Most Squarespace stores do not need an agency to migrate. This guide covers the whole move — what Squarespace will and will not export, the option limit that catches people out, and how to keep your rankings — plus an honest view of when doing it yourself is the right call and when it is not.
Probably not. A Squarespace store with a few hundred products, no integrations and standard shipping can migrate with Shopify's own import tools in two to four weeks of your own time. Agencies become worth paying when you have complex product options, real integrations, a large catalogue, or rankings you cannot risk.
We build Shopify stores for a living, so read that in context. But we would rather tell you the truth here than take a project that does not need us, and Squarespace merchants are the group most often oversold.
| Route | Rough cost | Right when |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | Your time, plus tool fees | Under a few hundred products, no integrations, simple options, low organic traffic |
| Migration tool | Fee based on catalogue size | Large catalogue but simple structure; you handle the theme and redirects |
| Freelancer | From roughly £3,500 / $4,500 | You want it done properly but the store is straightforward |
| Agency | From $1,500 as an hour block; $20,000+ for full builds | Complex options, real integrations, significant organic traffic, or a redesign at the same time |
Our own entry point is a 10-hour block at $1,500, at $150 per hour, which is enough to plan a redirect map and review a migration you run yourself. Full design-and-build projects start around $20,000, which most Squarespace stores do not need. The full picture is in our Shopify Plus cost guide.
The usual triggers are: product options beyond what Squarespace supports, no point-of-sale for in-person selling, no multi-location inventory, transaction fees on lower Squarespace plans, checkout you cannot customise, and a thin app ecosystem when you need a specific integration. One of these being painful is enough; none of them being painful means stay.
Squarespace handles simple catalogues well. Once options multiply, or you need bundles, subscriptions or configurators, you are working against the platform.
Squarespace has no real point-of-sale story. If you are opening retail or doing markets, that alone can decide it.
No multi-location inventory, no purchase orders, no serious fulfilment workflows.
Squarespace charges a transaction fee on its lower commerce tiers. Shopify charges no platform fee when Shopify Payments is your primary gateway.
You cannot meaningfully customise Squarespace checkout. On Shopify you can, and on Plus you can go further.
Squarespace's ecosystem is small. If the integration you need does not exist, there is no route to building it. On Shopify there is.
That last point is the one that changes most after a move. Shopify's app ecosystem is the practical reason the migration is worth doing, and where nothing off-the-shelf fits, Shopify app development is an option Squarespace never gives you.
What Squarespace is genuinely better at: design without a developer, content-led sites where the shop is secondary, and getting something respectable live quickly. If those describe you, staying is a legitimate answer.
Squarespace permits more product option types than Shopify does. Squarespace allows up to 6 option types per product; Shopify allows 3. So a product configured on colour, size, material and finish works on Squarespace and cannot map one-to-one onto Shopify without restructuring.
This surprises people, because the assumption is that the bigger platform is always more permissive. On variant count it is — Shopify raised its per-product variant limit from 100 to 2,048 in October 2025, and several migration guides published in 2026 still quote the old figure. But the option ceiling did not move, and it is the ceiling that bites.
Audit your products by option count before you start. If a meaningful share use four or more, you have a catalogue restructuring job before you have a migration: combine option values, split the product and link the parts with Combined Listings, or move the extra axis to a line-item property.
Squarespace's exports are limited in ways that shape the whole project. Product exports are capped at 2,000 items. Customer data does not export in a Shopify-ready format and needs manual field mapping. Order history export is partial, so some historical data may need reconciling by hand or accepting as lost.
This is the difference between a Squarespace migration and a BigCommerce or Magento one. On those platforms the data is available and the work is mapping it. Here the constraint is what you can get out at all.
Keep the subscription running for at least a month after cutover. Merchants cancel to save the fee and then discover they need an image, a customer record or an order detail that is now gone. It is the cheapest insurance in the project.
Squarespace product URLs sit underneath your store page's own slug — commonly /shop/product-name or /store/p/product-name, but whatever you named the store page. Shopify enforces /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/ instead. Every URL changes, and because the Squarespace pattern is one you chose, there is no universal find-and-replace.
| Squarespace | Shopify |
|---|---|
| /shop/product-name or /store/p/product-name | /products/product-name |
| /shop/category-name | /collections/category-name |
| /blog/post-title | /blogs/news/post-title |
| /about | /pages/about |
| /search?q=term | /search?q=term |
Done properly, most stores hold their positions. The full sequence, including the nine steps that become irreversible after cutover, is in our 100-point migration checklist, and the cross-platform strategy is on our Shopify Plus migration services page.
Squarespace bundles things Shopify does not — forms, galleries, announcement bars, basic email campaigns, member areas. On Shopify several of those become paid apps with monthly fees, and Squarespace Email Campaigns has to be replaced entirely with Klaviyo, Shopify Email or similar.
List your must-have features before you move and price the Shopify equivalent of each. This is where small-store budgets quietly overrun, and it is entirely avoidable with an afternoon of checking. It is also worth noting the upside: Shopify's app ecosystem is the reason the migration is worth doing, so the same trade that costs you a form builder gains you every integration you were previously locked out of.
