WebMogul first went online in 1998 as a resource for people who wanted to build their own websites, back when that meant hand-typed HTML, table layouts, and a GeoCities neighbor with an autoplay MIDI file. The tools changed. The mission didn't: you should have your own corner of the web, and you shouldn't need anyone's permission to build it.
Who runs this
I'm Mike. I've been building and running my own websites since the late 90s: fan sites, concert calendars, music sites, and a coupon site that funded more of my life than I ever expected it to. I still run all of them. The picks on WebMogul come from that: real sites, real projects, real bills, not skimmed spec sheets, and when I recommend a tool it's because it's the one I'd reach for myself.
How this site makes money
Some links here are affiliate links. When you sign up for a tool through one, the company pays a commission. It never changes your price. It also never changes a verdict: the reviews say what annoyed me as plainly as what impressed me, because a site that's been around since 1998 has a reputation worth more than any single commission.
Reviews versus profiles, and why the difference is on the page
Every builder page here is labelled one of two ways, and the label is not decoration. A review carries a rating and means I built something real on that tool: Framer, Wix, and Hostinger. A profile carries no rating and means I have read the pricing and the mechanics carefully but have not run a real project on it: Squarespace and Durable. Plenty of sites would rate all five and hope you didn't ask. If a profile ever becomes a review here, it will be because a real site got built on it, and the page will say so.
Prices, and when they were last checked
Every price on this site carries the date it was verified against the vendor's own pricing page, because builder pricing moves and stale numbers are the most common way a site like this quietly becomes useless. The last full sweep was September 22, 2026, and it found three of five vendors had changed something since the previous check. Where a number is an estimate rather than a published figure, the page says so.
The rest of the family
WebMogul is the workshop notebook for a small portfolio of sites, most dating from 1999–2001, all being revived and documented in the build log: CouponsAndDeals, DuperDeals, A1Guitar, MusicWide, NYC Concert Calendar, The Woodstock Calendar, and three fan sites old enough to drink, with the whole family listed at mikeyjake.com.
The stack, for the curious
Plain HTML and CSS, no CMS, no framework, hosted on a free static host with the domain at the same registrar it's been at for decades. Total monthly cost: about the price of nothing. That's not an accident; it's the thesis.
Say hello
Questions, corrections, or a story about your own 90s-era site you're thinking of reviving? Use the form. I read everything.