Connect your own domain to your help center so customers visit your brand URL instead of a helpdesky.io address.
This is one of four hosting options. Your help center can live at the Helpdesky address, on your own subdomain (this guide), on a subfolder of your website such as yourcompany.com/help, or headless inside your own templates. Your old links keep redirecting whichever you choose. Not sure which fits? See Choosing Where to Host Your Help Center.
How Custom Domains Work
By default, your help center is at https://helpdesky.io/help/your-slug. With a custom domain, you can use something like help.yourcompany.com instead. This is the Your own subdomain option in the Hosting card under Help Center → Domain & Address.
Step 1: Add Your Domain
Open Help Center → Domain & Address in your dashboard (the Help Center menu in the top navigation)
In the Hosting card, choose Your own subdomain
Enter your subdomain (for example
help.yourcompany.com) and click Connect domainConfirm the domain has been saved before configuring DNS. A setup checklist appears under the field and updates on its own while DNS spreads and the certificate is issued
Domain & Address lives in the Help Center menu. The header shows the address your help center is live at right now.
Enter your desired hostname in the highlighted field. The demo screenshot shows the placeholder help.yourcompany.com.
Step 2: Configure DNS
Add a CNAME record with your DNS provider pointing to the Helpdesky origin:
| Type | Name | Target |
|---|---|---|
| CNAME | help | origin.helpdesky.io |
If you are using a subdomain like help.yourcompany.com, the Name field would be help. If using a root domain, you may need an ALIAS record instead.
If you are using Cloudflare DNS, make sure the CNAME record is set to DNS only (gray cloud icon), not Proxied. SSL is handled automatically by Helpdesky.
Step 3: Add DCV Delegation Record
To enable automated SSL certificate issuance and renewal for your custom domain, you also need to add a second CNAME record for DCV (Domain Control Validation) delegation:
| Type | Name | Target |
|---|---|---|
| CNAME | _acme-challenge.help.yourcompany.com | 83c87f4676a766fa.dcv.cloudflare.com |
Replace help.yourcompany.com with your actual custom domain. For example:
- If your domain is
help.acme.com, the Name would be_acme-challenge.help.acme.com - If your domain is
support.example.org, the Name would be_acme-challenge.support.example.org
This record allows Cloudflare to automatically validate and renew your SSL certificate without any manual intervention.
Both DNS records (the main CNAME and the DCV delegation CNAME) are required for your custom domain to work with HTTPS.
Step 4: Wait for SSL
After saving your domain and updating DNS, Helpdesky automatically provisions an SSL certificate through Cloudflare. This usually takes a few minutes.
You can follow progress on Help Center → Domain & Address. The checklist under your domain shows the DNS record, verification and certificate steps, and the header at the top of the page switches from Setup pending to Live once the certificate is ready.
What Changes
Once your custom domain is active:
Your help center is accessible at your custom domain
All articles, categories, and search work on the new domain
SEO metadata (sitemaps, canonical URLs) automatically updates to use your domain
The original
https://helpdesky.io/help/your-slugURL continues to work as well
DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate globally, though most updates complete within a few minutes. During propagation, some visitors may not be able to reach your custom domain.
Removing a Custom Domain
To disconnect your custom domain, open Help Center → Domain & Address and click Disconnect under your domain. Your help center goes back to its Helpdesky address (https://helpdesky.io/help/your-slug). You can also remove the CNAME and DCV delegation records from your DNS provider.