Can I use my own domain on Netlify's free plan, and what does it cost?
Quick answer
Yes. Netlify's credit-based plan docs, updated September 1, 2026, list “Custom domains with SSL support” on Free, and connecting a domain you own isn't among the things credits pay for. You pay only your registrar. A domain bought through Netlify is a paid add-on whose price Netlify doesn't publish.
Free plan: no credit card, 1 published page, 1 custom subdomain.
On this page
Yes. Netlify's Credit-based pricing plans doc, updated September 1, 2026, lists “Custom domains with SSL support” among the core features of Free, Personal, and Pro, and its HTTPS doc, updated October 3, 2026, says “Netlify offers free HTTPS on all sites, including automatic certificate creation and renewal.”
Connecting a domain you already own costs nothing on Netlify's side. Netlify's credits pay for production deploys, bandwidth, web requests, compute, and AI inference, and a domain isn't on that list. What costs money is the domain itself: your registrar's yearly fee, or Netlify's if you buy it there. Netlify lists domain registrations and renewals as a paid add-on and doesn't publish their price in its docs or on its pricing page.
Netlify's pricing page, domain docs, and terms were read on October 23, 2026. The documents carry their own dates: Credit-based pricing plans, updated September 1, 2026; HTTPS, October 3, 2026; Set up Netlify DNS, October 3, 2026; Register and buy a domain, March 21, 2026; Bring a domain to Netlify DNS and Configure external DNS, October 28, 2025; and the Self Serve Subscription Agreement, last updated September 8, 2020. Prices are in US dollars. For the Free plan as a whole, see Is Netlify free?, and for the pause at zero credits, see What happens when my Netlify credits run out.
What a custom domain costs on Netlify's Free plan
| Item | What Netlify says | Cost on Free |
|---|---|---|
| Connecting a domain you already own | “Custom domains with SSL support” is checked for Free, Personal, and Pro | Free. Credits don't meter it |
| The HTTPS certificate | “Netlify-managed certificates are offered to all Netlify sites for free,” issued by Let's Encrypt and “renewed automatically as needed” | Free |
| Netlify DNS for your domain | The DNS docs describe delegating a domain and name no price or plan | Netlify doesn't say |
| Buying a new domain through Netlify | The add-ons table checks “Domain registrations & renewals” for Free, Personal, and Pro | A paid add-on. Netlify doesn't publish the price |
| Renewing that domain | “Domain registrations are valid for one year,” and they “automatically renew by default using the payment method on file for the team” | Paid every year. Netlify emails you the renewal cost near the end of the year |
| Visitors on the domain | Web requests include “requests to your site's main (production) URL,” and bandwidth is “data traffic your site or app sends out” | 20 credits per GB and 2 per 10,000 requests, as on any address of the site |
The domain doesn't change the credit math. A visit to www.yourbrand.com costs the same bandwidth and requests as one to yourbrand.netlify.app, out of the same 300 credits a month on Free.
Case by case
| What you want on Netlify Free | What Netlify's docs say | Allowed? |
|---|---|---|
www.yourbrand.com on a Free site | “Custom domains with SSL support” on Free. For a subdomain, “create a CNAME record with your DNS provider” pointing to your netlify.app subdomain (Configure external DNS) | Yes |
The bare yourbrand.com, with your own DNS provider | Use an ALIAS, ANAME, or flattened CNAME record to apex-loadbalancer.netlify.com, or an A record to 75.2.60.5. Netlify recommends a subdomain as the primary domain with external DNS | Yes |
| HTTPS on the domain without paying | “Netlify offers free HTTPS on all sites” | Yes |
| Moving your DNS to Netlify DNS | You delegate the domain by changing its name servers at your registrar (Set up Netlify DNS). No plan is named | Yes |
| Netlify DNS for a site hosted somewhere else | The terms say “Netlify Managed DNS or Netlify functions are strictly for use with sites deployed to Netlify,” and each zone should have “at least one hostname hosted by Netlify” (Self Serve Subscription Agreement) | No, not on its own |
| Buying a new domain from Netlify on Free | “Domain registrations & renewals” is checked for Free (Credit-based pricing plans) | Yes, as a paid add-on |
Knowing the price of a .com from Netlify before you start | Neither the pricing page nor the domain docs list one | Netlify doesn't say |
| Transferring a domain you own into Netlify's registrar | “Netlify cannot accept inbound domain transfer requests from other registrars” (Transfer a domain) | No |
| Moving a domain bought on Netlify to another registrar | Contact Netlify Support. ICANN rules “do not permit transfers within 60 days of registration” | Yes, after 60 days |
| Buying a domain with letters such as ñ or é | “Netlify does not currently support buying or registering internationalized domain names” (Register and buy a domain) | No |
| More than one domain on the same site | Extra domains become domain aliases. “We recommend assigning no more than 50 domain aliases to a site” (Add a domain alias) | Yes |
| The site staying up on your domain after Free's 300 credits run out | Every project pauses and shows “Site not available” at each of its URLs (billing FAQ) | No |
How to connect a domain you already own
- Add it to the site. In the site's Domain management, select Add domain, then Add a domain you already own. Enter the domain, select Verify, then Add domain. Netlify makes it the primary domain (Bring a domain to Netlify DNS).
