5 Best Web Hosts for Nonprofits

4.5 out of 5 stars

Best overall nonprofit hosting provider.

Overall rating: 4.5

Bluehost is ideal for those looking to create a medium-sized nonprofit website and is particularly great for those planning to use WordPress. If security is your biggest concern however then you need to consider the fact that you have to pay extra for the more advanced security features.

Bluehost Overview

Bluehost is one of the most widely used hosting providers online and regularly comes out as our top-rated hosting provider.

It’s easy to navigate and has a variety of plans and hosting types available, making it accessible for almost anyone, including nonprofits.

The intuitive control panel is great for beginners and if you’re planning to launch a WordPress website, you’ll be presented with tips and insights to help make the process run smoothly thanks to Bluehost’s partnership with the CMS.

On the whole, Bluehost is our favorite nonprofit website hosting provider thanks to its simple interface, tight security, and solid reputation.

For an in-depth look at Bluehost, check out our Bluehost review.

Plans and Pricing

While there are no specific plans for nonprofits, there are four separate shared hosting plans for you to choose from.

Starting at just $2.95 per month, every shared plan offers a free domain, SSL certificate, and unmetered bandwidth.

The annual plans on offer from Bluehost are:

• Basic Plan: $2.95 per month
• Plus Plan: $5.45 per month
• Choice Plus Plan: $5.45 per month
• Pro Plan: $13.95 per month

Our Bluehost pricing guide has more information on the pricing and plans available.

Best Value for Nonprofits

The best value option for nonprofit organizations is the Basic plan, provided you only need to host a single website. It’s the cheapest option and there are no additional expenses!

Reliability and Uptime

When you’re running a website, you want to be confident the website will actually be online and available to visitors. This is where your hosting provider’s uptime comes in.

You want a web host that offers the very best uptime for your nonprofit website and while none can guarantee 100% uptime, Bluehost comes pretty close. It advertises an uptime of 99.98%… impressive!

It’s worth noting, however, that when we tested Bluehost’s reliability as part of our Bluehost review, it only scored 3 out of 5 for uptime performance.

Performance and Speed

On the whole, Bluehost doesn’t let you down when it comes to performance and speed. The provider’s average response time is around 362 ms… speedy!

You can absolutely rely on Bluehost to deliver your website content to visitors, but the Basic plan may start to show some strain if your visitor numbers increase drastically, for example if you’re running a big fundraising campaign and driving traffic to your website.

All of Bluehost’s servers are located in the US, which means you can expect the speediest response times in America. Great if you’re targeting a US audience but something to bear in mind if you’re casting your net further afield.

Support and Customer Service

Bluehost has a variety of help and support options including live chat, email support tickets, and 24/7 phone support, making this one of the best customer support offerings of all the hosting providers we reviewed.

The live chat option is speedy and questions are answered in detail, but if you’d rather speak to someone on the phone there are three different lines for you to call, general inquiries, VPS and dedicated hosting, and WordPress support.

Bluehost really excels as a WordPress hosting service so it’s no surprise that its WordPress support is particularly impressive (it scored a whopping 4.6 out of 5 in our tests!)

Security Features

We know how important security is for nonprofit organizations and every Bluehost plan comes with an SSL certificate included with the price.

An SSL certificate lets users know that the information they share on your website will be safe, which is particularly important for those who may be signing up to volunteer or make a donation.

If you want to set up a member area where users will log in with a password, or want to accept donations online via your website, then it may be worth purchasing the premium SSL certificate for $49.99 for added security.

4 out of 5 stars

Best for smaller budgets.

Overall rating: 4

Hostinger is the perfect choice for nonprofits who want to pack a punch with the features on offer but who have limited budget for a web host. It’s ideal for beginners as it’s easy to use and if you’re not fussed on what website builder you use, you can use the integrated website builder to keep everything in one place.

Hostinger Overview

Hostinger is one of the most affordable hosting providers online and is a particularly great choice for beginners who are looking for an easy-to-use and basic hosting service.

Originally a standalone hosting provider, after being acquired by Zyro, Hostinger now offers users both web hosting and a website builder.

Everything has beginners in mind and while the website builder’s designs are pretty simple, it’s a great choice for nonprofits who are looking to launch a simple website containing basic information.

While it may not quite take the top spot as our favorite hosting provider on the market, it’s a great choice for nonprofits wanting to keep costs low and have everything in one place.

For an in-depth look at Hostinger, check out our Hostinger review.

Plans and Pricing

While there is no free plan for nonprofits, Hostinger does offer a 50% discount for .org domains, which are typically used by nonprofit organizations.

Even without a discount, Hostinger is a budget-friendly option meaning you won’t end up putting much of a dent in your budget by choosing this provider.

Hostinger pricing tends to fluctuate depending on the type of hosting you’re after and the length of time you’re willing to commit, plus the hosting providers frequently run offers and deals.

