Nameservers

Your domain points to a set of nameservers, often at your registrar or your host. Whoever runs the nameservers controls your DNS records, so they decide where your website and email are found.

Nameservers are set at your registrar. The records themselves live with whichever company runs those nameservers, which may be a different company.

Example: yourbusiness.com is registered at one company but uses your old host's nameservers. If you cancel that hosting, the DNS records can disappear with it and your site and email stop working, even though the domain is still yours. Copying the records first, then changing the nameservers, avoids that.

Changing nameservers moves all your DNS to a new provider at once, so copy every record, especially email ones, before you switch.

What it means for your price: keeping DNS at your registrar or a separate DNS provider means you can change host without touching your email settings, which makes switching to a cheaper host quicker and less risky.

How to check yours: a WHOIS or RDAP lookup lists your domain's nameservers.