- For today’s example of setting up a custom domain with Cloudflare we will be using: newsletterhover.online
Cloudflare will act a little differently than other typical domain providers and will act more as a third party service that sits on top of your already existing domain provider. You wouldn’t buy a domain via cloudflare but rather route it through cloudflare for more security.
You must use a subdomain like "www" or "blog" or another of your choice.
Once done, we can forward root domain traffic to your subdomain with these instructions (this is so that domain.com -> www.domain.com without issues).
If you are using Cloudflare, you can use this A record to do so with these instructions.
If you are not using Cloudflare, you can set up a 301 or 302 redirect from within your DNS provider's settings.
We’ve also created a general overview video on custom domains here:
By default, we will host your content on your-publication.beehiiv.com and send your emails from your-publication@mail.beehiiv.com.
If you'd like to host your site on a custom domain or set up a custom domain for email sending, we have created a seamless process to make that possible.
Note: Custom domain support is only available for users on one of our paid plans.
Tech Note: In order to set up a custom domain for use with beehiiv, you must own the domain and you must have the ability to modify its DNS settings.
Setting up a custom domain for your website means that readers will now visit www.yoursite.com instead of your-publication.beehiiv.com to subscribe to your newsletter and view your content.
You can use whatever subdomain you like but it is common practice to use "www". For example, your site would likely live at www.yoursite.com.
Let us walk you through 4 core steps to start setting up your very own custom domain on cloudflare.
- Add your website domain to cloudflare
- Verify Domain Ownership
- Configure the domain to be used for web
- Setting up a custom domain for email sending
A. Add your website domain to cloudflare
2. Click on Websites
3. Click on Add Site
4. Enter your website domain you would like to add and click "Add Site"
5. Select your plan or continue with their Free tier
6. Cloudflare will do a quick DNS scan to pull over existing DNS settings (if you have any). It sometimes will not catch everything so you may have to manually move over certain DNS records.
7. Review DNS records (if any) you would like to import
8. Click on Continue
9. You will now want to copy these two Cloudflare Nameservers and paste them into your current domain provider settings. This will route your current domain hosting and point everything to Cloudflare.
10. In this example, we will replace the two nameservers in Hover
11. Click on EDIT
12. Paste input
14. Click on Click to copy
15. Go to www.hover.com
16. Paste input
17. Click on SAVE NAMESERVERS
18. Click on NAMESERVERS (2)…
20. Click on Done, check nameservers
21. Click on Finish
Now that we have re-pointed your domain from your original domain host to Cloudflare we can continue the normal domain setup in beehiiv below.
Important Note: It may take up to 24 hours for Cloudflare to propagate the revised nameserver changes. This will have to be completed before continuing to the steps below. To check this status go to your “websites” section in Cloudflare and view the domain in question’s status. In the example below it still shows “Pending Nameserver Update” so you would need to wait until it propagates.
Once it is active it will look like this:
B. Verify Domain Ownership
2. Click on Settings
3. Click on Publication
4. Click on Domains
5. Click on Add Custom Domain
6. Enter your domain here with the "www" first.
7. Click on Add Domain
8. You will need to add this TXT record to your DNS setting in Cloudflare
10. Click on the domain you would like to add to beehiiv.
11. Click on DNS settings
12. Click on Add record
13. Click on TXT record type
14. Add the Name & Content value from beehiiv
15. Click on Save
16. Confirm you have successfully added the TXT record
18. Click on Verify
19. Once verified you will see the green check mark.
20. Next, we will add your domain for email sending starting with "mail"
21. Click on Add Domain
22. You should now see both domains successfully added for "mail" and "www".
We recommend you set up a second domain within your beehiiv account that you can use just for sending.
Typically people don't want to send from a @www.domain. We want to encourage @mail.yourdomain.com.
By simply just clicking on add domain again you can just type in your desired subdomain and click “add Domain”.
Instead of putting www.yourdomain.com you can put “mail”, “email” or “newsletter” .yourdomain.com and then use that specifically just for sending. You will want to do that before setting up your custom domain for email sending below in step C.
B. Configure the domain to be used for web
2. Scroll down to the "Web Domain" section and click on Select Custom Web Domain button
3. Select your custom domain with the "www"
4. Click on Configure Domain
5. You will be prompted with a CNAME record to add to your Cloudflare DNS settings
7. Click on Add record
8. Select the CNAME record type
9. Type "www"
10. Add the beehiiv cname value "cname.beehiiv.com" provided
11. Click on Save
12. You should now see your new CNAME record added. You may need to wait up to 10-min for it to propagate
14. Click on Verify Setup
15. Once verified you will see the green check next to "Live"
16. Go to www.newsletterhover.online
17. To test simply go to the domain and it should be live
C. Setting up a custom domain for email sending
1. Scroll down to the "Email Domain" section and click on the "Select Custom Email Domain"
2. Click on Select Custom Email Domain
3. Select your domain with "mail"
4. Click on Configure Domain
5. Click on dropdown trigger
6. Click on Verify
7. You will now be provided with 3 CNAME records to add to your Cloudflare DNS settings to finish your "Email Domain" setup
9. When in Cloudflare and adding each of these 3 CNAME records you will want to ensure the "Proxy Status" toggle button is turned off. Otherwise you will see an error when trying to add a new CNAME record.
10. Once added click Save and repeat for remaining CNAME records provided
11. Once finished you should see all 3 CNAME records added within your Cloudflare DNS settings
13. Click on Verify Setup
14. Your custom "Email Domain" is now verified!
15. Last step is to set your email from name. Click "update email"
16. Enter your desired email "From" name
17. Click on Confirm
18. Your "Email Domain" is now fully verified and setup
If you have any questions about your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records read this.