For a 12-month plan you can pay anywhere between $2.99 per month to $3.99 per month… see, we told you it was budget-friendly!

Generally speaking, the longer you sign up for a Hostinger plan, the cheaper it will be. It could be worth committing to a longer period, such as the 24 or 48 month plans, not least because the renewal fees can be steep!

Best Value for Nonprofits

We recommend opting for the Premium plan if you choose Hostinger as your provider. There are a host of features for a great price and the plan supports up to 25,000 monthly visits.

Reliability and Uptime

Hostinger may claim to have an uptime of 99.9% but in reality, we found it fell short.

The reliability and uptime were pretty mediocre and only scored the provider 3.5 out of 5. There are definitely more reliable providers out there, such as IONOS and InMotion.

It is worth noting however that uptime doesn’t have to be a big deal. If you’re planning to host a simple, informational website then a little bit of downtime likely won’t cause too many issues. If you want to use it to collect those all-important donations, however, then we would recommend taking a look at IONOS – our top-rated provider for uptime.

Performance and Speed

Hostinger is pretty speedy, with an average response time of 511ms. While it may be slower than some of the competition e.g. Bluehost, its ability to handle traffic increases is second to none.

Hostinger also allows you to choose from one of eight data centers located in the USA, UK, Netherlands, Lithuania, France, India, Singapore, and Brazil. If you want to target international visitors, Hostinger could therefore be a good choice.

Support and Customer Service

Hostinger’s customer service offering unfortunately isn’t anything to write home about.

The live chat function is available 24/7, which is useful, but there’s no phone support at all – disappointing if you would rather speak to a member of the team over the phone.

One thing we do like about Hostinger’s support services, however, is the Knowledge Base, a section of the website dedicated to tutorials, blogs, and YouTube videos.

Security Features

Every single Hostinger plan includes an SSL certificate, meaning you can be sure that whatever data your website visitors share with you will be kept safe.

You can also make the most of the daily or weekly backups on offer as part of Hostinger plans and your website will sit behind in-house firewalls to help keep your website and data secure.

Further Reading

Want to compare our top two website hosting providers for nonprofits? Take a look at our Bluehost vs Hostinger comparison guide.

4 out of 5 stars

Best for large amounts of content.

Overall rating: 3.9

InMotion is great for those who may need extra support when setting up their website and hosting plan and is perfect for organisations such as churches, public clinics, and sports orgs who may have some extra budget to spend. If you want to feature a large amount of content on your website then InMotion is the hosting provider for you.

InMotion Overview

InMotion has a lot to offer as a nonprofit website hosting provider. If you have a decent-sized budget to play around with then InMotion could be an option. It particularly excels at website security, a crucial factor if you want to use your nonprofit website to take donations.

Like most of the hosting providers in this list, InMotion offers shared, WordPress, and VPS hosting.

If you want to use your website to host a large number of images and photographs, perhaps from previous volunteer missions or community events, then this is InMotion’s strength.

For those with a large amount of website content, InMotion comes up trumps.

For an in-depth look at InMotion, check out our InMotion review.

Plans and Pricing

There are various hosting plans and prices available, depending on what type of hosting you’re looking for and how long you’re willing to sign up.

Shared hosting starts at as little as $3.49 per month but plans quickly increase in cost the more features you add, with the Pro plan coming in at $11.25 per month (prices based on signing up for one year).

Despite the seemingly small prices, InMotion is one of the more expensive nonprofit hosting providers and if you need to keep costs low, you would be better off looking at Bluehost instead.

There are also no discounted or free options for nonprofit organizations.

Best Value for Nonprofits

The Launch shared hosting plan at $6.99 per month is the best value option for nonprofits. It offers everything you need including a free domain and SSL certificate.

Reliability and Uptime

InMotion has a pretty impressive average uptime of 99.98%. Considering no provider can offer 100% uptime (there is always the potential for something to throw a wrench in the works), this is as good as it gets.

Performance and Speed

InMotion’s performance shouldn’t be sniffed at, in fact when we conducted our research we found that it came out on top in terms of performance score for its dedicated hosting when compared with other providers.

InMotion has two data centers based in the US, located on either coast, but even if you’re targeting an international audience, your website will still load instantly.

It is worth noting however that InMotion does fall below Google’s benchmark for speed in Asia and Australia. If you’re based in or want to target these countries, you would be better off choosing a different provider such as Hostinger who have a wide selection of international data centers.

Support and Customer Service

InMotion covers almost every base when it comes to customer support, with live chat, phone, and email support tickets, and a knowledge base full of resources.

One of the things that makes InMotion stand out is the offer of Skype chats and one-to-one support for dedicated hosting customers.

While there are plenty of support options available, they don’t all work at 100%. We found the knowledge base of resources quite tricky to navigate and the live chat and email tickets felt a little too sales-orientated for our liking.

