How to connect your custom domain

Connecting a domain you own has two parts. You ask the AI to connect it, and then you add the DNS records it gives you at your domain provider. The AI checks your setup as you go.

A custom domain gives your site a professional address, and it's also required for two features:

• Accepting payments on your site.
• Emailing people outside your workspace, like customers, members, or people who fill out your forms.

Before you connect

Custom domains work during the free trial and on every paid plan. Plus includes 3 custom domains, Pro includes 10, and Max includes 25.

You also need to already own the domain. Adding records and managing DNS happens at your domain provider, not in Repaint.

Don't have a domain yet?

Repaint doesn't sell domains, so you buy one from any domain provider and then connect it here. Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare are popular options. You buy and renew it directly with them, usually for a yearly fee. The domain is yours wherever you register it, and it's separate from your Repaint plan.

If you're choosing a new name, shorter and simpler is usually better. A .com is the most familiar to visitors.

How to connect your domain

1. Ask the AI to connect your domain. You tell it which domain to use and which site it's for.
2. Get your records. The AI adds the domain and gives you the exact DNS records to add, along with where to put them at your provider.
3. Add the records. You enter the records in your domain provider's DNS settings. This is the one step you do yourself, since the records live with your provider.
4. Check back with the AI. Once the records are in, the AI can check how the connection looks. It reads your live records and confirms whether everything is set up correctly.
5. Visit your site. Your domain should open your site in a browser, served securely over https.

You can ask the AI for a domain's status anytime. It tells you whether the connection is pending, verified, or failed.

DNS records

DNS records are how the internet knows to send your domain to your Repaint site. The AI gives you the exact values, so you don't need to understand DNS to set them up. For a website, you'll typically add:

• An A record at `@`, which points your root domain, like yoursite.com, at Repaint.
• A CNAME record at `www`, so www.yoursite.com works too and redirects to your site.

The steps for adding records vary by provider. If you're not sure where to enter them, the AI can walk you through it for your provider.

If your domain already has records, you usually need to remove old ones that conflict. This is the most common thing people miss. The AI can read your current records and tell you which to delete, which to keep, and which to add.

Once your domain connects, Repaint sets up SSL automatically, so your site is served securely over https.

If you also want to send email from your domain, that needs a few more DNS records. The AI gives you those when you set up email.

After you connect

DNS changes don't take effect everywhere instantly. Your provider needs time to publish the change, and the rest of the internet needs time to pick it up. This delay is called DNS propagation, and it's a normal part of connecting any domain.

Most of the time, your domain is connected within about 20 minutes. If it's taking much longer than that, there's probably an issue with the records.

If it's not working

Nearly every connection problem comes down to the records. Either the right records weren't added, or old conflicting records weren't cleared.

The fastest fix is to ask the AI how your connection is doing. It can read your live records and tell you exactly what to add, change, or delete. If you're still stuck after that, contact support and we can help sort it out.

What happens if you cancel

If your trial ends or you cancel your plan, your workspace pauses at the end of the billing period. Your sites go offline, including on your custom domains. Your work stays saved, and you can reactivate anytime.

Your free Repaint address

Every site on Repaint gets a free Repaint address, so people can visit it before you connect a domain of your own. The name at the start of that address is your subdomain, and you can change it to something that matches your business.

There isn't a separate setting for this. You change your subdomain by asking the AI, and it claims the name for your site if it's available. Subdomains are unique, so if the name you want is taken, the AI can suggest similar ones.

Your site keeps one subdomain at a time, so a new one replaces the old address. Visitors see your site at the new address once it's published.