Why do some websites builders offer free service?

[Charles]

Some are free,some are 2.99 some or 4.99 a month,Do you give up your digital rights if they are free?
How are they making money off your patronage?

[Jake]

They make the little microchronic testometers to recreate the dollar amount that others are charging.

[Jake]

Most commonly they hope to up-sell you to a more premium version at a later date, some make revenue from ads they may place on your site. Some examples have a paid upgrade fee for those who want to use a custom domain name on their site, which usually cuts out the host's ads.

Some sites like hubpages, squidoo have revenue sharing schemes where you may setup the ads on a page, but only get a portion of the ad revenue, 60% in the case of Hubpages (they actually split clicks, you have to setup your own ad/affiliate account on Adsense, Amazon, etc.)

Check the terms and conditions, some do claim possession of your content.

[Avitus]

Huehuee

[Steve D]

They make money two ways - first, the free web pages will have ads embedded in them that return advertising revenues to the host. Also, you will find that the free web pages do not provide all the bells and whistle of the for-pay web sites (maybe limited bandwidth or no access to full java or php commands), so you will be urged to upgrade.

[Yam]

Hey, some are free, some cost money and some offer both options. Webydo.com for example, provides web designers with full freedom to use all the features available, create up to 15 pages and have 1GB of storage, but they charge more for the premium package which allows you to host a custom domain name and have unlimited page creation.