- Point it at Netlify. At your DNS provider, add a CNAME record for
wwwthat points to your site'snetlify.appaddress. For the bare domain, add an ALIAS, ANAME, or flattened CNAME record toapex-loadbalancer.netlify.com, or an A record to75.2.60.5if your provider has none of those. Netlify adds bothyourbrand.comandwww.yourbrand.comand redirects one to the other. - Wait for DNS and the certificate. Netlify's external DNS doc says “It may take a full day for the settings to propagate,” and the bring-a-domain doc allows up to 48 hours. Netlify then gets a Let's Encrypt certificate for the domain by itself.
To use Netlify DNS instead, copy your existing records, such as the MX records for email, to Netlify first. Then replace the name servers at your registrar with the 4 that Netlify lists for your domain. Netlify says this “may take up to a day.”
Buying a domain through Netlify
In Domain management, select Add a domain, then Buy a new domain. Netlify makes the new domain the primary domain, creates a Netlify DNS zone for it, and provisions a wildcard certificate.
- It lasts a year and renews on its own. “Domain registrations are valid for one year,” and renewal is on by default, charged to the payment method on file. You can turn auto-renewal off on the domain's page.
- Its price isn't in the docs. The docs and pricing page list no price for a new domain. Near the end of the year, Netlify emails you “the cost for renewal.”
- A lapsed domain is hard to get back. If auto-renewal is off and the domain expires, all of its DNS records stop working. For 30 days, Netlify Support can help you renew it. From day 31 to day 60, you can neither renew nor buy it. After 60 days, anyone can buy it.
Netlify's registrar doesn't take domains in from other registrars, so a domain you already own stays where it is. Point it at Netlify with DNS records, or move only its DNS to Netlify DNS.
Netlify DNS or your own DNS provider
- Netlify DNS (why Netlify recommends it, updated January 24, 2026) serves the bare domain and
wwwfrom Netlify's CDN, gives a wildcard certificate, and sets up branch subdomains such asstaging.yourbrand.com. - Your own DNS provider suits a domain with many records, such as email. Netlify “does not allow inbound DNS zone transfers,” and its docs say “it's simplest and safest to use an external DNS provider” in that case.
- The bare domain as the main address works best on Netlify DNS. With external DNS, the bare domain resolves to one load balancer address, so Netlify recommends
wwwor another subdomain as the primary domain (Manage multiple domains, updated February 19, 2026).
Free hosts with your own domain, compared
| Host and plan | Your own domain on the free plan | Bare domain (yourbrand.com) | HTTPS certificate | Buy a domain from the host | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netlify Free | Yes, “Custom domains with SSL support” | Yes, with an ALIAS or A record, or Netlify DNS | Free, from Let's Encrypt | Yes, a paid add-on with no published price | Every project pauses when the 300 monthly credits run out |
| GitHub Pages | Yes | Yes, GitHub calls them apex domains | Yes, from Let's Encrypt, with Enforce HTTPS | Not in GitHub's Pages docs | The repository must be public on GitHub Free, and Pages isn't for running an online business |
| Cloudflare Pages Free | Yes, up to 100 per project | Only if the domain is a zone on your Cloudflare account, using its name servers | Cloudflare issues it | Yes, Cloudflare Registrar sells domains “at cost, without markup fees” | No card data may be collected on a free-plan site |
| Vercel Hobby | Yes, up to 50 per project | Yes | Vercel “will automatically try to generate a certificate for every domain” | Yes, “the same as the registrar's pricing” | Hobby is for “non-commercial personal use only” |
| Convika Free | Yes, 1 subdomain such as www.yourbrand.com | No, subdomains only | Issued for you | No, you buy it from a registrar | Free includes 1 published page |
The same page on your domain with Convika
Convika hosts landing pages, one HTML page each, and keeps what happens on them. Its Free plan includes 1 custom subdomain, such as www.yourbrand.com, and no credit balance behind it. For one HTML page made with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, that changes 5 things.
- Your subdomain in 2 DNS records. On the page's dashboard screen, click Manage domains, then Add domain, and enter
www.yourbrand.com. At your DNS provider, add the CNAME and TXT records Convika shows. The SSL certificate is issued for you. Convika takes subdomains only, so forward the bareyourbrand.comtowwwat your registrar. - Publishing has no meter. Free allows 30 publishes a day, and none of them draws down a balance.
- Pageviews are counted instead. Free includes 10,000 pageviews a month. Once your pages reach that in a month, editing and analytics pause, and 7 days later the pages stop until the month ends or you upgrade; Convika emails you at 80% first.
- A form and stats come with it. Click Add a form to my page, and Convika stores each entry, emails it to you, and exports to CSV. You also get 90 days of visits, referrers, UTM campaigns, devices, countries, and button clicks.
