Free web hosting for charities, clubs and community groups
The hard part of a community group's website is not building it. It is making sure it still works in three years, after the person who set it up has moved on. Here is how to arrange that. Traxio itself is free for 30 days with no card, then 99p a month.
- No card to start
- No setup fee
- Then £0.99/month
Websites outlive the volunteers who build them
Community organisations have a specific and under-discussed hosting problem. The website is almost always set up by one enthusiastic volunteer, on their own account, with their own email address as the contact, and paid on their own card. It works well for as long as that person is involved.
Then they move away, or step down, or simply lose interest, and the group discovers that nobody else can log in, the renewal notice goes to an address nobody reads, and the domain expires quietly. This happens constantly, and every part of it is preventable with decisions made at setup.
Six things to do at setup
- Register the domain in the organisation's name, not an individual's
- Use a shared committee email address as the account contact — not a personal one
- Record the registrar, the host, and where the logins are kept, in the group's own records
- Give at least two people access, at different levels
- Set the domain to auto-renew, and check annually that the card behind it still exists
- Keep a downloaded backup somewhere the committee controls
That checklist takes twenty minutes at setup and prevents the most common way a community website dies. It is worth more than any technical decision on this page.
Four things groups actually use
What a community group site usually needs
Who you are, what you do, when and where you meet, how to get involved, and how to contact you. Occasionally a news page and a document area for minutes or newsletters. All of that is small, static and cheap to host.
Email that does not depend on one person
Addresses on the group's domain — secretary@, chair@, info@ — that can be reassigned when roles change. Far better than a personal address in the committee list, which becomes wrong the moment someone stands down.
Creating email addressesA forum or members' area, if you need one
phpBB, MyBB and SMF install in one click and give a group a discussion space it owns, rather than a social platform group that can be suspended or made invisible by an algorithm. Traxio.uk, our sister site for forums, covers setting one up in more detail.
What you can installSomewhere to publish documents
Minutes, constitutions, newsletters and accounts as PDFs. Watch the storage if you are archiving years of scanned material — scans are much larger than text documents.
When this works for a group
A good fit for a group that…
- Wants an address it owns rather than a platform page
- Has a few pages of information and some documents
- Needs shared email addresses tied to roles rather than people
- Has essentially no budget for hosting
- Has at least one member willing to look after it
Should look elsewhere if…
- Nobody in the group is willing to maintain anything at all
- You need to archive large volumes of video or scanned material
- You are processing payments or personal data at scale
- You need somebody to fix the website when it breaks — support here covers the hosting, not the site
For a group with genuinely nobody technical, a hosted website builder with a single monthly fee may be a better answer despite costing more. Being realistic about who will maintain it is more important than the price.
What it costs, from day one
Nothing to pay for the first 30 days, and no card needed to start. After that, £0.99 a month if you decide to stay.
-
Today
£0
Create your account and get a complete hosting account. No card details are asked for.
-
Days 1 to 30
£0
Build your site and use every feature. Nothing is charged during the free period.
-
Day 31 onwards
£0.99/month
Only if you choose to continue. Pay the first monthly invoice and your hosting carries on unchanged.
No setup fee, no hidden charges and no price rise after the first year. A domain isn’t included: bring one you already own (how to connect it). How the 30 free days work
Simple web hosting for £0.99 a month
One plan with everything included. Your first 30 days are free with no card required, then it’s £0.99 a month if you choose to continue — with no setup fee and no price rise at renewal.
The hosting is self-managed through DirectAdmin, with a large knowledge base and an AI help desk that escalates to a person when needed. That’s how the price stays this low.
Traxio web hosting
- 3GB NVMe disk spaceIncluded
- 100GB bandwidth a monthIncluded
- DirectAdmin control panelIncluded
- Free SSL, issued and renewed automaticallyIncluded
- An email account on your own domainIncluded
- One-click WordPress and 400+ appsIncluded
- FTP, SFTP and a browser file managerIncluded
- A MySQL database with phpMyAdminIncluded
- PHP 7.4 to 8.3, switchable per domainIncluded
- Cron jobs and daily offsite backupsIncluded
First 30 days£0.00
Then, per month£0.99
No setup fee. No VAT or card fees added.
Community group questions
Keep reading
Web Hosting for £0.99
Site, email and a members’ area if you need one. The first 30 days are free.
Hosting for Small Websites
What a handful of informational pages actually consumes.
Role-Based Email
Setting up addresses that survive a change of committee.
Hosting vs Domain Name
Why the domain registration is the part that must be in the group's name.
Try Traxio free for 30 days
Then £0.99 a month if you decide to stay. No card required to start.
Start your website free