Choosing where to host CiviCRM is one of the most important decisions you’ll make about your CRM. Get it right and the system is fast, secure and quietly reliable. Get it wrong and staff wait for screens to load, mailings stall, and nobody is quite sure whether last night’s backup actually ran.
This guide explains the main hosting options for UK charities and membership bodies, what each typically costs, and the questions to ask any provider before you move your supporter data.
Why CiviCRM needs more than basic web hosting
CiviCRM is not a brochure website. It runs a database that grows every day with contacts, contributions, memberships, event registrations and mailing history. It also runs scheduled jobs in the background: sending mailings, processing recurring payments, sending reminders and rebuilding caches.
That means it needs:
- Enough memory and processing power for searches, reports and bulk emails, not just page views
- A reliable scheduled job runner (cron) that runs every few minutes, every day
- A tuned database server, because most performance problems in CiviCRM come from the database
- Regular, tested backups of both the database and uploaded files
- Prompt security updates for CiviCRM, your CMS (WordPress or Drupal), PHP and the server itself
Cheap shared hosting rarely provides all of these. It can work for a very small organisation, but it is the most common cause of the “CiviCRM is slow” complaints we see.
The main hosting options
Shared hosting
Your site sits on a server with many other websites. It is the cheapest option, often £10 to £50 a month, but resources are limited and you usually cannot control cron, PHP settings or database tuning. Suitable only for small databases with light use.
Virtual private server (VPS)
A VPS gives your site its own allocation of memory and processing power, and full control over the configuration. It is the sweet spot for most small and medium charities, provided someone looks after the server: updates, monitoring, backups and security.
Dedicated server
A whole physical server for your organisation. It makes sense for very large databases, heavy mailing volumes or strict security requirements, but it costs more and still needs expert management.
Cloud platforms such as AWS
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud let you build exactly the infrastructure you need and scale it up or down. AWS has a London region, which helps if you want your data held in the UK. Cloud hosting is flexible and resilient, but it is easy to overspend or misconfigure, so it works best with someone who knows both the platform and CiviCRM. Some organisations prefer the cloud account to be in their own name, with a specialist managing it on their behalf.
Managed CiviCRM hosting
With managed hosting, a CiviCRM specialist provides the server and takes responsibility for keeping CiviCRM, the CMS and the server updated, secure and backed up. You get one point of contact who understands the whole system, rather than a web host who supports “the server” and a developer who supports “the software”.
What to look for in a CiviCRM host
Whichever option you choose, ask these questions before you sign up:
- Where is the data stored? For UK charities, UK data centres make GDPR compliance simpler.
- Who applies CiviCRM updates, and how quickly? Security releases should be applied promptly, with testing.
- How are backups taken and tested? Ask how often, how long they are kept, and when a restore was last tested.
- Is there a staging site? A copy of your site for testing upgrades and changes before they go live is invaluable.
- How is bulk email handled? Sending mailings straight from a web server often ends up in spam. Look for proper email delivery setup.
- What support is included? Find out who you contact when something goes wrong, and whether they understand CiviCRM itself.
- Is there a minimum term? Avoid being locked in, especially if you are moving from another provider.
What does CiviCRM hosting cost?
Costs vary with database size, traffic, mailing volumes and how much management you need. As a guide, these are our own published plans, all fully managed on WordPress or Drupal, with no minimum term and no per-user fees:
| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | £85 + VAT a month | Small organisations with up to 5,000 contacts, on a shared server |
| Essential | £120 + VAT a month | Most small and medium charities, on a shared VPS |
| Professional | £180 + VAT a month | Busier sites needing a dedicated VPS, a staging site and bulk email |
| Enterprise | From £300 + VAT a month | Complex needs and integrations, with priority response and a quarterly health check |
Hosting on AWS or another cloud platform, including in your own account, is quoted on request. You can see full details on our pricing page.
Moving CiviCRM to a new host
A well-planned move should be invisible to your supporters. The usual steps are:
- An audit of your current site, versions and extensions
- A test migration to the new server, which you check before anything changes
- A short, scheduled switchover, usually out of hours
- Checks on payments, mailings and scheduled jobs once the site is live
If your site is still on Drupal 7, the move is a good moment to plan your upgrade too. Our Drupal 7 migration page explains the options.
Getting help
We’re an official CiviCRM partner and former CiviCRM core developers, and we host and support CiviCRM for charities and membership bodies across the UK. See our CiviCRM support and hosting services, or ask for a free CiviCRM review and we’ll look at your current set-up and recommend the right option.