How to migrate from Squarespace to Shopify

The short answer

Shopify’s help centre has a step-by-step guide for moving from Squarespace. Products, customers and orders can all be exported from Squarespace as CSV files; products and customers go into Shopify through its own CSV imports after some reformatting, and orders need a third-party app. Shopify’s free Store Migration app doesn’t support Squarespace, so this is a more hands-on move than some platforms.

Reviews can’t be migrated, blog content takes some care, and every URL that earns traffic needs a redirect. For a small Squarespace shop, all of that is manageable in-house. For an established store with a large catalogue, a blog that brings in customers and integrations to connect, it’s a project.

I’ve engineered more than 350 Shopify stores and migrated over 500,000 products in 20 years. This guide sets out the DIY route honestly, and where help starts to pay for itself.

Who this guide is for

This guide is for Squarespace site owners who sell, from creative businesses with a small shop to established retailers whose store has outgrown a website builder. The first group can often move themselves; the second has more data, more traffic and more connections to protect.

Why retailers move from Squarespace

• Commerce depth. Shopify’s admin, checkout and app ecosystem are centred on selling, with tools for inventory across locations, point of sale, marketplaces and trade customers.
• Apps and integrations. Stock systems, accounting, fulfilment and marketing tools commonly build for Shopify first.
• Catalogue size. Unlimited products on every Shopify plan, with up to 2,048 variants per product.
• A wider pool of help. More designers, developers and agencies know Shopify.

There’s also a practical reason: Squarespace’s strength is design and publishing, and its commerce features are built to fit within that. Shopify is built the other way round, starting from selling, which tends to suit retailers once the shop becomes the main part of the business.

Squarespace remains a strong choice for content-led sites with a small shop. As of October 2026, its US pricing lists Basic at $25, Core at $39, Plus at $65 and Advanced at $139 a month billed monthly, or $19 to $99 billed annually, with a 2% transaction fee on the Basic plan and none on the others. The case for moving usually grows with the shop.

What moves, and how

Products and images

Squarespace exports up to 10,000 physical and service products to CSV. Shopify’s guide walks through remapping the columns to Shopify’s product template, including converting weights, for example pounds to grams by multiplying by 453.6.

Two details catch people out. First, Squarespace’s product CSV doesn’t include featured images, image alt text, variant images or the additional information section, so those need adding separately, either by referencing image URLs in the Shopify import or uploading them afterwards. Second, digital products and gift cards aren’t covered by the standard export, so check whether you sell either and plan for them.

If your catalogue is small, it can be quicker to add images by hand in Shopify after the import than to build image URLs into the CSV. For larger catalogues, a spreadsheet tool that can import image URLs alongside each product saves hours, but test it on a handful of products first, and keep the original image files in case any URLs stop working once Squarespace is closed.

Variants map well: Squarespace product variants become Shopify variants under up to three options. Squarespace store categories become Shopify collections; automated collections built from tags save work later because new products sort themselves.

Digital products, gift cards and subscriptions

Some products need their own plan because the standard export doesn’t cover them, or because they work differently on Shopify:

• Digital products, such as downloads, are recreated in Shopify with a digital downloads app that delivers the file after purchase.
• Gift cards with outstanding balances are recreated in Shopify so customers can still spend them; check the balances and codes before you close Squarespace.
• Subscriptions, if you sell them, move to a Shopify subscription app. Active subscriptions usually need customers to re-confirm payment details, so plan the communication carefully.
• Service products, such as consultations or workshops, may need a booking app on Shopify.

Customers, orders and reviews

Squarespace exports customers as CSV; Shopify’s guide says the file needs editing to match its template, including adding ISO country codes to shipping addresses, before import. Customer notes aren’t included in the Squarespace export. Marketing consent should move with each customer, so only those who opted in arrive as subscribers.

Orders export to CSV from Squarespace, filtered by status, date or product. Shopify has no native order import, so its guide points to third-party apps for bringing order history across. If you don’t need past orders in Shopify, keeping the export as a record may be enough.

Reviews can’t move: Shopify’s guide says you can’t export or migrate reviews from Squarespace to Shopify. Choose a review app and invite recent customers to review again after launch.

Passwords don’t transfer either. Shopify’s customer accounts sign customers in with a one-time code sent to their email, so they don’t need a new password.

Blog posts and pages

Squarespace’s site export produces a WordPress-format XML file. According to Squarespace, it includes layout and gallery pages and one blog page, with its posts and comments, but not store pages, products, drafts, custom CSS, or audio and video blocks. If you have more than one blog, only one comes through the export.

