Introduction
Framer's free plan lets you design, publish and share a site on a framer.website address. Connecting your own domain is the point where a paid plan becomes necessary, and it is usually the only reason a hobby project needs to upgrade at all.
This is the whole picture: what free actually covers, what the upgrade buys, and the DNS steps that trip people up.
What the Free Plan Covers
More than most people expect. As of August 2026, Framer's free plan includes 10 CMS collections, 1,000 pages, 5 MB file uploads and a free Framer subdomain, which is enough to build and publish a complete site. Framer describes it as best suited to non commercial use, and caps it at 1 GB of bandwidth a month.
You can build the entire site, fill the CMS, and see it live before deciding whether to pay for anything.
What the Upgrade Changes
Less than people expect, which is the useful part. The site you built does not change; what changes is the address it answers on and how much traffic it can carry before the cap bites.
Free plan | Paid plan |
|---|---|
yoursite.framer.website | Your own domain |
Build, publish and share | Same, on your own address |
Suited to non commercial use | Intended for real sites |
Bandwidth capped | Higher bandwidth allowance |
The DNS Steps
Buy the domain wherever you like; Framer does not require a particular registrar. In the site settings, add the domain, and Framer gives you the records to create. Add those at the registrar, then come back and verify.
Propagation is the part that causes panic. Records can take anywhere from a few minutes to a day or so to spread, and a domain that is not verifying immediately is usually not broken, just not propagated yet.
The Mistakes That Cost an Afternoon
Adding the record to the wrong host field is the most common one; a record meant for the root domain entered against www will verify one and not the other. Leaving old records from a previous host in place is the second, because the two sets conflict and the old one sometimes wins.
Decide whether the canonical address is with or without www and set the other to redirect, rather than leaving both live. Two addresses serving the same site splits your search signals for no benefit.
Before You Buy a Plan
Build the site on the free plan first and publish it to the Framer subdomain. If it is a free template you are starting from, such as Aromatic, that costs nothing at all, and you will know whether the site is worth a domain before you pay for one.
