Website design for nonprofits
Theo builds your nonprofit's website and hosts it from $29.99 a month on Basic. Starter, at $69.99 a month and free for the first 30 days, adds the ongoing search work that helps donors, volunteers and the people you serve find you.
Nonprofit website design that works answers three people quickly on a phone. Someone who needs help this week sees the hours and what to bring, a donor sees what a gift pays for, and a program officer finds the board and the Form 990 one tap from About. Theo builds that site from a conversation about your programs and hosts it on Basic for $29.99 a month. Starter, $69.99 a month and free for the first 30 days, adds the ongoing search work, and Pro is $129.99 a month. The first build is free. Six nonprofit sites Theo built sit just below, and each one opens live on your phone.
In Theo's audit of 10,470 small business websites, 49 percent of the 534 nonprofits, education and creators sites with search data got an estimated zero visitors a month from Google search, and 65 percent got fewer than ten. See the research.
Sites Theo built
Nonprofit websites that bring in a visit, a gift or a volunteer shift settle the practical questions before any mission statement: when the doors open, who can come, what a gift pays for, how much time a role takes. Below are six nonprofit sites Theo built in October 2026, from a county food pantry to a counseling center. Every card notes what that site does well, and each one opens live.
Built by Theo
Thistlecup Community Pantry
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Cottonwick Animal Rescue
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Hearthmoor Community Counseling
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Satchelbrook After-School Program
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Harrowlight Community Arts
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Sparrowgate Youth Mentoring
What it gets right
Want to see live customer sites in your industry? Ask the team, and they will share the ones whose owners have agreed. Or see every example.
Nonprofit web design
Three people use a nonprofit's website, usually on a phone. One needs help this week. One is deciding whether to give. One is a program officer, a reporter or a careful donor checking that the organization is real and well run. The points below cover what each of them should find, the pages that hold it, words you can adapt, the rules worth knowing, what it costs and a five-minute check of your own site. Where one of the sites above shows a point, a picture from it sits beside the point, with a link to open that site live.
Lay the site out around the questions people bring, not the org chart. The neighbor who needs help asks: are you open today, can I come, what do I bring, will anyone ask why, and does someone speak Spanish? The donor asks what a gift does, whether it is tax-deductible, and whether they can give monthly or mail a check. The program officer asks who runs the place, who sits on the board, where the Form 990s are and what last year's money did.
A site laid out like the org chart (About, Programs, Board, News) makes all three dig for those answers. A site laid out around the questions gets each visitor to an answer in two or three taps.
Thistlecup Community Pantry answers the neighbor on its home page before any history, and its Give money and About pages carry the donor's and the funder's basics.
Six things belong in view before anyone scrolls. The name, with who you serve and where, in one line. The one fact a person in need must have, usually this week's hours or how to get help. A button for your main service, named for what it does (Get food, Meet the animals, Book a visit, Ask for a first appointment), and a phone number that dials with one tap. Donate in the header, so it is there on every page. A photo of your own work: the shelves, the room, volunteers, an animal on a foster's couch. And one plain line the organization makes true, such as the county it serves or the year it started.
On a phone, Thistlecup shows its holiday strip, the headline, the line naming it a client-choice pantry in Bowling Green, Ohio, and all three shopping times before the first scroll. Hearthmoor, the counseling center, keeps its phone number in the phone header.
Thistlecup could go one step further: its number sits in the footer and Give Money sits inside the menu, and one sentence in chat moves both into the phone header.
Borrow the shape, not the words. Use a line only if it is true for your organization, with your own county, hours and names in place of these.
Food pantry: 'Groceries for any household in Wood County. Open Tuesdays 10 to 1, Thursdays 4 to 7 and Saturdays 9 to noon.' Under it: 'Bring a photo ID, any kind. No pay stubs, no proof of income.'
Animal rescue: 'Dogs and cats in foster homes around Albuquerque, ready for a home of their own.'
After-school program: 'Pickup from five elementary schools, homework help and a real snack, until 6 pm.'
Counseling center: 'Counseling on a sliding scale set by your household income, in person or by video.'
Community theater: 'Five shows a season, classes from age 5, and open auditions for anyone ready to try.'
Mentoring: 'About eight hours a month, for a year. Young people in our county are waiting.'
Buttons that say what happens next beat 'Learn more': 'Plan your first visit', 'Meet the animals', 'Book a visit', 'Ask for a first appointment', 'Become a mentor', with Donate in the header.
Most small organizations start with ten to fifteen pages, each written for the person who opens it. Home sends each visitor to the right page.
