Charity website hosting explained
Last updated September 2026 · 6 minute read
Hosting is where your website lives. It is invisible when it works and extremely visible when it does not.
Trustees rarely need the technical detail, but they do need to know the site is backed up, secure and someone is responsible for it.
The short version
- Managed hosting with updates, backups and monitoring usually costs £20 to £60 a month.
- An unpatched site is a data protection risk the charity carries, not the volunteer.
- The charity should hold the domain registrar login, always.
- Ask when a backup was last restored, not just whether backups exist.
What good hosting includes
- An SSL certificate, so the padlock shows and data is encrypted
- Daily backups you can actually restore from
- Software and security updates applied for you
- Monitoring, so someone notices an outage before your supporters do
- Enough speed that pages load in under two seconds on a phone
- A named person or company responsible when something breaks at the weekend
What charity website hosting costs
Basic shared hosting runs from about £5 a month, but that is the bare server with nothing managed. Managed hosting with updates, backups and support usually sits between £20 and £60 a month, and agencies often charge £40 to £100 on top for looking after it.
Our £79 a month includes hosting, SSL, security updates, backups and monitoring, so there is no separate hosting bill to approve.
The risk trustees are actually carrying
An unpatched website is a data protection issue, not just an IT one. If supporter details are exposed through an out of date plugin, the charity is responsible under UK GDPR, not the volunteer who set the site up.
- Ask who applies security updates, and how often
- Ask when the last backup restore was tested
- Ask who holds the domain registrar login. It should be the charity
- Ask where supporter data is stored and for how long
A short hosting review for your next board meeting
- Who is our host and what do we pay them a year?
- When does the domain renew, and whose card is it on?
- Who would we call at 9pm on a Saturday if the site went down?
- Have we ever tested restoring the site from a backup?
- Is there a written record of all the logins somewhere other than one person's laptop?
Moving hosts without losing the site
Switching provider is routine. Make sure you control the domain name, take a full copy of the site and database before anything moves, and keep the old host running for a week after the switch.
Plan the move for a quiet week, not during an appeal, and check your email is not hosted on the same account before you cancel anything.
Common questions
Is free charity website hosting worth taking?
Sometimes, but check who owns the account, whether backups and updates are included, and what happens if the offer ends. Free hosting with no named owner is a risk rather than a saving.
Do charities get discounted hosting?
Several providers offer charity rates, and some technology donation programmes include credits. Read what is managed for you, because discounts usually apply to the unmanaged plans.
Who should own our domain name?
The charity, registered to the charity's email address and address. Never the agency, the freelancer or a trustee personally.
Ready for a website that does all of this?
We build it free for the first twenty Pioneer charities, then it is £79 a month with hosting, support and unlimited changes included. If you would rather talk it through first, ask us to call you.