- Commercial use is allowed on every plan. Free is included under section 7 of the terms, including a client's page you build, host, and bill for.
Free includes 1 published page, with a small “Convika: share your HTML as a link, free” badge. Pro removes the badge, adds unlimited subdomains, and costs $12 a month.
Where Netlify fits better: a bare domain as the main address, a site with several routes, or a framework app. Convika hosts one HTML page per site, on a subdomain.
Drop the .html file below, up to 2 MB, or paste its code to see your page on Convika before signing up. You get a private preview link that works for 3 minutes, with the page's scripts and forms off until you keep it with a free account.
Frequently asked questions
Is a custom domain free on Netlify's free plan?
Yes. Netlify's plan docs list custom domains with SSL support on Free, and its HTTPS certificates are free on all sites. You pay only for the domain itself, to your registrar or to Netlify if you buy it there.
Does adding a custom domain use Netlify credits?
No. Netlify's credits pay for production deploys, bandwidth, web requests, compute, and AI inference, and a domain isn't among them. Traffic to the domain uses bandwidth and request credits the same way traffic to your netlify.app address does.
Can I use a root domain like example.com on Netlify's free plan?
Yes. With your own DNS provider, point the bare domain at apex-loadbalancer.netlify.com with an ALIAS, ANAME, or flattened CNAME record, or at 75.2.60.5 with an A record. With external DNS, Netlify recommends making www the primary domain; with Netlify DNS, the bare domain can be primary.
Is HTTPS free for a custom domain on Netlify?
Yes. Netlify's HTTPS doc says “Netlify offers free HTTPS on all sites, including automatic certificate creation and renewal.” Netlify requests a Let's Encrypt certificate once your domain's DNS points to Netlify.
Does Netlify give you a free domain name?
No. Every site gets a free address such as yoursite.netlify.app, which you can rename. A domain of your own is either one you already own or one you buy, from Netlify as a paid add-on or from any registrar.
How much does Netlify charge for a domain?
Netlify doesn't say in its docs or on its pricing page. They list domain registrations and renewals as a paid add-on, valid for 1 year and renewed automatically, and Netlify emails you the renewal cost near the end of the year. Cloudflare Registrar and Vercel both state that they sell domains at the registry's or registrar's price.
Do I have to use Netlify DNS for a custom domain on Netlify?
No. You can keep your DNS where it is and add a CNAME record for www, plus an ALIAS or A record for the bare domain. Netlify DNS is optional. It adds a wildcard certificate and branch subdomains, and Netlify's terms expect every zone on it to host at least one hostname on Netlify.
Can I transfer my domain to Netlify?
No. Netlify's docs say it “cannot accept inbound domain transfer requests from other registrars.” You can still point the domain at Netlify with DNS records, or delegate its DNS to Netlify DNS by changing the name servers at your registrar.
Does my custom domain keep working when my Netlify credits run out?
No. When Free's 300 monthly credits are used up, every project on the account pauses, and visitors see “Site not available” at each of its URLs, your domain included. The projects resume at the next billing cycle or when you upgrade.
Is there a free host with a custom domain and no credit meter?
Yes. Convika's Free plan includes 1 custom subdomain, such as www.yourbrand.com, with no credit balance; it counts 10,000 pageviews a month and includes 1 published page. GitHub Pages and Cloudflare Pages also take custom domains on free plans, with no business use on GitHub Pages and up to 100 domains per project on Cloudflare.
Sources
- Netlify: Credit-based pricing plans, updated September 1, 2026 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: HTTPS (SSL), updated October 3, 2026 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Bring a domain to Netlify DNS, updated October 28, 2025 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Configure external DNS for a custom domain, updated October 28, 2025 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Set up Netlify DNS, updated October 3, 2026 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Why Netlify DNS, updated January 24, 2026 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Register and buy a domain, updated March 21, 2026 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Transfer a domain, updated December 15, 2025 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Add a domain alias (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Manage multiple domains, updated February 19, 2026 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: How credits work, updated August 12, 2026, and the billing FAQ, updated October 7, 2026 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify: Self Serve Subscription Agreement, last updated September 8, 2020 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Netlify pricing, no date on the page (checked October 23, 2026)
- GitHub: About custom domains and GitHub Pages and Securing your GitHub Pages site with HTTPS, no dates on the pages (checked October 23, 2026)
- Cloudflare Pages custom domains, updated April 21, 2026; Pages limits, updated September 5, 2026; Cloudflare Registrar, updated April 24, 2026; Cloudflare terms, last updated September 12, 2025 (checked October 23, 2026)
- Vercel: Hobby plan and Fair use guidelines, updated September 14, 2026; Working with domains and Working with SSL, updated September 16, 2026 (checked October 23, 2026)
Next step
How to share an HTML file as a link that opens on any phone
Email and Google Drive open HTML files on a phone without scripts. Compare 5 hosts (Netlify Drop, Tiiny Host, GitHub Pages, Convika) and follow 4 steps.
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