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They are the two smallest lines on your invoice, and one is the only one that can genuinely put you in difficulty. Here is what each covers, what a fair price looks like and the three mistakes that prove expensive.
The difference in one picture
The domain name is your address. Hosting is the premises. You can move premises while keeping your address, but if you lose the address, nobody can find you, even if the premises are immaculate.
That imbalance explains everything else: changing hosting provider is a technical inconvenience lasting a few hours; losing your domain is a direct loss of customers.
The domain name
Market price: €8 to €15 per year for .fr, €10 to €20 for .com. Some registrars advertise €1 for the first year and €25 for subsequent years, which is legal but deserves a careful read.
A domain is not bought; it is rented. You can use it as long as you renew it. If renewal fails, the domain enters a quarantine period for a few weeks, then becomes available to anyone again. Companies monitor expiries specifically to buy domains with traffic and sell them back to you.
Two habits remove this risk. Enable automatic renewal and check that the stored payment card is valid. An expired card is the most common cause of domain loss.
The point that matters more than the price
The domain must be registered in your name, with your email address as the owner’s contact. Not your provider’s name, and not the name of the nephew who helped you out in 2019.
To check, run a Whois lookup on your domain or simply ask for the registrar login details. If someone says that is unnecessary, insist. An honest provider gives them to you without argument because it is your asset.
This is the only one of the two invoice lines that can leave you stuck. A website can be rebuilt within a few weeks. An address controlled by somebody else cannot.
Hosting
This is the server that stores your files and sends them to visitors. There are three main levels, distinguished by how many websites share the same machine.
- Shared hosting: €3 to €15 per month. Hundreds of websites on one server. Perfectly suitable for a business website with normal traffic.
- Dedicated or virtual server: €20 to €100 per month. You have your own resources. Useful for ecommerce or a website with traffic spikes.
- Modern on-demand hosting, such as Vercel or Netlify: free to €25 per month for a business website. Fast by design, with automatic scaling.
For a company’s business website, anything above €30 per month needs explaining. If you are charged €80 monthly for a six-page website, ask what that covers beyond the server. The answer is often ‘maintenance’, which is a separate service bundled into the same line.
The security certificate
The little padlock and HTTPS. It has been free for years thanks to Let’s Encrypt, and every reputable hosting provider installs it automatically.
If it is charged at €100 per year on a separate line, ask why. Paid certificates with business validation exist, useful for a bank and unnecessary for a business website.
Do check, however, that it is active and renews. An expired certificate displays a red warning to visitors, and most stop there.
Email: the cost discovered too late
Owning a domain does not give you a professional email address. That is a separate service. Some shared hosting providers include one or two mailboxes; others include none.
A proper business mailbox costs €2 to €7 per month per person with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Simple forwarding to your personal address is often free, but it does not let you send from your domain name, which is noticeable.
Ask before launch, not afterwards. Moving email for an active domain requires precision, and a mistake can lose messages for several hours.
A realistic budget
For a business website, an honest total is around €15 per year for the domain, €5 to €15 per month for hosting and €5 per month if you want a proper email account. That comes to between €130 and €250 per year.
Anything substantially above that range includes something beyond the domain and hosting. That is not necessarily unreasonable, but you have the right to know what it is.
Frequently asked questions
01Can I change hosting provider and keep my website?
Yes, provided you have access to the files and database. Transferring a business website takes a few hours. That is precisely why hosting is the less risky of the two costs.
02What happens if I forget to renew my domain?
The website goes offline immediately, along with your email. The domain remains recoverable for a few weeks in quarantine, often for a fee, then becomes available to anyone. Enable automatic renewal and check your card’s validity.
03Should I register both .fr and .com?
If you sell only in France, .fr is enough and inspires local trust. Registering both costs around €30 per year and prevents a competitor taking the other one. At that price, it is reasonable insurance.
04My provider refuses to give me domain access. What can I do?
The domain’s registered holder is its legal owner. If that is you, contact the registrar directly with proof of identity to recover control. If it is the provider, negotiation is your only option, which is why this needs checking before signing.
