Move a ChatGPT Site to Your Own Hosting (Keep the Domain)

You built a Site with ChatGPT, maybe put it on your own domain, and now you want it somewhere else: with a host in Europe, with a test stage before changes go live, with a database or background service Sites may not support, or simply next to your other sites. This guide moves it without giving up the domain. It takes six steps: collect the files, check them, upload them, replace the parts that only work inside Sites, switch the DNS, and retire the old address. Everything below works from the chat that built the Site and the files ChatGPT gives you.

If you want to stay on ChatGPT and only need your domain on the Site, you do not have to move: the ChatGPT Sites custom domain guide covers Add domain and the DNS problems that keep a domain pending. If you are still choosing between the two homes, host a website made with ChatGPT compares them point by point.

What a move changes, and what it leaves alone

Three facts make the rest of the guide easier to follow:

• Your domain stays yours. It is registered at your registrar, not at OpenAI. Moving the site changes which server the domain's records point to, nothing about who owns the name, and nothing about the email records next to them.
• The Site URL stays with Sites. The address ChatGPT generated at your first deploy lives on OpenAI's domain and cannot come along. Your own domain is the address that travels.
• The Site is untouched until you decide. Uploading a copy elsewhere does nothing to the Site. Keep it running until the new host answers on your domain, and retire it on your own schedule.

What moves with the files, and what stays behind

A Site is more than its pages. The table lists each part, where it lives on ChatGPT Sites according to OpenAI's help article and developer guide, and what takes its place on AI-Hosted, powered by VibeDeploy.

The first three rows are mechanical. The middle rows are where moves go wrong, so step 4 deals with them one at a time.

Step 1: Collect every file

Where the files are depends on how you made the Site.

From a project folder on your computer. In the ChatGPT desktop app you can start a Site from a compatible local project. Sites then links that folder to its hosting and records the link in a file called .openai/hosting.json. The source is already on your disk, and that folder is what you move.

In Work on ChatGPT web. Then the code lives with the Site, and the chat is your way to it. Open the chat where you created the Site, or open Sites in the sidebar, find the Site and select its edit icon; the message box opens with the Site already referenced. Then ask for everything at once:

Give me the complete source of this Site as separate files: every page, every stylesheet and script, and every image, icon and font it uses, with the folder structure and exact file names. Also tell me which parts read or write stored data or depend on Sites features such as Sign in with ChatGPT.

If ChatGPT offers the result as a file to download, take it. If it answers with code blocks, create a folder on your computer and save each block under the file name ChatGPT gives it. The second half of the prompt matters as much as the first: its answer is your list for step 4.

Step 2: Check the folder before you upload

A missing image is far easier to spot in a folder on your desk than after the domain has moved. Five checks catch nearly every gap:

1. Pages. Open the live Site and note every page you can reach from the menu, the footer and the buttons. Each needs a file in the folder, such as index.html for the home page and pricing.html or pricing/index.html for a pricing page.
2. Assets. Open index.html straight from the folder in your browser and click through. A broken picture, a font that falls back to plain text or a missing icon means a file is absent or a path is wrong. Ask ChatGPT for the missing file by name.
3. The old address. Search all files for the Site URL ChatGPT gave you. Absolute links to it still work today but tie the new site to the old one; change them to relative links such as contact.html.
4. Code that only runs on Sites. Search for signin-with-chatgpt, signout-with-chatgpt and oai-authenticated-user. Those are the sign-in paths and identity headers Sites itself provides, so they do nothing on another host. Code that talks to D1 or R2 belongs in the same group. Note every hit for step 4.
5. A build step. If the folder contains a package.json, it is a project that still has to be built. Run npm install and npm run build, then use the dist or build folder they produce. AI-Hosted refuses an unbuilt project, because nothing in it can be opened by a browser yet.

Step 3: Upload the site, or let ChatGPT send it

Start the 14-day trial, no card needed, and drop in the ZIP, the folder or, for a one-page site, the single HTML file. A moment later the site is live at an address on ai-hosted.com. Open that address on your phone and on a laptop before you go any further: this is the cheapest moment to find a problem, because your domain still points at Sites and your visitors still see the original.

Two other routes get the files there without the upload:

• The deploy guide. In the dashboard, Copy Magic File gives you an instruction sheet for your AI. Paste it into the ChatGPT conversation, and ChatGPT either sends the files itself or gives you a deploy page to open in your browser. The sheet carries a private deploy key, so paste it only into your own chat.
• An MCP connection. If your ChatGPT plan lets you add a custom MCP server with write access, or you also work in Claude, Cursor or Codex, connect the VibeDeploy MCP server once. Your AI can then deploy, edit and check the site as a built-in tool, which also matters for step 4.

Step 4: Replace what only worked inside Sites

Go through the notes from steps 1 and 2. A Site built as a landing page, a portfolio or a menu often has none of this, and you can go straight to the domain.

