Subdomain Planning
Web app hosting — Draw the hostname map before you choose the plan
Applications sprawl across names — app, api, admin, staging — and every one of them is a record, a certificate and a decision about where cookies are allowed to travel.
The short answer
Take Business hosting for a conventional application stack, keeping the convenience of a managed account, with a VPS taking over once the architecture stops being conventional, so match the plan to the application rather than to the advertising — and decide the subdomain layout before you order either.
Applications differ from sites in a way DNS notices: a brochure needs two hostnames, an application typically needs four or five, and the boundaries between them decide where sessions, cookies and certificates are valid.
Below: the hostname map, what a wildcard record does and does not solve, where staging belongs, and the plan we would order.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
24/7
Answers, any hour
1-click
One-click install
Free
SSL, issued for you
Daily
Copies taken daily
Written for people deploying an application rather than a website. The runtime questions are well documented; the naming questions are not, and they are much harder to change once users have bookmarked things.
An unglamorous checklist settles application hosting: how accurate cron is, how many workers there are, what the database allocation looks like, and whether reading your own logs takes a ticket. None of those four appears on a mainstream hosting comparison table — and neither does the subdomain layout that determines how the whole thing is addressed.
The hostname map, drawn once
A typical application wants four names: the marketing site on the apex, the application itself on app., the interface on api. if there is one, and staging. for the copy nobody should find.
Each of those is a CNAME or an A record you create in the same zone, and each gets its own certificate automatically when it resolves here. There is nothing exotic about the arrangement; the mistake is inventing it gradually.
Draw the map before launch, because a hostname change after users have bookmarked, integrated or embedded it is a migration in everything but name.
Cookies, sessions and where the boundary sits
Cookies scoped to example.com are visible to app.example.com and api.example.com; cookies scoped to app.example.com are not visible to a separate registered domain. That single rule decides whether your application and your marketing site can share a session.
It is also why an application on a wholly separate registration is a heavier arrangement than it looks: two registrations, two renewal dates, two certificates and no shared session boundary.
Unless you have a reason to separate the brands, keep everything under one registration and use subdomains for the divisions.
What a wildcard record actually solves
A wildcard record answers for every label you have not defined, which is useful when an application creates per-customer hostnames on demand and impractical to maintain one record at a time.
What a wildcard does not do is issue certificates. A wildcard certificate is a separate purchase with its own validation, and it is the piece people discover late when the first customer subdomain shows a browser warning.
For a fixed set of names — app, api, admin, staging — individual records are simpler, and the certificate for each installs itself when the name resolves here.
Staging, and keeping it out of the index
Staging copies let you try a change before it goes live, and they need a hostname that is unmistakably not production. staging.example.com is fine; a name that looks like the real one is not.
Keep it out of search results deliberately rather than hopefully: robots directives, a password, and no links to it from anywhere public. A staging copy indexed under its own subdomain competes with the site it was built to protect.
And keep MX records off it. Staging that can send real mail eventually sends real mail to real customers.
What we would recommend, working shown. Business hosting for a conventional application stack, keeping the convenience of a managed account, with a VPS taking over once the architecture stops being conventional, so match the plan to the application rather than to the advertising.
In our range that means the Overdrive plan — SSL, the move and mail already inside, renewal charged at the order rate, and an upgrade path so this decision never has to be made twice.
Order an annual plan and the first year of the name's registration is on us.
Take no claim on trust, ours included. Check the renewal figure is published up front rather than tucked into a footnote, put a real question to support at an inconvenient hour and judge the reply, read the refund policy for carve-outs, and look up the company registration — ours is Azaanex Inc., federally incorporated in Canada.
Then let real use decide. Two working weeks inside the money-back window beats every review roundup ever written, and trying us costs the minute it takes to file a migration request.
Our interest, declared up front
We sell the names and the accounts underneath them, so treat this as a registrar's view of application hosting. The subdomain advice is the part we most often give to people whose application is hosted somewhere else entirely.
Free SSL, a free migration, renewals billed at the original rate, and people on support around the clock. That is the whole of it.
- Subdomains created and pointed in one panel
- A certificate per hostname, issued automatically
- Wildcard records where an application needs them
- Staging on a hostname that is obviously staging
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
A company you can look up
Azaanex Inc., federally incorporated in Canada — a registrar and host whose filing you can read before committing to anything.
