Deploy and Connect a Custom Domain

Deploy and Connect a Custom Domain

Publishing gets your app a working link. Connecting a custom domain is what makes it feel like a real product instead of a demo.

Step 1: Publish first

Before touching domains, publish your app from inside your builder (Lovable and Replit both have a one-click Publish/Deploy action). You'll get a default address — something like yourapp.lovable.app — that already works. Confirm the published version actually behaves the way your preview did; occasionally something that worked in preview needs a republish.

Step 2: Buy a domain, if you don't have one

Any registrar works — Namecheap, Google Domains, Cloudflare Registrar are common, inexpensive choices. Pick something short and easy to say out loud; you'll be typing it into the Facebook group a lot.

Step 3: Connect it in your builder

1Find the Domains or Publish settings inside your project.

2Choose "Connect custom domain" and enter the domain you bought.

3The platform will give you one or two DNS records to add — usually a CNAME record (for a subdomain like app.yoursite.com) or an A record (for the root domain).

Step 4: Add those records at your registrar

Log into wherever you bought the domain, find its DNS settings, and add exactly the records your builder gave you — don't guess at the values, copy them precisely. This step is the one place typos actually break things.

Step 5: Wait, then verify

DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to take effect. Most platforms show a "verifying" status that flips to "connected" automatically once it's propagated — you don't need to do anything else. SSL (the padlock/https) is provisioned automatically once the domain connects; you shouldn't need to configure that separately.

If it's not connecting

Double-check you copied the DNS values exactly, including any trailing characters. Make sure you didn't leave an old record pointing somewhere else for the same subdomain — conflicting records are the most common cause of a stuck connection. And give it more time before assuming it's broken; propagation delays are normal, not a sign something went wrong.

Once it's live, that's the link worth putting in your bio, your business card, and your first Facebook group post.