Core concepts

Templ is managed WordPress hosting: every website runs in its own isolated environment, and hosting, domains, DNS, and email tooling are managed together from one panel, with support included on every plan.

This page is a quick tour of how it all fits together. Understanding these few concepts makes everything else in the docs easier to follow.

Things nest like this:

Account
├── Website (one WordPress install in its own isolated environment)
│   ├── Staging site (optional, free)
│   └── Backups (daily automatic + manual)
└── Domains (registered with Templ or pointed from elsewhere, attached to a website)

Account

Your account holds your websites, your billing, your account sharing, and your domain names.

Templ has no separate "team" or "organization" object - instead you share access. You can give someone access to your whole account or to selected websites only. See account sharing and accounts for clients.

Two places you'll work: the Templ Panel and My Account

There are two surfaces, and it helps to know which does what:

  • The Templ Panel (panel.templ.io) is where you manage everything technical: websites, domains, DNS, backups, and file access.
  • My Account (templ.io/my-account) is where billing lives: invoices, receipts, your Templ credit balance, and your payment card.

Website

A website is the central unit on Templ. One website means one WordPress installation, running in its own isolated environment (a container) - it never shares resources or risk with other sites or customers.

Each website has its own plan, location, SFTP/SSH access, database, and webroot (/home/user_xxxx/app_xxxx). You can create a website in a few minutes from the Templ Panel.

Every new website starts on a temporary domain so you can work on it before going live: *.templweb.com for paying customers, or *.templtrial.com on a free trial. A temporary domain is a single address - you can't add subdomains under it, so anything that needs them (such as a domain-based multisite network) requires your own domain.

Plan

Each website has its own plan. CPU, RAM, and disk space are allocated per website, but the included monthly data transfer is pooled across your whole account. For example, a 10 GB plan and a 50 GB plan on the same account share one 60 GB pool of bandwidth.

Plans range from Micro to Large, and there's also a free development plan for sites you're building or using as a test environment. A website can change plan at any time, so a site built on a development plan goes live by upgrading it - there's no migration step.

Disk space is flexible: a website can temporarily use up to 100% more storage than its plan includes, at no extra charge. If the higher usage persists, we add more storage to the website - a separate billable item, so that site's monthly cost increases accordingly. See disk storage for how overage and automatic upgrades work, and reduce disk usage if you're running over.

Not sure which plan to pick? See choose a plan.

Domains

Templ is a domain registrar, so you can register or transfer domains with us directly. Domains registered elsewhere are fully supported too - just point them to Templ.

Our managed DNS is optional but highly recommended. When Templ manages your DNS, the Templ Panel handles the advanced DNS settings for you so your website configuration just works, and configures your domain for maximum email deliverability (SPF, DKIM, domain verification) when using our SMTP service. That hands-off correctness is what makes it true managed hosting. See DNS management.

Staging

Every website can have one free staging site: a copy of your production site in a runtime-isolated environment, on its own *.templweb.com URL. It has no plan of its own, but it shares the production site's disk allocation - a staging site's disk usage counts toward the production plan. We set staging sites to noindex to prevent search engines from indexing them, and you can copy changes between production and staging in either direction. See staging websites.

Backups

Every website is backed up automatically every day (files and database), and you can create manual backups any time. Backups can be stored remotely (on a separate server) or locally (inside the website's environment), and you can restore a whole site or just parts of it.

Email

Email forwarding and outgoing email (SMTP) from your site are included. For full mailboxes you can send and receive from, we recommend Google Workspace. See email on Templ.

How it all fits together

A typical agency account might look like this:

  • One account, shared with a colleague.
  • Two websites: a marketing site and a WooCommerce store, each on its own plan and in its own isolated environment.
  • The store also has a staging site for testing changes before they go live.
  • Both domains are registered with Templ and use our managed DNS.
  • The two plans share one pooled bandwidth allowance, and everything is covered by a single monthly bill.

Billing in one paragraph

Billing happens at the account level: one monthly charge that adds up your website plans, any domains, and any bandwidth used beyond your pooled allowance. Bandwidth is the only metered item - disk is never charged as overage; storage is added as a plan change when a site needs it. Templ credit is an account balance that can pay these costs, and switching to annual payment gives you one month free per year. See how billing works for the full picture.