On a traditional web host — Bluehost, HostGator, SiteGround, A2 Hosting, DreamHost, Hostinger and other cPanel hosts — your website and your mailbox often live on the same account. That's the one setup where "my email works fine right now" can lull you into a nasty surprise: it works right up until you cancel the host, and then it stops, because the mailbox lived there.
Two different things on one account
- Your website record — the A / CNAME that says where your site loads. To move to us, you only change this one record. See Connect your own domain.
- Your mailbox — the actual inbox where your mail is stored and read. On cPanel/webmail hosting, this lives on the host, not with a separate provider like Gmail or Microsoft 365.
We don't host mailboxes. We send from your domain and forward form and order emails to whatever inbox you use — but the inbox itself has to live somewhere, and on cPanel that "somewhere" is the host you're leaving.
Why cPanel email dies when you cancel
Cancelling the hosting account removes the mailbox that was part of it. Your MX records may even still point at the old host afterwards — but there's nothing there to receive the mail. So checking "email still works" before you cancel proves nothing: it will still work right up to the moment the account closes.
The safe order (don't skip a step)
- Move your mailboxes to a new email provider first. Pick a mailbox host (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho Mail, etc.), create your addresses there, and copy across the mail you want to keep. Set up their MX / SPF / DKIM records at your DNS.
- Confirm mail is really flowing at the NEW provider — send yourself a test from outside and reply to it. Don't trust the old inbox for this.
- Repoint your website — add our one A / CNAME record and check the site loads. See Move your website to us without breaking your email.
- Verify BOTH the website and the new email are working.
- Cancel the old host last — only once steps 1–4 all check out.
The split case: registrar vs host
Sometimes your domain is registered at one company (say GoDaddy or Namecheap) while your website and email are on a separate cPanel host. If so, your DNS may be managed in either place:
- If DNS is at the registrar, you add the website record there and your mailbox move is separate.
- If DNS is in cPanel (Zone Editor) on the host, the records themselves disappear when you cancel — so move your DNS to your registrar first, then follow the safe order above.
Not sure which case you're in? Run the safe switch preview — it reads your live DNS and tells you whether your email looks like it's hosted on the same host as your site — or contact us and we'll check it with you. We'll never tell you your email is safe when it might stop.