Wondering what web hosting company is going to be the best home for your church’s website? In today’s spiritually dangerous world, one of the greatest assets of your congregation is your church’s website.
Messages of love and concern can be shared, service and humanitarian efforts can be coordinated, and you can communicate directly to your church family.
With the advent of social distancing, now more than ever, it is important to keep a strong online presence. The web hosting company you choose will impact these important factors, so it is critical to make the right choice in your provider:
- Uptime Performance – How often your church’s website goes up and down?
- Speed Performance – How fast the website loads for your church members?
- Ease of Use – How easy it is to launch the website and maintain it over time?
- Quality of Support – How quickly is it to get help when something goes wrong?
- Available Features – How many tools to run the website come with the package?
- Overall Value – How much benefit are you gaining compared to the costs?
Our Web Hosting Review Process
We have been building and hosting web sites for ourselves, and our clients, since 2002. We have used a lot of different web hosting companies over the years, and we can easily spot their Pros and Cons.
In addition to that, we have actually setup a WordPress site on 10 of the most popular web hosting companies available online. So we know these web hosting companies like the back of our hands.
We have gone through their setup process, tracked their performance for nearly a year, and grilled their support staff to gauge their skill level. We can make solid recommendations that not every online reviewer can.
Click here to learn about our Review Process in more detail.
Best Web Hosting for Churches
Bluehost
Ranked 9.5 out of 10 – Best Overall
Bluehost has been in operation since 2003 and hosts over 2,000,000 websites. They operate in the USA in a world-class data center. They are affordable, fast/stable, very easy-to-use, and have great customer service and technical support. We think they offer the most in all areas of web hosting. Most of all,
Bluehost has been recommended by WordPress.org since 2005. Highly recommended for beginners.
Customer Testimonials
“Great service and very professional. I think your email Spam Assassin should screen out spam better than it currently does. Thanks for all your qualified help over the years.” -Minuard J.
“I’ve been using Bluehost for about three years now. As shared-hosting providers go, they are a notch above similar providers. Speed is above average compared to others I’ve used in the past. Though I haven’t needed their support staff a lot in the past few years, the few times I have, they’ve been responsive and friendly. I have just renewed my hosting account for another three years and I can honestly recommend Bluehost to anyone looking for a stable and dependable hosting solution.” – Barry S.
Read our full Bluehost review.
Hostinger
Ranked 9.4 out of 10 – Best “Cheap” Plan
Hostinger is a relatively new player to the web hosting arena, but we have been very impressed with what we have seen from them. We put them near the top because of how inexpensive their plans are and how solid the performance and support is. It was very easy to get a site up, their management interface is very good, and their support staff knows their stuff.
Customer Testimonials
“This is the fifth hosting I tried to use, and I’m pretty sure I will never try another hosting. I don’t care about the designs, the reputation all I care the customer support until I found the Support from Hostinger. They’re fast and reliable.” -Kathrine
“Hostinger is the best in the world. 100% server speed like a lightning bolt. Customer service commendable. 5 stars rating…” -Sunday A.
Read our full Hostinger review.
SiteGround
Ranked 9.1 out of 10 – Best Customer Support
SiteGround has been in operation since 2004. The are also recommended by WordPress.org. They tout their custom “speed optimization” software that is supposed to make websites faster. They also invested heavily in their “Site Tools” control panel. Their speed optimization hasn’t improved the performance of our test website much. They have a very happy customer base. SiteGround is ideal for experienced website owners.
Customer Testimonials
“Very very very good support!! Very professional, profound and polite! Many companies should learn from Siteground how to provide high quality support! Excellent!! Thanks!” -Peter A.
“Have other options for hosting that are cheaper, but sticking with SG because the LIVE CHAT SUPPORT IS AWESOME. Thank you for keeping this available to help us.” -Benjamin T.
Read our full SiteGround review.
DreamHost
Ranked 8.8 out of 10 – Best Speed
DreamHost began hosting websites for customers in 1997. They are based in Los Angeles, CA and have approximately 400,000 customers. They are solid in their uptime and middle of the road in their speed performance. They don’t offer as many features as other web hosting companies on this list. They have been in business for a long time, and they are also recommended by WordPress.org.
Customer Testimonials
“I’ve been a DreamHost customer ever since I first started doing web design. Their customer service is outstanding and their hosting is super reliable at an affordable price.” -Jeremiah S.
