Free Framer templates are everywhere. In the last two weeks alone, designers on X have promoted many of them, for interiors, agencies, portfolios and more. At the same time, paid templates still sell, on marketplaces and on independent stores.
So should you pay for a template, or use a free one? The honest answer is that it depends less on price than on fit, quality and what you need the site to do. This guide covers what "free" usually means, what to check in any free template, what paid templates tend to add and when paying is worth it.
What "free" usually means
Free templates are offered for different reasons, and the reason affects what you get:
- A portfolio piece: a designer shows their skill and attracts clients.
- A sample: a seller offers a free template to introduce their paid range.
- A community contribution: someone builds something for fun and shares it.
- A lead magnet: you give an email address in exchange for the template.
None of these make a free template worse. Some free templates are as carefully made as paid ones. But they vary more in quality, and support or updates are less likely to be promised.
Also remember that the template is only one cost. To publish a Framer site on your own domain, you need a paid Framer plan. When we checked on 9 October 2026, Framer listed a free plan without a custom domain, a Basic plan at $10 a month billed yearly and a Pro plan at $30 a month. A free template does not make the website free.
What to check in any free template
Before you commit to any template, free or paid, check:
- The licence. Can you use it commercially? For a client? On more than one site? Is attribution required?
- The phone layout. Open the live preview on your phone. Many templates look good on desktop and fall apart on mobile.
- The pages you need. Count the pages that match your business. A beautiful home page is not enough if you need services, pricing and booking.
- The CMS. If you will publish news, projects or products regularly, check they are set up as collections you can edit through forms.
- Forms. Do they work, and can you point them at your own email?
- Fonts and images. Are the fonts free to use? Will you need to replace the demo photos?
- Who made it. Is there a way to contact the creator if something is broken?
What paid templates tend to add
Paid templates are not automatically better, but they often include:
- More pages and more complete structures, built for a specific use
- Setup guides that walk you through replacing content and connecting forms
- Free updates when the creator improves the template
- Support, at least for bugs
- More careful layouts for tablet and phone
- Design systems, with named text and colour styles that make site-wide changes easy
The question is whether those additions save you more time and trouble than they cost.
The free templates on getsites, by trade
getsites offers both free and paid templates. Thirteen of the 32 were free when we checked on 10 October 2026. The free ones are built for specific businesses, not as generic layouts:
- Small hotels and B&Bs: Casa Tarde, with a booking bar on the first screen and a page for each of five room types.
- Cabins and boutique stays: Fern Hollow, a warm one-page site with gallery and booking sections.
- Restaurants: Late August, a 14-page site for chef-led restaurants with private dining and a reservation form.
- Bathhouses and saunas: Rounds, built around timed sessions, with passes and gifts.
- Skin and aesthetics clinics: Dermis, with sessions, weeks to result and price on every treatment.
- Sports clubs: Fixture, with a weekly board of sessions.
- Estate agents: Freehold, with prices first and a page for every property.
- Consultancies: Halden, with the founding partner named and outcomes before services.
- Investment and wealth managers: Halbrook, with track record tables on the CMS.
- Conferences: Plenary, with a programme by day on the CMS.
- UGC creators: Mila Tan, with results on every video card.
- Designers: Nostalgia.exe, a portfolio dressed as a 2001 desktop.
- Film photographers: Still, with a contact-sheet gallery.
See the full list of free Framer templates.
When paying is worth it
Paying for a template is usually worth it when the cost is small next to the time it saves you. That tends to be true when:
- A paid template fits your trade much better than any free one. Fit saves more time than anything else.
- You need specific features, such as a fee calculator, a commission journey, a checkout handoff or a docs and changelog setup.
- You value updates and support.
- You are building for a client and want a clear licence and a well-documented project.
A free template is often the right choice when one is already built for your type of business, when you are testing an idea or when your budget is tight.
On getsites, most paid templates are $49, with three SaaS templates at $69 or $79, all as one-time prices listed on 10 October 2026.
Licence terms on free templates
Free templates sometimes come with stricter terms than paid ones, such as personal use only or required attribution. Always check.
On getsites, the licence agreement states that free templates carry the same terms as paid ones: unlimited sites, commercial use and client work included, at no cost, with no attribution required. Fonts are free Google Fonts. Demo photography is for demonstration only and must be replaced with images you have rights to before launch.
If you are unsure whether Framer itself will cost you anything, read is Framer free?.
Free or paid, the best template is the one built for what your business actually needs to show. Start there, and let price be the second question.