For the person who needs help: Get help, or your main service under its own name (Get food, Adopt, Enroll), says who it is for, who qualifies, what to bring, the hours, the languages spoken and what happens after someone reaches out. Each program gets a page: who it serves, where and when it runs, the cost or that it is free, and how to sign up.
For donors and volunteers: Donate says what a gift does in your own numbers and carries the EIN, the giving tool's button, monthly giving and the address for checks. Other ways to give covers memorial and tribute gifts, employer matching, a wish list of goods and a food drive flyer. Volunteer lists each role with its hours, minimum age and the person who answers, with a page for groups if you host them. Events gives the date, place, cost and sign-up link, and nothing already past. A campaign page for Giving Tuesday and year-end goes up by mid-November.
For funders and reporters: About tells the mission in plain words, the year you started and the area you serve. Board and staff give names, roles and a line each. Financials holds the last three Form 990s, the IRS determination letter and the annual report. Partners and sponsors, and News for the announcements a funder likes to see, come next.
For everyone: Contact carries the phone, address, hours, a map link and parking; a shelter says its location is confidential instead. Add pages in Spanish or your community's language, Jobs when you hire, and Privacy whenever the site has a form or analytics.
A congregation's list is different; see church website design. A counseling program shares a lot with a private practice; see website design for therapists.
Thistlecup Community Pantry, the first site above, shows how a pantry site fits together. It is a client-choice pantry in Bowling Green, Ohio, with fifteen pages, four of them added by a Growth Engine run on October 19, 2026.
Home answers the first visit: the holiday strip, three shopping times, what to bring, what you do not need, the address with the side entrance, then 'How a visit works' in three steps and a 'Ways to help this month' row.
Get food repeats the hours with the holiday changes, explains check-in at the window, says each household takes one full shopping visit a month and notes that a Spanish-speaking volunteer is there on Thursday evenings. Senior delivery names the towns it reaches, the second-Wednesday schedule and the staff member who handles sign-ups, with a button that dials.
Give food carries a most-needed list dated October 2026, split into food and personal care, with a print button for food drives, a do-not-bring list and the drop-off times. Give money says what $10 buys at food-bank prices and offers monthly and memorial gifts. Group volunteer days lists three shifts, the group size and the minimum age, with an Email Gretchen button that opens a message already asking for the group's name, head count and dates.
About gives the founding story, each staff member's name and role, and the 501(c)(3) line. Contact and directions, Volunteer on your own, Privacy and Terms finish it.
A pantry adds an online giving button, a Financials page or a board list with a sentence in chat.
Count the taps each visitor needs to reach an answer. Here is Thistlecup on a phone, the way each visitor would use it.
The neighbor who needs groceries sees the holiday changes and all three shopping times without a tap; what to bring, what nobody needs and the address are a short scroll down. Two taps, the menu and then Get Food, open the full first-visit page, and its Get directions button opens the address and the parking note.
The donor taps the menu, then Give Money: two taps to what a gift buys and the 501(c)(3) line, and on a site with a giving tool a third tap opens it.
The program officer taps the menu, then About: two taps to the founding story, the staff by name and role, and the EIN.
Try the same three paths on your own site. Any path that takes more than three taps, or ends on a page that does not answer the question, is the first thing to fix.
Keep the regular schedule in place and put the season's changes on top. In an ordinary month Thistlecup's first screen is the headline and the three shopping times. For the holidays, its description asked for a strip at the very top that changes each season, and this season it reads: closed Thursday, November 26; extra hours Tuesday, November 24; closed December 24 and 26; extra hours Tuesday, December 22; regular hours back Saturday, January 2. The regular hours stay in their cards beneath it, so nobody mistakes the exceptions for the schedule.
A donor arriving from a year-end letter needs something else: a campaign page that says what a gift made by December 31 will do, with the Donate button on it. Giving Tuesday falls on December 1, 2026, so put that page up by mid-November and link it from the home page. Groups plan early too; Thistlecup tells churches and office teams that its November and December weekends usually fill by early September.
In Theo each change is a sentence in chat, such as 'Add a red strip at the top with our holiday hours', and in January, 'Take the holiday strip down'. Leave out goal thermometers and 'raised so far' bars unless the total is real and kept current.
Write it like a neighbor's directions, not an intake form. Say what you help with, who qualifies in plain words, what to bring, what you do not ask for, the hours, the languages spoken and what happens after someone calls or walks in. Thistlecup's Get food page does this, down to checking in at the window and the coffee in the lobby.
Keep forms short. Hearthmoor's contact form asks for a name, a phone number or an email (one is enough) and a message, says that 'I would like an appointment' is enough, and promises that a callback only says it is returning your call.
