Free and discounted options that actually exist, the .org.uk question, and the specific failure mode that kills volunteer-run websites.
Small charities and community groups have a hosting problem that is not really about money. The budget is tight, but the harder issue is continuity: the site was built by a volunteer who has since moved on, nobody knows where it is hosted, and the renewal is on a personal credit card belonging to someone who left in 2021.
Deal with ownership first
Before comparing prices, sort this out — it is the thing that actually loses websites.
- The domain must be registered to the organisation, not to a trustee or a volunteer. Check the registrant now.
- Use an organisational email address for the hosting and registrar accounts —
web@yourcharity.org.uk, forwarded to whoever currently holds the role — never a personal Gmail. - Pay by organisational card or direct debit. A lapsed personal card is the single most common cause of a charity losing its domain.
- Write down where everything is — registrar, host, logins — and keep it with the organisation's records, not in someone's head. Two people should have access.
None of this costs anything and all of it survives the next change of committee.
Free and discounted options that are real
| Option | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Google for Nonprofits | Free Workspace | Email, docs and calendars free for eligible UK charities — worth having regardless of hosting |
| Microsoft 365 for nonprofits | Free tier available | Same idea, if you are a Microsoft organisation |
| Charity Digital / Tech Trust | Small admin fees | UK-specific brokered software donations |
| Cloudflare Pages | Free, permanently | Genuinely free static hosting; needs someone comfortable with a build process |
| WordPress.com | Free tier, or ~£4/mo | Nothing to maintain — the strongest argument for a volunteer-run site |
| Host discounts | Varies | Several UK hosts, including Krystal and 34SP, will discount or donate hosting for registered charities — you have to ask |
That last row is the underused one. Small independent UK hosts frequently support local charities and community groups and do not advertise it. An email explaining who you are and what you do, with a charity number, is often all it takes.
What to actually choose
If nobody technical is reliably available: WordPress.com on the free or Personal plan. No updates, no security patching, no server. When the volunteer who set it up leaves, the site keeps working. This matters more than any feature.
If someone competent looks after it: WordPress on Krystal or 34SP at £5–6/month, with a maintenance plan written down and automatic updates enabled. Ask about a charity discount.
If the site is essentially a leaflet: a static site on Cloudflare Pages, free forever, nothing to hack, nothing to update. The catch is that changing it needs a technical person, so only do this if that person is durable.
If you take donations: use a specialist platform — JustGiving, Enthuse, CAF, Stripe with a donations plugin — rather than building payment handling yourself. Gift Aid alone justifies it.
The .org.uk question
.org.uk has no registration restrictions but signals a UK non-commercial organisation clearly, and costs the same as .co.uk — around £8–12/year. Register both if the name matters and point one at the other. There is no need for .charity or similar novelty TLDs.
The maintenance plan, in five lines
Write this down and put it in the shared drive: who checks the site monthly; where the backups go and how to restore one; when the domain and hosting renew and on whose card; what to do if it goes down, with the support contact; who else has the passwords. Five lines that will outlive several committees.
The most common charity website failure is not a hack or an outage. It is a renewal notice sent to an inbox nobody reads any more. Fixing that costs nothing and takes half an hour.
Published 6 May 2026. Prices and ownership change — check the comparison table for current figures, and the provider's own site before buying. No affiliate links anywhere on this site.