Church website hosting solutions from the pros! Whether you’re looking for a one-time solution, or you need help with ongoing hosting and security, our team is here to serve. From server rental to domain name sales, we have everything you need to know about the Best Hosting Services for Church Website.
In this post, you’ll find an impartial, honest review of the Best Hosting Services for Church Website, along with their pros and cons. All you’ll have left to do is to choose one that suits your needs best.
Best Hosting Services for Church Website
What We Look For in the Best Web Hosting Services for Churches
During my search for the best web hosting plans for churches, I paid special attention to the following features:
- Affordability. Your web hosting plan shouldn’t put a strain on your budget. The hosts included in my list offer low prices, but provide a lot of value in terms of resources and extra features.
- Reliability. You’ll want your hosting provider to guarantee that your website will be up and running at all times.
- One-Click Installer. A powerful tool like this ensures that you can easily set up WordPress, or a different content management system (CMS). It also allows you to install useful applications, such as calendars and image galleries, in a few simple steps.
- Website Builder: Some hosts offer drag-and-drop builders with a wide range of themes and customization options, so you can get started on your site as soon as you sign up for a plan.
- Security: If you accept donations through your website, you’ll want to make sure it’s secure so everyone’s information is safe.
- Good Customer Support: If you have a question or a problem, you’ll want assistance right away, from a competent support agent.
Best Church Website Hosting Providers
1. Bluehost
| Features | Free SSL, CDN, domain, and website builder |
| Uptime | 100% |
| Speed | 361ms |
| Best for | Beginner-oriented host for smaller sites |
Bluehost is one of the biggest names in the world of hosting, known for its reasonable pricing and options for WordPress sites. With an easy-to-use panel and many functionalities, it is a great candidate for church website hosting.
If this is your first time dealing with web hosting, Bluehost makes sure everything goes smoothly. The provider pays extra attention to simplicity:
- The native hosting/website management dashboard is very clean and well organized. It even includes a checklist of things to do when building a website (WordPress specifically.) Managing a website with Bluehost is easy enough so that you can do it yourself.
- The first time you log in, WordPress will be installed automatically.
- All plans include free domain and SSL certificates. Even better, both are set up automatically.
Additionally, if you’re looking to build a website quickly, but an unimaginable amount of WordPress templates overwhelm you, Bluehost has a native website builder. All you’ll have to do is answer a few questions and give a few preferences. Once done, it’ll create a unique design and layout. You’ll be able to customize it a little and add your content too.
Bluehost offers 4 shared hosting plans priced from $2.95/month up to $13.95/month.
All plans include such things as an SSL certificate, free domain, and unmetered bandwidth.
Even though the Basic plan offers no extra features, $2.95/month, it provides enough resources for a big church website. Especially considering that 50GB of storage should be more than enough even if you have a lot of photos to display.
However, if you think you might need more than one website in the future, or 10BG SSD seems too small, you might consider the Plus plan. Any other plan is just too pricey for what it offers.
2. InterServer
InterServer’s Standard web hosting plan provides unlimited storage and bandwidth, as well as over 450 one-click-install apps, including popular content management systems such as WordPress and Joomla, as well as useful plugins like calendars, image galleries, and video sharing.
This plan is free for US-based nonprofits registered as 501(c)(3)s with the IRS. You’ll just need to provide the tax identification letter for your church. If you’re not in the US, you’ll be glad to know this plan is still very affordable.
InterServer’s standard plan also includes a free cPanel control panel, which is an intuitive tool that allows you to manage all aspects of your web hosting service.
If you’d rather not use WordPress to build your site, InterServer provides free access to the SitePad website builder, a drag-and-drop tool with over 300 different themes.
Here are some other interesting features InterServer offers:
- Affordable monthly pricing: If you’re based outside the US, InterServer offers one of the cheapest monthly rates out there. With many other hosts, you’d have to pay upfront for several years of hosting just to get a good deal.
- SSL certificates: You can set up a donation page and know that your donors’ credit card information is safe.
