Free Website Templates for Commercial Use (2026)

A free website template can carry a whole client project: the layout, the responsive grid, the contact section, the gallery. The catch is rarely the price. It is the license line buried on the download page, and the licenses disagree with each other in ways that matter. One source lets you build client sites, charge for the work, and drop the credit line without paying anything. Another source offers the same download for free and bars you from using it for a single paying client. A third lets you do client work but only while a small credit link stays in the footer of every page.

This guide reads six free template sources on their own license pages and compares them on the questions a working designer actually asks: can this go into a paid client site, does the footer credit have to stay, can the client get the files, and can an edited version be sold. Every term below comes from the source's own license, terms, or FAQ page, read in November 2026. Links to each page sit in Sources Checked at the end, so you can re-read the exact wording before you rely on it.

This page explains how the published terms read. It was written by the Lucky Graphics editorial team as general information, not legal advice. For a template business, a high-value client contract, or a product you plan to sell at scale, have the actual license reviewed by someone qualified.

Which Free Template Sources Allow Client Work

Source	License on the free version	Client or paid work	Footer credit on free use	Editable files to a client	Selling an edited version
HTML5 UP	Creative Commons Attribution 3.0	Yes	Yes, keep the credit link	Yes	No, not as a template
Start Bootstrap	MIT	Yes	No	Yes	Yes, with the MIT notice kept
BootstrapMade	Free License (proprietary)	No, personal projects only	Yes, "Designed by BootstrapMade"	No, buy Pro first	No, under any license
FreeHTML5.co	Creative Commons Attribution 3.0	Yes	Yes, unless you pay for premium	Yes	No, not as a template
HTML Codex	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0	Yes	Yes, "Designed by HTML Codex"	Yes	No, not as a template
W3Layouts	CC BY 3.0 on older templates; Starter License on newer ones	Yes, with the backlink kept	Yes, keep the backlink	Yes	No, distribution is barred

Two rows deserve a second look before anything else. Start Bootstrap is the only source in the table whose free license asks for nothing in return: MIT lets you use, change, and ship the work commercially, with no credit line and no payment, as long as the copyright and permission notices stay in the files. BootstrapMade is the opposite pole: its free version is a personal-use preview in practice, and client work needs the paid Pro license. Everything else sits between those two, and the middle is where most mistakes happen, because a template that allows commercial use still has a credit condition attached to it.

The table answers the license question, not the quality question. A template with a friendly license can still be a bad pick: built on an old Bootstrap version, loaded with jQuery plugins nobody maintains, or shipped with a contact form that does nothing until you wire it up. The section on picking a template covers those checks. The license decides whether you may use it. The build decides whether you should.

The Footer Credit, and What It Costs to Remove

Four of the six sources require a credit line on free use, and the credit is the most commonly broken term in this whole category. It is also the easiest to comply with, once you know where it lives. The credit is a link in the footer, usually worded "Designed by" followed by the source name, and it has to stay visible on the live site. Hiding it with CSS, shrinking it to one pixel, or matching its color to the background is removal by another name. The license pages are blunt about this: HTML Codex says the footer credit must remain intact and visible in all free versions, and removing or modifying it without the matching paid license is not permitted. FreeHTML5.co says the same thing from the other direction: free templates with the credit link removed fall under its Premium License Agreement, which requires a subscription purchase.

Each source sells a way out, and the prices are small next to a client fee. HTML5 UP points to Pixelarity, its paid companion service, which sells attribution-free access, listed at $19 for three months of access. HTML Codex sells a Credit Removal License in two sizes: a Single Template license covering one template and one end product, and an All Templates license covering all current templates plus all future releases for life, with unlimited end products. Every Credit Removal License purchase also includes a working Ajax and PHP contact form, listed as a $13 value, and six months of premium support for bug fixes and installation. FreeHTML5.co removes the credit through its premium plans, which are a non-recurring payment by PayPal or card. W3Layouts sells a Liberty License that drops the backlink requirement for a single website or domain. BootstrapMade removes the credit with a Pro license for the specific template, or with its Premium Plan, which covers all pro templates and its Template Builder and is listed at $99 as a one-time payment for lifetime access.

