files.
Cloudflare puts its other product, Workers, front and centre on that screen. Workers is aimed at programmers and needs GitHub or commands, so make sure you pick the Pages option.
If the screens don’t look like this, Cloudflare may have moved things around. Or let me host it for $5/month.
Step 3: Name your project
Type a project name, like your business name.
Your site will be served from your-project-name.pages.dev, so pick something you’re happy for customers to see. Cloudflare doesn’t let you change this address later without starting a new project.
Step 4: Drag your website in and put it online
Drag the folder or zip file I sent you into the upload box. Wait for the upload to finish, then click Deploy site.
If you use the folder, it should be the one with a file called index.html directly inside it. If a file shows a red warning symbol, it didn’t upload. That shouldn’t happen with a one-page site, but if it does, email me.
Step 5: Check your free web address
When it’s done, Cloudflare shows your site’s address. It looks like this:
your-project-name.pages.dev
Open it on your phone and have a look. That’s your website, live on the internet, and the hard part is over.
Step 6: Use your own domain (optional)
In the dashboard, go to Workers & Pages, open your project, then go to Custom domains and click Set up a domain. Type your domain and click Continue. Do this before you change anything at your domain company: if you change the DNS first, your site shows an error until you come back and finish here.
For www.yourbusiness.com.au
Your domain can stay where it is. Where you bought your domain (the DNS settings at your domain company), add a CNAME record for www that points to your-project-name.pages.dev.
For yourbusiness.com.au without the www
Cloudflare only does this if it runs the DNS for your whole domain. In the dashboard, go to Domains and click Onboard a domain, type your domain and pick a plan. Cloudflare copies your existing DNS records across, but it can miss some, so check them against your domain company’s list before you carry on, especially your email (MX) records.
Cloudflare then gives you two nameservers. Log in to where you bought your domain and replace its nameservers with those two. Once that has gone through, Cloudflare adds the record for your site itself.
Cloudflare sets up the padlock (SSL) certificate for your domain for free. Once the domain shows as active in Custom domains, you’re done.
Moving nameservers and email records is where most people get stuck. Or let me host it for $5/month.
When I send you changes
In the dashboard, go to Workers & Pages and open your project. Click Create a new deployment, choose Production, and drag in the new folder or zip I send you. Your address and domain stay the same.
What’s free and what isn’t
Checked against Cloudflare’s own pages on 19 October 2026.
Free on Cloudflare Pages
- Visits to your page. Cloudflare says requests for plain pages like yours are free and unlimited, so there’s no daily traffic cap that switches your site off.
- Up to 20,000 files per site and 25 MB per file. Drag and drop takes up to 1,000 files at a time.
- Up to 500 updates a month.
- Your own domain and the padlock (SSL) certificate.
A one-page site is a handful of files, so it sits well inside those limits.
Not included
- Your domain name. You still pay for it with whoever you bought it from.
- Enquiry forms. See below.
A note about your enquiry form
Your page’s quote form works on free hosting too. On its own, it opens your customer’s email app with their enquiry filled in, and they tap Send to email it to you.
If you’d rather customers just tap Send once, add the Enquiry inbox for $5/month. It works with free hosting: every enquiry is emailed to you and kept in your own inbox. See the difference.
Where this comes from
Every step and limit on this page comes from Cloudflare’s own pages, checked on 19 October 2026. Cloudflare can change them, so if something looks different, these are the pages to check. Prefer Google? Here’s the Firebase guide.
Rather I just handle it?
I’ll host your page on your own domain for $5/month, and set up the DNS with you.