- InterShield Security: Includes a firewall, malware detection software, and an automatic virus scanner to protect your website from hackers.
For a full list of features, read our in-depth InterServer review.
| Starting Price | $2.50 per month |
| Website Builder | Yes (SitePad) |
| Uptime Guarantee | 99.9% |
| SSL Certificate | Yes |
| Customer Support | 24/7 phone, email, and live chat support |
3. Hostinger
| Features | Free SSL and CDN |
| Uptime | 100% |
| Speed | 511ms |
| Best for | For small-to-medium-sized church websites looking good performance |
Whenever I think of cheap yet performance-oriented hosting providers, Hostinger is the first one to pop into my mind. For a very low price, it offers very good performance and ease of use, which are always highly appreciated.
But why should you consider it for your church website hosting?
- First things first, it is the cheapest shared hosting provider in the market. For as low as $2.59/month, you can get great performance.
- The user panel is made with ease-of-use at the top of mind. Hostinger has a native management panel called hPanel, and it’s very intuitive and well structured.
- Great performance is Hostinger’s main selling point. It has many integrated tools like LiteSpeed web servers, pre-configured caching, and a free Cloudflare integrated for fast website performance.
With Hostinger’s main focus being on small and medium-sized websites, it is one of the best all-around options for a church website. It is cheap, fast, and easy to use. There’s not much more you can ask out of a hosting provider.
Talking about plans, Hostinger has 2 shared hosting options with prices between $2.59/month and $4.99/month.
Regardless of the plan you choose, you will get free SSL, custom domain, weekly or daily backups, and a 100 email account.
Both Premium and Business offer pretty large storages.
4. A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting’s cheapest plan provides 25 email accounts and unlimited storage and bandwidth, making it a great option for a church website.
cPanel and Softaculous are both included with all plans so you can easily manage your domain and plugins, as well as one-click install useful apps. The A2 SiteBuilder, also available on all plans, gives you a variety of themes to choose from.
A2 Hosting Web Hosting
Last but not least, if you represent a church that is registered as a nonprofit, A2 Hosting will give you a considerable discount.
What else does A2 Hosting have to offer?
- SSL certificate: Your donors’ payment information will be encrypted and safe from hackers.
- Perpetual Security: A firewall, malware detection and removal software, and a tool that notifies you of any outdated and potentially vulnerable plugins on your website.
- Spam filtering: A2 Hosting provides basic spam filters for your domain emails and gives you the option to purchase Barracuda, an advanced filter.
| Starting Price | $6.99 per month |
| Website Builder | Yes |
| Uptime Guarantee | 99.9% |
| SSL Certificates | Yes |
| Customer Support | 24/7 phone, email, live chat, and Skype support |
5. SiteGround
| Features | Free SSL, CDN, daily backups, managed WordPress |
| Uptime | 99.99% |
| Speed | 217ms |
| Best for | For larger church websites looking to receive donations online |
SiteGround is a WordPress-oriented provider known for its great performance. It’s a more premium option on this list, but all its extras like additional security measures and ease-of-use make this host worth a look. Especially if you’re thinking of accepting donations online.
SiteGround focuses on providing the highest quality performance and security at the front of it all:
- By using the most up-to-date hardware and software, SiteGround is able to deliver great performance.
- The host has WordPress optimizations. By offering automated updates, customizable caching options, and a staging environment host makes it easy to run a high-quality church website.
- SiteGround has many security tools. Daily backups, web and server firewalls, bot protection, and a 24/7 monitoring system provide security against the most frequently recurring threats. This makes it ideal for church websites to accept donations online.
- Lastly, the user interface is very easy to manage and can be slightly customized to fit your needs.
In fact, considering what you get for what you pay, I like to think that SiteGround offers great value for money. So if your church plans to accept donations online, SiteGround is an option that you might want to consider.
SiteGround offers 3 shared hosting plans with prices ranging from $2.99/month to $7.99/month. But don’t forget to check if a seasonal discount is available.