One registration, many hostnames
app, api, admin and staging as records in the same zone, which keeps renewals, certificates and session boundaries in one place.
Certificates without a task list
Free SSL issues and installs for every hostname that resolves here, and reissues before the old one lapses.
Wildcards where they earn it
A wildcard record for applications that mint hostnames on demand, with the certificate question answered before your first customer meets it.
Staging copies for trying a change
A separate hostname and a separate copy, so a change is tested somewhere that is not production.
The verdict, turned into an order
The Overdrive plan is this page's conclusion in product form — one rate, essentials inside, upgradeable in place.
Prices Side by Side
How our prices sit against the majors
What the market typically charges to join and to renew, set beside ours, including the renewal figure most comparison charts leave out.
| Feature | Hosting & DomainsMost popular | Typical household-name host | Typical bargain host | Typical loss-leader deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price / mo* | $2.42/mo | $4–$6 | $2–$4 | $1–$3 |
| Renewal price / mo | $2.42/mo | $10–$15 | $8–$12 | $4–$6 |
| Entry-level plan renews at the price you signed up at | ||||
| SSL as standard | ||||
| Migration done for you | ||||
| NVMe drives on the entry-level tier | ||||
| Backups run every day from the first tier up | ||||
| Real humans on support, 24/7 |
*Our own column shows the lowest-priced annual plan on our books, pulled live from the same catalogue that feeds the pricing page, which is why it cannot go stale. Beside it sit three columns holding the ranges that hosts in each bracket tend to advertise: introductory rates that normally ask for one to four years up front, then climb once the term runs out. Naming rivals and printing their figures is something we gave up, since a price nobody can verify on the day you happen to read this has no business on the page. Measure us against the host you are actually weighing up, and give the renewal row the hardest look of the lot.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Write the hostname map on one line
Marketing site, application, interface, staging. Four names, decided before launch, because renaming any of them afterwards is a migration in everything but name.
- 2
Decide the cookie boundary at the same time
Whether sessions are shared between the site and the application follows entirely from whether they sit under one registration. Choose deliberately rather than by accident.
- 3
Create the records and let the certificates issue
Point each hostname at the account, confirm each one loads over HTTPS, and keep MX records off anything that is not production.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- Subdomains created and pointed without a ticket
- Free SSL on every hostname that resolves here
- Wildcard records available for on-demand hostnames
- Staging copies for trying a change before it goes live
- PHP versions set per site from the control panel
- SSH, Git and Composer on the developer plans
- Cron for scheduled and background work
- A daily copy, with restores you run yourself from the panel
- Upgrades applied in place, with no migration when you change plan
- The name's first year included when you order annually
Frequently Asked
Questions we field again and again
Should the application sit on a subdomain or its own registration?
A subdomain, unless the application is a distinct brand you might sell or move independently. One registration means one renewal date, one certificate arrangement and a shared cookie boundary between the marketing site and the application. Two registrations mean two of everything and no shared sessions, which is occasionally what you want and usually not.
Do I need a wildcard DNS record?
Only if the application creates hostnames you cannot list in advance — per-customer subdomains, for instance. For a fixed set such as app, api, admin and staging, individual records are clearer and each gets its own certificate automatically. Be aware that a wildcard record and a wildcard certificate are separate things; the record answers, the certificate is a separate purchase with its own validation.
Where should staging live, and how do I keep it out of search?
On an unambiguous hostname such as staging.example.com, protected by a password and robots directives, with no public links pointing at it. Leave MX records off it entirely: a staging copy that can send mail will, sooner or later, send it to a real customer.
Can the application and the marketing site share a login session?
Only if they share a registered domain. A cookie set for example.com is readable by app.example.com and api.example.com; nothing set on one registration is readable on another. If single sign-on across the whole product matters, that is decided at the moment you choose whether to use a subdomain or a second name.
Keep reading
Business Hosting
Business hosting with the runtime, the cron and the records in one account.
Domain Names
Names at a plain price, with the renewal figure printed beside the first year.
Changing provider? Work through this checklist beforehand.
A straightforward running order for a migration your visitors never spot: which files travel first, how to bring the mail across without dropping a single message, the right moment to repoint DNS, and the two errors that sit behind almost every outage we get called in to fix.
Map the names, then order.
Subdomains created in one panel, a certificate on each, and the whole zone editable without a ticket.
View Business Hosting plans