Website · Wix and Squarespace
Leaving Wix or Squarespace? Keep your domain and plan the rebuild
Your website, domain, and email are different subscriptions. Know what can move, what must be rebuilt, and what to keep active before canceling.
What would stop working if you canceled your website plan?
You are ready to leave Wix or Squarespace. The practice has outgrown its original pages, but the same dashboard contains a domain, email billing, and appointment tools.
Separate those services before clicking cancel. Otherwise, a website decision can become confusion about renewals, messages, or booking.
Keep the address people know. Plan the rebuild around it.
A website move usually does not require a new domain name or a registration transfer. Prepare the replacement and change where the domain points when ready, keeping required email and booking services active.
The site itself needs a closer look. Wix says its sites cannot be exported for hosting elsewhere. Squarespace supports a limited content export, rather than a complete working copy of every design and feature. Budget for the parts that need rebuilding.
Wix’s hosting and export limits ↗Squarespace’s content-export limits ↗
An export is not the finished replacement.
List service pages, biographies, posts, downloads, forms, and booking connections. Check what can be reused and what must be recreated. Your provider should explain that work before giving a launch date.
Ask how you will edit the new site and what you can take away if you leave again. Ownership, maintenance, and handover arrangements should fit the practice.
Protect the routes people use to find you.
Keep useful page addresses where practical and plan relevant redirects. Test old links from search, directories, and emails. Google says moves can produce ranking fluctuations, so monitor Search Console afterward.
Check each subscription separately. Website, domain, email, and scheduling can have different end dates. Retire the old site after testing the replacement and confirming which services continue.
Your next steps
- 1
Separate the subscriptions
List website hosting, domain renewal, email, booking, and any paid add-ons. Record the owner and billing for each.
- 2
Collect and rebuild
Inventory pages, images, downloads, and form destinations. Verify export limits for the actual builder and rebuild what is not portable.
- 3
Test the preview
Review page addresses, phone links, booking, accessibility, and the mobile experience. Plan redirects only where addresses change.
- 4
Switch, then cancel
Point the website records to the new host while preserving email records. Confirm the new site works before canceling the old website subscription.
A sample subscription checklist
| Service | Migration decision |
|---|---|
| Website subscription | Retire after the replacement is tested |
| Domain registration | Keep renewed; transfer only if needed |
| Practice email | Keep active or migrate separately |
| Booking subscription | Keep active until a replacement is verified |
Wix treats the site plan, domain, business email, and apps as separate subscriptions. Squarespace also separates domains, Google Workspace, and Acuity from website cancellation. Keep each service you still need active; closing the entire account is a different action.
Before you decide
Do I need to transfer my domain first?
In many cases, the website can move while the domain stays registered with the same company. Updating the website destination is different from transferring the registration itself. Combining both changes can make it harder to tell which step caused an issue.
We confirm practice control of the domain first, then decide whether a transfer serves a useful purpose. The website launch can have its own plan, with registration and email changes scheduled separately where appropriate.
Can we keep every Google ranking?
We cannot guarantee that every position will remain unchanged because Google reassesses changed pages and rankings also respond to factors beyond the migration. The practical goal is to preserve what is already working and make the transition easy for visitors and search engines to follow.
We inventory useful content, retain page addresses where practical, and map changed addresses to relevant replacements. After launch, we check Search Console and investigate errors or unexpected changes. That work is part of the migration plan, rather than an assurance that nothing can move.
Sources & further reading
- Google Search: moving a site and ranking fluctuations
- Wix: site plans and domains are separate subscriptions
- Wix: account closure and separate subscriptions
- Squarespace: website cancellation and separate subscriptions
- Squarespace: keep your domain after canceling a website
Vendor features and terms can change. Confirm the requirements for your account before making a change.