Why I Moved My Domains to Cloudflare (And Reconsidered My Entire Setup)
For the past few years, I had two domains managed through Squarespace Domains:
| Domain | Renewal Price |
|---|---|
iprofile.dev |
₹860/year (~$9.03) |
ullaskunder.tech |
₹2,870/year (~$30.14) |
Initially, everything seemed fine. The domains worked, renewals were enabled, and payment information was already saved.
But over time, the overall experience became increasingly frustrating — not because of one catastrophic issue, but because of repeated operational friction around basic account management.
Every year during renewal season, I would receive the same notification:
“Payment is Past Due. One or more charges to your account have failed.”
Even though:
- auto-renewal was enabled
- payment information was already stored
- the same card had worked previously
- the domains had been renewed successfully in prior years
Clicking “Resolve” would open a dashboard with several options like:
- update payment information
- invoices
- billing settings
…but it often led into a confusing loop without clearly explaining what had actually failed or what action was required.
The issue itself was manageable.
The problem was the overall experience around it.
When infrastructure tooling creates uncertainty around something as important as domain ownership and renewal, trust starts to erode quickly.
Email Forwarding Was the Final Push
Another issue that slowly reduced my confidence was email forwarding.
At one point, I started receiving emails that appeared to come from my own domain address:
The messages were unexpected, repetitive, and confusing enough that it became difficult to tell whether the issue was forwarding behavior, spoofed emails, or a configuration problem somewhere in the chain.
There may have been a valid technical explanation behind it.
But the bigger issue was visibility.
The platform did not make it easy to understand:
- what exactly was happening
- how forwarding was being processed
- whether the setup was secure
- or how to properly troubleshoot it
Over time, I decided to disable email forwarding entirely.
For infrastructure products, transparency matters a lot.
Even if an issue is technically harmless, unclear tooling and limited operational visibility can quickly reduce confidence in the platform.
The UI/UX Problem Nobody Talks About
One thing I underestimated before managing domains long-term was how important operational UX actually is.
Good infrastructure products reduce cognitive overhead.
Bad ones make even simple tasks feel unnecessarily stressful.
Over time, the Squarespace Domains experience started feeling difficult to navigate:
- billing flows felt unclear
- account actions were fragmented
- domain management lacked transparency
- the dashboard felt more marketing-oriented than operational
The email forwarding setup also created confusion at one point when I began receiving unexpected forwarded emails appearing to originate from my own domain address. While there may have been a technical explanation behind it, the lack of visibility and clarity around the configuration made troubleshooting uncomfortable enough that I eventually disabled forwarding entirely.
None of these issues alone were deal-breakers.
But collectively, they made domain management feel less reliable than it should.
Looking Into Cloudflare Registrar
I already had one domain on Cloudflare Registrar:
xforbes.com
Compared to my previous experience, the workflow felt significantly cleaner:
- straightforward DNS management
- better infrastructure visibility
- fewer upsells
- more developer-focused tooling
- tight integration with deployment platforms
So naturally, I started considering transferring everything over.
Then I checked the pricing.
Cloudflare’s “At-Cost Pricing” Explained
Cloudflare is widely known for its “at-cost” registrar pricing model.
That statement is accurate — but it does not automatically mean every domain will be cheaper.
Here’s the comparison I found:
| Domain | Squarespace | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
iprofile.dev |
₹860 (~$9.03) | ₹1,161 (~$12.20) |
ullaskunder.tech |
₹2,870 (~$30.14) | ₹4,684 (~$49.20) |
(Conversion based on ~$1 = ₹95.21)
The difference becomes especially noticeable with niche TLDs like .tech.
Cloudflare does not heavily discount registry pricing. Instead, it passes through the registry cost directly with minimal markup.
In contrast, some registrars appear to subsidize or discount certain TLDs as part of broader platform offerings.
That realization led me to rethink something more fundamental:
Did I actually want to keep paying premium renewal pricing for a .tech domain long-term?
Reconsidering My Domain Strategy
At that point, I decided not to transfer everything blindly.
Instead:
- I continued using
xforbes.comfor my product ecosystem - I started moving away from
ullaskunder.tech - I decided a standard
.comdomain made more sense for long-term personal branding
The .com route was:
- cheaper
- simpler
- easier to communicate
- more universally recognized
Sometimes infrastructure decisions are less about technical capability and more about long-term operational practicality.
The Part That Actually Went Smoothly
The migration experience between Vercel and Cloudflare was surprisingly clean.
Inside Vercel, I added:
xforbes.com
Initially, the dashboard showed:
- “Invalid Configuration”
- required DNS changes
- pending SSL generation
Vercel then provided an “Add Configuration” flow that redirected directly into Cloudflare.
After verifying the DNS entries, Cloudflare applied the required records automatically.
A few minutes later:
- DNS propagated successfully
- SSL certificates were generated
- redirects started working
- deployment became active in production
Compared to previous registrar experiences, the workflow felt much more infrastructure-oriented and predictable.
Final Thoughts
This started as a simple attempt to reduce renewal costs.
Instead, it turned into a broader reassessment of:
- registrar reliability
- operational UX
- infrastructure ownership
- DNS management
- long-term domain strategy
Pricing matters.
But confidence in the tooling matters too.
When the systems responsible for your domains feel transparent, predictable, and operationally focused, managing infrastructure becomes significantly less stressful.