What you get for the money is very nice. Daily backups with all plans, as well as free email and CDN, a free SSL certificate, unlimited databases, and unmetered traffic.
As per usual, the cheapest StartUp plan offers the least storage and only 1 website. Knowing that you most likely will be needing only one website, this plan seems to be the best fit for a church website. While the storage is not as generous as with some other providers, it is more than enough for one high-quality site.
Alternatively, if you think you might need more than one website or staging seems like something that might benefit you, GrowBig might interest you. At the same time, GoGeek is simply too pricey, and the additional features like adding collaborations or the highest tier of resources don’t seem to be very vital for a church website.
6. HostPapa
Offering generous shared hosting plans and extensive support, HostPapa can help you quickly set up your website. HostPapa’s Starter plan includes 100 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 100 email addresses, which is more than enough for a church website.
A number of additional features – including cPanel, Softaculous, and a website builder with dozens of templates – are included with all plans.
You will want to pay attention to the renewal fees, though. The prices of the three shared hosting plans go up after the first year.
A free domain name is included with some hosting plans from HostPapa
Here are some other interesting features:
- SSL certificate: This valuable security feature is included with all HostPapa’s plans.
- Improved security: HostPapa gives you advanced email spam filtering and a firewall on all plans.
- Free 30-minute one-on-one training session with a PapaSquad expert: You can discuss the features included in your HostPapa plan, the best tools to use to build your website, how to navigate the dashboard and cPanel, or how to keep your site secure.
| Starting Price | $3.95 per month |
| Website Builder | Yes |
| Uptime Guarantee | 99.9% |
| SSL Certificate | Yes |
| Customer Support | 24/7 phone, e-mail, and live chat support |
7. DreamHost
| Features | Free SSL, domain, website builder, domain privacy, and daily backups |
| Uptime | >99.99% |
| Speed | 231ms |
| Best for | Medium-sized church websites looking for a powerful and trustworthy hosting |
As far as church website hosting is concerned, DreamHost lives up to its name. The provider is very easy to use and offers quite generous shared hosting plans for very reasonable prices. More so, it pays special attention to WordPress hosting.
So why might DreamHost be the one to host a church website?
- All plans include a free domain.
- DreamHost offers pre-installed WordPress. As they say – “we install it, so you don’t have to.” I’d say that’s pretty neat.
- The host has a native management panel, that’s well structured and makes the website management process very simple.
- If you’re planning on using WordPress and are looking for a quick website building option, DreamHost offers a WordPress-focused website builder.
- It is the only provider on this list to offer a 100% uptime guarantee.
- It is quite secure. Regardless of which plan you choose, you will get a free SSL, daily backups, web firewall, and domain privacy. These tools help you to make sure that your website is secure against the most common threats.
In short, DreamHost is reliable, safe, and simple to manage. There’s only one catch – the live chat support is not 24/7. However, if you’re looking for a straightforward host with quite inclusive plans for a very reasonable price, DreamHost might just be it.
Talking about plans, DreamHost offers only two shared hosting options for you to choose from, priced at $2.59/month and $3.95/month.
Both plans offer SSD storage, a free SSL certificate, a free domain, unlimited traffic, and pre-installed WordPress.
- Other than the things mentioned above, the Starter plan also offers 50GB of storage and allows hosting only one website. Although email costs extra.
- At the same time, the Unlimited plan offers unlimited storage, unlimited websites, as well as free unlimited email.
To be honest, the Starter plan is more than sufficient for a beautiful small-to-medium church website. However, if you think you might need free emails or more than one website, Unlimited seems to be the one.
8. GoDaddy
GoDaddy’s shared hosting and WordPress hosting plans are both suitable options for a church website, but since the price difference is minimal, I recommend the latter. WordPress hosting comes with the popular CMS pre-installed and includes daily backups, as well as automatic updates for WordPress and its plugins.
GoDaddy can be tricky to work with because some of the features it advertises as free – such as a domain name or an SSL certificate – are only free for the first year. Before choosing a plan, be sure to consider your long-term needs.
