Get your site online
You have a finished site from the configurator, and now it needs an address you can hand to customers. This is the whole process, start to finish. You don't need to know how to code and you don't need to install anything.
What it costs
Before we start — this is the complete list. Nothing else is charged and nothing is hidden further down the page.
| Item | How much | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting on Cloudflare Pages | €0 | yes — and it stays €0 however busy you get |
Certificate (https://) | €0 | yes, included with the hosting |
| Domain | ~€12–20/year | yes, if you want your own address |
| Email forwarding | €0 | no — but you cannot reply from that address |
| A real mailbox | ~€12–36/year | no — not while your own address will do |
| Hosting you already pay for (route C) | what you pay today | no |
The site and the hosting really are free. Email isn't. If you want to answer customers from info@yourdomain.com, you need a real mailbox, and that costs more than the domain does. Free forwarding only solves receiving. Step 5 has the detail — we're saying it here so it doesn't catch you out halfway through.
If reading this already tells you that you'd rather not do it, that's completely fine — and much better to find out now. We can put the site online for you — write to support@maxitemplates.com. This guide exists so you can decide before you buy anything.
Look at what's in the package
Unzip the file the configurator made for you. There are four things inside, and each has a different job:
The web folder holds about 50 files and 2.5 MB. That is far below every free host's limits, so size is nothing to worry about.
my-website.json contains everything you typed into the configurator — including text you replaced and sections you decided not to use. If you put it online, anyone could download it from your address. Keep it on your own computer.
my-website.json is the one thing in the package you have to look after. When you want to change a line or add an article six months from now, you load it back into the configurator and carry on where you left off. Without it you start over. Put it on your drive and in the cloud.
Try it for real, for one minute
Before you sign up anywhere, check that the site actually works. Cloudflare has a service for exactly this that needs nothing from you:
- Open drop.cloudflare.com
- Drag the
webfolder onto it - You get an address where your site is running
That address lasts one hour and then disappears. It isn't hosting — it's a rehearsal. But it's the cheapest way to confirm you uploaded the right folder and that everything looks the way it should. Click around, open it on your phone, send it to someone you trust.
If it looks right, go to step 3. If it doesn't, go back to the configurator and fix it there.
Choose where the site will live
There are three routes. For most people the first one is right.
Route A — Cloudflare Pages
recommendedFree with no monthly fee, no traffic limit, and the certificate (the https:// and the padlock in the browser) sets itself up. Cloudflare does sell paid plans — for what we are doing here you need none of them.
- Create an account at dash.cloudflare.com
- In the left menu click Compute (Workers) or Workers & Pages
- Create application → switch to the Pages tab
- Choose Upload assets (sometimes labelled Drag and drop your files)
- Give the project a name — it becomes your temporary address,
name.pages.dev - Drag the
webfolder in and click Deploy site
Cloudflare is currently pushing people towards its newer service, Workers. That one is for programmers — if a code editor opens, or you're asked to install something on a command line, you're in the wrong place. Go back and look for the tab or button that mentions Pages, upload or drag and drop. They redraw the dashboard from time to time, but that word is always somewhere.
20,000 files per project and 25 MB per file. You have 50 files, and the largest is 240 kB.
Route B — Netlify
read the caveatEasier to get started than Cloudflare — but it has one property you need to know about in advance.
- Open app.netlify.com/drop
- Drag the
webfolder onto it - You immediately get an address like
something.netlify.app - Sign up so the site stays yours and becomes public
The free plan gives you 300 credits a month. Data transfer costs 20 credits per gigabyte, so it covers roughly 15 GB. When the credits run out, the site stops until the start of the next month — it doesn't slow down, it stops serving. Netlify states this plainly in its own terms.
For a small business site this usually never happens. But if someone writes about you and a rush arrives, the site goes dark exactly when you need it most. That's why we recommend Cloudflare.
A new site may be private until you switch it to public in the settings. And 15 of those 300 credits go on every publish, so you get about 20 uploads a month — plenty for normal edits.
Route C — FTP to hosting you already pay for
if you already have a hostIf you already pay for web hosting, the site belongs there too — you don't need to sign up for anything new. This site is plain HTML, so any host in the world can run it. It needs no PHP, no database, nothing else.
Where you'll find yourself
| Where | Providers you'll most often run into |
|---|---|
| Worldwide | Hostinger · IONOS · GoDaddy · Namecheap · Bluehost · SiteGround · HostGator · DreamHost · A2 Hosting · OVHcloud · InMotion · Hetzner |
| Netherlands & Belgium | Antagonist · TransIP · Hostnet · Vimexx · Argeweb · Combell |
| Slovakia & Czechia | Websupport · Active24 · WebHouse · Forpsi · Wedos |
This list isn't a recommendation — it's here so you can recognise your own provider. The process is the same at all of them.
How to do it
- Download FileZilla (free, Windows and Mac)
- Your FTP login details are in your hosting control panel — look for FTP or FTP accounts
- Find the folder where the site belongs (table below)
- Upload the contents of the
webfolder there
Almost every host has a File Manager in its control panel. There you can upload the whole ZIP and unpack it with one click. With 50 files that takes seconds, while FTP transfers them one at a time. If your host offers it, look no further.
