How to Connect a Domain to Shopify (Buy vs Bring Your Own)

If you already own a domain, connect it to Shopify rather than buying another: on our store it took one DNS record, and the certificate was issued about three and a half minutes after the record was right. If you do not own one yet, Shopify sells a .com for $16 a year, but read the renewal line before you pick a cheaper ending: .store was $9 for the first year and $52 every year after. We did both on our own store, Ridge & Oak Supply, on the Basic plan on 24 September 2026. We bought nothing, and we connected a subdomain of our own site to see every screen.

What we tested, and what we did not

• Our store: Ridge & Oak Supply, a real Shopify store on the paid Basic plan. How we opened it is in how to start a Shopify store.
• Buying: we ran the Buy new domain search and recorded every price it showed. We stopped at that price list.
• Connecting: we connected demo-store.liveinaiworld.com, a subdomain of our own website's domain, whose DNS is at Cloudflare. We timed each step.
• Not tested: connecting a root domain (example.com without www), transferring a domain into Shopify, and email on the domain. For the root domain, the records below come from Shopify's Help Center and are marked as such.

Where domains live in Shopify

Everything happens in Settings > Domains. On our store the page had three buttons, Connect existing, Transfer domain and Buy new domain, and a list with the address every store starts with, 6swfmn-0a.myshopify.com, marked Primary.

Two things on that page are worth knowing before you choose:

• A banner read: "Buy or connect a custom domain and earn $20 USD in subscription credits toward future bills. Terms apply." It applies to connecting a domain you already own, not only to buying one.
• A card offered to change the myshopify.com address for free "to better match your brand". If you are not ready for a custom domain, that at least replaces the random letters in your store's address.

Option 1: buy a domain inside Shopify

Buy new domain opened with a search already filled in from our store name. These are the prices it showed on 24 September 2026, in US dollars:

The cheapest first year is the most expensive name to keep. A .store at $9 costs $52 in year two, more than three times the .com. Shopify's AI Suggested list, right under the .com, offered one too: oakridgegoods.store, $9 and then $52. If the name is going on packaging and business cards, price it at the second-year number.

Where we stopped: each row has a Buy button, and our store has a card on file for its plan. We could not confirm from the page that Buy opens a confirmation step before charging, so we did not press it. If you are only comparing prices, the list above is all you need; nothing is charged until you buy.

Option 2: connect a domain you already own

This is the route we took end to end.

1. Settings > Domains > Connect existing. A small window asks for the domain and gives two examples, "example.com, shop.example.com". We entered our subdomain and pressed Next.
2. Shopify identified where our DNS is hosted. The domain page said "Managed by Cloudflare", showed the status Needs setup, and listed three steps: configure DNS records, DNS propagation, and "TLS certificate is not provisioned".
3. Pick automatic or manual. Shopify offered Connect automatically, described as a "Quick and secure way to connect with Shopify", and Manual setup, which starts with logging in to your DNS provider yourself. We chose Manual setup, because it works the same way with any provider.
4. Add the record. For a subdomain, Shopify asked for exactly one record:

5. Press I updated DNS records, then wait for the certificate. Shopify's page estimated five minutes.

For a root domain such as example.com, Shopify's Help Center (read 24 September 2026) lists different records: an A record with the name @ pointing to 23.227.38.65, an AAAA record pointing to 2620:0127:f00f:5::, and a CNAME for www pointing to shops.myshopify.com. The same page says "It might take up to 48 hours for your domain to be fully live." We did not connect a root domain, so we cannot give you our own timing for that case.

How long it took on our store

From a correct record to a provisioned certificate: about three and a half minutes. Your provider and your record's TTL can make it slower; Shopify's own ceiling is the 48 hours above.

If your domain is on Cloudflare, turn the proxy off

When you add a record in Cloudflare's dashboard, the proxy (the orange cloud) is on by default, so that is how we started. It looked like it worked: the store opened on the new address within seconds. Then Shopify's domain page added an Issue badge:

Your domain is connected, but we recommend you review the following issue: Your domain has a Cloudflare Proxy, which is not supported by Shopify.

Shopify was seeing two Cloudflare addresses (172.67.130.62 and 104.21.3.48) instead of its own. We switched the record to DNS only (the grey cloud). Within 18 seconds public resolvers returned Shopify's address, and within about three and a half minutes the issue was gone and Shopify showed "TLS certificate provisioned for secure connections".

So the trap is that nothing looks broken. The store loads, and only the domain page tells you the setup is one Shopify does not support. If your DNS is at Cloudflare, set the Shopify records to DNS only from the start.

Shopify made the new domain primary by itself

We did not choose a primary domain. Right after the records checked out, the type of our new domain changed from "Redirects to 6swfmn-0a.myshopify.com" to Primary domain, the store's header switched to the new address, and the myshopify.com address moved underneath it. That is what most stores want, but check it if you are connecting a second domain to a store that already has one.

The Change button next to the domain type offers three options, described on the page like this:

• Primary domain: "Displayed in the address bar when visitors are browsing Online Store."
• Redirecting domain: "Directs users to the primary domain for Online Store."
• Alias domain: "Displays contents of Online Store but doesn't redirect or update the browser address bar." Shopify adds: "Misuse can harm SEO."

For almost every store: one primary domain, and everything else set to redirect to it.

Buy or bring your own: which to choose

Connecting did not add a charge on our store: after it was done, Settings > Billing showed an upcoming bill of $0.00. The $20 credit the banner promised had not appeared there yet when we checked on the same night; the banner says terms apply, so read them before you count on it.

Once the domain is live, the next steps are adding your first product and deciding how you will get paid, which we covered in Shopify Payments: what it asks for. If you are still weighing the monthly cost, is Shopify worth it has every plan price.

Verdict

Connect the domain you already have. It added no charge on our store, it took one record for our subdomain, and the certificate was ready in minutes, as long as the record is not behind Cloudflare's proxy. If you need to buy one, a .com at $16 a year is the honest default; the cheap first year on newer endings can hide a renewal more than five times the first-year price.