Hosting

Domain, hosting and business email: what are you paying for?

Three things that often sit with three providers, what each one does, what happens when one lapses, and why all of them belong in your own name.

By Daniel Aideborn · Published 21 September 2026 · 4 min read

Short answer: they are three separate things, usually bought from three separate providers, and they belong in your name. The domain is the address, the hosting is where the site lives, and the business email is your post. The build is paid once. These three keep going.

Below is what each one does, what happens when it lapses, what decides the cost, and the traps that are most common when somebody else set it up for you.

Three things, three jobs

They are worth keeping apart, because they can be changed one at a time. You can move hosting without touching email, and move email without the site noticing — provided you own the domain.

What decides the cost

• Domain. A yearly fee at the registrar. It varies with the top-level domain (.se, .com, .nu) but it is the smallest of the three.
• Hosting. A static site — pages that are finished before anybody visits — can run for close to nothing. An application with a database, sign-in and stored data costs something every month, because something always has to be running.
• Email. Per mailbox per month at the provider. Aliases and forwarding are usually free; real accounts are not.
• Traffic and storage. Only once the site is large. For most smaller businesses it is not the deciding line.

I quote no amounts here, because providers set them and they change. Ask instead: what is included, what is billed separately, and who is it paid to?

What belongs in your name

1. The domain, at the registrar, with you as the registrant.
2. The hosting account, with your billing details.
3. The email account, and the administrator rights on it.
4. Any third-party services the site uses: payments, analytics, forms.
5. Access to DNS — the settings that point at where the site and the email live.

A supplier can have access without owning anything. That is the difference between somebody helping you and somebody holding the key.

The DNS records you will hear about

When email is set up, a few records are added to the domain. You do not need to know them by heart, but it is worth knowing they exist, because they are what gets your post delivered.

• MX points at the provider that receives your mail.
• SPF says which servers may send mail in your name.
• DKIM signs outgoing mail so the recipient can see it was not altered.
• DMARC says what to do with mail that fails those checks, and where the reports go.

Without SPF and DKIM your mail lands in spam more often at the other end. That is not something you notice yourself — you only notice that people do not reply.

What is included when I build

Domain, SSL and business email are configured and running in every launch package, in your own name. What I do not do is own the subscriptions for you: the running fees are paid directly to the providers, so nothing stands or falls with me.

Four common traps

• The domain is registered in somebody else's name, and you find out when you want to move.
• Auto-renewal is off, or the reminder goes to an address nobody reads.
• Email sits at the web host "because it was included", without SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
• Nobody knows which services are being billed, because everything is on one supplier's invoice.

If you want to know what a build costs on top of this, the packages and prices are under pricing, and what drives the price of the site itself is covered in What does a website cost for a small business?.

Related services: Websites