A program that serves people in crisis puts the number for immediate help above everything: Hearthmoor opens every page with 'In crisis? Call or text 988, any time, day or night' and adds 911 for danger. The 988 Lifeline says it takes calls, texts and chats around the clock (checked October 2026). A shelter for people leaving an unsafe home needs more care still: a 'Leave this site quickly' button on every page and no street address anywhere.
Words that work: 'Call us. If we miss you, we call back within one business day.'
The Donate page does the persuading; your giving tool takes the gift. The tool sends the receipt and keeps the donor record, so the page can open with what a gift does, in your own numbers.
The sites above show three ways to say it. The rescue lists $25 for a kitten litter's vaccines, $75 for five dog microchips and $150 for one spay surgery. The mentoring program says $150 screens and trains one new mentor. The pantry says every $10 buys about 30 pounds of food at food-bank prices.
Then come the practical lines: the EIN, whether gifts are tax-deductible, monthly giving, memorial and tribute gifts, where to mail a check, and a Donate button that opens Givebutter, PayPal, a Stripe donation page or your fiscal sponsor's giving page. Name your giving tool when you describe the organization, and the Donate button opens it.
Words that work: 'Give monthly. Gifts we can count on let us plan each month's food order.' And: 'Prefer a check? Make it payable to the pantry and mail it to the address at the bottom of this page.'
List each role with its hours, the minimum age and the person who answers. A volunteer page that fills shifts also says what to wear, any background check and what the first day looks like.
Thistlecup's Group volunteer days page is written for a church group or an office team: three shifts (Saturday sorting 8:30 to 11:30 am, the weekday warehouse 1 to 4 pm, Thursday shopping helpers 3:30 to 7:30 pm), groups of 6 to 15, ages 12 and up with an adult for anyone under 16, closed-toe shoes, and booking three weeks ahead.
The rescue's foster page answers what stops people from signing up: how long an animal stays, what the rescue pays for (vet care, food, litter, a crate, medication), that you can say no to any animal, and a help line from 7 am to 10 pm.
Sparrowgate, the mentoring program, opens with the honest answer, about eight hours a month for at least a year, then says who can mentor and that the background check is paid for.
Words that work: 'Saturday sorting crew, 9 to 11:30 am. Ages 14 and up; under 16 with an adult. Closed-toe shoes. Questions? Email our volunteer coordinator.'
Give each program its own page, and say who qualifies before any form. A single 'What we do' list hides the work from Google and from the parent who needs one particular thing. Each page says who it is for, who qualifies, where and when it runs, the cost or that it is free, how to sign up and what happens next.
Satchelbrook, the after-school program, puts all five schools in one pickup table with each bell time, van time and early-out Wednesday time. Hearthmoor's Fees page opens with 'Who qualifies?' (anyone who lives or works in Vermont, with no pay stubs asked for) beside the full fee, then the whole sliding scale.
Harrowlight, the arts group, lists seven classes with the ages, level, day, time and price, and explains what beginner, intermediate and all levels mean. Sparrowgate gives mentors, young people, parents and employers each a page in words meant for them; the page for teenagers starts 'Want someone in your corner? Not a teacher. Not a parent.'
On Starter and Pro, the search work builds and expands program pages around what people near you search for, such as a food pantry open on Saturday or after-school pickup from a named school, and on every plan Theo submits your sitemap through Search Console so Google finds every new page.
Keep the proof within two taps of the home page. Before a site visit or a large gift, people look for proof the organization is real and accountable: the board, with names and a line about each; the staff who run each program; the EIN, in the footer or on About; the last three Form 990s and the exemption application; the annual report; and what last year's money did, in your own numbers.
On the rules, the IRS says an exempt organization must make its exemption application and its annual returns available for public inspection, each return for three years from its due date. A return the organization has made widely available, for instance by posting it online, need not be copied and mailed on request, though in-person inspection still applies. Organizations other than private foundations need not disclose contributors' names and addresses, so the copy you post leaves them out. See the IRS page on public disclosure, checked October 2026.
On the Donate page, say gifts are tax-deductible 'to the extent allowed by law' only once your 501(c)(3) status is confirmed, and a fiscally sponsored project names its sponsor there. Many states ask charities to register before asking the public for gifts, so check with your state's charity office.
Every site above carries a 501(c)(3) line, and a Financials page with the Form 990s is the first proof page to add. This is general guidance, not legal or tax advice.
Photos of your own work beat stock images, and most of the story needs nobody's face. Volunteers sorting cans, a full shelf, the room where a group meets and a dog asleep on a foster's couch all tell it. Show a person you serve only with their permission, and leave names off.