Whether the credit matters depends on the job. A personal portfolio, a side project, or a demo site can carry a credit link without anyone caring. A client site is different: the credit advertises another studio in the client's footer, and most clients will ask for it to go. That conversation should happen before the build starts, not the week the site launches, because the answer decides the budget. If the client wants a clean footer, the license fee is a line item in the quote, not a surprise the designer absorbs. Three of the four credit sources charge so little for removal that the fee is rounding on a normal project. The expensive version is discovering the requirement after launch, when the choice is paying the fee, restoring the credit, or rebuilding on another template.

The credit rule also travels with the files. If you hand a client the editable template and they strip the footer themselves, the license breach is theirs in practice but the trail leads back to your recommendation. The handoff section below covers what to put in writing so the client knows the credit stays or the removal fee was paid.

Template Terms by Source

HTML5 UP

HTML5 UP publishes a small library of responsive HTML5 and CSS3 templates, each designed by one person, AJ, and each free to download without an account. The license on every template is Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. That license allows personal and commercial use, including client work, and allows you to change the template however you like. The single condition is attribution: keep the credit link in the footer. The templates ship with the license stated in their readme files, which read "Free for personal and commercial use under the CCA 3.0 license (html5up.net/license)".

Attribution under CC BY 3.0 means giving appropriate credit, providing a link to the license, and indicating if changes were made, in a reasonable manner that does not suggest the licensor endorses you or your use. The footer credit in the template already does most of that work. If you rebuild the footer from scratch, put the credit back in your own words with a link to the license page. Pixelarity, the paid companion, sells attribution-free access for a fee, listed at $19 for three months, and covers the whole HTML5 UP library plus extra templates and support. For a client who wants a clean footer on a one-off site, that is usually the cheapest removal option in this guide.

HTML5 UP templates are plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with no framework dependency beyond jQuery in some older designs and no CMS attached. That makes them easy to adapt and easy to audit: you can read every file before the site goes live, and there is no hidden dependency to update later. The trade-off is that you build the contact form, the content management, and the hosting yourself. The responsive images guide helps with the image side of that job, and the hero image file size guide keeps the large header images these templates favor from slowing the first paint.

Start Bootstrap

Start Bootstrap is an open library of free Bootstrap themes, templates, and code snippets. Its own licenses page states the position plainly: the free themes, templates, and snippets are licensed under the MIT License. The paid pro products on the same site use separate commercial licenses, Freelancer, Developer, Startup, and Enterprise, with rules that depend on team size and whether end users pay. The free tier is not a trial of those licenses. It is MIT, and MIT is the most permissive license in this guide.

The MIT license lets you use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of the software, for personal or commercial work, with one condition: the copyright notice and the permission notice must stay in all copies or substantial portions of the software. In practice that means leaving the license comment in the CSS and JavaScript files and the LICENSE file in the download. There is no credit link to keep in the footer, no payment, and no limit on the number of client sites. You can build ten client sites from one free theme and owe nothing beyond the notice in the files.

Two details are worth knowing. First, the MIT license covers the theme code, not the photos inside the demo. A theme preview may show stock photos that came with their own licenses, so check the images before they go live, the same bundled-assets pass described below. Second, the Bootstrap framework itself is also MIT, and its license FAQ asks only that the license and copyright notice stay in the framework's CSS and JavaScript files. If you keep the notices where they are and do not strip file headers, you are inside the terms. Start Bootstrap is the default pick in this guide for any designer who wants the fewest license conditions on a client build.

BootstrapMade

BootstrapMade is the source in this guide that most often catches designers out, because its free downloads look like the others and its license page says something different. The license page opens by saying most templates are available for free download and that the free versions can be used in personal or commercial projects as long as you comply with the license. The detail below that line is what counts: the Free License allows use in personal projects without any cost, on an unlimited number of websites or domains, with four limits. You must keep the footer credit line as is, "Designed by BootstrapMade". You cannot use the free version to create websites for clients or charge for your work. You do not get the working PHP/AJAX contact form script, and you do not get the source Sass/SCSS files. No support is provided.