Unzip the package on your own computer first and upload only the web folder — or its contents, if you can. my-website.json does not belong on the host.
Exactly where the files go
| Control panel | Web folder |
|---|---|
| cPanel (most hosts worldwide) | public_html |
| Plesk | httpdocs |
| hPanel (Hostinger) | public_html |
| DirectAdmin | public_html |
| A host's own panel | www, web or htdocs |
If you're unsure, look for the folder that already contains an index.html or index.php. That's the one.
With Cloudflare and Netlify you drag the folder called web. Over FTP you upload what's inside it — index.html, style.css, images and the rest — straight into the hosting root.
How you'll know you got it wrong: the site works at yourdomain.com/web/ instead of yourdomain.com. If that happens, move the files up one level.
If the domain is already with the same provider, the site comes up on it by itself. You only need step 4 when the domain lives somewhere else.
Connect your own domain
So far you have an address like something.pages.dev. It works, but it doesn't belong on a business card. Buy a domain from a registrar.
It looks like an unrelated matter, but it's the biggest shortcut in the whole setup. When the domain and the mailbox are with the same provider, every record is set for you and you never touch DNS at all. Buy them in two places and you'll be copying records by hand.
So decide that before you buy the domain — it's two minutes in the email guide that comes with the template.
Registrars often sell the first year for a fraction of the real price and charge full price from the second. You pay for a domain every year, so the renewal price is the one that matters. It's usually in small print under the offer; if you can't see it, find it in their price list before you buy.
How it gets connected
- In your hosting project find Custom domain and enter your domain
- The host will tell you to do one of two things:
- Change the nameservers — two addresses you paste at your registrar. This moves the whole domain under the host's control. Simpler.
- Add a CNAME record — one line in the DNS settings at your registrar. The domain stays where it is.
- Wait. It usually comes up within minutes, sometimes it takes a few hours.
- The certificate is issued automatically, shortly after the domain starts resolving.
This is the mistake people make most often and it hurts the most. When you switch nameservers, every DNS record for that domain starts being read from the new place — including the ones that route your mail. If nobody re-enters them, email stops arriving and nothing warns you.
So: before you switch, photograph or write down every MX record at your registrar (and the TXT ones, which hold SPF and DKIM). After switching, enter them in the new DNS. If you're unsure, choose the CNAME option instead — nothing else changes there.
As far as the internet is concerned, yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com are two different addresses. Add both at your host — one will be the main one and the other will redirect to it. Otherwise some visitors hit an error.
Email on your own domain
This one surprises people, so here it is up front: free hosting does not come with a mailbox. Neither Cloudflare nor Netlify provides email. The domain is yours and the site is running — but info@yourdomain.com won't exist by itself.
| Option | Cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Forwarding via Cloudflare | free | Mail sent to info@… arrives in your existing inbox. You cannot reply from that address. |
| Mailbox at your registrar | €1–3/mo | A full mailbox — you receive and you send. |
| Zoho Mail | from €0 | The free tier has limits, but it works. |
| Google Workspace / Microsoft 365 | from ~€6/mo | When you also want calendar and documents. |
If you send customers quotes, you'll want to reply from info@yourdomain.com — and forwarding won't do that. This is the one item from the table at the top that turns “free” into “almost free”. It isn't required: as long as replying from your own address will do, you pay nothing.
The form on your site works without a mailbox — messages go wherever you set in the configurator. That has nothing to do with hosting.
When you want to change something
In a month you'll add a service, change a phone number, or want to publish an article. The process is always the same:
- Open
configurator.html(the same file from your original package) - Load your
my-website.jsoninto it — everything comes back exactly as you left it - Change what needs changing
- Generate a new ZIP
- Upload the new
webfolder to the same place as last time - Save the new
my-website.jsonover the old one
Nothing gets rebuilt and nothing is lost. On both Cloudflare and Netlify you simply drag the new folder in and it replaces the old one.
When you get stuck
The page loads but looks broken — no colours, no layout
style.css didn't upload, or you uploaded the wrong folder. Check that you can see index.html at the top level of the host, not inside a subfolder.
The site works at /web/ instead of the main address
Over FTP you uploaded the folder instead of its contents. Move the files up one level.
The domain still doesn't work after an hour
Check that you entered the record exactly as the host wrote it — no stray spaces, no trailing dot where there shouldn't be one. Some registrars take longer to switch nameservers; give it a day before you start troubleshooting.
The browser says the connection isn't secure
The certificate hasn't been issued yet. It comes automatically, but only once the domain really points at the host. Give it half an hour.
Email stopped arriving
The nameservers were switched and the MX records didn't come across. Enter them in the new DNS — they're the ones you wrote down in step 4. If you didn't write them down, ask your email provider for them.
Write to support@maxitemplates.com with exactly where you got stuck and what the screen says. There is nothing embarrassing about it — the domain step is something you're doing for the first time in your life, and people who do it for a living get it wrong too.