With InMotion it seems the quality of support you get will depend on your plan.

Security Features

InMotion offers excellent security features, meaning you can rest assured that both your own and your visitors’ data will be kept safe and secure.

The hosting provider offers an SSL certificate with every plan (something essential for your website) plus you’ll also have access to automatic daily backups, DDoS protection, and malware monitoring.

Top tip! If you want to use your website to take donations for your nonprofit, website security has to be at the top of your priority list. Sacrificing users’ sensitive data could ruin your reputation.

4 out of 5 stars

Best for website uptime.

Overall rating: 3.8

IONOS is best for nonprofits that are worried about uptime and site speed, for example those who want to use a website to collect donations or run fundraising campaigns. If you need to keep costs low then IONOS could be a great choice.

IONOS Overview

When it comes to site speed and uptime, IONOS is the hosting provider to beat. Reliable and stable, the provider offers four different types of hosting: shared, VPS, dedicated, and WordPress.

IONOS is a great hosting provider for nonprofits thanks to its budget-friendly prices, all-round packages, and strong focus on speed and reliability meaning you don’t have to sacrifice quality to keep costs low.

The IONOS control panel is perhaps a little dated and clunky, however, and could do with some updates to bring it in line with industry leaders such as Bluehost. Its ease of use isn’t great, meaning it isn’t the best choice for beginners looking for a simple solution, if that’s you then Bluehost or Hostinger may be better options.

For an in-depth look at IONOS, check out our IONOS review.

Plans and Pricing

IONOS is one of the cheapest nonprofit website hosting options and during our testing we found it to be the best value for money out of all the hosting providers we reviewed.

There are plenty of pricing and plan options depending on your budget but it can be tricky to get your head around the various offers and deals available.

Hosting starts at $5 per month for the Essential plan, the most basic of IONOS’ offerings, and rises to $13 per month for the Ultimate plan.

You do need to take into account the fact that these prices are introductory offers and when it comes to renewal, the prices will rise.

While there is no dedicated nonprofit plan, IONOS does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee so if you’re not happy with your service, you can cancel and get your money back.

Best Value for Nonprofits

To be honest, most nonprofits will be fine with the Essential plan, the cheapest IONOS offering. With this, you’ll get one website plus a free domain for a year (you’ll have to pay extra for the domain once the year is up).

Reliability and Uptime

IONOS claims that its uptime is 99.9% and honestly? When we tested it the provider came out with a whopping uptime score of 5 out of 5… impressive stuff.

Without a doubt, IONOS is the hosting provider for you if downtime is a big concern for example if you’re running a fundraising campaign and are relying on your website to take donations. While none of the options in this list have poor downtime stats, IONOS is head and shoulders above the rest.

Performance and Speed

We all know website speed is important and clearly so do IONOS. The hosting provider just can’t be beaten when it comes to performance and speed.

It excels with its WordPress hosting, which is great news if you’re planning to build a WordPress website, but the hosting provider offers super fast service no matter your CMS or platform.

IONOS’ site speed is way ahead of even our favorite hosting provider Bluehost and with 10 data centers located across five countries, IONOS will load and run your website glitch-free.

Support and Customer Service

From the best of IONOS…to the worst. While IONOS excels at speed and performance, it lets itself down with its customer service.

You do get access to 24/7 phone support, live chat, and a one-to-one consultant once you sign up for a plan, but we found an agent rarely available to help when we logged into the live chat.

So the support may be on offer, but it isn’t always there when you need it. There is a good online knowledge base on the website, full of FAQs and resources, however, this will only be useful for simple and common problems.

Security Features

If you want to keep your nonprofit website safe and secure (and we’re not sure why you wouldn’t) then IONOS is a good option.

Every plan comes with an SSL certificate, protecting your users and the data they may share with you on your website, as well as daily backups, allowing you to rest easy knowing that your website is backed up should the worst happen.

Further Reading

Did you know that IONOS also has a website builder? Check out our IONOS website builder review for more information.

4 out of 5 stars

Best for extra website security.

Overall rating: 3.6

A2 Hosting is a great choice for nonprofits who are working in the environmental sector thanks to its carbon neutral status and work to offset emissions. We wouldn’t recommend it however to nonprofits who are operating in Africa, as there are no data centers in the region which could impact site speed.

A2 Hosting Overview

A2 Hosting is a feature-led hosting provider that’s the perfect option if you’re looking for more technical support for your nonprofit website.

A2 Hosting tends to be on the pricier side, but there are special discounts for nonprofits, and it provides all of the features you would expect from a solid hosting provider such as great storage and the choice of multiple data centers.

If storage and security are your key requirements then A2 Hosting is a great option, but it’s definitely worth noting that there are some shortcomings, particularly when it comes to cost and performance.

