How to get a free domain name from OVH?

Whether you want to trademark your business, launch a new website or create personalized email addresses for your family, you need a domain name. In addition to being one of the best web hosts, did you know that OVHCloud offers its customers the possibility of obtaining a domain name for free with some of its hosting plans? We will explain everything to you.

OVH is probably the best known French host. Since its creation in 1999, the company has continued to expand, with the opening of data centers around the world to cover the needs of its customers. Now, 1.6 million customers trust OVHCloud, making the host one of the European leaders. You yourself may have decided to turn to the service to host your website and have arrived at the fateful moment: choosing a domain name. If the company will not be able to facilitate your choice, it still has an advantage, by offering its customers a domain name for one year with some of its hosting plans.

OVH hosting plans for a free domain name

OVH Kimsufi Web

OVH offers a domain name for one year from its first shared web hosting offer, the OVH Kimsufi Web. As its name suggests, we are on a minimalist hosting offer, making do with the essentials to launch a first website. For €1.91 including tax per month, OVH offers 1 GB of disk space, 2 email accounts of 5 GB each, a shared MySQL database of 100 MB as well as a free Let’s Encrypt certificate. This hosting allows you to host both static and dynamic sites since it is PHP and therefore WordPress compatible.

OVH Personal

The OVH Perso offer at €3.95 including tax per month is best suited for those who wish to launch a personal website or blog that can support a little traffic. This hosting plan can accommodate up to 5 sites, useful for creating multiple small sites or testing, with 100 GB storage and a 200 MB shared MySQL database. The Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate is always offered and email address needs are covered, with 10 5 GB email addresses included in the offer. When subscribing to the subscription, OVH offers to automatically install a CMS, between WordPress, PrestaShop, Drupal and Joomla. For this hosting, WordPress is the recommended solution.

OVH Pro

The host recommends its OVH Pro hosting plan for professional websites, which need more resources than a personal blog for example. For €7.91 including tax per month, the resources are still shared, but the storage increases to 250 GB and it is now possible to host up to 10 sites. Professional offer requires, the number of email addresses that can be created is now 100 to guarantee that everyone can have a professional email. Finally, this hosting allows you to create 3 databases of 400 MB and one database of 2 GB. Where the previous subscriptions were indicated to be only optimized for WordPress, this one is also optimized for Joomla. Of course, it remains possible to request the installation of PrestaShop or Drupal if you wish.

OVH Performance

The Performance plan differs slightly from the others. If the domain name and the Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate are still included in the subscription, the resources are this time guaranteed and OVHCloud gives the choice between four configurations. This hosting starts at €13.19 including tax per month for 1 vCore CPU and 2 GB of RAM guaranteed, and can go up to €44.87 including tax per month for 4 vCores and 8 GB of RAM. Regardless of the configuration choice, the storage is 500 GB and you can create 3 databases of 800 MB, one of 4 GB and benefit from a database on a private server with 512 MB of RAM. On the email side, 1000 5 GB email addresses are now offered. OVH Performance also has other advantages compared to other plans, including high availability included and the Basic version of the CDN offered.

OVH Cloud Web

Just like OVH Performance, OVH Cloud Web exists in three different configurations: 1 vCore 2.4 Ghz and 2 GB of RAM for the price of €13.19 per month, 1 vCore and 4 GB of RAM for €25.07 per month and 2 vCores and 8 GB of RAM for €44.87 per month. Resources are isolated here and customers can create as many databases as they want. The storage is on a local SSD, unlike the shared HDD of previous hosting, which means that its size drops considerably, from 10 to 65 GB. The number of email addresses is also reduced, with 200 email addresses of 5 Go. Just like Performance, OVH Cloud Web is optimized for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and PrestaShop, but it will be possible to install Node.js, Python, Ruby and PHP on the server if desired.

Extensions eligible for the offer

Who says websites says domain names. OVHCloud, as previously mentioned, includes a free domain name for one year with the majority of its web hosting. But be careful, not all extensions are part of the offer, even if the choice in this area turns out to be quite generous. The host allows you to benefit from its promotion on dozens of generic and geographic top-level domains:

• com ; net; biz; info ; org; name ; Fr ; D ; had ; be ; es ; it ; of ; at ; co.uk; me.uk ; org.uk; nl; us ; That ; cz; ch ; in ; lt; dk; p.m. ; so ; se ; yt ; tf; wf; pt; pl; ovh; X Y Z.

Please note that the offer is indicated as not valid for extensions whose transfer is free.

Hosting plans not eligible

If we have detailed above the hosting plans which allow you to obtain a free domain name, we must also specify that the promotion does not concern all the hosting offered by OVH. The most advanced of them, Dedicated Server and VPS hosting, do not allow you to benefit from a free domain name for a year. These plans are most often reserved for professional or advanced uses, for customers who generally already have a domain name.

Free domain name at OVH, for how long?

When OVHCloud talks about a domain name being offered, it does not mean that it is free for life. By reading the details of the web hosting, we can see that the free service is valid for the first year after purchasing the plan, for each subscription.

Renewal, what happens after?

Once the first year has passed, the price of the domain name is added to the price of hosting. OVHCloud leaves two possibilities for renewing the domain name: do it manually from its customer area, whenever you wish, by choosing a renewal period of several months or years, or opt for automatic renewal. The price depends on the extension chosen, not all being the same price:

• .fr: €8.39 including tax per year;
• .com: €10.79 including tax per year;
• .eu: €8.39 including tax per year;
• .net: €10.79 including tax per year;
• .info: €4.19 including tax per year;
• .org: €10.67 including tax per year.

OVH: services included with the domain name

With the purchase of a domain name on OVHCloud, whether you have also chosen to subscribe to hosting or not, several services are offered to us. For example, we can take advantage of a tiny web hosting called Start 10M, which will barely accommodate more than a single static page with its 10 MB of dedicated space, but which has the merit of being present. A personalized email address linked to the domain name can be created for free, with 5 GB of storage to contain all our messages. Finally, several protections are included, in particular against fraudulent domain name transfer requests and against attacks against the DNS server.