How to Deploy Your Website with Vercel for Free

Building a website is easier than ever with modern AI tools like v0, Lovable, or Claude Code. The real challenge? Making it actually live for the world to see.

That’s what this guide is for. I’m going to walk you through the complete process of deploying your website for free using Vercel — from exporting your files to going live with a custom URL, without writing a single line of code from scratch.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. Phase 1: Prepare Your Project Files
2. Phase 2: Set Up GitHub
3. Phase 3: Push Your Code to GitHub
4. Phase 4: Deploy with Vercel
5. Phase 5: Final Touches and Custom Domains
6. Pro Tip: Validate Before You Build

Total time to go live: under 15 minutes.

Phase 1: Prepare Your Project Files

Before you can deploy anything, you need your website’s files on your computer.

Export Your Code

If you built your site using an AI tool like v0 or Lovable, look for a Download ZIP or Export button inside the tool. Click it to download your project files as a compressed folder.

If you built your site with Claude Code, your files are already in a local folder on your machine — skip straight to Phase 2.

Unzip the Folder

Find the downloaded ZIP file (usually in your Downloads folder) and extract it by double-clicking. You’ll see several subfolders and files inside. Don’t worry about understanding them all, just make sure they’re there. The important thing is that you have a single project folder containing everything.

Phase 2: Set Up GitHub

GitHub acts as a storage locker for your website’s code. Vercel connects directly to GitHub to build and host your site, so this step is essential.

Create a GitHub Account

Go to github.com and sign up. The fastest way is to click Continue with Google and use your existing account.

Create a New Repository

A repository (or “repo”) is essentially a project folder stored on GitHub. To create one:

1. Click the green Create repository button on your dashboard
2. Give it a name — something like my-portfolio-website or my-startup-site
3. Choose Private if you don’t want others to see your source code (your live site will still be public)
4. Scroll down and click Create repository

GitHub will show you a page with setup instructions — keep this tab open. You’ll need the URL from this page in Phase 3.

Phase 3: Push Your Code to GitHub

This is the step that looks the most technical, but don’t worry, you’re not writing any code. You’re pasting a handful of commands into a terminal that connect your local folder to GitHub. Think of it like telling your computer: “sync this folder to that storage locker.”

Download VS Code

If you don’t already have it, download Visual Studio Code - it’s free and works on Mac and Windows. VS Code is the editor you’ll use to run these commands. (It’s also the best environment for using Claude Code if you want to keep building.)

Open Your Project Folder

Launch VS Code, go to File → Open, and select the unzipped project folder from Phase 1.

Open the Terminal

In VS Code, go to the top menu and click Terminal → New Terminal. A panel opens at the bottom of the screen. This is where you’ll paste the commands.

Run These Commands One by One

Copy and paste each line below into the terminal, pressing Enter after each one:

git init

git add .

git commit -m "initial commit"

git branch -M main

git remote add origin YOUR_GITHUB_URL

git push -u origin main

For the fifth command, replace YOUR_GITHUB_URL with the URL from your GitHub repository page (it looks like https://github.com/yourusername/your-repo-name.git). You can copy it directly from the GitHub tab you left open.

After running git push, GitHub will ask you to authenticate, follow the prompts to log in. Once done, refresh your GitHub repository page and you should see your project files there.

Watch the Full Video Walkthrough

If you’d rather follow along visually, here’s the complete video tutorial covering every step above:

Phase 4: Deploy with Vercel

Your code is now on GitHub. This is where Vercel takes over as it reads your code, builds the site, and puts it online. The whole process takes about two minutes.

Create a Vercel Account

Go to vercel.com and click Continue with GitHub. This links your Vercel and GitHub accounts automatically - no separate signup needed.

Import Your Project

Once inside your Vercel dashboard:

1. Click Add New… → Project
2. You’ll see a list of your GitHub repositories - find yours and click Import

Deploy

Vercel automatically detects your framework (Next.js, Astro, React, etc.) and pre-fills the right build settings. You don’t need to change anything - just click Deploy.

Vercel will run the build process. You’ll see logs scrolling in real time. This usually takes 30–90 seconds.

Phase 5: Final Touches and Custom Domains

View Your Live Site

When the deployment finishes, you’ll see a success screen with a link to your live website - something like yourproject.vercel.app. Click it. Your site is live.

Share that link. Test it on your phone. Send it to someone for feedback.

Customize Your Vercel URL

If you don’t like the default URL Vercel assigned, go to Settings → Domains inside your Vercel project. You can edit the Vercel subdomain to something cleaner, like your-brand.vercel.app.

Connect a Custom Domain

If you’ve purchased a domain (like a .com from Namecheap or Google Domains), you can connect it to Vercel in the same Settings → Domains page:

1. Click Add Domain
2. Enter your domain name
3. Vercel gives you DNS records to add on your domain registrar’s side
4. Once the DNS updates propagate (usually within minutes to a few hours), your custom domain is live

From this point on, every time you push an update to GitHub, Vercel automatically re-deploys your site. No manual steps needed.

Pro Tip: Validate Before You Build

Here’s something most people skip and it ends up costing them months of wasted time and money.

Before you build a full product, launch a landing page with a lead capture form where people can register their interest first. You get real validation data before committing serious time or money to building something that may not have demand.

You can do this with LeadLanding, without even spending money on a domain. Describe your idea with a prompt, get a live landing page in under a minute, and start collecting leads before you’ve written a line of code. You can also check out the LeadLanding page to learn more about how it works.

Do this for a few of your ideas simultaneously, see which one gets the most interest, and build the winner. By launch day, you’ll already have a list of people ready to become your first users.

Quick Reference: The Full Deployment Checklist

Nas’ Note: The Gap Is Smaller Than You Think

Two years ago, deploying a website required understanding servers, SSH keys, and hosting configurations. Today, the entire process takes 15 minutes and costs nothing.

If you can build a site with Claude Code, you can deploy it. If you can build a landing page with v0, you can put it live. The tools have caught up - the only thing stopping most people is not knowing the steps.

Now you know them.

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