Client work needs the Pro license for that specific template, or the Premium Plan. Pro allows full customization, commercial projects, client sites, charging for the work, removing the footer credit, and includes the contact form script, the Sass files, and premium email support. Premium adds access to all pro templates during the membership period plus the Template Builder, and is listed at $99 as a one-time payment for lifetime access. Every license is for a single developer: a team needs one license per developer, and more than five licenses means contacting BootstrapMade about bulk pricing.

The redistribution rules are the strictest in this guide. None of the licenses allow reselling or mass redistribution of the templates, or of projects built with the Template Builder. Building a website for a client does not count as redistribution and is permitted under Pro and Premium. Using a template to create themes for a CMS and mass-distributing them, publicly or for a fee, is not allowed. You may integrate a template into a custom CMS or a popular CMS like WordPress and use it yourself or for your clients, as long as it is not redistributed. If your plan is a free BootstrapMade template for a paying client, stop and buy Pro first. The free version is a way to test the template, not a way to deliver client work.

FreeHTML5.co

FreeHTML5.co publishes free HTML5 templates built on Bootstrap, plus premium templates under a separate license. Its terms page states that the free templates are licensed under Creative Commons 3.0, and spells out what that means: you are free to share the material in any medium, and to transform and build upon it for personal or commercial purposes, as long as you follow the license terms. Those terms are attribution: give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made, in a reasonable manner that does not suggest the licensor endorses you or your use. You may remove the backlinks or credit links by subscribing to the premium plans.

The terms page adds a clause that matters for anyone tempted to strip the credit and hope nobody notices: free templates where the backlinks or credit links have been removed or hidden fall under the Premium License Agreement and require a subscription purchase. In other words, removing the credit without paying does not make the template free of conditions. It moves you onto the paid license without having paid for it. Templates that are not released as free templates are designated Premium or Pro and require a subscription purchase.

Two practical notes from the same terms page. Free templates ship with no functional contact forms by default, so budget time to build or buy one. And all templates are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, including fitness for a particular purpose. That is standard for free downloads, but it means the testing is on you. The premium plans are a non-recurring payment by PayPal or card, and include theme updates, bug fixes, and email support, plus removal of the Google AdSense advertisements shown to free users. For a client build, the premium route buys both the credit removal and the support channel in one payment.

HTML Codex

HTML Codex publishes free and paid Bootstrap templates across business, portfolio, course, product, agency, and service sites. Its credit-removal page states that all free HTML templates by HTML Codex are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and that the footer credit, "Designed by HTML Codex", must remain intact and visible in all free versions. Removing or modifying the credit link without purchasing the appropriate license or Pro version is not permitted. The license text bundled with the templates adds the rest of the picture: you may use the templates for personal and commercial purposes, modify them however you like, convert or port them for use in any CMS, and share or distribute them under the HTML Codex brand name. You may not remove the credit link, and you may not sell, resell, rent, lease, license, or sublicense the templates, or upload them to template websites or other third-party sites without permission.

Credit removal is sold in two sizes. The Single Template license grants an ongoing, non-exclusive, worldwide right to use any one free template without the footer credit, for one end product. The All Templates license grants the same right for all free templates, including current templates and all future releases for life, with unlimited end products. Buying either license also includes a fully functional Ajax and PHP contact form, listed as a $13 value, and six months of premium support covering bug fixes and installation issues. Template customization is not included in that support.

HTML Codex is the most explicit of the CC BY sources about the credit itself, and that explicitness helps: there is no ambiguity to argue about with a client. Either the credit stays visible, or a license is bought. The CC BY 4.0 terms behind it are the current version of the Creative Commons attribution license, and they carry the same three duties as version 3.0: give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. A client who wants the footer clean needs one of the two paid licenses, and the All Templates license is the better buy for any studio that expects to reuse the source.

