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A custom domain lets your help center live at an address you own — like help.yourdomain.com — instead of the default Thea-hosted subdomain. That hostname is the recommended setup: it is short, easy for members to remember, and leaves your apex domain for your primary site. Thea handles SSL certificate provisioning and renewal automatically, so your team only needs to add one DNS record and click Verify. Custom domains are available on Pro and Business plans.

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Requirements

  • Plan: Pro or Business
  • Access to your domain’s DNS settings (through your registrar or DNS provider, e.g., Cloudflare, Route 53, Namecheap)

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Set up your custom domain

1

Open Domain Settings

In the Thea dashboard, go to Settings → Help center.
2

Enter your desired subdomain

Type the full subdomain you want to use, for example help.yourdomain.com. Thea does not support apex (root) domains for the help center — use a subdomain.
3

Copy the CNAME target

After you enter your subdomain, Thea displays a CNAME target hostname unique to your workspace. Copy this value — you’ll paste it into your DNS provider in the next step.
4

Create the CNAME record in your DNS provider

Log in to your DNS provider and create a new CNAME record:Save the record. The exact field names vary by DNS provider but the values are the same everywhere.
5

Verify in the Thea dashboard

Return to Settings → Help center and click Verify. Thea queries your DNS and confirms the CNAME record is in place.
6

Go live with automatic HTTPS

Once verification succeeds, your help center is live at your custom domain with a valid SSL certificate. Thea renews the certificate automatically before it expires — no action needed on your part.

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DNS propagation

DNS changes can take up to 24–48 hours to propagate across all global resolvers. During this window, some visitors may still land on the Thea-hosted subdomain URL — that URL stays active indefinitely, so no one gets a broken link while propagation completes. If Verify fails immediately after adding the record, wait 15–30 minutes and try again. If it still fails after several hours, double-check that the CNAME Name field contains only the subdomain label (e.g., help), not the full domain (e.g., help.yourdomain.com), which would create a record like help.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com.
Thea provisions and manages the SSL certificate for your custom domain automatically. Do not upload or configure your own SSL certificate — doing so will conflict with Thea’s provisioning and may take your help center offline.