Keep donors' names off the site unless a donor asks to be thanked by name, and never post the list of donors filed with your Form 990. If the site has a form, a sign-up or analytics, it needs a short privacy page; the questions below cover what goes on it and what Theo adds.
Programs with a safety concern go further: a domestic violence shelter shows no address, and a counseling program keeps its crisis line on every page.
Make every page easy to read on a small phone, and in the languages your community speaks. Many of the people who read a nonprofit's site are older donors, retired volunteers and neighbors reading on a small or cracked phone. Large text, strong contrast, plain words, buttons big enough for a thumb and a phone number in plain sight help every one of them.
Theo writes the pages as real text with headings in order, the structure a screen reader follows, and larger type, higher contrast or alt text on every photo are requests you make in chat; the accessibility checklist is worth reading against the preview.
If the people you serve speak Spanish, Vietnamese or another language, give them the pages they need most in it, starting with Get help, the hours and Contact. Thistlecup takes the smallest first step: its Get food page says a Spanish-speaking volunteer is there on Thursday evenings.
Google runs the grant and decides who qualifies; your website has to meet its policy. Google Ad Grants gives each qualifying nonprofit up to $10,000 a month in search ads shown on Google.com, according to Google's grants page in October 2026. Applying, staying eligible and running the ads all happen in Google's program.
What the program asks of the website is set out in its website policy: the nonprofit owns the domain the ads point to, and that domain hosts the site rather than redirecting; the site states the mission and describes the activities in a significant amount of original content, written as web pages rather than mostly PDFs or links; links and donation buttons work and lead to a secure page for giving; pages load quickly and work on phones; the whole site is served over HTTPS; and there are no AdSense ads.
A Theo site sits on your own domain, is served over HTTPS and is written as pages of text with one per program, which meets the domain, security and content points. Check the speed, the links and the giving button in the preview like everything else. Nobody can promise an approval, Theo included, and Theo does not run Ad Grants accounts.
Set the site up so it never depends on one person. A common way a nonprofit site goes stale: the volunteer who built it moves on and the know-how leaves with them. Four habits prevent it.
Register the domain in the organization's name, with an email address the organization controls.
Have the account owner invite at least two people to edit; in Theo, collaborators are invited by email from the website's settings and each of them types changes in chat.
Put the site on the office calendar: the year-end page by mid-November, a spring event six weeks ahead, the summer hours in May.
Take each event down the Monday after it ends, and update the board and staff pages after the annual meeting.
Each of these is one sentence in chat, for example 'Add Maria Ortiz to the board list as treasurer' or 'Remove the spring gala from the events page'.
Free first build. The first build is free and comes before any plan, so the board can read a starting draft on a phone before it votes on anything. The first preview is usually ready in minutes; the rest of the time is yours, spent reading and asking for changes in chat. Once you publish and point your domain at the site, the registrar's records usually update within a few hours, and the old site stays up until they do.
The plans. Basic covers the site and hosting. Starter adds the ongoing search work, and its first 30 days are free. Pro adds more room for changes and more weekly pages. The plan table further down this page has the prices. There is no nonprofit discount and no contract, so a board can approve it a month at a time.
What you bring. One conversation: the programs, the area served, the hours, the giving tool's link, the volunteer form, the events, the board list, photos of the work and the current site's address.
What Theo does not do. Process gifts, send receipts, run the donor database, schedule volunteers, manage a Google Ad Grants account or file the 990; the site links to the tools and people who do.
For comparison. As of October 2026, Double the Donation's list of nonprofit web design companies gives one firm on it, Nonprofit CMS, a starting price of $5,000 a project, and the nonprofit service page of Loop, a Toronto agency, gives three months as its minimum to a first launch.
When to start. By early November if year-end giving matters, and about six weeks before a spring gala or 5K.
Each site began as a plain written description of an organization. It read the way a director might brief a new staff member: the town and the area served, the programs, the people, the phone number, the main button and what each page should say. Theo built a starting draft from it, and each site then got up to four rounds of changes typed in chat, the same way you would ask for them.
One line from the pantry's description shows how plain it can be: "The first screen of the home page answers 'when can I come and what do I bring' before anything else." The next line set up the holiday strip: "At the very top, a holiday strip we change each season."
Nobody picked a layout or wrote code.
Take out your own phone, open your site and go through it three times. Read it as a neighbor who needs help, as a donor and as a funder.
1. Does the first screen say who you serve, where, and how to get help, without scrolling?
2. Are the hours current, with holiday closures on top and no summer schedule in October?
3. Is your main service one tap from every page, and does tapping the phone number dial?
4. Is Donate in the header of every page, and does the Donate page say what a gift does in your own numbers?
5. Does the Donate page show the EIN, where to mail a check and a monthly option, and say tax-deductible only if your status is confirmed?