W3Layouts

W3Layouts hosts one of the largest free template collections in this guide, with templates for business, education, hospitality, travel, weddings, and dozens of smaller niches. The license depends on the age of the template, and the template's own page states which one applies, so read the page for the template you actually download, not the site's general description.

Older templates carry a lifetime free license under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported, with unlimited use. The template information block on those pages reads "License: Life Time Free License Under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. Unlimited Use, you can help and support us (W3Layouts, a Non-Profit) by donations or you should keep link to our website." Newer templates use W3Layouts' own two-tier system. The Starter License is free: by providing a backlink to w3layouts.com you can use the template for both personal and commercial purposes. Its limits are specific: always keep "Design by w3layouts" in the footer of all pages, backlinking to w3layouts.com; do not distribute W3Layouts templates; do not offer downloads of the original or a modified version. The Liberty License is the paid tier: it allows personal and commercial use on a single website or domain without the backlink, with additional licenses needed for additional domains. The template pages repeat the same advice in plain words: keep the backlink if you download for free, and if you use the template for commercial purposes, consider buying a Liberty License.

The split license is the main thing to watch on W3Layouts. Two templates from the same site can carry different terms, and the newer Starter License is a site-specific license rather than a standard Creative Commons license, which means its wording is the whole agreement. Read the template information block on the exact template page, save a copy of it, and note which license applies in your project record. The collection's size is its strength: for a niche industry site, there is usually a template built for that exact business. The license variety is the price of that size.

The Bundled-Assets Pass

A template license covers the template. It does not automatically cover everything inside the download, and this is where free template builds most often pick up a second license problem. A typical free template bundles four kinds of assets, each with its own terms: fonts, photos, icons, and JavaScript libraries. The template author chose them, but the licenses travel with the files, not with the template.

Fonts are the most common surprise. A template preview may use a display font that is free for personal use only, or a font from a foundry with its own desktop and web licenses. Check every font in the download against its own license. Fonts from Google Fonts are the easy case: they carry the SIL Open Font License, which allows commercial use, and the Google Fonts commercial use and self-hosting guide walks through how to check a font and host it yourself. Fonts that arrive as files inside the template zip need the same check, and the commercial font licensing guide covers the cases where a font license is unclear or missing. If a font in the template is not cleared for commercial web use, swap it before launch. A font swap at the end of a project is a redesign; a font swap at the start is a ten-minute edit.

Photos are the second check. Template demos commonly use stock photos, and the photos keep their own licenses. Photos from Unsplash or Pexels are cleared for commercial use under those sites' own licenses, and the free stock photos commercial use guide compares them line by line. Photos from anywhere else need a check on the source page. Never assume a photo in a demo is free to use just because the template is. If the photo source is unclear, replace the image with one from a source you have verified. The same rule covers video backgrounds and illustration files.

Icons are the third check, and usually the easiest: most templates use an icon font or SVG set with an open license, such as Font Awesome's free tier or a similar set. Confirm the icon set name in the template files and check its license page. The free icons commercial use guide covers the common sets and their free-tier limits, including the cases where a free icon set requires attribution or bars use in a logo.

JavaScript is the fourth check, and the one most often skipped. Templates bundle sliders, galleries, form validators, and animation libraries, each under its own license, usually MIT or a similar permissive license. Open the JavaScript files, read the license comment at the top of each one, and confirm it allows commercial use. A library under a copyleft license, or a paid plugin slipped into a free template, is rare but not unheard of, and finding it after launch is the worst time. While you are in the files, note which libraries are old: a slider that has not been updated in five years is a maintenance risk even when its license is fine.

Run this pass once per template, before the first client sees the design, and keep the results in the project record next to the template license. Four checks, five minutes each, and the template is cleared as a whole rather than as a single license line.

Picking a Template That Will Not Break Later

License clearance is the first filter. The second filter is the build itself, and it decides whether the template survives contact with a real project. Five checks cover most of the failures.

