Which hosting plan for a church or an association: a simple site, events and videos

A church, an association or an NGO usually needs a site that is simple and always up: who we are, opening times, contacts, news and events. That fits one of the first shared plans. The one thing that tends to complicate it is video: live broadcasts and recordings of services or events are not served from a hosting plan.

What goes where

What you want to publish Where it lives
Pages, news, an events calendar On the hosting plan. It is ordinary use and weighs little.
Event photos On the hosting plan, with the images resized. See image optimisation and WebP.
Audio recordings (sermons, a podcast) On the hosting plan, if downloads are occasional. Many listeners at the same time is another conversation.
Video and live broadcasts On a video service, embedded in the site. Continuous radio is a separate product. See online radio or video: which plan.
The association’s e-mail Mailboxes on the domain, included in the plan. Give each role a mailbox (office, treasury), not each person.

How to choose, step by step

1 Start with the lowest plan that covers the site and the e-mail. An association rarely needs more.
2 Choose a simple tool for the site. WordPress will do, and the cPanel installer gets it running. If you prefer a builder, see Sitejet Builder or WordPress: which one suits your site.
3 Have more than one person with access. An association’s site often sits in one volunteer’s hands. If that person leaves, the association is left without the domain, the panel and the passwords. Register the account details in the association’s name.
4 Prepare for the busy days: festive dates, fundraising campaigns, open enrolment. See preparing for a traffic spike.

Calendar, sign-ups and notices

An events calendar is light. What needs attention are the sign-up forms and the e-mail notices: each sign-up produces messages, and if the sending address is not set up properly they land in spam. Test with a real sign-up and see why your e-mail is not sending or receiving. To notify hundreds of people at once, use a sending service and not a mailbox.

Do not put video recordings straight on the hosting plan. A broadcast with many people connected at once spends the shared bandwidth and slows the rest of the site. It is arithmetic, not a prohibition. Video services exist for this, and the site only embeds the link.
Want to take donations? Use a payment service and connect it to the site. You should not keep card data on your own site: the payment service handles it.

Tell us what the association wants to put online and we will name the simplest plan that does the job.

Open a support ticket

SEE ALSO

Online radio or video: which plan, and why an ordinary hosting plan is not it

What you can host here: media, streaming, Windows and the limits

Sitejet Builder or WordPress: which one suits your site

Hosting plans

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