Squarespace to WordPress: A Composite Migration Case Study

Fair warning before we start: nobody in this story is real. It’s a composite, stitched together from the small-business replatforming projects we watch play out again and again, the way you’d recognize the same three houses on every street you’ve ever driven down. No single company here. Just the patterns. And the figures are typical ranges, the kind of thing you’d nod along to, not one company’s exact numbers (I checked).

There's a button in Squarespace that says Export, and the moment you click it you feel like the hard part is over. Out comes a tidy file, WordPress-flavored, pages and posts lined up like they're ready to walk across the street to their new home. It looks like the whole site. That's the trap.

I kept running into the same sentence from teams leaving Squarespace: "it's just an export and an import." And I get why, because the file really does look complete. But the reason I wanted to pull this case apart is that the export is partial by design, and the gap between what it hands you and what your old site actually was is exactly where these moves quietly fall over. Galleries, forms, products, the template that made everything look right, the URLs that earned your rankings. None of that rides along in that reassuring little file. So let's walk through one brand's move and see what really crossed the street and what got left standing on the curb.

Context

Picture a growing brand that started on Squarespace — a beautiful, template-driven site that got them to market fast. As the business matured they hit the ceiling: they wanted full control over SEO, custom functionality Squarespace could not offer, a plugin ecosystem, and true ownership of their platform. WordPress was the move.

Squarespace to WordPress sounds like a simple export-import, and that expectation is the problem. Squarespace is a closed, all-in-one system; its export is partial by design, and everything that made the old site look and work the way it did lives in template features that do not come with the content.

What broke

The export leaves things behind

Squarespace’s export produces a WordPress-flavored file for basic pages and blog posts, but it is incomplete: certain block types, galleries, product/commerce data, some page types, and audio/event content do not come across. The team that assumed “export, then import, done” discovered gaps only after cutover. The realistic plan treats the export as a starting point and budgets for re-creating what it misses.

Design does not port

Squarespace templates are part of the closed platform — they cannot be exported to WordPress. The visual design had to be rebuilt with a WordPress theme (block-based, in this case). This is expected once you know it, and a disaster when you do not, because stakeholders often assume the site will “look the same” automatically.

URLs change — and Squarespace had its own scheme

Squarespace uses specific URL patterns (for example, dated or collection-prefixed blog paths). WordPress permalinks differ, so the slugs and paths change on migration. Without a 301 map from the old Squarespace URLs to the new WordPress permalinks, the site loses the search rankings and inbound links it had built.

Forms, commerce, and images

Squarespace forms and any commerce functionality do not transfer — they are rebuilt with WordPress plugins (and a commerce plugin if selling). Images are re-hosted, so their URLs change and in-body references need rewriting. SEO titles and descriptions set in Squarespace also need to be carried across deliberately.

What worked

The migration succeeded because the team scoped it honestly. They inventoried the Squarespace site page by page and marked exactly what the export would and would not carry, then planned manual or scripted re-entry for the gaps. They rebuilt the design in a maintainable WordPress theme rather than trying to clone the template pixel-for-pixel. They crawled the live Squarespace site to capture every URL and built a complete redirect map before launch. And they rebuilt forms and any store functionality with well-supported plugins, tested end to end before cutover.

Lessons

The export is partial. Treat Squarespace’s export as a starting point; inventory what it omits and plan to re-create it.

Design is a rebuild. Templates do not port — budget for a fresh WordPress theme and set stakeholder expectations early.

Map the old URLs. Crawl the Squarespace site and 301 every path to its new permalink to hold rankings.

Rebuild forms and commerce. These do not transfer; plan the plugins and test real submissions and checkouts.

Carry SEO metadata and rewrite media links. Migrate titles and descriptions; fix in-body image and file references to the new host.

Before you make this move

Inventory every page, post, gallery, form, and product, and mark what the export will and will not carry.

Crawl the live site for all URLs and build the redirect map before launch.

Plan the WordPress theme and the plugins that replace Squarespace’s built-in features.

Export SEO titles and descriptions and migrate them explicitly.

Test forms, commerce, and image links on staging before flipping DNS.

So, straight answer: yes, leaving Squarespace for WordPress is worth it if you've genuinely hit the ceiling on control, functionality, and ownership. But do not let anyone on the team say "export, import, done" out loud without correcting them, because that one sentence is how good migrations turn into launch-day scrambles. Treat the export as a first draft, not a delivery. Rebuild the design on purpose, map every old URL to its new home, and rebuild the forms and commerce and test real submissions before you flip anything. The teams that scope it honestly keep their traffic and their working bits. The ones that trust the button lose both.

That Export button is going to look just as confident when it's your turn. Click it, absolutely, but treat what comes out as the start of the list, not the finish line. Replatform Radar takes inventory of your pages, URLs, forms, and findability signals, so the things that file quietly leaves on the curb get caught while you can still walk back and grab them.