First, check the framework version. A template built on Bootstrap 3 or 4 will work, but it is old code: Bootstrap 3 has not been touched in years, and a template on it will need more patching over its life than one on Bootstrap 5. A template with no framework at all, plain HTML and CSS like most HTML5 UP designs, ages better than a template tied to an old framework version, because there is less to go stale. Read the template page or the readme for the version, and prefer current code.

Second, check the JavaScript weight. Open the demo, count the scripts, and look for jQuery plus a stack of plugins for effects the site does not need. Each plugin is a file to load, a dependency to update, and a possible conflict. A template that loads six plugins for a one-page site is a template that will load slowly on a phone. The hero image file size guide covers the image side of the same problem: templates with huge header images need the images resized and compressed before launch, or the first paint suffers.

Third, check the contact form. Several sources in this guide ship free templates without a working form: BootstrapMade excludes the working PHP/AJAX form from its free version, FreeHTML5.co says its free templates have no functional contact forms by default, and HTML Codex bundles a working Ajax form only with a paid credit-removal purchase. A demo form that posts nowhere is not a form. Decide before the build whether you will wire a form yourself, use a form service, or buy the version that includes one, and put the cost in the quote.

Fourth, check responsiveness for real. Open the demo on a phone, not just in a desktop browser narrowed to phone width. Tap through the menu, check the gallery, and read the footer credit at small sizes. Templates built before mobile traffic dominated can have menus that work with a mouse and fail with a thumb. The responsive images guide covers the image sizing that goes with this check.

Fifth, check the update date. A template last updated in 2019 can still be fine if it is plain HTML and CSS, but a Bootstrap template from 2019 is running an old framework with known issues, and its demo photos and links may be stale. Prefer templates with a recent update, and treat an old update date as a reason to read the files more carefully, not as an automatic rejection.

Handing a Finished Site to a Client

A template-built site changes hands twice: once as files, and once as a license record. The files are the easy part. The record is the part clients ask about later, usually when their own lawyer, or a platform claim, asks where the design came from.

Hand the client the finished site, not the raw template download, unless the license allows it and the client needs it. Under the CC BY sources, the finished site is yours to deliver. Under BootstrapMade Pro and Premium, building the client site is permitted and does not count as redistribution, but handing over the template files themselves for the client to reuse elsewhere is a different act, so check the license before including the raw download in the handoff folder. Under W3Layouts Starter, do not offer downloads of the original or a modified template at all. When in doubt, hand over the built site and keep the template archive yourself.

The license record is a short document: the template name, the source, the license, the date you downloaded it, and a saved copy of the license page or the LICENSE file from the download. If a footer credit applies, the record states that the credit stays in place, or that a removal license was bought, with the receipt. If the template was bought under a Pro or Premium license, the record states which license, for which developer, and for how many sites. This record answers the only question a client ever asks about a template: can you show me that we are allowed to use this. Keep it with the project files, and give the client a copy.

The credit decision belongs in the contract, not in a chat message. If the footer credit stays, the contract says so, so the client does not remove it later and create a breach. If the credit was removed under a paid license, the contract says which license was bought and who holds it. If the client later hires another developer and that developer strips the credit, the record shows the removal was paid for. A one-paragraph clause saves a dispute that no one wants to have a year after launch.

Editing a Free Template to Sell

Selling an edited template is a different business from building a client site on one, and the licenses treat it differently. The short version: the CC BY sources allow you to adapt and share the work, but selling the template itself as a product runs into the redistribution limits, and the proprietary sources bar it outright.

Under CC BY 3.0 and 4.0, you may adapt the template and share the adaptation, with attribution, a link to the license, and a note that changes were made. That covers building client sites and sharing a modified version. It does not cover stripping the credit and selling the result as your own template, because the attribution condition still applies to the shared version. A marketplace listing for a template derived from a CC BY source must carry the attribution, and most marketplaces will not accept a listing that is a lightly edited copy of a free template anyway. Under the MIT license, Start Bootstrap themes may be sold as copies, with the copyright and permission notices kept, but the same marketplace reality applies: a theme that is visibly a free theme with new colors will not sell, and the support burden falls on you.

