How to Host Your Website on VPS and Email on cPanel (Complete Step-by-Step Guide)

If you want to host your website on a VPS but manage email from a cPanel shared hosting, this guide will help you set everything correctly. Follow these steps for any domain — fast, simple, and accurate.

🔹 Part 1: DNS Settings (Very Important)

All DNS records must be added where your domain is hosted (Hostinger, GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.).

You need to add four main DNS records:

1️⃣ A Record – Point Domain to VPS

This sends website traffic to your VPS.

Type: A  
Name: @  
Value: YOUR_VPS_IP  
TTL: Default  

Optional (recommended for SSL):

Type: A  
Name: www  
Value: YOUR_VPS_IP  
TTL: Default  

2️⃣ A Record – Point Email to cPanel

This points the email to your shared hosting server.

Type: A  
Name: mail  
Value: YOUR_CPANEL_IP  
TTL: Default  

3️⃣ MX Record – Route Emails to cPanel

Delete all old MX records first (Hostinger MX, Google MX etc.).

Add only this:

Type: MX  
Name: @  
Priority: 0  
Value: mail.yourdomain.com  
TTL: Default  

Your email will now work from cPanel.

4️⃣ SPF Record – Required for Email Delivery

This verifies that your cPanel server is allowed to send mail.

Type: TXT  
Name: @  
Value: v=spf1 +a +mx ip4:YOUR_CPANEL_IP ~all  
TTL: Default  

Example:

v=spf1 +a +mx ip4:162.241.85.60 ~all

5️⃣ DKIM Record – Strong Email Authentication

Get this from your cPanel:

cPanel → Email Deliverability → Domain → DKIM

Add this as a TXT record:

Type: TXT  
Name: default._domainkey  
Value: (Long DKIM Key Provided by cPanel)  
TTL: Default  

6️⃣ DMARC Record – Optional but Recommended

Type: TXT  
Name: _dmarc  
Value: v=DMARC1; p=none;  
TTL: Default  

🔹 Part 2: Add Your Domain to cPanel

This step is done only once.

1. Login to cPanel
2. Go to Domains
3. Click Create New Domain
4. Enter your domain
5. Keep the document root default
6. Save

Your domain is now connected to cPanel for email management.

🔹 Part 3: Create Email Accounts in cPanel

1. Open cPanel
2. Go to Email Accounts
3. Click Create
4. Enter email username and password
5. Click Create

Your email account is ready.

🔹 Part 4: Access Your Email (Webmail)

Use either:

yourdomain.com/webmail

or

webmail.yourdomain.com

Login → choose Roundcube.

🔹 Part 5: Connect Email to Gmail or Phone (IMAP/SMTP Settings)

IMAP (Incoming Mail)

Host: mail.yourdomain.com  
Port: 993  
SSL: Yes  
Username: your full email  
Password: your email password  

SMTP (Outgoing Mail)

Host: mail.yourdomain.com  
Port: 465  
SSL: Yes  
Username: your full email  
Password: your email password  

🎉 You’re Done!

This setup works perfectly when:

✔ Your website is hosted on VPS
✔ Your email is hosted on cPanel shared hosting
✔ Your domain DNS is managed anywhere

Follow these steps for every domain and everything will work smoothly.