Outgrown Wix or Squarespace?
Custom websites for businesses that have outgrown Wix, Squarespace, or another website builder.
Most people reading this didn't pick the wrong platform. They picked the right one a few years ago, when the business was smaller and the website barely had to do anything, and the business has since outgrown it.
I'm Corby Wenzelbach. I've spent over a decade designing and building websites and web applications, and a good share of that work is rebuilding sites for businesses that have run into the limits of Wix or Squarespace.
Some of them move to WordPress, some get something built from scratch, and some I tell to stay where they are. This page is about working out which of those you are, before you spend anything.
- Move to WordPress
- Get something built from scratch
- Stay where you are
Signs You Have Outgrown Your Website Builder
There's rarely a single moment where it becomes obvious. What happens instead is that the list of things you've quietly given up on gets longer. The same signs come up again and again.
You're paying for apps to do things the site should do.
Three or four monthly subscriptions bolted on for booking, forms, reviews, and popups usually cost more per year than people expect, and each one is another script slowing the page down.
You've started saying "the website can't do that."
Once that sentence becomes routine, the site has begun shaping the business instead of serving it.
The workaround has a workaround.
A spreadsheet that feeds a form that someone re-keys into another system, because the site can't talk to anything directly.
It's slow on a phone and you can't find out why.
You can see the score. You can't see the code that produced it, and neither can anyone you hire.
You want your data out and discover you can't have all of it.
Wix won't export your pages or design at all, and Squarespace leaves out products and styling. Most people only find out when they try to leave.
Small changes need a workaround.
Moving a button, adding a field to a form, or changing how a page is laid out means working around the template instead of just making the change.
Each of those is a sign you're asking the platform for things it was never designed to do.
Both platforms are good at what they were built for. These are the limits that send people looking for a developer.
What Wix Can't Do
Wix's limits are mostly about control. It's a closed system, and that's a deliberate trade. Being closed is why Wix is easy to use, and it's also why some things aren't available at any price, no matter who you hire.
- There's no way to take the site with you. Wix has no site export. You can get your blog posts and some collection data out as files, but the pages, the layouts, and the design only exist on Wix and can't be moved to another host, so rebuilding is the only way off.
- You can only write code inside Wix's own system. Their tool for this, Velo, is more capable than people expect. But anything you build with it only works on Wix, and only within the limits Wix sets. It doesn't come with you either.
- You can't change the template after you publish. Deciding two years in that the layout is wrong means rebuilding the site inside Wix, page by page.
- You don't control the server your site runs on. That rules out a lot of the speed and search work a developer would normally do. Even something as basic as redirecting an old page to a new one has to be done by hand in their dashboard, one at a time.
- Integrations stop where their app market stops. If the system you need to connect to has no Wix app, connecting to it properly is usually off the table.
What Squarespace Can't Do
Squarespace sites tend to look good, and if your website mostly needs to make you look credible, that's a large part of the job already done. Its limits show up somewhere else.
- You can't run any code of your own on the server. Squarespace lets you add snippets, but they only run in the visitor's browser. Customer accounts, pricing that changes per customer, or a secure connection to another system all need to run somewhere you don't have access to.
- The export leaves out the expensive parts. You can get your pages, blog posts, and images out in a format WordPress understands. Product data, your styling, and several page types don't come out at all. Expect your words and pictures to survive the move and expect to rebuild everything else.
- Squarespace decides your page addresses, not you. It organizes URLs its own way, so moving off usually changes them. That's fine if someone plans the redirects, and a problem if nobody does.
- Developer Mode isn't the escape hatch it sounds like. It only exists on older templates, and switching it on means giving up the visual style editor for good. Most businesses should leave it alone.
- Squarespace takes a cut of sales on the cheaper plans. Work out what that costs you per year before you assume staying is the cheaper option.
What It Costs to Move
Before you decide a rebuild is the expensive option, add up a year of your builder subscription and every app subscription sitting on top of it. Those payments go on every year, so a rebuild can pay for itself sooner than people expect.
Usually less than people fear, though rarely as little as they hope. A rebuild costs roughly what the equivalent new site would, because that's essentially what it is. The existing site gives you finished content and a proven structure, which does save time, but none of the build itself transfers.
What pushes the price up
- Selling a full product catalogue online
- Anything involving customer accounts
- Connecting to other software you already use
What brings it down most
Knowing which pages you want to keep. Most sites I look at have pages nobody has opened in a year.
What a website costs goes through all of it properly.
What You Keep: Your Content, Your URLs, Your Rankings
People worry about this part most, and it's the part you have most control over, as long as someone is paying attention to it during the move.
Your content comes with you.
The text and images are yours, and they move, either by export or, on a small site, by hand.
You choose your own page addresses.
On a custom build nothing is imposed on you, so you can keep your existing ones exactly as they are, or improve them and point every old address at its replacement.
Your rankings follow those addresses.
As long as every old one is pointed somewhere sensible and the new pages say at least as much as the old ones did.
Your domain and email stay yours.
A domain bought through Wix or Squarespace can be transferred to a registrar you control, and your email address doesn't have to change.
I won't pretend nothing changes. Google takes a few weeks to work through a moved site, and your positions can move around while it does. But the things that cause lasting damage are all avoidable, and avoiding them is part of the job rather than an extra I charge for.