6. Does a small test gift made on a phone finish in your giving tool in under a minute?
7. Does each volunteer role list the shift, the minimum age, any requirements and who answers?
8. Has nothing on the events page already happened, and is the year-end page up by mid-November?
9. Do the board and staff pages list the people serving now?
10. Are the last three Form 990s and the annual report one tap from About, with no donor names in them?
11. Are the photos your own work, with people you serve shown only with their permission?
12. Does the text read without zooming, does the site speak the languages of the people you serve, and can at least two people update it, with the domain in the organization's name?
The free audit covers what a phone check cannot, such as whether Google search sends the site any visitors, and needs no login.
Who this is for
Theo fits a nonprofit where the website is nobody's job: a food pantry, an animal rescue, an after-school program, a counseling center or an arts group. Often the current site was last touched by a volunteer who has since moved on. Theo works for a first site as well as a replacement. For a replacement, give Theo the current address and it matches the look, then you change what you want in chat. An executive director can type a grant announcement in chat and publish it without a webmaster. Congregations have their own page at church website design. A member database, a donor CRM and donation forms stay in the tools the organization already uses, and the Theo site links to them.
Nonprofit website builder
There are three usual ways to build a nonprofit website. A nonprofit website builder hands a volunteer the tools and a set of nonprofit website templates to fill in, and the volunteer does the writing and every update after. An agency writes a proposal, the board votes, a build follows, and a retainer covers changes. Theo does not sell templates: it writes the site from a conversation about your programs, hosts it for a monthly price and makes each change you type in chat. Boards usually ask these four questions first.
The person with the account login, plus anyone they invite as a collaborator from the website's settings. None of them needs to be technical: the office manager, the executive director or a board member types what should change in plain English. Everyone else sends requests to them, the way they would email a webmaster. A new pantry hour and a whole new program go through the same chat.
On Starter and Pro, the board sees it in two places. The first is the Growth tab in Theo, which lists each page, post and fix as it is drafted. Each one waits there for review unless you turn auto-publish on. The second is a weekly report the account owner can forward. Starter's first 30 days are free, so with the domain and both Google connections set up early, the board reads real reports before the first charge.
The look, if you want it: paste the address and Theo builds the new site in that style, then you adjust it in chat. The domain stays yours, and the old site stays live until the domain's records point at the new one. Once Search Console is connected, Theo submits your sitemap on every plan, so Google finds every new page. On Starter and Pro, SEO repair redirects the old addresses that still get search traffic to the matching new pages, and on any plan you can ask in chat for a redirect that keeps a donor's bookmark or a partner's link working.
Make the handover part of the setup. The account owner invites at least two people as collaborators from the website's settings, so when one of them leaves, the next person gets an email invitation instead of a forgotten password. If a volunteer registered the domain under their own name, move it into the organization's name before they go. Because every change is typed in plain English, the next person has no software to learn: they read the site, then type what should change.
Included
Tell Theo the organization's name, who you serve, each program and where it runs, your giving tool and the events on the calendar, and drag in photos of the work. From that, Theo drafts the main pages, such as the homepage, a page per program, Donate, Volunteer, Events, Get Help, About and Contact, and you refine the draft in chat. There is no template gallery and nothing for a volunteer to learn. If a site exists today, Theo can build the new one in its style from the address.
Theo hosts the site and serves it as a static website over HTTPS, on Basic, Starter and Pro alike. The plan covers hosting and security, so nobody on staff has to renew hosting, patch a plugin or buy a security add-on. Gifts and sign-ups complete in the tools the site links to, and those tools keep the records.
A filled role, a new board member, a grant announcement, a holiday closing: the account owner, or a collaborator they invite from the website's settings, types it in chat, and Theo makes the edit. Small edits use a few of the month's chat credits, a new program page more, a redesign the most. Basic includes 1,500 credits a month, Starter 4,500 and Pro 7,000. Top-up credits roll over and never expire. The search work on Starter and Pro never touches them.
Theo researches what people near you type when they need what you offer, drafts the program pages and posts your site is missing, and fixes technical issues. On every plan, connecting Google also submits your sitemap. None of it uses chat credits, and each piece waits in the Growth tab until you publish it, unless you turn on auto-publish. The searches neighbors, volunteers and donors make, and what that work did on a food pantry site Theo built, are on SEO for nonprofits.
Keep the domain donors and clients know. Theo walks you through pointing it at the new site, both the root and www versions. The same walkthrough covers turning off forwarding and parking at the registrar, and leaving email records alone so staff mail keeps working. The domains page covers the steps and timing. An organization without a domain can buy one inside Theo. It is registered to you, not to Theo, so you keep it if you ever leave. On Starter and Pro, the Boost checklist in Theo then walks you, step by step, through the listings people check: Google Business Profile, Facebook, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places and Yelp.