Squarespace to Shopify is the cheapest platform move we handle, and most Squarespace stores should not pay an agency for it. Four routes, cheapest first:
Most Squarespace stores do not need us, and we will say so on the call. Where an agency is warranted, the range reflects three drivers: how many products exceed Shopify's three-option limit, given Squarespace permits up to six option types; how much order history needs reconciling, since Squarespace's export is partial; and whether Member Areas or courses need replacing, as neither has a direct Shopify equivalent. Book a discovery call if you want a second opinion on which route fits.
| Asset | Transfers? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Products and images | Yes | 2,000-item export cap; check images embedded in descriptions |
| Product options | Partly | Squarespace's 6 option types map onto Shopify's 3 — restructuring likely |
| Categories | Partly | Rebuilt as Shopify collections; consider automated collections |
| Customers | Partly | Export does not match Shopify's template; manual field mapping needed |
| Customer passwords | No | Cannot migrate from any platform — activation emails are sent instead |
| Order history | Partly | Weakest export. Decide how much history you need. |
| SEO metadata | Yes | Map Squarespace titles and descriptions to Shopify's SEO fields |
| Blog posts | Yes | Export as WordPress-compatible XML, import via Shopify's blog importer |
| Theme and page layouts | No | Rebuilt in Liquid. Squarespace templates cannot be ported. |
| Forms, galleries, announcements | No | Native on Squarespace; often paid apps on Shopify |
| Email campaigns | No | Replace with Klaviyo, Shopify Email or similar |
| Member Areas / courses | No | No direct equivalent; needs rethinking |
| Redirects | Manual | Built from a crawl, Search Console and backlink data |
A small Squarespace store with a simple catalogue can migrate in a few days of focused work. A full rebuild with new design, content review and proper testing usually takes two to four weeks. Complex catalogues with integrations run longer and are where an agency starts to earn its fee.
| From | Timeline | Hardest part |
|---|---|---|
| Squarespace | Days to 4 weeks | Export limits and the six-option gap |
| BigCommerce | 8–12 weeks | Modifiers and bespoke URL mapping |
| WooCommerce | 8–12 weeks | Page-builder rebuilds and plugin triage |
| Magento / Adobe Commerce | 12–16 weeks | Attribute triage and extension replacement |
Platform-specific detail lives in the guides: BigCommerce to Shopify migration, WooCommerce to Shopify migration and Magento to Shopify Plus migration.
Solo Media Group is a Platinum-tier Shopify migration agency — the top of Shopify's Service Track — with 75+ replatforms and new builds delivered since March 2018, rated 5.0 from 37 reviews on the Shopify Partner Directory. Squarespace is the smallest of the platforms we migrate from, which is why this page spends most of its length telling you when not to hire anyone.
Opening physical retail is the other clear trigger. Squarespace has no point-of-sale story at all, so Shopify POS is usually scoped into the migration rather than added later.
Yes, you can migrate from Squarespace to Shopify yourself. Products, blog posts and customer records export to CSV and import into Shopify admin, though the customer file needs manual field mapping and product exports are capped at 2,000 items per batch. Passwords cannot migrate from any platform, so Shopify sends account activation invitations instead. Your design and every URL redirect must be rebuilt by hand.
Not if the redirect map is complete and live at cutover. Squarespace product URLs sit under your store page's slug while Shopify enforces /products/, so every URL changes. Done properly, most stores hold their positions.
Not entirely. Products export in batches capped at 2,000 items, customer exports do not match Shopify's import format and need manual field mapping, and order history is the weakest export. Decide early how much history you actually need.
No. Passwords cannot be migrated from any platform. Shopify sends account activation invitations instead, and that email should be planned rather than discovered on launch day.
Usually, with restructuring. Squarespace permits up to 6 option types per product; Shopify permits 3. Shopify allows far more variants — 2,048 per product since October 2025 — but the option ceiling is the constraint. Products on four or more axes need combining or splitting.
A few days for a small, simple store. Two to four weeks for a full rebuild with new design and proper testing. Longer if you have complex options or integrations.
Anywhere from your own time plus tool fees, through a freelancer at roughly £3,500 or $4,500, to an agency. Our entry point is a 10-hour block at $1,500, with full design-and-build projects starting around $20,000 — which most Squarespace stores do not need.
No. Keep it running at least a month. Merchants cancel to save the fee, then find they need an image, a customer record or an order detail that is no longer accessible.
Forms, galleries and announcement bars are bundled on Squarespace and often become paid apps on Shopify. Squarespace Email Campaigns needs replacing entirely — export your subscriber list and move to Klaviyo, Shopify Email or similar.
Yes, Shopify is generally more expensive than Squarespace when comparing base subscription prices and long-term scaling, though hidden fees can narrow the gap depending on how you sell.
There is no direct Shopify equivalent. These need rethinking, usually with a dedicated app or a separate platform, and should be scoped before you commit.