What causes lasting damage, and is avoidable
- Deleting pages without pointing them anywhere
- Cutting content down on the way across
- Launching something slower than what you had
How a Migration Runs
-
Audit what you have
Every existing URL, what it earns, and what it's for. This is where the list of pages worth keeping gets made, and where the redirect map starts.
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Get the content out
Whatever exports cleanly gets exported. The rest I copy across by hand. This happens early, so nothing is still sitting on a platform you're about to stop paying for.
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Build alongside the live site
The new site gets built and reviewed on a staging URL while the old one keeps running. Nothing goes dark, and there's no rush at the end.
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Switch over and watch it
The redirects go live at the same time as the site, and I watch Google Search Console for the first few weeks so anything that went wrong gets caught early rather than months later.
When You Should Stay Where You Are
Plenty of people read this page and shouldn't move anywhere, and I'd rather say so now than after you've paid me. Stay where you are if most of this sounds like you:
- The site is five or six pages of information that doesn't change much, and it works.
- You're not selling online, or you sell a handful of products with no unusual pricing.
- Nothing needs to connect to anything else.
- You update it yourself and like being able to.
- Money is tight and the site isn't the reason the phone is quiet.
In that situation a custom build buys you very little, and a builder subscription is a reasonable price for never thinking about hosting or updates. If your site is slow or not ranking, the fix is usually images, content, and a properly filled-in Google Business Profile, none of which require leaving your platform. I'd rather point that out than sell you a rebuild you didn't need.
The answer changes when your website has to do something rather than just say something.
Recent Work
The clinic's owner updates every section of their site through plain labelled fields, without a page builder.
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Common Questions
Ask About Your SiteWill moving off Wix or Squarespace hurt my Google rankings?
Not permanently, provided the migration is done properly. What protects your rankings is a complete redirect map, so every old URL points at its new equivalent, and new pages that cover the same ground at least as well as the old ones. Expect a couple of unsettled weeks while Google recrawls the site, and expect positions to move around a little in that window. Lasting drops come from dropping pages without redirecting them, cutting content down during the move, or launching something slower than what it replaced. All three are avoidable.
Can I export my site from Wix?
Not the site itself. Wix lets you export blog posts and some collection data as files, but there's no way to export the pages, layouts, or design and host them somewhere else. The site exists on Wix and stays there. That means moving off Wix always involves rebuilding rather than transferring, and it's better to find that out before you need to leave in a hurry. Your text and images are still yours and still come across.
What about Squarespace? Does its export work?
Partially. Squarespace exports pages, blog posts, and images in WordPress format, which is useful for the content. What doesn't come across is product data, your custom styling, and several page types. Plan on the words and pictures surviving, and on rebuilding everything else. For a content-heavy site that export saves a lot of time. For a store it saves very little.
How long does a rebuild take?
A straightforward brochure site is usually a few weeks. Ecommerce or anything with customer accounts runs longer. Migrations have one advantage over new builds, which is that the content already exists and the structure is proven, so the discovery phase is shorter. The thing that most often stretches a timeline is deciding what to keep, so it helps to come in with a view on which pages still earn their place.
Do I have to move to WordPress?
No, and it isn't automatically the right answer. WordPress makes sense when you publish regularly and want to manage that yourself. A custom build makes sense when the site has to do something specific, when performance matters, or when you want the code to be yours. Shopify makes sense for straightforward retail. I'll recommend one based on what your site has to do, and tell you why.
What are the most common reasons businesses outgrow Wix?
The ones I see most are paying for several apps to do things the site should do itself, pages that are slow on a phone and can't be fixed because the code isn't yours, booking or member features the platform can't handle, and data you can't fully export when you want to leave. If two or three of those sound familiar, it's worth looking at what a move would involve.
Is Squarespace still a good choice for a small business?
For a lot of small businesses, yes. If your site is a few pages that mostly need to look credible, and you're happy editing it yourself, Squarespace does that well. It stops being a good fit when you need customer accounts, pricing that changes per customer, or connections to other systems, because none of that can run on Squarespace's servers.
Squarespace or a custom website: which is better?
It depends on what the site has to do. Squarespace is cheaper to start and easy to run yourself. A custom site costs more up front, but it can do whatever the business needs, loads faster, and the code is yours. If your site only needs to say something, Squarespace is usually enough. If it needs to do something, a custom build tends to come out ahead over a few years.
Should I switch from Wix to Squarespace?
Sometimes, but check first whether Squarespace fixes the reason you're leaving. Moving between builders is still a rebuild, since Wix sites can't be exported, and many of the limits that push people off Wix, like no server-side code and limited integrations, exist on Squarespace too. If the design or editing is the problem, the switch can make sense. If the site needs to do more, a custom build is usually the better move.
How do I know whether it's worth moving at all?
The clearest test is whether your site needs to do something or only to say something. If it's a handful of pages of information that doesn't change much, you're not selling online, and nothing needs to connect to anything else, a builder is a reasonable place to stay and a rebuild buys you very little. If you've started telling customers that the website can't do something, or you're paying for several apps to fill the gaps, the platform has become the constraint. Send me the URL and I'll tell you which side of that line you're on.