Key takeaways
- A domain name is a lease on an address. It is not the files or the pages.
- Hosting is the disk and the software that answer when someone types that address.
- A .com here is $16.99 a year. The WordPress Basic plan is $2.99, then $7.99. Those are two invoices.
A plumber in East Hartford bought shopname.com at a vendor table, taped the URL on the van, and waited. The van looked finished. The name opened a parking page with someone else’s ads. Estimates still went out from a Gmail address because nothing he owned lived at that name.
That mix-up is cheap to make. The receipt says “domain.” People hear “website.”
| Domain name | Hosting | Website | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you bought | A lease on an address people can type | Disk, mailboxes, SSL, a WordPress install on a host you pick | The pages, photos, and forms you put on that disk |
| Where it lives | The domain system, under a registrar account | US-based servers on the hosting invoice | Files and a database on that hosting plan |
| If you stop paying | The name expires. Someone else can register it. | The site goes dark. The plan ends. | Visitors see nothing unless you kept a copy. |
| Can you take it with you | Yes. Move the name to another registrar. | Yes. Move the files to another host. | Yes, if you have the files. A builder login is a different story. |
| Price we can print | .com: $16.99 a year | WordPress Basic plan: $2.99, then $7.99, 10 GB | Not a hosting SKU. You write it, or you hire that. |
The name is the address. Hosting is the building. The site is what you put inside.
What ICANN says the name is
ICANN’s page About Domain Names (read October 15, 2026) says a domain name is not a website and not a URL. Their analogy is a street address for mail. The address does not create a building. You still need hosting or email, or the name points at nothing you control.
They recorded a short clip on what a domain name is. The clip below is theirs. We did not rehost it.
The same organization says a registration is a term, usually one to ten years, then you renew if you want to keep the name. That is on their domain renewal FAQ (read October 15, 2026). You do not buy the string forever.
Hosting is the disk, not the address
Hosting is the plan that stores the files and answers when a browser asks for the name. On our WordPress aisle that means disk, a WordPress install, mailboxes, SSL, staging, and backups. None of that appears because you registered the .com. The registrar account and the hosting account can even be at two different companies.
If the name is live and the hosting plan is not, visitors get a parking page, an error, or last month’s leftover. If hosting is live and the name still points somewhere else, your files sit on a server nobody can find by typing the brand.
You do not have to buy hosting from the company that sold the name
ICANN’s compliance FAQ (read October 15, 2026) says you are not required to take hosting from the same company that registered the domain. Bundles are a convenience. They are not a rule. Keep the name in an account the business controls, even if a designer built the pages.
The website is the pages you put there
The website is the homepage, the service list, the form, the photos. That is work. It is not a line on a domain invoice. A designer can build it. You can type it. A Google listing is still not it; we already covered that in a Google Business Profile is not a website.
If those pages live on a builder you only rent, leaving is messy. We covered rented logins in you do not own that website. WordPress files on a host you pick can move. The domain can move too. Those are separate moves.
When the name is enough
Buy the name and stop if you are holding the brand for a shop that is not open yet. A side project with no pages. A family name you do not want sitting in someone else’s cart. The address can wait. Mail at that domain cannot; mail needs hosting or a mailbox product, which is another contract.
The moment someone should type the name and land on hours, a form, or a price list, you need hosting and pages. A bakery in New Britain cannot put Saturday cake orders on a parking page. An auto shop in Bristol cannot take a parts deposit from a Gmail signature.
What we actually sell
On domain search a .com is $16.99 a year. On WordPress hosting the WordPress Basic plan starts at $2.99 a month and renews at $7.99. You get 10 GB, one WordPress site, two mailboxes, SSL, staging, and backups on the plan. The WordPress Business plan and the WordPress Pro plan include a free .com on those cards. That is us, on shared US infrastructure, with tickets and email answered by a person in Connecticut. We do not watch the site at 3:00 AM.
Do not pick us because the name and the hosting can sit on one invoice. They can. They are still two products. Put the pages on a host you can leave, and keep the name in an account the business controls.
If you already have the name and you need the site it should open, start on WordPress hosting or open the client area.