“I love tht DreamHost has one-click WordPress installs, which make setup a breeze! The interface is the most user-friendly platform I’ve ever worked with after 10-plus years of trying out many other competitors. I’m a happy, loyal, lifelong customer.” -Jennifer E.
Read our full DreamHost review.
GoDaddy
Ranked 8.5 out of 10 – Best Uptime
Nearly everyone has heard of GoDaddy thanks to their Super Bowl ads and flamboyant Founder/CEO. They have a solid web hosting platform. One of our clients has had his website with them for nearly 8 years and has never had issue. They have the best performance for speed in all of our testing, but their support isn’t the best out there.
Customer Testimonials
“This is my second purchase of domain from them and everything is great. I made my gorgeous website from scratch and believe me everything is easy and fun. They offer many awesome templates too that will surely make your site look stunning.” -Kaylee N.
“I was with another web host for three years and the last few months were awful. I switched to GoDaddy and the experience has been great. Their tech support is 24/7, which my old host was not, and they have been able to address my questions and concerns.” -Steven M.
Read our full GoDaddy review.
Church Web Hosting Ratings
Now that you are familiar with each of the web hosting companies in this review, lets take a closer look at the data we have collected in our head-to-head testing. We have a WordPress site on each of these web hosting companies, compile monthly performance and pricing information, and here are our ratings.
Uptime Performance
Uptime is measurement of how often a website goes down. We use a tool called Pingdom to track our test websites 24/7/365. Whenever a site goes down for more than a second, we are notified and we also have access to a report that looks like this:
From this report you can see that from July 2019 to February 2020 our Bluehost site was up 99.94% of the time. There were 26 different outages for a total of 3 hours down in 8 months. You would think that websites would “always” be up, but that isn’t necessarily the case. 99.94% uptime is good performance.
Best Uptime: Tie between SiteGround and GoDaddy
| Host | Uptime | |
| 1. | SiteGround | 99.98% |
| 2. | GoDaddy | 99.96% |
| 3. | Hostinger | 99.78% |
| 4. | Bluehost | 99.95% |
| 5. | DreamHost | 99.96% |
Speed Performance
You need your church web hosting to be very fast. Ideally, it should take between 1-3 seconds for a page on your website to load. If it takes longer than this, then people will not use it. Google takes this point into consideration when they rank pages. While several factors play into your website’s page load speed, you definitely want your web hosting to be as fast as possible.
Best Speed: DreamHost loads pages the fastest in our testing
| Host | Page Load Speed | |
| 1. | DreamHost | 916 ms |
| 2. | GoDaddy | 879 ms |
| 3. | SiteGround | 993 ms |
| 4. | Bluehost | 1,216 ms |
| 5. | Hostinger | 1,610 ms |
Ease of Use
Some web hosting companies make it easier for customers to setup and manage their website then others. The signup process varies from provider to provider. Some make it as easy as a snap of the finger, others are very painful. Some providers have brilliant control panels making it very easy to see your billing and manage your site, others are archaic and confusing.
Easiest to Use: Bluehost has the best management tools and easiest to get started
| Host | Ease of Use | |
| 1. | Bluehost | 5 out of 5 |
| 2. | Hostinger | 4.5 out of 5 |
| 3. | SiteGround | 4.5 out of 5 |
| 4. | DreamHost | 4 out of 5 |
| 5. | GoDaddy | 3.5 out of 5 |
WordPress Experience
While this is technically part of the Ease of Use category, we like to call out the WordPress experience specifically because so many people are using it to build their websites or start a blog. For this score we took into consideration how easy it was to get WordPress installed, and how well that WordPress website performed on the hosting company’s platform.
Best WordPress Experience: Bluehost and SiteGround both make WordPress super-simple and they are recommended by WordPress.org
| Host | WordPress Experience | |
| 1. | Bluehost | 5 out of 5 |
| 2. | SiteGround | 5 out of 5 |
| 3. | Hostinger | 4.5 out 5 |
| 4. | DreamHost | 4 out 5 |
| 5. | GoDaddy | 4 out 5 |
Quality of Support
Sometimes things can just go wrong with your website. Even seasoned pros get stumped on things that break and the right way to troubleshoot them. For our reviews we really drilled their support to gauge their knowledge level. You will notice that the scores in this category are nearly identical to the overall scores. In a lot of ways there isn’t much difference between these providers except for how the take care of their customers.
