Web Hosting for Nonprofits in 2024 – 3 Best Options
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If you’re running a nonprofit and need hosting for your website, you’re probably wondering things like “Can I get free nonprofit web hosting somewhere?” or “How much will web hosting cost if I have to pay for it? Is it worth it?” This page was created (and updated) to help answer questions like that and more! As 20+ year veterans in the Internet and web design space, we’ve worked with almost all of the major hosting companies and have a unique, expert perspective on web hosting in general.
One quick thing: before we jump into this awesome guide to nonprofit web hosting, it’s important to note that this page does contain affiliate links. This means if you choose to purchase web hosting from one of the companies on this page, we may receive a modest commission. This doesn’t affect our recommendations in any way at all—in fact, if we don’t like a hosting company, we’ll tell you regardless of any type of incentive (you can read more about that here).
Without further ado, let’s jump right into the subject of nonprofit web hosting and examine a variety of the important issues, companies, and more!
Paid vs Free Web Hosting for Nonprofits—What’s the Best Choice?
This is probably the number one question on most people’s minds when it comes to nonprofit web hosting. Many people who are in charge of a nonprofit (or at least in charge of maintaining the website for a nonprofit) wonder if there’s a way that they can get free hosting one way or another.
The answer to this question is—yes, you can from some providers, but this usually comes with a big catch. Typically, the hosting is really limited and slow, with minimal support or configuration options and other problems. Problems with free hosting typically include:
- Lack of security (sites may get hacked or breached)
- Lack of support (if you’re not paying, you often don’t get support or have to wait a long time for help)
- Lack of speed (free hosting often loads very slowly, causing frustration for website visitors)
- Lack of features (nonprofit free hosting plans are typically very stripped down)
So, unfortunately it’s our strong opinion that in the world of web hosting, you tend to really “get what you pay for” and looking for free hosting just isn’t really worth it.
Why is that? Well, mainly because web hosting has become so commoditized over time that the reason it’s hard to find free hosting is because the cost of hosting in general is pretty low. It’s not hard to get a cheap Hostinger plan for $2.69/month or so (with our special coupon).
Most non-profits, even those that are incredibly small, can afford $3/month for web hosting. And believe us, the support and reliability you get when paying for something is well worth the small expense. So, it’s our strong recommendation that hosting is cheap enough that it’s not really worth the time to search around for free hosting; just find a host that is highly-rated and within your budget, and move on to dealing with more important things!
The Best Web Hosting for Nonprofits—Recommended Providers
The hosting providers below (while not free) are some of our absolute favorites when it comes to reliability, pricing, and support. We currently use all of these companies and WE DO NOT recommend junk. To be entirely honest, of all the hosting companies out there—most aren’t that great. There are only a handful of companies that we can truly recommend, and the hosting companies below are some of the best.
Best All-Around Option: Hostinger
Hostinger is an excellent hosting company known primarily for their cost-effective yet reliable shared hosting packages. They’ve really emerged as the #1 value host in the game, and they’ve even been officially endorsed by WordPress (which is pretty rare). If you’re running a nonprofit and money is really a concern, Hostinger might be the best all-around choice. And they’re $2.69/month with our special coupon code, which is a price that’s hard to beat anywhere!
Budget Option: Bluehost
Bluehost has been around forever, and they’re one of the best shared hosting companies out there. And in terms of the companies we recommend for nonprofits, they are the cheapest with their recent pricing update at $1.99/month with our Bluehost link. But don’t let that pricing fool you, because they are a solid, reliable choice. And they are one of the only hosting companies that offers US-based telephone support at that price, which is a crazy good deal. If you’re a nonprofit on a budget, it’s really hard to go wrong with Bluehost.
Top-End Option: SiteGround
SiteGround is what we would consider a top-tier WordPress hosting company now. While this used to be a crown held by a company like WP Engine, SiteGround has really moved up the ladder over the past few years, and now competes quite well with WP Engine (and they don’t charge for visits either, which is a bonus for nonprofits with a lot of traffic, and something WP Engine has soured us on over the years). SiteGround’s support has always been super helpful and fast—it’s hard to go wrong with SiteGround. If you’re looking for a web host for your nonprofit site that an upgrade from most shared hosts, it’s hard to beat SiteGround.
Additional Questions to Ask About Nonprofit Web Hosting
In order to help you understand a little bit more about hosting a nonprofit website and what type of hosting might be the best, below are some important questions to ask when looking at different hosting companies.
Are you hosting a WordPress site?
If the answer is yes, then you should consider a hosting company that has expertise in dealing with WordPress. There are a lot of bargain basement companies that offer cheap web hosting, but they usually have awful support. It’s hard to get the message out about your nonprofit and do good in the world when no one can access your website, especially in this day and age. A little bit of money spent on quality hosting goes a long way. Any of the hosts recommended above can do a great job with WordPress, but if you want the best support and easiest interface SiteGround is the way to go.
Does your website get a lot of visitors?
If you already have a website hosted somewhere else, it’s important to take a look at how many visitors you get per day, per week, and per month. If your website gets a large amount visitors, it might be worthwhile to consider one of the higher tier hosts like SiteGround to ensure that your site is in less of a “shared” environment so that it can handle the amount of visitors you get. The more robust the infrastructure is of your hosting company and the better they are at managing their resources, the better your site will be for visitors.
Generally speaking, nonprofits don’t get as many visitors to their websites as businesses do, which is why businesses usually opt for small business web hosting that is a little more robust than what nonprofits typically need. However, some nonprofits get quite a bit of publicity, so it’s important to look at how much traffic your website gets when searching for a host. A general rule of thumb is under 500 visitors per day and you’ll be ok on shared hosting or something less expensive like Bluehost. More than that and you might want to move up to something bigger with better caching like SiteGround.
Do you need email hosting for your nonprofit?
Some web hosting companies provide email hosting and some do not. For example, WP Engine doesn’t mess with email because they simply focus on hosting the website and that’s it (which makes them an even better web host). There are companies like Rackspace that can provide cheap email hosting, so if a hosting company doesn’t provide email hosting it’s not a huge deal, but it is a consideration when you’re comparing hosts.
Can I host my nonprofit website in the cloud?
There is actually one very good option for hosting nonprofit websites in the cloud, and that’s Microsoft Azure for Nonprofits. They actually offer $5K/year in Azure credits to qualifying nonprofits which doesn’t just involve hosting but other Azure services too. The main problem with this (and why we still recommend going with one of the other companies mentioned on this page) is that the support for Azure isn’t the same as a shared or managed hosting company. This means that if you aren’t tech savvy with spinning up servers and managing cloud instances, you might be overwhelmed by the Azure platform. Some people might be able to handle this, but many nonprofits operate on a small staff and don’t have the luxury of having someone on staff with the experience to deal with Azure.
Can you afford $3+ per month for hosting?
As mentioned above, you often get when you pay for when it comes to web hosting and a lot of time can be spent looking for free hosting when it would just be easier to sign up for an affordable plan and move other more important business. Hostinger can generally be had, depending upon the term, for $2.69/month or less, and SiteGround isn’t might higher ($2.99/month). When it comes to having reliable hosting with reliable support, we’d definitely rather spend a small amount on it and move on to solving bigger and better problems. And if you’re really on a budget, Bluehost is $1.99/month now, which is even cheaper.
But seriously, what about free hosting? Shouldn’t I just get that?
No! As we’ve explained, free hosting is super limited, and has terrible support and options. Sites on free hosting frequently get hacked, and the features are so restricted, it’s just not worth it when companies like Hostinger offer a great package for $2.69/month with our special coupon.