Contact forms. A form that saved entries in the Site's own storage needs a new destination. AI-Hosted's forms relay emails every submission to you, with no form service to sign up for. An AI connected over MCP switches it on with the set_forms_config tool and points the form at it; the relay has no dashboard screen yet.

Stored data. Records in D1 and files in R2 belong to the Site, not to the code ChatGPT gave you. If they matter, get a copy before the Site is gone: ask ChatGPT in the Site's chat how to export them, and open the result to check it. On AI-Hosted, static sites and single-page apps are served directly. A site can also run containers next to it (your own server, Postgres, MySQL, Redis or workers; up to 6 services with 2 CPU and 2 GiB in total), deployed by your AI through the MCP tool deploy_app and isolated with gVisor. Container data is not yet included in snapshots, so keep your own database exports.

Sign-in. Sign in with ChatGPT works on Sites, and OpenAI describes it as available elsewhere only to selected partners through a limited trial. If the sign-in only kept strangers out, a site password or personal invitations may replace it once you have tested them on your own domain; how to password-protect a website built with AI compares the options. If visitors need real accounts, ask your AI to build sign-in into a server that runs in a container.

Secrets. API keys and other secret values never belong in the chat or in the files. Add them in the dashboard under the site's Settings > Secrets, where container services read them.

Connected apps. A Site that reads each visitor's own connected apps relies on ChatGPT workspace features that no outside host has. If that is the heart of the Site, read the section on staying below before you go further.

Step 5: Point your domain at the new host

Add the domain to the site in the AI-Hosted dashboard; the trial includes linking one. The dashboard then lists two records. The first is a TXT record named _vibedeploy. followed by your domain, which proves you own it. The second is the routing record: a CNAME for a subdomain such as www.example.com, and for the bare domain an ALIAS or ANAME record, or an A record if your DNS provider offers neither.

Switch over in this order, so visitors never meet a dead address:

1. A day ahead, shorten the TTL of the records you created for Sites to a few minutes, so resolvers that cached them ask again sooner.
2. Create the TXT record. It changes nothing for visitors and lets verification pass later.
3. Swap the routing record. Delete the records you added for Sites and create the one from the dashboard. MX, SPF and other email records stay exactly as they are.
4. Verify. As soon as a DNS lookup returns the new value, click Verify in the dashboard. HTTPS is configured automatically after verification, with a certificate from Let's Encrypt.
5. Test both names. Open the bare domain and the www version in a private window. The dashboard can make one lead to the other.

DNS caches empty at different speeds, so for a while some visitors still reach the Site on ChatGPT while others reach the new host. That overlap does no harm as long as both are up, which is why the Site stays published until the last step.

Step 6: Update your links, then retire the Site

Your domain now leads to the new host, but the Site URL ChatGPT generated is still printed on things: social profiles, email signatures, QR codes, documents and the links you sent to clients. Replace every one you control with your own domain. From now on, your domain is the only address you hand out.

Then retire the Site. OpenAI gives you two ways. To keep it but close it, open its Share settings and limit access to yourself or a few people. To remove it, use Delete site, and know that OpenAI is explicit about the result: "Deleting a site permanently removes it, and you cannot restore deleted sites." Delete only once you have every file, every record you care about and a working site on your domain.

When staying on ChatGPT Sites is the better choice

A move is not always an upgrade. Stay where you are when:

• The Site is a workspace tool that reads connected apps. Inside Sites, each visitor's own accounts and permissions apply, and that per-visitor access does not exist on an outside host.
• Your audience already signs in with ChatGPT. Sites can limit a Site to people you invite, who sign in with the invited account, and it can use Sign in with ChatGPT for features tied to a person.
• Several colleagues edit it together. In a workspace the owner can give members Can edit access, and they publish later versions themselves.
• All you were missing was your domain. Add it to the Site instead, with the ChatGPT Sites custom domain guide.

What it costs after the move

The 14-day trial needs no card and includes one site and one custom domain. After that, Solo costs EUR 4 a month (EUR 38 a year) for one site with its domain, Maker EUR 15 a month for three sites with password-protected and invite-only sites, and Studio EUR 39 a month for ten sites with a testing copy you check before it goes live. Prices include VAT where it applies, and the pricing page lists every limit per plan. For the whole path from an upload to a site that runs for years, read how AI-hosted websites work.

Sources

• OpenAI Help Center, Creating and using ChatGPT Sites: plans, editing from the Sites list, sharing options, connected apps, taking a Site down, deletion, data residency and unsupported uses. Fetched 13 October 2026.
• OpenAI, ChatGPT Sites developer guide: local projects and .openai/hosting.json, saved versions, built-in analytics, D1 and R2 storage, environment variables and secrets, and the Sign in with ChatGPT paths and headers. Fetched 13 October 2026.
• OpenAI Help Center, Sign in with ChatGPT, and OpenAI Developers, Sign in with ChatGPT on your website: available on ChatGPT Sites, otherwise limited to selected partners. Fetched 13 October 2026.