BootstrapMade bars reselling or mass redistribution under every license, including Pro and Premium, and bars using its templates to create CMS themes for mass distribution. W3Layouts bars distributing its templates and offering downloads of original or modified versions under the Starter License. FreeHTML5.co states that its templates may not be placed on any medium for distribution, re-distribution, rent, lease, sale, or resale. HTML Codex bars selling, reselling, renting, leasing, licensing, or sublicensing its templates, and bars uploading them to template websites without permission.

The practical rule: a free template is raw material for client work, not inventory for a template shop. If you want to sell templates, build them from scratch, or buy a license that explicitly covers resale. The one legitimate middle path is building a CMS theme for a single client from a template whose license allows it: BootstrapMade explicitly allows integrating a template into WordPress for yourself or for a client, as long as it is not redistributed, and HTML Codex allows converting its templates for use in any CMS. One client, one site, no redistribution.

A Worked Example: One Studio, Three Sites

The example below is hypothetical: a fictional two-person studio, Harborlight Studio, building three sites in one month. The numbers are invented to show the decisions, not quoted from any real project.

Site one is a portfolio for a local photographer. The studio picks a Start Bootstrap theme under MIT. There is no credit to keep, no fee to pay, and the files go to the client with the MIT notice intact. License cost: zero. The bundled-assets pass finds Google Fonts in the theme and stock photos from Pexels in the demo, both cleared, so the only swap is replacing the demo photos with the photographer's own work. Total license spend: nothing, and the record is one line.

Site two is a restaurant site for a paying client who wants a clean footer with no third-party credit. The studio likes an HTML5 UP template. The CC BY 3.0 license allows the client work, but the credit has to stay unless Pixelarity is bought. The studio adds the Pixelarity fee, listed at $19 for three months, to the quote as a license line item, buys it, and notes the purchase in the license record. Total license spend: $19, passed through to the client.

Site three is a business site, and the studio likes a BootstrapMade template. The free version is personal-use only, so it cannot go into the client build at all. The studio buys the Pro license for that template, which covers the client work, removes the footer credit, and includes the working contact form and the Sass files. The license is for a single developer, and both studio members will touch the files, so the studio buys a second seat or has one developer do the template work. The Pro purchase also settles the contact form, which the free version would have left unwired.

Three sites, three different answers, and the deciding factor each time was the license page, read before the build started. The studio spent $19 plus one Pro license across the month, and every site shipped with a record that shows why it is allowed to be live.

Where Free Templates Go Wrong

Most template failures are license failures with a technical excuse. The common ones, in the order they usually arrive:

The free version does not cover client work. BootstrapMade is the clearest case, but any proprietary free license can hide the same limit. Read the license page, not the download button.
The footer credit gets stripped during the redesign. A designer rebuilds the footer, the credit goes with it, and the site ships in breach of a CC BY license. Keep the credit in the redesign, or buy the removal first.
The demo photos ship with the site. A template preview uses photos from a source the designer never checked, and the live site carries images with no license. Replace or verify every photo before launch.
The contact form posts nowhere. Free templates often ship a form with no backend, and nobody tests it until a customer complains that no one replied. Test the form with a real submission before handoff.
The template is built on an old framework. A Bootstrap 3 template from years ago works on day one and becomes a patching job by year two. Check the version and the update date.
The same template is reused for a second client without checking the license. MIT and CC BY allow reuse. A per-site paid license, like a W3Layouts Liberty License for a single domain, does not. One license per site where the terms say so.
The client strips the credit after handoff. A client who does not know the credit is a license condition will remove it during a tidy-up. Put the credit in the contract and in the handoff record.
The template is resold or redistributed. Listing an edited free template on a marketplace, or uploading it to a template collection site, breaches nearly every license in this guide. Build from scratch if you want to sell templates.

Before the Site Goes Live

Run this checklist once per template, and keep the completed copy with the project record.

