Domain Hosting vs Web Hosting: What’s the Difference?
A domain is your website’s name. Web hosting is the space that stores the website itself. “Domain hosting” usually means DNS hosting: the service that points your name at that space. Most small sites need all three, and buying the domain and hosting together is the easiest way to get them talking.
Picture a market stall
Your stall is the web hosting: the trestle table, the power lead, the roof over your stock. Take the stall away and there is nothing to look at.
Your stall name is the domain: what customers ask for, and what goes on the map at the gate.
That map is the piece almost nobody has a word for. Someone reads your name, finds “Stall 14”, walks over. The map is DNS, the Domain Name System, and keeping it accurate is what “domain hosting” nearly always means.
The mail pigeonholes are email hosting. Post never lands on the trestle table; it goes somewhere separate, and the map carries its own line saying so.
Stall 14 has a grid reference too. So do servers: an IP address like 203.0.113.10. Domain names exist because nobody memorises numbers.
Is domain hosting the same as website hosting?
No, and the wording is most of the problem.
Domain hosting is the odd term, because it is not really a product category. Almost everyone using it means DNS hosting: running the nameservers that answer where a name points. Web hosting is a separate purchase: server space rented by the month. Domain registration is a third: a name booked by the year.
DNS hosting is small and cheap, and a decent registrar includes it free. We do. Our position: if a company quotes “domain hosting” as its own paid line, ask what it covers. More often than not it is the registration you already pay for, or DNS you should get free.
Registrar and host are roles, not separate industries. One company can do both.
What is the difference between web hosting and domain hosting?
Side by side, with the third thing people fold into the question:
| Domain name | Web hosting | Email hosting | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A yearly registration on a name | Server space for your site’s files and database | Mailboxes on your domain, from us, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 |
| What it does | Gives people something to type and DNS something to point at | Stores and serves the pages a browser downloads | Handles mail at you@yourbusiness.co.nz |
| Without it | Visitors need the raw IP address, so nobody arrives | The name resolves to nothing: an error, not a site | You stay on an @gmail.com or @xtra.co.nz address |
| Cost with us, GST incl. | .org $18.99/yr · .com $19.99/yr · .co.nz $33.00/yr | From $4.49/month, renewing at your signup price | From $3.99/month, plus a free 10GB mailbox with every domain |
Web hosting comes in tiers: shared, where nearly every small New Zealand business should start; VPS, guaranteed slices for sites that outgrow sharing; and cloud, pooled machines that scale under load. All three are still web hosting.
Reading a domain name from the right
Take shop.yourbusiness.co.nz.
- .nz: the top level, a ccTLD run under InternetNZ policy. .com and .org are gTLDs, open to anyone.
- .co: the second level, marking a commercial .nz registration. In a .com your chosen name is the second level, which is why .co.nz carries one more rung.
- yourbusiness: the part you buy.
- shop: a subdomain, made in DNS yourself, free, as many as you need.
If you have not registered one yet, our step-by-step guide to buying a domain in New Zealand walks through the search and the registrant details.
Do I need web hosting for my domain?
Not always. The honest split:
- A normal website: WordPress, a static site, anything made of files. You need both.
- Shopify, Squarespace or Wix: hosting sits inside the subscription. You still need the domain, and registering it away from the builder is smarter: you keep the name if you leave.
- Email only: no web hosting needed. Just the domain, DNS and a mail provider. Common for tradies working off Facebook who want a proper address.
- A name you are not using: a spare .com nobody else should have, or one that forwards to your main site. A domain and a forwarding rule, not a hosting plan.
A domain without hosting is a name on the map pointing at an empty patch of grass. Hosting without a domain gives you a temporary address from the host that no customer will ever type. For most New Zealand small businesses the answer is both, and the second one is the cheaper.
How a domain and hosting connect
Two settings do the work. Nameservers, set at your registrar, name the DNS service in charge of your domain. Point them at your host and that host’s records take over.
DNS records live inside that service:
- A record: the IPv4 address of the server holding your site. AAAA does the same for IPv6.
- CNAME: an alias. The www version of your site usually points at the bare domain this way.
- MX record: where mail goes, independent of the A record. That is why your website and your email can sit at two different companies.
- TXT record: verification strings, plus the SPF and DKIM entries that keep your mail out of spam folders.
The mistake that catches people: changing nameservers moves every record at once, email included. Write your MX and TXT records down before you switch hosts, or the mail stops when the change takes hold. Allow up to 24 hours; cached lookups mean it is never instant.
An SSL certificate is issued against the domain but installed on the host. That is why a site can have a working name, working hosting and still throw a browser warning.
Every domain we register includes full DNS control (A, CNAME, TXT, MX and SRV), so you can point it anywhere, including at another company’s server. Buy the domain and shared hosting with cPanel together and we connect them for you.
Who the domain is registered to
Your registrar records a registrant against every name. For .nz that sits in the .nz register, overseen by InternetNZ and the Domain Name Commission. Individuals not acting in trade can have their details withheld from public WHOIS lookups; businesses generally show.
Look yours up. If the registrant is your web designer’s company rather than yours, you do not control that name. You are renting it. Cheap to check today, expensive to discover mid-argument.
Should you buy your domain and hosting from the same company?
Together is simpler: one login, one invoice, one number to ring, and the connection made for you.
Separate is fine, and sometimes better:
- You already have a registrar you trust and no reason to move.
- Your site lives on Shopify or Squarespace, which host it themselves, so all you need is the name.
- You want the domain held away from the host, so a hosting dispute can never take the name with it.
What matters more than the number of providers: the registration sits in your business’s name and you can edit DNS yourself. A provider who will not allow that is the problem.
What it costs
Prices are GST inclusive and listed in full on our domain pricing page and hosting plans. Hosting starts at $4.49 a month and renews at your signup price rather than jumping at year two. Free SSL, a free global CDN, DDoS protection, free migration, a website builder and cPanel are in the plan. Mailboxes on your own domain start at $3.99 a month. Renewals are where domains bite people, so we set those out in what a domain costs at renewal.
Your site runs on our global data centres and CDN locations, including Sydney and Singapore. What is local is the company. Bizgens Services Limited is 100% New Zealand owned and operated, the support team is in Hastings, and you are billed in New Zealand dollars.
Frequently asked questions
What is domain hosting?
In most cases it means DNS hosting: the nameservers that translate your domain into a server’s IP address. Registrars normally include it with registration. Some companies use the phrase to mean web hosting, which is where the confusion starts.
How does domain hosting work?
A browser asks DNS where yourbusiness.co.nz lives. Your nameservers reply with the records you set: an A record for the site, an MX record for mail. The browser then connects and downloads the pages.
What is the difference between a domain name and web hosting?
The domain name is the address people type. The hosting is the machine storing the files they look at. You rent the name by the year, the space by the month, and neither includes the other.
Is GoDaddy a domain company or a hosting company?
Both. GoDaddy sells domain registration and web hosting, as do Hostinger, Namecheap and us. One business doing both jobs is much of why the terms get muddled.
How much does domain hosting cost in New Zealand?
DNS hosting should cost nothing on top of your registration. A .org is $18.99 a year with us, .co.nz is $33.00, and web hosting starts at $4.49 a month, GST included.
If you are not sure which piece you are missing, ring the Hastings office on +64 022 547 6114. We will tell you either way.