The Donate button, the volunteer sign-up, the event page and the intake appointment each link to the tool you already use. Theo builds the pages around those tools. The gift, the sign-up, the ticket and the appointment all complete there.
Process
Give the name, who you serve, each program and where it runs, the giving tool, the next few events and the board list. If there is a site today, paste its address and Theo matches the look. Plain sentences are enough; Thistlecup's description included this one: 'Garden produce is welcome Tuesday and Thursday mornings; we weigh it at the side door.' Drag in photos of real work, not stock. The first build costs nothing and happens before any plan.
The first preview is usually ready in minutes. Open it on a phone and try both paths: count the taps to the Donate button and to the Get Help page. Ask in chat for changes until every program page says who it is for and what to do next: "Put the pantry hours above the map", "Add the Form 990 link to the About page". Publish when the board is satisfied.
Publishing puts the site on a temporary address until your domain points at it. Point the domain you own at it, both root and www, or buy one inside Theo. The change usually takes effect within a few hours, and visitors keep reaching your current site until it does. With the domain active, the Connect Google button asks you to sign in once, and Theo then sets up Google Analytics and Search Console.
On Starter and Pro, the search work begins once the domain and both Google connections are live. The work covers program pages and posts built around real searches, technical fixes and faster pages. On every plan, connecting Google also submits your sitemap. The Growth tab lists each piece as it is drafted, for the account owner to show the board before it goes live. On Basic, the site stays hosted and editable by chat. The search work is what Starter adds.
Pricing
The site, hosting and chat editing start on Basic. Starter adds the ongoing search work and is free for the first 30 days.
| Plan | Per month | Ongoing search work | Chat credits | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $29.99 | Not included | 1,500 a month | Owners who just want their site live and easy to update. |
| StarterFree for 30 days | $69.99 | Included, uses no credits | 4,500 a month | Owners who want the site handled without heavy publishing volume. |
| Pro | $129.99 | Included, uses no credits | 7,000 a month | Owners who want more capacity, more publishing, and more room to experiment. |
No contract, cancel anytime, and you own the site and its content. The pricing page lists what each plan includes and how chat credits work.
Theo is the best in the game. I was originally forking over hundreds of dollars for a website hosting service only to be on the third page of Google search, but with Theo, I have a gorgeous site constantly optimizing SEO and actually getting me conversions. Truly life changing stuff, couldn’t be more grateful
Theo is a fantastic platform, not only from a build and usability standpoint, but in terms of real, measurable performance. The platform is intuitive, well thought out, and easy to work with. More importantly, we saw significant lifts in a remarkably short period of time, and the analytics gave us a clear view into what was driving it. It has been genuinely impressive to see how quickly Theo makes an impact.
This tool is amazing! Truly the best bespoke AI tool that I've come across in the past year. The website design capabilities are tremendous, and even though I've only experienced 2 months of how Theo can support with SEO, the increases in traction we saw were significant. I've been telling everyone I know who could benefit from Theo to start using it today.
Compare
| Theo | Typical agency | DIY builder, web guy or your nephew | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $29.99 a month on Basic covers the site and hosting. Starter at $69.99 or Pro at $129.99 adds the search work | A retainer for changes after the build. The build itself is quoted per project | A builder plan, his monthly fee, or a favor paid in pizza |
| Up-front cost | None. The first build is free, and the board sees it before any plan starts | A project quote, often paid in stages | Anything from his quote down to a few donated weekends |
| Time to a first look | A first preview, usually ready in minutes, free and before any plan | After the proposal, the board vote and the design rounds | Depending on whose evenings are free, often a board meeting or two |
| Example sites you can open | Six nonprofit sites above, each live on a phone with its inner pages | Past client sites from the agency's portfolio | Sample templates, or a past site or two he can show you |
| Who makes changes after launch | Theo, when the owner or an invited collaborator types the change in chat | The agency, on the retainer or by the hour | The one volunteer who knows the editor, or him, when he gets to it |
| When the person who knows the site leaves | Anyone the account owner invites edits in chat, with no software to learn | The agency keeps the know-how, on its retainer | The next person starts from scratch, often with a password reset |
| Donations, volunteers and events | Pages that link to your giving tool, sign-up form and Eventbrite, where the gift and the sign-up complete | Set by the project scope | Donate and sign-up buttons wired in by hand, then kept working by whoever remembers |
| Hosting and security | Inside every plan, as a static site served over HTTPS | Usually a separate bill or part of the retainer | Part of the builder plan, or a hosting bill that comes through him |
| Ongoing search work | Inside Starter and Pro and reported weekly. It never uses chat credits | A separate SEO retainer | Not included |
| Ownership | The organization owns its pages, words and photos and can save them before leaving. Pro adds read-only access to the site code | Set by the contract | The words are yours; the account may be his or the builder's |
| Commitment | Month to month, and the board can cancel whenever it decides | Project contract, then a retainer | A monthly or yearly plan, his terms, or plain goodwill |
FAQ
With Theo, $29.99 a month on Basic pays for the site and its hosting. Starter is $69.99 a month, free for the first 30 days, and adds the ongoing search work. Pro is $129.99 a month. The first build is free. Beyond the plan, the paid extras are top-up credits, a domain name if you buy it through Theo, and the optional paid directory submission packages in the Boost checklist that comes with Starter and Pro. The pricing page lists what each plan includes.
