Squarespace is beautiful and limiting at the same time. Many bloggers eventually move to WordPress for more control, a lower long-term cost, and richer SEO options. Squarespace exports better than Wix does, but still worse than most platforms you’d hope to leave cleanly. This post is the practical migration guide, including the export limitation most guides skip over.

A Squarespace export interface showing the WordPress XML download option

The export limitation almost nobody mentions

Before anything else: check which Squarespace version you’re actually on. Squarespace 7.0 supports the WordPress XML export described below. Squarespace 7.1, which is what most newer Squarespace sites run on, does not support XML export at all. If you’re on 7.1 and your export option is missing or fails silently, that’s the reason, not a bug on your end.

If you’re stuck on 7.1 without a working export, your realistic options are a third-party migration service (LitExtension and similar tools handle this specific gap), or manual migration: copying content post by post. For a blog under roughly 30 posts, manual copying is often genuinely faster than fighting a migration tool.

What Squarespace exports (on 7.0)

Go to Settings, then Advanced, then Import / Export Content, then Export, then WordPress.

This generates an XML file containing:

  • Blog posts, including text, categories, and tags.
  • Pages.
  • Some image URLs, pointing back to Squarespace’s own CDN.

What doesn’t come along for the ride:

  • Gallery pages, which use a Squarespace-specific format.
  • Product pages, if you’re running Squarespace Commerce.
  • Custom CSS.
  • Form submissions.
  • Member areas.
  • Most of your visual styling.

Expect your blog content specifically to migrate reasonably cleanly. Nearly everything else requires manual rebuilding afterward.

Step 1: Set up WordPress

  • Pick a host. For starters: SiteGround, Bluehost, or A2. For managed hosting: WP Engine or Kinsta.
  • Install WordPress.
  • Pick a theme. Choose something that doesn’t try to visually replicate Squarespace; you’ll be happier embracing what WordPress actually does well instead of fighting it toward a different platform’s aesthetic.
  • Configure permalinks under Settings, then Permalinks, typically to Post name (/%postname%/).

Step 2: Export from Squarespace

Go to Settings, then Advanced, then Import / Export Content, then Export, then WordPress (7.0 only, per the note above).

Wait for the export to generate, then download the resulting XML file.

Step 3: Import into WordPress

Go to Tools, then Import, then WordPress, then Run Importer.

Upload your Squarespace XML file there.

Important: check the box for “Download and import file attachments” so your images actually get pulled into the WordPress media library, rather than staying dependent on Squarespace’s servers indefinitely.

This imports both posts and pages, and categories and tags carry over with them.

Step 4: Fix images

Image migration is consistently the trickiest part of this whole process.

The problem

Some imported images still reference Squarespace’s CDN directly. If Squarespace ever removes those URLs, which happens after you cancel your subscription, your images break sitewide with no warning.

The fix

  • Auto Upload Images plugin: scans your posts for external images, downloads them into your media library, and replaces the URLs automatically.
  • Manual review: for your most important posts, it’s worth manually verifying and replacing images yourself.

Don’t leave images hosted on Squarespace after you cancel your Squarespace subscription. They will simply vanish, and there’s no recovering them after the fact.

Step 5: Map old URLs to new ones

This is the SEO-critical step in the whole migration.

Squarespace URLs vary by site structure:

  • Pages: yourdomain.com/page-slug
  • Blog posts: yourdomain.com/blog/post-slug, or whatever your specific blog page slug happens to be.

WordPress’s default structure after migration looks like:

  • Pages: yourdomain.com/page-slug/ (with a trailing slash).
  • Posts: yourdomain.com/post-slug/ (no /blog/ prefix, unless you specifically configure one).

These small differences are exactly what breaks old inbound links if you don’t plan for them.

Step 6: Set up redirects

Install the Redirection plugin, or use Rank Math’s built-in Redirections module. The Redirection plugin’s page on WordPress.org has the current install instructions and changelog if you want to verify compatibility with your WordPress version first.

Add a 301 redirect for every important old URL you can identify.

For all your old Squarespace blog URLs at once, a regex redirect like /blog/(.*) to /$1 works well, assuming you don’t want to keep /blog/ in your new URL structure.

Alternatively, configure WordPress to use a matching /blog/ structure instead: Settings, then Reading, set your Posts page to a dedicated “Blog” page, then set permalinks to a Custom Structure of /blog/%postname%/.

Matching the existing structure is almost always easier than redirecting every single URL individually.

Step 7: Internal link updates

Some of your own posts likely contain links pointing back to old Squarespace URLs.

Run this via WP-CLI: wp search-replace 'old-squarespace-url' 'new-wordpress-url'

Or use the Better Search Replace plugin if you’d rather work through the WordPress admin instead of the command line.

WordPress admin showing migrated posts list with categories and featured images

Step 8: Squarespace galleries

Squarespace gallery pages simply don’t translate cleanly into WordPress. Your manual options:

  • Rebuild them as native WordPress galleries using the Gallery block in the editor.
  • Use a dedicated gallery plugin, like Envira or NextGEN.
  • Convert gallery posts into standard posts with embedded image galleries instead.

