The shortest explanation
Picture a shop.
The domain is the address: "15 Vitosha Street". The sign you tell customers. It isn't the shop itself — just the name people find you by.
The hosting is the premises: the shelves, the electricity, the key to the door. The place your things actually sit.
You can have an address with no premises — a registered domain pointing nowhere. You can have premises with no address — a working site nobody can reach by name.
You need both, and you pay for them separately.
The domain — what you pay for and to whom
A domain is rented, not bought. You pay a yearly fee and, as long as you pay it, the name is yours and nobody else can take it. Stop paying and it goes back on the market.
Price depends on the ending: .bg, .com and .eu are different registries with different rules and different prices. Annually, most common endings run between EUR 10 and 35.
The money goes to a registrar — the company you register it through. That may be the same company as your host, or a completely different one. The domain is recorded in your name regardless of who you buy it from. If anyone tells you the domain is theirs because they registered it, that's grounds to change supplier.
How to pick a name, and the .bg specifics: How to choose a domain name.
The hosting — what you pay for
Hosting is a computer that runs around the clock and is connected to the internet. Your files sit on it. When someone opens your site, that computer hands the files over.
You can't use your own computer for this. Not because it's forbidden, but because it has to run 24 hours a day, have a fixed address, be secured, and not stop when the power flickers. So you rent one.
You pay monthly or yearly and get disk space, bandwidth, and usually mailboxes on your domain.
How the two connect
Here's the third concept that almost always gets skipped: DNS.
DNS is the internet's phone book. Your domain is listed in it, pointing at the address of the server holding your site. Change hosts and the domain stays the same — you only change which number it points to.
That's why changing host doesn't mean changing name, and changing name doesn't mean new premises. The two are independent, which is good news: you're not locked in anywhere.
How it works in practice: How to point your domain. Why it isn't instant: how DNS works.
What's missing from the list
Domain + hosting is not a complete website. Three more things nobody warns you about in advance:
- The site itself. Somebody has to build it. That's a separate cost — either a one-off to a developer, or included in a subscription.
- The SSL certificate. Without it the browser writes "Not secure" next to your address. Usually free these days, but not always included automatically. What it does and why it expires.
- Maintenance. A website isn't a painting on a wall. Updates, security, content changes, backups. If nobody's doing that, in two years you have an old site with security holes.
And a fourth, not technical but very real: someone who answers the phone when something breaks.
What it all costs in Bulgaria
Honest ranges, as of mid-2026:
| What | Realistic price |
|---|---|
A .com or .bg domain | ~EUR 10–35 / year |
| Shared hosting, at renewal | ~EUR 5–29 / month |
| A small brochure site from an agency or freelancer | hundreds to several thousand leva, one-off |
| Monthly website maintenance from an agency | ~EUR 40–45 / month |
| SSL certificate | EUR 0 (Let's Encrypt) |
Two clarifications that save disappointment:
The promo price is not the price. Hosting is advertised at a first-year rate and renews higher, often at double. Look at the renewal price, not the banner.
The line items add up. Hosting + domain + maintenance + certificate + "premium spam protection" + "SEO package" produces a bill that looks nothing like the advert. When you compare, add.
Where we sit in that picture
We sell everything on that list for one monthly price: hosting, domain, SSL, the website build, maintenance, and a person who picks up the phone. From EUR 60 a month.
That's roughly double the most expensive shared hosting plan at renewal — and it includes the website, which in the other scenario you pay for separately and all at once.
Whether that suits you comes down to one thing: what an hour of your own time is worth. If you can and enjoy setting up WordPress yourself, EUR 5 shared hosting is the sensible choice and we won't argue otherwise. If you'd rather never learn what DNS is — that's what we're for.