My experience when using free web hosting.
I always get some stuck when using free web hosting.
Most of them need requirement ( like minimum visitor in a month eg: infinityfree.net) or email disabled.
You need to remember to visit your portfolio once a month , or you'll lose and create new again and again
My experience when using cheap web hosting.
They very strict about TOS, High CPU use, and web hits (eg: roqie.com) they very easy to suspend you.
Whether it is on your plan or not. some robot crawler or wrong WP setting/addon can make your account in their attention.
But if your plan only for new website or portfolio or any new born make money website that need time to grow
Now, there a lot new hosting offers less than $1 hosting per month while you search on google. goodluck!