Best Support: We drilled Customer Support with some very technical questions. Bluehost and Hostinger came back with the correct information the fastest.
| Host | Quality of Support | |
| 1. | Bluehost | 5 out of 5 |
| 2. | Hostinger | 5 out of 5 |
| 3. | SiteGround | 5 out of 5 |
| 4. | DreamHost | 4.5 out of 5 |
| 5. | GoDaddy | 3 out of 5 |
Available Features
Besides your basic hosting, there are extras that are nice to have included. For example, free domain registration, SSL encryption, automated backups, security scans, migration services, etc.
Best Features: Bluehost and Hostinger gave us the most added features without extra fees.
| Host | Features | |
| 1. | Bluehost | 5 out of 5 |
| 2. | Hostinger | 5 out of 5 |
| 3. | SiteGround | 4.5 out of 5 |
| 4. | DreamHost | 4.5 out of 5 |
| 5. | GoDaddy | 4.5 out of 5 |
Overall Value
When you take everything into consideration, who gives you the most bang for the buck:
| Host | Overall Value | |
| 1. | Bluehost | 9.5 out of 10 |
| 2. | Hostinger | 9.4 out of 10 |
| 3. | SiteGround | 9.1 out of 10 |
| 4. | DreamHost | 8.8 out of 10 |
| 5. | GoDaddy | 8.5 out of 10 |
Church Web Hosting Costs
Understanding Billing Periods
When most customers sign up for web hosting for the first time, they assume there is a monthly charge. Why not, isn’t that how nearly everything else is? Some web hosting companies offer a month-to-month plan, but most don’t. The companies that do offer month-to-month billing make it more expensive.
It is common to see the best discount when buying 2-3 years of service in advance. Plus, it is a whole lot easier to not have to deal with another monthly bill. Here is an example of the kinds of discounts you can expect when you purchase services in advance.
Just remember to plan for your renewal date a few years down the road, and pick the web hosting for your church wisely from the start. Most only offer a 30 day money-back guarantee.
Understanding Introductory Offers
Remember that anytime you see an advertised price for web hosting, it is typically for first time customers. This is known as an “Introductory Offer.” They are usually 50-60% off the regular price that you will pay at your term renewal. (Another reason paying for more time upfront doesn’t hurt.)
Here is an example of the difference between the “Introductory Price” and the “Renewal Price” from Bluehost:
Just remember that when your plan renews, typically 2-3 years later, it will be for a higher monthly rate than when you first signed up. In our opinion, the prices are still very reasonable after renewal. We bring it up in this review so you don’t have any sticker shock later.
Average Cost
Most website owners, when asked, are paying anywhere from $5-$10 per month for their church’s web hosting. Here is a breakdown of the Introductory Offers being made by the web hosting companies on our list.
| Host | Plan Prices | |
| 1. | Bluehost | Basic – $3.95/month Plus – $5.95/month Choice Plus – $5.95/month Pro – $13.95/month |
| 2. | Hostinger | Single – $0.99/month Premium – $2.89/month Business – $3.99/month |
| 3. | SiteGround | StartUp – $3.95/month GrowBig – $5.95/month GoGeek – $11.95/month |
| 4. | DreamHost | Starter – $2.59/month Unlimited – $4.95/month |
| 5. | GoDaddy | Economy – $1.00/month Deluxe – $7.99/month Unlimited – $12.99/month |
Free Web Hosting for Churches
Generally speaking, you should avoid free web hosting offers. The old adage comes to mind – “you get what you pay for.” Most free web hosting offers out there require you to place a random ad on your website in exchange for the free web hosting. Who knows what type of ads could be displayed to your congregation!
Plus they don’t offer any support to speak of, and you could really find yourself all on your own. Not a good position to be in at all. We really recommend that you purchase web hosting with Bluehost or Hostinger because the value they offer their paying customers. Out of all the web hosting plans that we reviewed, they really offer the best “out of the box” experience for running a website.
If you really are in a situation where the $30.00-$60.00 is a stretch for your church’s budget, then check out DreamHost because they will offer you a non-profit discount if you can provide a valid 501(C)(3) determination letter.
Conclusion
The bottom-line is that we recommend Bluehost and Hostinger for our top picks for hosting a church’s website. Both of these providers have proven to be fast and reliable in our performance tests. More importantly, from our experience managing our websites on their platform, they have the best overall experience without expensive add-ons. Their support staff has also shown to be very quick and helpful.