I go for getting everything for free, and so far it's been OK.

The site I use for my song site is tripod/lycos. Here is a link - they say 20MB on their free site, but I've got a lot more than that on mine, and they don't seem to worry. They don't have any restriction on size of individual files also, which can be a nuisance with some people (it can mean you can't put song sound files on, for example).

I find that using FrontPage Express, which you can get for free with Internet Explorer, is quite satisfactory. And it doesn't mean you have to use Internet Explorer either). Using the Mudcat you can pick up all the extra HTML you sometimes might need to get the effects you want. Providing you aren't going for the sort of flashy effects that noone really needs, which would get in the way of people visiting your site anyway.

If you want advice I'm sure you'll get plenty by asking on the Mudcat - a lot of it quite good advice too, because most people here aren't experts on computers, and experts can find it very hard to understand why anybody finds something difficult.