Create your first site

A site is your own corner of SFTP.cloud: its own address, its own users, its own storage, its own plan. Most customers have exactly one, and the Portal keeps the concept out of the way until a second one exists.

Creating one takes under a minute. Two of the choices in it are permanent, so read those two sections before you start.

Before you start

The wizard needs the site.create capability, which the admin role and an unscoped accounting member hold. A tech member cannot create a site: it is a purchase decision. See Your team and their roles.

Step 1: name

The site name becomes two things at once:

• The first part of its address: acme gives you acme.on.sftp.cloud.
• The part after the @ in every username on it: alice@acme.

The rules:

• 3 to 30 characters.
• Lowercase letters, digits and hyphens.
• It must start and end with a letter or a digit; hyphens only in the middle.
• Names are unique across the whole platform, so a name may be taken even though you have never seen it.
• A handful of names are reserved: www, api, app, portal, admin, mail, head, sftp.

This is permanent

Certificates, DNS records and every username on the site hang off this name. Changing it later is a support operation, not a setting. Pick something short and recognizable that you will still be happy with in three years.

Step 2: region

Pick the region closest to the people who will transfer files, not the one closest to your storage. Your storage is reached over your Connector's own outbound link, which is unaffected by this choice.

The list shows the regions currently available to order into. If none are shown, contact support.

This is permanent

Step 3: domain

If more than one domain is offered, pick which one your address lives in. If only one exists, the wizard does not ask.

This is permanent

Step 4: how you want to start

Start with the free trial. Everything is enabled, nothing is charged, and the trial applies to your first site only. The wizard states the exact length of the trial currently on offer.

Choose a plan. Order the site on a paid plan and complete the payment right away. The site is created immediately and stays suspended until the first payment lands.

The free trial runs on the shared tier. To start on a dedicated server, choose a plan.

If your account is under review

SFTP.cloud is sold to businesses, and a new account that looks like it might belong to a private person (for example one signed up with a personal mailbox) is put in front of a person at SFTP.cloud for a short review. While that review is pending, the free trial waits. You will know before you reach this step: your home page says so, and the wizard shows the trial option as waiting, with the reason under it.

Nothing more is needed from you. When the review is complete you receive an email, and the trial option opens. If you need the trial sooner, use Get help. Ordering a site on a paid plan is open throughout, and a first payment ends the review on its own.

Step 5: card

The wizard may ask you to save a card before the trial starts. Nothing is charged during the trial. The card is saved with Stripe to verify who you are, and your card details never reach SFTP.cloud.

If the card step is cancelled, the trial cannot start. Reopen the wizard and complete it.

Step 6: review and create

Check the recap, then choose Create my site.

You will see one of two things:

• Your site is ready. It is live now.
• Your site is being prepared. Its infrastructure is being provisioned, which usually takes a few minutes. The page updates on its own; there is no need to refresh.

What is waiting for you afterwards

The site overview shows a short Getting started checklist:

1. Connect your storage, so there is a place for files to live.
2. Create your first user, the account your people sign in with.
3. Share the address with the people who will transfer files.

Continue with Connect your storage.

Adding more sites later

Two sites of yours share nothing on the transfer path: different users, different connectors, different servers. They appear on one invoice and are otherwise two separate systems.

That is the right shape for genuinely separate operations, for example one site per region with data residency requirements. It is the wrong shape for saving money: separate users and separate connectors on each site cost more in total than one larger plan.

See Adding more sites.