FAQ

Can I use a free website template for a client project?

It depends on the source. Start Bootstrap's free themes are MIT licensed, so client work is allowed with no credit and no fee. HTML5 UP, FreeHTML5.co, HTML Codex, and W3Layouts allow client work under their free licenses as long as you keep the footer credit or backlink. BootstrapMade's free version does not allow client work at all: it is personal-use only, and client sites need the paid Pro license. Read the license page for the exact template you downloaded, because the answer changes by source.

Do I have to keep the footer credit on a free template?

On most free templates, yes. HTML5 UP, FreeHTML5.co, HTML Codex, and W3Layouts all require a credit link or backlink on free use, and removing it without paying moves you onto their paid license without having bought it. Start Bootstrap is the exception: MIT asks only that the copyright and permission notices stay in the files, with no footer credit. Each source sells a removal option, usually for a small fee, and the cheapest time to buy it is before the build starts.

Can I remove the credit link if I change the template a lot?

No, not under a Creative Commons attribution license. Heavy editing does not end the attribution duty: CC BY requires credit, a link to the license, and a note that changes were made, however much you changed. The credit stays, or you buy the removal license. The same applies to the W3Layouts Starter License, which requires the backlink on every page of the site.

Can I give the client the editable template files?

Usually yes for the finished site, with limits. Under the CC BY sources you can hand over the built site. Under BootstrapMade Pro, building the client site is permitted, but handing over the raw template for reuse elsewhere is a different act, so check before including the download in the handoff. Under W3Layouts Starter, do not offer downloads of the original or a modified template at all. When in doubt, hand over the built site and keep the template archive yourself.

Can I sell a website I built from a free template?

Yes, in the normal sense: you can charge a client for a website built on a free template whose license allows commercial use. That is client work, not resale, and it is allowed under MIT, CC BY, and the paid BootstrapMade licenses. What you cannot do is sell the template itself, or an edited version of it, as a product. Every source in this guide bars reselling or mass redistribution of the template, and HTML Codex, FreeHTML5.co, BootstrapMade, and W3Layouts all state that bar explicitly.

Can I convert a free template into a WordPress theme?

It depends on the license. HTML Codex explicitly allows converting or porting its templates for use in any CMS. BootstrapMade allows integrating a template into WordPress for yourself or for a client, as long as it is not redistributed, and bars creating CMS themes for mass distribution under every license. Under MIT and CC BY sources, conversion is allowed, with attribution kept for CC BY work. A theme built for one client is conversion. A theme listed for sale or distributed to many sites is redistribution, and the licenses bar it.

Are the photos and fonts inside a free template free to use?

Not automatically. The template license covers the template, and the bundled assets keep their own licenses. Check every font, photo, icon, and script in the download. Google Fonts and Pexels or Unsplash photos are usually cleared, but a demo photo from an unknown source is not cleared until you verify it. The free stock photos commercial use guide and the commercial font licensing guide cover the two most common bundled assets, and the design asset licensing checklist is a one-page pass for the whole set.

Sources Checked

HTML5 UP license page: https://html5up.net/license
Start Bootstrap licenses page: https://startbootstrap.com/licenses
Bootstrap license FAQ: https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.4/about/license/
BootstrapMade license and pricing: https://bootstrapmade.com/license/
FreeHTML5.co terms of service: https://FreeHTML5.co/terms/
HTML Codex credit removal page: https://htmlcodex.com/credit-removal/
HTML Codex free template license text (LICENSE.txt): https://www.damoryschools.com/LICENSE.txt
W3Layouts template information, Editor Ready templates: https://w3layouts.com/tag/editor-ready/page/22/
W3Layouts Starter and Liberty license terms, as printed on template pages: https://w3layouts.com/page/15/?s=contact+form
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported, legal code: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, deed: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Each page was read in November 2026. Template sites revise their terms without notice, so save the version you rely on. The Creative Commons licenses explained guide covers the CC license family in more depth, and the free presentation templates commercial use guide applies the same license-first method to decks.