A huge selling point for A2 Hosting is its carbon-neutral status. The provider has adopted a green hosting principle and partnered with Carbon Fund to purchase offsets and reduce the footprint of web hosting making A2 Hosting the perfect choice if your nonprofit is working towards an environmental cause.

For an in-depth look at A2 Hosting, check out our A2 Hosting review.

Plans and Pricing

Like with pretty much every hosting provider, the longer you commit to A2 Hosting, the cheaper deal you can bag.

Shared hosting plans start at $2.99 per month when you commit to 12 months, and go up to $14.99 monthly for more advanced plans.

These prices are introductory offers and when it comes to renewal, your fees will go up. You can expect to pay $9.99 for the cheapest plan once your initial period is up.

While A2 Hosting isn’t the cheapest option on the market it does offer a rather unique anytime money-back guarantee. Compared to the usual 30-day refund period, this is a great perk.

There’s more good news for nonprofit website owners too. There’s no free web hosting for nonprofits but there are discounts to be had. Open a ticket with the customer service team and provide them with documentation of your nonprofit status to receive a discount on your plan.

Best Value for Nonprofits

Most nonprofits will manage just fine with the cheapest plan, Startup. It is worth noting, however, that unlike most of A2 Hosting’s competitors, there’s no domain included in any of the plan options.

Reliability and Uptime

A2 Hosting’s uptime is average but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. While it won’t win any awards for amazing uptime, it claims to offer a standard 99.90% uptime guarantee.

While this does fall behind some of the other nonprofit hosting providers on this list, such as IONOS and Bluehost, your website won’t be lagging behind the competition if you decide this is the provider for you.

Performance and Speed

You can be confident that your website will load quickly if you choose A2 Hosting as your provider.

Site speeds are more than up to scratch (and even better for those who opt for a dedicated hosting plan) and you’ll have access to Cloudflare CDN and unlimited SSD transfers to optimize site speed.

There are data centers across the US, Asia, and Europe – however, if your nonprofit operates in Africa, you may find site speeds slower in this region.

Support and Customer Service

Chances are you’re going to need to contact your hosting provider at some point so customer service is an important factor to consider. So, how did A2 Hosting fare? Well, it’s OK.

There’s email support, 24/7 live chat, and a knowledge bank of resources available. However when we put it to the test we found that the live chat wasn’t up to scratch, often providing short and blunt answers, and the knowledge bank was hard to navigate and utilize.

If you’re looking for assistance, your best bet is to go straight to email support, by far the best support channel on offer. We received quick, detailed, and friendly responses when we tested it out.

Security Features

Every plan includes a free SSL certificate, which tends to be the market standard, but A2 Hosting goes above and beyond to keep your nonprofit website safe.

A2 Hosting launched its own Perpetual Security Initiative meaning your account comes with additional features including free HackScan protection, an additional server firewall to block unauthorized users, and reinforced DDoS protection.

If you’re concerned about keeping sensitive data safe, perhaps you intend to add a members area to your website, or want to set up financial donation software, then A2 Hosting is a great contender.

No matter your nonprofit organization and website needs, you need to do your research when it comes to choosing a hosting provider.

Price, security, storage, bandwidth, uptime, and speed are all factors that you absolutely should consider when deciding which provider is right for you.

We recommend taking the time to figure out exactly what you need from your hosting provider, for example, how much bandwidth do you need? Are you expecting a lot of traffic to your website during particular times of the year? And what level of security do you require? If you’re planning to take donations online it will need to be tight.

Once you have the answers to these questions, finding the right nonprofit website hosting provider will be much easier. Ultimately, no matter what the reviews say, it’s about your personal needs.

We take testing and reviewing hosting providers seriously. We know how important your website is for your nonprofit and we don’t cut corners when it comes to finding and recommending a provider.

We test our hosting providers against these key categories:

• Price – Is the provider affordable? Is it good value for money?
• Performance – How much storage is offered? Is the server dependable?
• Features – What add-ons and essentials are included?
• Help and support – How easy is it to get assistance when you need it?
• Market analysis – How well does the provider perform against its competitors?

Want to find out more about our hosting provider testing process? Our detailed page has the full breakdown of how we conduct our research and testing.

To recap, our top nonprofit website hosting provider is Bluehost. The provider comes out on top in our recent research and testing and offers competitive pricing, top security, and great uptime.

While Bluehost comes out on top in our research, all five of the hosting providers in this article offer their own benefits for nonprofits and the right one for you will depend on your requirements.

If you’re working with a small budget and need to keep costs as low as possible then Hostinger may be your best choice. Or if website security is your number one concern, A2 Hosting has you covered.

Whichever hosting provider you choose, remember to prioritize uptime, speed, and security for the best experience for both you and your website visitors, providing you with the perfect foundation to continue doing good in the world.