If your company is moving its website and nobody is sure where the .ae domain is registered, or in whose name, this is for you. The site move is the easy part. The domain is what can take your enquiry forms, your email and the links in your listings down with it, and every one of those carries leads. If your registrar, host and renewals are already in the company's name and working, you can stop here.
How does a domain cost you leads during a site move?
Three ways, and none is about the new site. The domain renews on a card nobody watches and lapses: the enquiry form, the email and every link in your portal listings and WhatsApp replies stop at once. Someone changes the DNS and deletes the mail records by mistake, and replies to buyers bounce for a day. Or a freelancer registered it years ago on a personal account, nobody can log in, and the launch waits on a person you cannot reach.
The other mistake is moving the domain because the site moved. You do not have to. A domain and a site are separate. The UAE's own .ae Domain Administration (part of the TDRA) says a .ae domain is "portable": the website can sit on a server in the UAE or overseas, as long as the DNS records point at it.
Which domains can you buy on Vercel, and which not?
Most global endings, but not .ae or .in. We checked Vercel's registrar list of supported endings on 16 October 2026: 556 endings, including .com, .ai, .dev, .io, .app and .co. Neither .ae nor .in was on it.
That settles the decision for most Gulf and India businesses. Your .ae stays with an accredited registrar: the TDRA says .ae names are registered through .aeDA accredited registrars or their resellers, and that you can choose, and change, your registrar during the licence term. So if your current one is the problem, move registrar, not ending. You add it to the Vercel project and set the DNS values the project's Domains settings show. Your .com can move to Vercel if you want one bill, or stay where it is. Nothing about the site requires the move.
One thing a domain does not do: put your site in a country. Vercel lists 19 compute regions, and none is in the UAE or Saudi Arabia (Mumbai is nearest). A .ae ending says who you are, not where the server runs.
What do domains cost on Vercel today?
The registry's own price. Vercel's pricing page says it sells domains "at the wholesale price set by each registry for registration, renewal, and transfer. The price we pay is the price you pay." The catch is in the renewal column.
Read the table for two traps. A .io costs USD 14.99 in year one and USD 46.00 every year after: budget the renewal, not the first year. And a .ai is sold as a two-year term at USD 160, so it is not USD 160 a year. WHOIS privacy is included for many endings but "Not included" for some, such as .au and .asia, so check yours on the page.
You can search and price without an account. Vercel's guide says search and pricing need no login; buying and managing do.
How does a Dubai brokerage move its site?
Here is the shape for a Dubai brokerage with a .ae it has used for years, a .com it bought later, and enquiry forms that feed Salesforce. It is an illustrative example, not a client.
- 01Find out where each domain is registered and in whose name, before anything else. If it is a person's account, move it into the company's name at that registrar first.
- 02Keep the .ae at its registrar, decide whether the .com moves to Vercel or stays (either works), and add both domains to the Vercel project.
- 03Set the DNS values the Domains settings show, at each registrar. Change only the website records; leave the mail records exactly as they are: MX, and the SPF, DKIM and DMARC text records that let your mail pass spam checks. Copy all of them down before you touch anything, and check a test email's headers after, not just that it arrived.
- 04Send one test lead through every form on the new site and confirm it lands in Salesforce with the right owner.
- 05Name one person who owns renewals, with the dates in the company calendar.
If the DNS change goes wrong, put the old values back: that is why you copy them down first. The step that takes longest is the first, not the DNS. For a brokerage whose buyers find it by its .ae, a lapsed renewal is the expensive failure: the forms, the email and the links in every listing stop together. It has nothing to do with Vercel. See how the lead side runs for real estate brokers; the same steps hold for PRO services firms, whose clients know them by their .ae.
What does the move cost, and what goes in a questionnaire?
A sample month after the move, with the assumptions shown: Vercel Pro at USD 20 (about AED 73), which includes one deploying seat, USD 20 of usage credit and a CDN tier of 1 million requests and 1 TB of transfer, for a company site that stays inside those. The .com adds USD 11.25 a year if you buy it on Vercel. Your .ae renewal stays whatever your registrar charges today, because Vercel does not sell it. Above the credit, usage is pay as you go, and every new team starts with an on-demand budget of USD 200 that you can change.
When a client's security questionnaire asks about the site, split each answer between what Vercel covers and what stays yours:
Who should own the domain?
Your company, always. The registration, the Vercel account and the renewal card should all be in the company's name, not a freelancer's or ours. When we build on Vercel, your account stays in your company's name and Vercel bills you for it. You can leave with the code, the account and the domains at any time.
Our method is "Preview every change": every edit to the site lands on its own preview link, and someone says yes before customers see it. The domain is the one thing that should not change at all. We are not a Vercel partner and are not affiliated with Vercel; we pick it per job. See how hosting on Vercel works and the rest of what we build on Vercel.
This is not for a business happy with its registrar and its current host. Do not move anything for the sake of it; point the domain and leave it.
When we take on a site move, the assessment is free and tells you where each domain is, in whose name, and what the move touches. The first build week is a fixed AED/SAR 14,900, credited in full if you sign the build within 60 days. You hear back within 24 hours from the person who signs the work. A Run plan keeps the site and its renewals watched after go-live.
