Key facts
- £1 a day + VAT, billed annually at £365 + VAT or monthly at £35 + VAT
- Livestream embeds from YouTube or Facebook kept working
- Sermon audio hosted sensibly, with large files offloaded where needed
- Online giving through hosted payment providers
- Data revealing religious belief is special category data under UK GDPR
- Domain and hosting kept in the church's name, not a volunteer's
What a church website needs to do
Most visitors to a church website want one of a handful of things: service times, where to park, what to expect on a first visit, how to watch online, and how to get in touch about a baptism, wedding or funeral. Hosting should make those pages fast and always available, especially on a Sunday morning and at Christmas and Easter, when visits peak. With your DNS on Cloudflare, pages are cached so the site copes with the rush.
Sermons, audio and livestreams
- Livestreams: stream to YouTube or Facebook and embed the player on your site. That's far better than streaming from your own server. We make sure the embeds aren't broken by updates.
- Sermon audio: MP3 files add up quickly over the years. Compress them sensibly (speech sounds fine at a modest bitrate), and if the archive grows large we'll suggest a podcast host or offloaded storage.
- Podcast feeds: many churches publish sermons as a podcast. The RSS feed needs to stay at the same address, which we check when we migrate your site.
Member data needs extra care
Under UK GDPR, personal data revealing religious beliefs is special category data. A list of your congregation, a prayer request form or a rota of named volunteers can all reveal that. In practice:
- Don't publish member directories or rotas on public pages.
- Keep prayer request forms minimal and don't leave submissions sitting in a shared inbox.
- Use a dedicated church management system for member records rather than the website.
- Give each website editor their own login and remove it when they step down.
See UK GDPR and hosting. A data processing agreement is available on request.
Giving and safeguarding pages
Online giving should go through a hosted payment provider or giving platform, so card details never touch your server. Most denominations also expect churches to publish safeguarding information, such as the safeguarding officer's contact details and policy. If your church is a registered charity, show your charity number on giving pages. See hosting for charities for more on that.
Stable through changes of volunteer
Church websites often change hands as volunteers come and go. We keep the domain in the church's name, keep invoices going to the church office or treasurer, and will help whoever takes over. Order dijitul Complete Hosting at clients.dijitul.uk/order, or call 01623 650333 or 07425 323333.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best website hosting for a church?
A managed host that keeps the site fast on Sunday mornings, keeps livestream and giving links working, and takes backups, with a fixed cost the treasurer can budget. dijitul hosts church websites for £1 a day + VAT with a domain, backups and SSL included.
Should a church livestream from its own website?
Stream to YouTube or Facebook and embed the player on your website. Those platforms handle the video load. Streaming directly from ordinary web hosting would be slow and expensive. dijitul keeps the embeds working on church sites it hosts.
Is church membership data special category data under GDPR?
Yes. Personal data revealing religious beliefs is special category data under UK GDPR, so membership lists, prayer requests and similar records need extra care. Keep them off the public website and in a secure church management system.
Where should a church host its sermon recordings?
Small archives can sit on your website hosting. Larger archives are better on a podcast host or separate storage, linked from your website. Keep the podcast feed address stable so subscribers don't lose it.
Can a church pay for website hosting monthly?
Yes. dijitul Complete Hosting can be billed monthly at £35 + VAT or annually at £365 + VAT, which is £1 a day. Invoices are emailed, so they can go straight to the treasurer or parish office.
Our church website was set up by a volunteer who has left. What do we do?
Find out who the domain is registered to and where the site is hosted. If access is lost, dijitul can help recover it, move the domain into the church's name and take over hosting.
Related
Set it up and forget about it
Managed hosting, Plesk, Cloudflare DNS, daily backups and your domain for £1 a day + VAT. We move your site for you.