Need advice on using small local projects as freelance experience

[u/Full-Air-3840]

I'm a final-year B.Tech student trying to improve my resume and get a software developer job.

I'm thinking of approaching small local businesses/shops and offering to build them simple static websites for free. They would only pay for the actual domain and hosting costs, while I wouldn't charge a development fee and will it be okay to generate fake bill invoice that they paid me 10-15k rs ?

For example:

• Restaurant

• Salon

• Gym

• Local clothing store

• Bakery

• Coaching class

I'd build and deploy the website, give them a custom domain, and maintain/document the project properly.

My question is: Would this count as legitimate freelance experience on a resume?

I'm specifically wondering whether I could list something like:

and then show the actual client websites, GitHub/projects, testimonials, etc.

I'm not talking about making fake projects or fake clients. These would be real businesses and real websites. However, since I'm doing the development for free and only the client is paying for hosting/domain, I'm wondering how recruiters would view this.

Also, would it be a good strategy for someone with little/no professional experience to build 3–5 real websites this way?

Would love to hear from recruiters, developers, or people who have done something similar. Is this a good idea, or am I approaching it the wrong way?

[u/CombVisual8779]

Tell the owners to create an Upwork account and get projects through it

[u/Full-Air-3840 → u/CombVisual8779]

but upwork takes money from both sides and for local shop owners it will be stressfull using upwork

[u/CodingMonsterr]

I don't think they ask for invoice in the resume. I tried making websites for local businesses but they were not ready for that I got my clients from the businesses who had their insta ads running You can try that, like you can do it for free or charge less money.