Custom domains

A custom domain lets your customers reach their galleries at your address — for example photos.yourbusiness.com — instead of a Tobren URL. It’s a paid add-on you enable in Settings.

Before you start

• Available on Starter and above. The custom-domain add-on can be enabled on the Starter, Professional, Studio, and Enterprise plans. On Free, upgrade your plan first.
• After your trial converts to a paid plan. Custom domains are disabled during the free trial (we don’t provision certificates for unpaid accounts) — they unlock once your trial converts. If you want it sooner, convert your trial from Settings → Billing.
• Use a subdomain, e.g. photos.yourbusiness.com. Apex domains (yourbusiness.com with nothing in front) aren’t supported, because most registrars don’t allow CNAME records at the apex.
• You’ll need access to your domain registrar’s DNS settings (Hostinger, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, etc. — they all call this a “CNAME record”, usually under “DNS Management” or “DNS & nameservers”).

Setup, step by step

You add two CNAME records — one to route traffic, one for the SSL certificate. Both are shown to you at the same time, so you can add them in one sitting.

1. In Tobren Deliver, open Settings → Custom domain and click Enable custom domain add-on (this is what’s billed below). You can’t add a domain until it’s enabled.
2. Enter your full subdomain (e.g. photos.yourbusiness.com) and click Configure.
3. The app shows you two CNAME records:
   • a traffic CNAME that points your subdomain at Tobren, and
   • an SSL / certificate-validation CNAME with a name and value unique to your domain.
4. In your registrar’s DNS settings, create both CNAMEs exactly as shown.
   • If your registrar requires a trailing dot on the value, include it.
5. Wait for DNS to propagate — usually 15 minutes to a few hours (occasionally up to 48).
6. Back in Settings, click Check DNS. You don’t have to keep clicking it, either — we also recheck automatically about once an hour, so a domain that finishes propagating while you’re away still goes through on its own.
7. Once DNS checks out, the section shows Setting up while the certificate and routing finish — this can take up to about 30 minutes. It changes to Live when your galleries are reachable on your domain.

Finish within 7 days

A domain that has never passed its DNS check 7 days after you entered it is released: Settings no longer shows it, the add-on is turned off (see Billing below), and we email the workspace owner. A domain that verified once is not released this way. If its DNS later stops pointing to us, it is turned off, and it is released if it isn’t verified again within 30 days. That keeps a domain from being held by a workspace that can’t verify it. If yours is released, add the records, turn the add-on back on and enter the domain again.

Don’t invite anyone until it says Live

Until your domain is live, invites and emails still use your studio’s Tobren address. If you invited someone during setup and their link fails, resend the invite once the domain is live.

Add both records — this is the most common mistake

It’s easy to add only the traffic CNAME and stop. Without the second (certificate-validation) CNAME, the SSL certificate can’t be issued: your domain may load but show a certificate / “not secure” warning in the browser until both records resolve and provisioning completes. If you reload the Settings page and only see one record, re-enter the domain to see both again.

After it’s live

• The certificate renews automatically — no action needed.
• Keep the traffic CNAME in place. If it stops pointing at Tobren, Settings shows a DNS warning and we email you; if it isn’t fixed, the custom domain is deactivated automatically, which also turns the add-on off (see Billing below).
• To move to a different subdomain, click Replace domain, enter the new one and repeat the two-CNAME steps for it. The add-on stays on and there is no new charge. Your old domain stops working when you save, and a Custom sender email address on it is cleared; set it up again on the new domain once it’s live. (Remove domain is different: it turns the add-on off, see Billing below, and clears your Custom sender email settings.)

Troubleshooting

• “Not secure” / certificate warning — the certificate is still provisioning, or the validation CNAME is missing/incorrect. Confirm both records resolve, then give provisioning a little longer.
• Check DNS keeps failing — DNS may not have propagated yet; wait and retry. Double-check there are no typos and no extra/duplicate records for the same name.
• “This domain can’t be used as a custom domain” — the domain belongs to Tobren or to a hosting platform we rely on (for example anything under tobren.io). Use a subdomain of a domain you own.

Billing

The custom-domain add-on is $3.99/month (or $3.39/month on an annual plan). When you enable it, you’re charged a prorated amount for the remainder of your current billing period, and the full add-on rate applies on each renewal after that.

When that prorated charge lands:

• Monthly plans: it’s combined into your next monthly bill — so that bill shows the prorated remainder of this period plus the next month’s add-on, all on one itemized receipt (alongside your subscription and any overages).
• Annual plans: the prorated amount is charged shortly after you enable it (not held until your yearly renewal).

Removing your domain turns the add-on off, and billing for it stops: click Remove domain in Settings → Custom domain and the add-on isn’t charged at your next renewal. A prorated amount that hasn’t been charged yet is dropped; an add-on charge already made (including an annual plan’s prorated charge) isn’t refunded. Turning the add-on back on later starts a new prorated charge for the rest of that billing period. See Pricing & overages.

The add-on is also turned off when Tobren takes your domain down: when it is deactivated automatically because it stopped serving, when it was never verified within 7 days of being entered, when your workspace is disabled by Tobren, or when it is deleted. Re-enabling a workspace doesn’t bring the domain back, so the add-on doesn’t keep billing for a domain you no longer have. To use your domain again, turn the add-on on and set it up as before. If the add-on was already paid for your current billing period, turning it back on before that period ends costs nothing extra; the next renewal charges it as usual.