Step 9: Squarespace Commerce migration

If you’re running a Squarespace shop as well:

  • Manual product re-creation directly in WooCommerce.
  • Export a product CSV from Squarespace, then import it through WooCommerce’s own import tool.
  • Migrate customer data manually, if that’s something you need to preserve.

For larger shops, hiring a migration specialist is worth the cost. WooCommerce migration is genuinely its own discipline, separate from a standard blog migration.

Step 10: Forms and email

Squarespace contact forms don’t migrate over at all. Rebuild them with:

  • Fluent Forms.
  • WPForms.
  • Gravity Forms.

If you were collecting emails through Squarespace forms, export your subscriber list and import it into your new email tool, whether that’s MailerLite, ConvertKit, or something else.

Step 11: Domain handling

Same domain

Update your DNS to point at your new WordPress host. Your domain stays exactly the same; only the underlying platform actually changes.

You may want to transfer the domain registration itself from Squarespace to a standard registrar, like Namecheap or Cloudflare Registrar, for easier long-term management.

Squarespace domain transfer

Domains registered through Squarespace can be transferred to other registrars once 60 days have passed since registration.

The process:

  1. Unlock the domain inside Squarespace’s settings.
  2. Get the authorization code.
  3. Initiate the transfer at your new registrar.
  4. Wait roughly 5 to 7 days for the transfer to complete.

Or simply keep the domain registered at Squarespace and just point the DNS elsewhere. That works perfectly well too, and avoids the transfer process entirely.

Step 12: SSL and HTTPS

Most WordPress hosts auto-provision SSL certificates through Let’s Encrypt. Activate it once your site is live.

Update your WordPress site URL to use HTTPS under Settings, then General, then Site Address.

Force HTTPS sitewide with the Really Simple SSL plugin, or through your .htaccess file directly.

Step 13: Analytics migration

Add Google Analytics 4 to your new WordPress site through Site Kit, an Insert Headers and Footers plugin, or your SEO plugin’s built-in integration. Our full GA4 setup guide for bloggers walks through the details if you haven’t set up GA4 before.

Verify the new property in Search Console once it’s connected.

You’ll lose direct continuity with Squarespace’s built-in analytics, but you gain proper GA4 data with far more depth going forward.

Step 14: Search Console resubmission

Add your WordPress site to Google Search Console as a new or updated property.

Submit your new sitemap, typically at yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml.

Monitor for crawl errors and indexing issues over the following several weeks as Google re-crawls the migrated site.

Step 15: Theme and design

Now comes the visual rebuild. Resist the urge to replicate Squarespace’s exact look. Pick a theme that plays to WordPress’s actual strengths instead.

Themes that tend to work well for former Squarespace users include Aurora, Astra Pro, Kadence, Blocksy, and Divi. Aurora specifically was built for blogs rather than adapted from a general-purpose page builder, which matters once you’re past the migration and actually publishing regularly again.

Spend real time on your homepage, navigation, and overall design system before promoting the new site publicly. Our guide to choosing a homepage layout based on what you publish is a good place to start that decision.

Common Squarespace-to-WordPress gotchas

  • Broken image links if Squarespace’s CDN URLs change or disappear after cancellation.
  • Code blocks from Squarespace may not import cleanly at all. Manually review any post that contained embedded HTML.
  • Galleries rarely transfer cleanly. Plan on rebuilding them from scratch.
  • Member areas don’t migrate at all. Rebuild with a dedicated membership plugin instead.
  • Custom Squarespace fonts need to be re-configured inside your new WordPress theme.

Realistic time budget

  • Small blog, under 50 posts: 6 to 10 hours.
  • Medium blog, 50 to 200 posts: 15 to 25 hours.
  • Large blog, 200-plus posts: 30 to 60 hours.
  • Add 50% or more if you’re also migrating a shop or member areas.

When to hire help

It’s usually worth hiring help when:

  • Your site has 100 or more posts.
  • You’re running a Squarespace shop.
  • You have active member areas to migrate.
  • Your SEO traffic is significant enough that you genuinely can’t afford disruption.

Cost typically runs $300 to $3,000 depending on complexity, and Squarespace’s own exporting documentation is worth reading in full before you commit to a specific path, since it lists the exact limitations for your plan and version.

The trade you’re actually making

Squarespace to WordPress is doable, but it involves real manual work, and the 7.1 export gap catches more people off guard than any other step in this process. Use Squarespace’s WordPress XML export where it’s actually available, import into WordPress, then fix images, redirects, galleries, and forms by hand. Your SEO depends entirely on getting the 301 redirects right. Galleries and Commerce migrations are consistently the hardest parts. For most blogs, plan on 15 to 25 hours of hands-on work, plus several weeks of monitoring afterward. Done properly, you trade Squarespace’s design constraints for WordPress’s flexibility and a lower cost over time.