With GoDaddy’s cheapest shared plan, you get 100 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and access to cPanel.
GoDaddy Hosting Web Hosting
A free domain name is included with some hosting plans from GoDaddy Hosting
If you’d like to use the GoDaddy Website Builder, you can sign up for one of the builder plans, all of which include web hosting.
Here are some other interesting features GoDaddy offers:
- Beginner-friendly hosting: The hosting dashboard is clean and easy to navigate. If you experience any difficulties, there’s 24/7 customer support.
- Daily automated backups: GoDaddy creates backups for all websites, no matter the plan you choose.
- 99.9% uptime guarantee: For every hour of downtime in addition to the initial 0.1%, you get a 5% refund of the monthly cost.
| Starting Price | $5.99 per month |
| Website Builder | Yes |
| Uptime Guarantee | 99.9% |
| SSL Certificate | Yes, but only on higher-tier plans |
| Customer Support | 24/7 phone and live chat support |
Free Website Hosting For Churches
1. Gator by HostGator
Gator is another all in one website builder, making it a great option if you want to keep things as simple as possible. You can choose from different website templates to create your site.
It’s fully hosted for you by HostGator, one of the biggest web hosting platforms in the world.
Pros
- You’ll have unlimited pages, space, and bandwidth for your site. This means you don’t need to worry about running out of space or getting charged if your site gets a lot of traffic.
- A domain name is included for free (for 12 months) regardless of which plan you’re on. Alternatively, if you’ve already bought a domain name from a different domain name registrar, you can simply connect it to your site.
- There’s support available 24/7 through live chat, phone, and email.
- There are over 200 different templates available. You can customize these, though you can’t later switch templates completely.
Cons
- Unlike Wix or WordPress, Gator does not have free plans, and there’s no free trial available either.
- There’s no easy way to accept donations through your website unless you pay for the eCommerce plan.
- The pricing isn’t very transparent. Your site might end up costing you quite a bit more than you’re expecting as time goes by.
Pricing
The cheapest Gator plan costs from $3.84/mo, which requires you to pay upfront for two years. If you want to pay monthly, it’s $4.99/month.
Note that all the listed prices are for your site’s “first term” only. So if you opt for the $4.99/month option, you’ll be paying $9.99 from your second month onward.
2. Nucleus
Nucleus is an all in one church website builder, with a bunch of useful features like the ability to upload sermons and create email lists.
Pros
- There’s a 30 day free trial, which doesn’t require any credit card details. If you find that you need longer to evaluate the website builder, just contact Nucleus and they can give you extra time.
- Nucleus offers “scholarships” for smaller churches and startups. It’s worth enquiring about these if your church would struggle to afford the regular Nucleus payment plans.
- There’s lots of helpful documentation, plus support available through live chat.
- Nucleus is designed to be a “central hub” for your church. There’s a particular focus on signup forms so that you have a single place you can point people to.
- There’s a Facebook group you can join to talk about church website building with other people who are using Nucleus too.
- When you sign up for Nucleus, you also get access to their library of video footage clips. Note that only a small number of these are available during your free trial.
- There are lots of pre-created social media posts that you could use on your social media channels. These are all images with text overlayed and come with suggested captions.
Cons
- The support team are only available from 9am to 5pm EST, which could mean waiting quite a while for a reply at some points.
- If you want to take donations, you need to pay a flat fee for this service from RebelGive. It could well be worth it if you get a lot of donations through your website, though.
- Currently, you can’t have multiple users for your website. When we asked the support team, they said this feature would be added in the future.
Pricing
Nucleus costs $125/month if you pay monthly or $99/month if you pay upfront for a year.
You don’t need to pay more if your website grows. It’s a single flat fee that gives you access to all their features.
Conclusion
Church website hosting solutions from the pros can provide a high level of service and support. Catholic website hosting plans offer a wide variety of options, while Protestant and Muslim website hosting services offer a variety of plans that fit specific needs. By choosing the right provider, you can easily create and manage your church’s website from start to finish.