Buy a new domain
Updated August 6, 2026 · 5 min
Search for a domain
Click "Buy a new domain" on your site's Domains card to open the purchase flow. Type a name and click "Search" — results show live pricing, like $14.99/yr, pulled straight from the registry, with each one marked "Available" or "Taken." Tap an available one to continue.
Enter the registrant contact
This becomes the domain's registrant contact — the legal owner of record — and Messiah enables WHOIS privacy automatically, so none of this information is ever published publicly. First name, last name, email, and a full mailing address are required, and so is a phone number: domain registries reject a registration submitted without one.
Confirm and pay
The confirmation screen shows the domain and its price, notes that it renews yearly at that same price, and that you can cancel anytime before a renewal. It's billed to your account immediately, and clicking "Buy domain" hands off to a secure Stripe checkout page — registration itself usually finishes within a few minutes of payment.
Registration in progress
After payment, you land back on your site's dashboard with a banner reading "Payment received — registering your domain. This can take a few minutes; the domain below will update on its own as it comes online." There's nothing to click or wait for — if it's taking longer than usual, the banner instead says registration is still in progress and to check back or watch your email.
Note
If a registration can’t be completed — the name turns out to already be taken, or the registry rejects it — you’re refunded automatically and emailed an explanation. No action is needed on your part.DNS and SSL are automatic
A purchased domain skips the DNS setup that a domain you already own needs — there's no registrar to configure and no records to copy over. Messiah owns that domain's DNS directly, so it configures it and issues an SSL certificate automatically once registration completes, landing on "Live" without you doing anything else.
Renewal and cancellation
Your domain renews automatically every year at the price you were quoted, billed as its own subscription separate from your site's plan. You can cancel that renewal anytime before it's due from the Stripe billing portal — the "Manage billing in Stripe" link on your billing page — and the domain keeps working for the rest of the year you already paid for; it simply won't renew again after that.
Frequently asked
How much does renewal cost?
The same price you paid at purchase — the confirmation screen states explicitly that the domain renews yearly at that rate.
What happens if a renewal payment fails?
Nothing happens to the domain right away — it keeps working. If the payment keeps failing and the renewal subscription eventually ends, the domain simply stops renewing and expires at the end of the year you already paid for. It's never taken away from you or seized; it just needs a working payment method to keep renewing past that date.
Can I transfer a domain I bought here to another registrar?
Yes, once the standard 60-day post-registration lock that applies to any newly registered domain has passed. Contact support@digitalpotter.io to start a transfer.