A Squarespace to Shopify migration doesn’t mean abandoning what makes the site feel like yours. The brand, the typography, the layout, all of that comes across cleanly. You’re swapping the engine, not the body.
What we keep, what we rebuild
We keep: products, customers, orders, blog content, galleries, SEO equity, brand identity.
We rebuild: theme architecture (because Squarespace and Shopify use fundamentally different content models), variants (because Squarespace’s single-axis variants need to be properly axis-mapped), and any member-area / download workflow.
What data can be migrated from Squarespace to Shopify
The honest version of the “everything transfers” claim, item by item:
| Data | Transfers? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Products with variants and images | Yes | Export + script, variants re-mapped to Shopify axes |
| Customers | Yes | Migrated with accounts and addresses |
| Order history | Yes | Full status, fulfilment, and refund records |
| Blog posts | Yes | XML export, original publish dates kept |
| Galleries and content pages | Yes | Pulled and rebuilt as sections or metaobjects |
| SEO URLs and metadata | Yes | 301 redirect for every URL, titles and descriptions carried |
| Coupons and gift cards | Yes | Rebuilt as Shopify discounts and gift cards |
| Member areas | Rebuild | Shopify Customer Accounts with gated content |
| Digital downloads | Rebuild | SendOwl or Sky Pilot with delivery tracking |
| Page-block layouts | Rebuild | Online Store 2.0 sections matched to the same look |
| Squarespace template code | No | No export exists, the theme is rebuilt, not ported |
How to transfer your Squarespace domain to Shopify
This is the step people worry about most and it’s the most routine. You have two options. The first is pointing the domain: the registration stays with Squarespace and we update the DNS records (an A record and a CNAME) to point at Shopify, which takes effect within a few hours. The second is a full domain transfer to Shopify, which consolidates billing in one place but takes a few days and briefly locks the domain against changes. We handle either as part of the migration, and in both cases your email keeps working, mail routing lives on separate MX records that never get touched.
One Squarespace-specific note: if the domain was registered through Squarespace within the last 60 days, registrars block transfers in that window, so we point DNS first and transfer later if you still want to.
Switching from Squarespace to Shopify: DIY or done-for-you
You can move a small store yourself. Squarespace exports products to CSV, Shopify imports it, and for a store with 20 products, no member areas, and no order history worth keeping, that’s a reasonable Saturday project. What the DIY route drops is everything else: order history, customer accounts, blog and gallery content, and above all the 301 redirect map, which is what stops your Google rankings resetting to zero. The honest split is the same one we give on every platform, if the store is small and the SEO is worth little, do it yourself; if the store is earning, the redirect map and the rebuild are the whole point of paying someone.
Squarespace to Shopify migration pricing and timeline
Most Squarespace migrations run 3-4 weeks and are quoted fixed-price after a free audit, so the number is in writing before any work starts. What moves it is content volume rather than catalogue size, galleries, page-block layouts, and member areas take rebuild time that products don’t. Your Squarespace site stays live and selling until the DNS flips, so there’s no gap in trading. Against the monthly cost, most former Squarespace stores land on Shopify Basic or Shopify, and once you add one or two essential apps the running cost is roughly comparable to Squarespace Business, with a platform that actually grows with the store.
What we don’t do
- We don’t promise to recreate every Squarespace block one-for-one. Some of them are aesthetic conventions; others have proper Shopify equivalents that work better. We tell you which is which up front.
- We don’t migrate Squarespace stores doing under $50k/yr unless there’s a clear growth plan, at small volumes, the platform shift adds friction without unlocking enough upside.
- We don’t carry over Squarespace’s URL structure. The 301 redirects do the SEO work; the new URLs are cleaner.