The first preview is usually ready in minutes. The time after that is yours, spent reading it and asking for changes. Once published, the site sits on a temporary address until your domain points at it. The registrar's records usually update within a few hours, and your current site stays up until then.
Your organization does. The pages, the copy and the photos are yours, and Theo hosts them. If you leave, the site stays live until the end of the paid period, and you can save your text and photos before then. Pro adds read-only access to the site's code on GitHub, and your organization can copy that too.
Yes, at any time and without a contract. The cancellation confirmation states the date the subscription ends. The site stays up until that date, which leaves time to save your text and images. A board can approve the plan a month at a time instead of a multi-year agreement, and there is nothing to buy out when a grant ends.
Donations complete in your giving tool. The Donate button links to Givebutter, PayPal, a Stripe donation page or your fiscal sponsor's giving page, and any tool that gives you a link works. If the tool offers monthly giving, the page carries a second link for it. The gift, the receipt, the recurring schedule and the donor record all live in the tool, not on the site.
Basic, at $29.99 a month, if the site is a front door for people who already know you: referrals, current donors, the board. Starter, at $69.99 a month, if you need to be found by people searching for the help you provide or the cause you serve. Its first 30 days are free, so the board can read the first weekly reports before deciding.
Gather what a visitor needs first: each program with who it serves and where and when it runs, the hours, the giving tool's link, the volunteer sign-up, the next few events, the board list and photos of the work. With Theo you then describe the organization in plain sentences, or paste the current site's address, and a first preview is usually ready in minutes. Read it on a phone the way the three visitors above would, ask in chat for changes until each page says who it is for and what to do next, publish, and point your domain at it. The steps under How it happens walk through each one.
Yes. The six sites above are full, published sites Theo built: a food pantry, an animal rescue, an after-school program, a counseling center, a community theater and a mentoring program. Each one opens live, so you can tap through it on your phone the way a visitor would. To see live customer sites, ask the team; they share the ones in your field whose owners have agreed.
Nobody can promise a position, Theo included. On Starter and Pro, the search work described under How it happens builds pages around real searches, and results build over months. One example comes from outside the nonprofit world. Buy My Lunch, which runs school lunch ordering, came to Theo in June 2026. By its own Search Console count, Google search sent it 929 clicks in the 90 days to September 27, 2026, up from 131 in the 90 days before. Its numbers are its own and do not predict yours. The guide to a site not showing up on Google explains the usual causes when a site stays hidden.
You can see one for free: the first build costs nothing and comes before any plan. Plenty of website builders offer a free plan, which supplies the tool and the hosting and leaves the build, every update and every fix to a volunteer, usually on the builder's own address rather than yours. Google's Ad Grants policy asks for a domain the nonprofit owns, so a site on someone else's address does not qualify. With Theo the site is $29.99 a month on Basic after the free build, on your own domain, and updates are typed in chat by you or anyone you invite, so the site does not depend on one person's spare time.
Your industry
At least a home page that says who you serve and where, a page for each program, a Get help page if people come to you for help, Donate, Volunteer, Events, About with the board and staff, a Financials page with your Form 990s, and Contact with hours and directions. Add a privacy page whenever the site has a form or analytics, and pages in the languages your community speaks. The list above says what goes on each page and who reads it.
It answers its three visitors quickly on a phone. The person who needs help finds the hours, who qualifies and a number that dials. The donor finds what a gift does and a Donate button that works. The funder finds the board, the staff and the financials. The photos, the colors and the story all serve those three. A good one is also current: no past events, no former director on the staff page, and this season's hours on top.
