Managing a Mailchimp Website: Domain Changes, Pages, and a Paid-Plan Catch

Mailchimp, now part of Intuit, bundles a simple website builder alongside its email marketing tools, and small businesses use it to get a storefront online without a separate hosting account. Once the site exists, the work turns to upkeep: a sharper domain, an extra page, a signup path that still works. The vendor’s help page on managing the site lays out the click paths. We read it end to end, and the friction sits at the edges rather than in the steps.

The management tools live in two places

Both jobs start from the dashboard of the site itself. The Settings option opens general settings, which hold the domain controls. The Edit site button opens the builder, where pages and their content live. Keep the split in mind: domain changes happen in settings, page changes happen in the builder, and neither screen offers the other’s controls.

Two gates come before anything goes live

The page states its prerequisites plainly. You need an existing Mailchimp website before any of these tasks apply, and you must accept supplementary terms before the site can be published. Until that acceptance happens, the site stays unpublished no matter how finished it looks. Neither gate blocks editing; both block going live. A third bullet sits alongside these two, but it is not a precondition. It describes the fallout from deleting a contact audience, and we take it separately below.

Change the domain in general settings

Open Settings from the site dashboard and choose General settings. In the Domain section, click Edit. You then pick between a Mailchimp domain and a custom one. A Mailchimp domain carries the vendor’s name in the address; a custom domain carries yours. The Mailchimp route asks for the attached domain you want the site to use, while the custom route asks only for the site name. Save, and the address is ready to share once the site publishes.

Does your own domain cost extra?

It does. Publishing a Mailchimp site to a custom domain requires a paid Websites subscription, and the page says so in a single line. Owners on the free track can still publish, but only under a Mailchimp-provided domain. The page points readers to its own plan comparison for what each subscription includes.

The connection also spans two screens, which is where people stall. The settings dialog records the name you want and stops there. The actual addition happens afterwards on the Domains overview screen, and the help page defers that walkthrough to its separate domains material. Plan for the subscription, and expect a second stop before your own address serves the site.

Add a page from the site builder

From the dashboard, click Edit site. In the Manage site menu, choose Pages, then open the Add dropdown and select Page. The General type is selected by default. Picking another type, such as Contact or About, displays prebuilt layouts in the preview window. You can also start from a blank page.

Choose a layout and click Add page. The layout’s title fills in the page name and the URL automatically, and both fields remain editable. New pages join the site navigation by default; uncheck that option if you would rather keep a page out of the menu.

What happens if you delete the connected audience?

This warning is a consequence, not a precondition, and the difference matters. Deleting the audience linked to your site breaks the signup form sections that depend on it. The repair is manual: remove those sections and put replacements in place. Nothing cleans them up on its own. If you are reorganizing your contacts, plan to rebuild those forms at the same time.

The short version

Managing the site is a handful of clicks once you know which screen owns which job. The real constraints live elsewhere. A custom domain at publish time means a paid plan. The supplementary terms must be accepted before anything goes live. An audience deletion reaches into the site and breaks signup forms that need manual replacement. None of it is difficult. All of it is easy to miss.