A domain apex is the "root" level of your domain. For example, let's say you just purchased mygreatbrand.com. We'd call that the "domain apex", meaning that mygreatbrand.com is the "root" of the hierarchy of domain names. Any subdomain of that (e.g. www.mygreatbrand.com, mail.mygreatbrand.com, etc.) are not considered domain apexes, but are considered subdomains of mygreatbrand.com.

This matters because we need to use a different strategy to redirect domain apexes versus subdomains. More information on the difference between these is explained in our help articles about A records and CNAME records.