I have to admit that I have built a few sites in my old life on some free hosting sites. They were fairly decent sites. In your professional opinion, what do consumers think about free hosting vs. Paid hosting? Does it hurt your business rating? Do you think your customer even cares what type of hosting your business site is through? I would say it depends what type of business you are in, and what you are selling. What do you think?
Shared hosting is so cheap and you can get numerous free sites with no ads (Tumblr, etc). I wouldn't revolve your business plan around it, but it might be a good way to get customers to upgrade to a paid shared hosting plan.
If you want the reliability and the support, you'll typically have a much better experience going with a paid host versus a free one.