No. Many organizations build the site while the application is pending. Until the IRS confirms your status, say plainly where it stands and do not describe gifts as tax-deductible. A project with a fiscal sponsor can say so on the Donate page and send gifts through the sponsor's giving page. Once the determination letter arrives, adding the tax-deductible line and the EIN is one sentence in chat. This is general guidance, not tax advice.
Posting it is the simplest way to meet a duty you already have. Your exemption application and three years of annual returns must be open to public inspection, and the IRS lets an organization that has made a return widely available, such as by posting it online, point requesters there instead of sending copies; in-person inspection still applies. Post the public copy, which leaves out donors' names and addresses, on a Financials page one tap from About. Theo can add the page and the links, and the filing itself stays with your accountant. Checked against the IRS public disclosure pages in October 2026; not legal or tax advice.
If it takes volunteer or newsletter sign-ups, intake requests or any other personal details, or uses analytics, yes: a short page that says what is collected, why and who sees it. The Google Analytics terms require a site that uses it to have a privacy policy that discloses it. When Theo builds a site that collects personal details, it adds privacy and terms pages written from your organization's real details and links them in the footer, plus a cookie policy where analytics is installed, and it leaves anything it cannot confirm as a labeled placeholder for you to fill in. Every site above has privacy and terms pages. This is general guidance, not legal advice.
An organization that receives federal money has accessibility duties under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and other federal and state rules can apply, so check the current ones that cover you; no website build can certify compliance. In practice the work is readable type, strong contrast, alt text on photos, real headings and forms that work with a keyboard. Theo writes the pages as text with headings in order, and the rest are changes you ask for in chat.
The grant and the site are separate. Google runs the program and decides who qualifies, and the website has to meet its website policy: a domain the nonprofit owns, the whole site over HTTPS, substantial original content about the mission and programs, working links and a secure page for giving. A Theo site is on your own domain, served over HTTPS, with a page per program. Applying and running the ads stay in Google's program, which Theo does not manage, and nobody can promise approval. Checked against Google's website policy in October 2026.
No. A .org is common and donors recognize it, but a .com or another ending works the same way for visitors and for search. Keep the address people already know, since changing it breaks old links and printed materials. If you have none, you can buy one inside Theo; it is registered to your organization, not to Theo, so it stays yours if you ever leave. Whatever the ending, keep it in the organization's name.
Yes. Giving Tuesday is December 1, 2026, and year-end gifts keep arriving through December 31, so put the campaign page up by mid-November. Ask in chat for a page with the goal in your words, what a gift pays for and the Donate link to your tool, and Theo builds it; then ask for a link to it from the home page. Meta and TikTok pixels can be set on the site so the ads you run for the campaign can be measured. When the campaign ends, one line in chat turns the page into a thank-you.
Yes, through links to the tools you already use. The volunteer page links to your sign-up form, and each event page links to Eventbrite or your ticketing tool. The sign-up and the ticket sale complete there.
Ask every option the same questions, Theo included. Who builds the pages, and who changes them after launch? Is the site on our own domain, served over HTTPS? What does it cost each month, all in, and is there a setup fee or a contract? Can more than one person edit, and what happens when one of them leaves? Can the board cancel in any month, and do we keep our words and photos? Where do gifts and donor records live? The answers show who will really be doing the work a year from now.
Yes, as pages you ask for. Theo has no switch that translates a whole site by itself. Ask in chat for Spanish versions of the pages your community needs most, such as Get help, the hours and Contact, and for a link to them in the menu. Each new page uses chat credits like any other change. Have a fluent speaker read the pages before you publish, and when the hours change, ask for both versions in the same message.
Begin with the domain. Find out whose name and email it is registered under, and if it belongs to the volunteer, move it to the organization. Theo can start from the old site: give it the address, and it reads the public pages and rebuilds them as a starting draft, keeping the look or freshening it, while the old site stays up. Correct what is out of date in chat, publish, point the domain at the new site, and invite two people to edit, so the next change of hands is an email invitation.
Ask first. Get permission from anyone you serve before their photo goes up, never put a name beside a face, and get a parent's written permission for any child. A great deal of the story needs no one's face: volunteers at work, stocked shelves, the room where a group meets, an adoptable cat in a sunny window. Real photos of your work still beat stock images, because donors and neighbors can tell the difference.
No. Nonprofits pay the same published prices as everyone else: $29.99 a month on Basic, $69.99 on Starter with the first 30 days free, and $129.99 on Pro. There is no contract and no annual commitment, so a small nonprofit pays month to month and can stop when its budget changes.
Yes, if people visit you or you serve a defined area. A profile is how a food pantry shows up for "food pantry near me" and how a thrift store shows its hours. It is one of the listings in Theo's Boost checklist. On a Starter or Pro plan, the checklist walks you through it so the address and hours there match the site.