Deploy Guide

Pick one of the four hosts below. Cloudflare Pages is our default recommendation. All four are free for any small-business site. The instructions are step by step.

After you deploy, scroll down to Custom Domain to point your real domain at your new site.

Cloudflare Pages (recommended)

Free tier: unlimited bandwidth, 500 builds/month, 100k function invocations/day. No card.

1. Push your code to GitHub

If you don't have a GitHub account, sign up at github.com (free). Then in your project folder:

git init
git add -A
git commit -m "Initial commit"
gh repo create my-site --public --source=. --push

(That last line uses GitHub's CLI. If you don't have it, install with brew install gh on Mac, or use the GitHub website to manually create a new repo and follow the "push existing code" instructions.)

2. Connect Cloudflare Pages to the repo

1. Go to dash.cloudflare.com. Sign in (or sign up — free, no card).
2. Workers & Pages → Create → Pages → Connect to Git.
3. Authorize Cloudflare to read your GitHub.
4. Pick your my-site repo.

3. Build settings

If your site has API routes (forms, etc.), Cloudflare needs the OpenNext adapter. Add this to your package.json scripts:

"build": "next build && @cloudflare/next-on-pages"

And add @cloudflare/next-on-pages to dev dependencies. The AI can do this for you. Just run Prompt: Cloudflare Pages config.

4. Deploy

Click Save and Deploy. First build takes ~2 minutes. Cloudflare gives you a your-site.pages.dev URL.

Vercel

Free tier: 100GB bandwidth/month, 100 builds/day. Native Next.js support. Slightly stricter than Cloudflare but zero config.

1. Push to GitHub (same as above)

2. Connect Vercel

1. Go to vercel.com/new. Sign in with GitHub.
2. Import your my-site repo.
3. Vercel auto-detects Next.js. Don't change anything.
4. Click Deploy.

90 seconds later, you have a your-site.vercel.app URL.

Netlify

Free tier: 100GB bandwidth/month, 300 build minutes/month. Works fine for static-mostly sites.

1. Push to GitHub

2. Connect Netlify

1. app.netlify.com/start → "Import from GitHub".
2. Pick your my-site repo.
3. Build command: npm run build. Publish directory: out (with output: "export" in next.config.mjs) or .next (with the Netlify Next.js plugin auto-installed).
4. Click Deploy site.

Netlify Next.js plugin handles dynamic routes via Netlify Functions. If you have API routes, this is automatic.

GitHub Pages

Free, but only supports fully static sites (no API routes, no on-demand rendering). If your site has a contact form or any dynamic logic, use one of the other three hosts.

1. Configure for static export

Add to your next.config.mjs:

const nextConfig = {
  output: "export",
  images: { unoptimized: true },
  basePath: "",
  trailingSlash: true,
};
export default nextConfig;

2. Build

npm run build

This creates an out/ folder with static HTML.

3. Push the out/ folder to a gh-pages branch

Easiest way: install gh-pages:

npm install -D gh-pages

Add to package.json scripts:

"deploy": "next build && gh-pages -d out"

Run npm run deploy. GitHub Pages serves it at your-username.github.io/my-site.

Custom Domain

Wherever you deployed, the steps are similar. Below is the exact flow for Cloudflare Pages. Vercel/Netlify/GitHub Pages have analogous UI.

1. Add the domain to your host

In Cloudflare Pages → your project → Custom domains → Set up a custom domain → enter yourdomain.com. Click through.

2. Update DNS at your registrar

Your registrar is wherever you bought your domain (Namecheap, GoDaddy, Google Domains, Cloudflare Registrar, etc.).

Cloudflare Pages will tell you the records to add. Typically:

If your domain is registered through Cloudflare itself, the DNS records get added automatically. If through someone else, log into their dashboard, find the DNS settings, add those two records.

3. Wait for DNS to propagate (5–30 minutes)

Refresh yourdomain.com in your browser. When it loads your new site, you're done. Cloudflare auto-issues a free SSL certificate.

4. Set up redirects from www to apex (or apex to www, your call)

In Cloudflare Pages, the apex domain becomes canonical. The www. version 308-redirects to it automatically.

After deploying

A few things to set up that take 5 minutes each but matter:

Submit sitemap to Google

search.google.com/search-console → Add property → enter your domain → verify ownership (Cloudflare's DNS verification is the fastest path) → Sitemaps → submit https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.

This tells Google where every page lives. Without it, you might lose 1–2 weeks of search traffic during the cutover.

Set up redirects from your old URLs

If your old URLs were like oldsite.com/about and your new ones are yourdomain.com/about, Google will reindex automatically. But if URLs changed structure, you need 301s. Prompt 7 in the prompts kit generates them.

Cancel the old hosting subscription

Go to your Webflow / Framer / Wix / Squarespace billing page. Cancel. The moment you do, the math of the migration is locked in.

When something breaks

The most common problem: a build error. Read the error log carefully. Usually it's a missing dependency or a typo. Paste the error into your AI and ask it to fix.

The second most common: DNS not propagating. Wait 30 minutes. Use whatsmydns.net to check propagation worldwide.

If you get truly stuck and you're an Express customer, email hi@ejectfrom.com. We respond within 24 hours. For Concierge customers, your dedicated thread is open the whole time.