Tutorial Custom Domains Setup

How to Set Up a Custom Domain on Punapai

· 5 min read

Pointing your own domain at a Punapai landing page takes about three minutes once you know where the buttons are. This guide covers the exact steps for the three most common registrars: Namecheap, Cloudflare, and GoDaddy.

You will need:

  • A Punapai account on Pro, Business, or Enterprise (custom domains are not on the free plan).
  • A domain you own. If you do not have one yet, register it anywhere reputable. Namecheap, Cloudflare, GoDaddy, and Porkbun are all fine.
  • About 5 minutes total. Most of that is waiting for DNS to propagate.

Step 1: Add the Domain in Punapai

Log in to your dashboard. Open Custom Domains in the sidebar (you will only see this if your plan allows custom domains). Click New custom domain, type the domain you want to use, and save.

You will land on a view page that shows you exactly which DNS records to add at your registrar. There are three of them:

  • CNAME for the apex (your bare domain)
  • CNAME for www
  • TXT for ownership verification (this proves the domain is yours so we can issue an SSL certificate)

Keep that page open in a tab. You will be copying values from it.

Step 2: Add the DNS Records at Your Registrar

The destination values come from Punapai. The mechanics of where to paste them differ slightly per registrar. Here is each one.

Namecheap

  1. Log in to namecheap.com → Domain List → click Manage next to your domain.
  2. Click the Advanced DNS tab.
  3. Click Add New Record. Add three rows:
    • CNAME Record. Host: @. Value: the CNAME target shown in Punapai.
    • CNAME Record. Host: www. Value: same CNAME target.
    • TXT Record. Host: _punapai-verify. Value: the verification token shown in Punapai.
  4. Click the green checkmark on each row to save. This is the one Namecheap quirk that trips most people up. Adding a row without clicking the checkmark discards it when you navigate away.

Namecheap's DNS typically propagates in 1–5 minutes. Sometimes faster.

Cloudflare

  1. Log in to dash.cloudflare.com → click your domain.
  2. In the left sidebar, click DNS → Records.
  3. Click Add record three times:
    • Type: CNAME. Name: @. Target: the CNAME target from Punapai. Proxy status: DNS only (gray cloud, not orange).
    • Type: CNAME. Name: www. Target: same. Proxy status: DNS only.
    • Type: TXT. Name: _punapai-verify. Content: the verification token.
  4. Save each record.

One important note for Cloudflare: turn off the orange-cloud proxy for the apex and www CNAME records (set them to "DNS only"). With the proxy enabled, Cloudflare intercepts the traffic and our SSL provisioning fails. You can re-enable the proxy later if you want, but only after the domain is verified and serving correctly. Cloudflare propagates almost instantly.

GoDaddy

  1. Log in to godaddy.com → My Products → next to your domain, click DNS.
  2. Under Records, click Add three times:
    • Type: CNAME. Name: @. Value: the CNAME target from Punapai.
    • Type: CNAME. Name: www. Value: same.
    • Type: TXT. Name: _punapai-verify. Value: the verification token.
  3. Click Save on each.

GoDaddy can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour for changes to propagate, depending on caching. Usually closer to a few minutes.

A note on the apex CNAME

Some older DNS implementations forbid CNAME records on the apex (the bare domain, the @ in the host field). Modern registrars (including all three above) handle this transparently using ALIAS or ANAME records under the hood. If your registrar genuinely refuses, you can use an A record pointing to the IP we show in Punapai instead. It works the same.

Step 3: Verify in Punapai

Once the records are saved at your registrar, go back to the Punapai tab. Click Verify DNS on your domain's view page.

If the TXT record has propagated, you will see the status flip to Active with SSL marked as Provisioning. Within about 30 seconds the SSL state flips to HTTPS and your domain is live.

If verification fails, that almost always means the TXT record has not propagated yet. Wait a minute and try again. You can also check propagation manually: 

dig TXT _punapai-verify.yourdomain.com +short

If that returns the token from Punapai, you are good. Try Verify again. If it returns nothing, the record either has not propagated or was not saved (very common on Namecheap if you forgot to click the green checkmark).

Step 4: Attach a Project

Verified is not the same as serving content. Open the project you want to publish at this domain, find the Custom Domain dropdown in its settings, and select your verified domain. Save and publish.

That is it. Visit https://yourdomain.com/ and your landing page should load. Full HTTPS, your URL, your brand.

What If Something Goes Wrong

Most issues fall into one of three buckets:

  • Verification keeps failing. The TXT record is missing or wrong. Re-check it with the dig command above.
  • Browser shows the wrong cert. The CNAME is missing or pointing somewhere else. Run dig CNAME yourdomain.com +short and confirm it returns our hostname.
  • Cloudflare-proxied domain not provisioning SSL. Disable the orange-cloud proxy for now. Re-enable later if you want, after the domain is fully active.

Email support if you get stuck. Most domain issues clear up within an hour once the right DNS records are in place.

Why It's Worth Doing

A custom domain is the difference between "some page on a SaaS subdomain" and "a real brand at its own URL." We dug into the conversion, SEO, and trust math separately. See why yourbrand.com converts better than linktr.ee/yourbrand for the case in detail.

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