Shopify doesn’t import WordPress XML natively, so posts are moved with a migration tool that reads that format, or rebuilt by hand. Either way, each post keeps its title, content, images, publish date, SEO title and description, and gets a redirect from its old URL. Pages are rebuilt in the new Shopify theme. On a large blog, use Search Console to decide which posts earn traffic and move those carefully; thin or outdated posts can be redirected to stronger pages.

Squarespace URLs and redirects

On Squarespace, product URLs begin with the store page’s slug followed by the product, with a /p/ segment on version 7.1 sites, and blog post URLs begin with the blog page’s slug. Pages sit at the root, such as /about. Shopify’s folders are fixed: /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/.

Squarespace’s own redirect tool, URL Mappings, holds around 2,500 redirect lines. Once you move, redirects live in Shopify instead, which allows up to 100,000 on standard plans, added one by one or by CSV. Every product, page and post URL that earns traffic should be redirected, and the new sitemap submitted to Google Search Console. Google recommends keeping permanent redirects in place for at least a year. My Shopify migration SEO guide covers how to build the list.

Categories, collections and navigation

Squarespace organises products with store pages and categories; Shopify uses collections and menus. Each Squarespace category becomes a Shopify collection, either manual, holding a hand-picked list of products, or automated, filling itself from rules such as product type, tag or price. Automated collections built from tags are worth setting up during the import, because new products then land in the right collections on their own.

Navigation is rebuilt as Shopify menus, with the most important collections kept as easy to reach as they were. If your Squarespace store page grouped products in a way customers liked, keep that structure; if it grew messy over time, the move is a good moment to tidy it, as long as every old category URL is redirected to its new home.

Your domain and email

If your domain was registered through Squarespace, it can be connected to Shopify or transferred; if it’s with another registrar, point it at Shopify. Change only the records the website needs, and if your email uses the same domain, check where its records live first so mail keeps arriving on launch day. Redirects should be set up in Shopify rather than left in Squarespace’s URL Mappings, because those stop working once the Squarespace site is closed.

The DIY route, step by step

1. Open a Shopify storeChoose a plan and theme; set up payments, shipping and tax.
2. Export from SquarespaceProducts, customers and orders CSVs, plus the site XML for your blog.
3. Reformat and import productsMap columns to Shopify’s template, convert weights, add images and alt text.
4. Import customersEdit the contacts CSV to Shopify’s template with country codes and consent.
5. Bring orders across if neededWith a third-party app, after products and customers.
6. Move blog posts and rebuild pagesWith a tool or by hand, setting SEO fields on each.
7. Set up redirects and launchRedirect every important URL, connect the domain, place test orders and submit the sitemap.

My Shopify migration checklist has the full list, and my Shopify migration tools guide compares apps for the parts Shopify doesn’t import natively.

Before you start

• List every product, page and post URL from your Squarespace sitemap; this becomes your redirect list.
• Copy your existing URL mappings, so old redirects are folded into the new list.
• Pull your top pages from Search Console by clicks over the last year.
• Check for digital products, gift cards and subscriptions, which need their own plan.
• Note where your domain and email are managed, so launch day doesn’t interrupt either.
• Save every export somewhere safe before closing Squarespace.

Payments and integrations

Payment setups don’t transfer. Shopify Payments is available in the UK and many other countries, and other providers such as PayPal can be added; Shopify charges an extra transaction fee if you use a third-party card provider instead of Shopify Payments. Email marketing, scheduling, member areas and other Squarespace extensions each need a Shopify app or alternative, so list what you use and find replacements before launch. If a Squarespace-only feature is central to your business, check the Shopify alternative carefully before committing.

Choosing a theme

Squarespace sites are often chosen for their design, so the new Shopify theme matters. For most stores, a Theme Store theme built for a catalogue like yours, configured with your fonts, colours and imagery, gets close to the polish of a Squarespace template while adding Shopify’s commerce features. A custom theme makes sense when the catalogue is large or specialist, or the brand needs to stand apart. Either way, check every page type on a phone before launch.

Launch day

• Pause changes on Squarespace so no products or orders are missed.
• Bring across late customers and orders created since your first import.
• Connect the domain to Shopify, touching only the website records.
• Remove Shopify’s store password so customers and Google can see the store.
• Test redirects by opening old Squarespace URLs.
• Place a real order and refund it, checking emails, payment and tracking.
• Submit the sitemap in Google Search Console and watch it for a few weeks.

SEO beyond redirects

Redirects send visitors and Google to the right page; the page still has to deserve its ranking. For every product, collection, page and post that earns traffic, carry over the SEO title and meta description rather than accepting Shopify’s defaults, keep the main text and headings, and add descriptive alt text to every image, which matters more than usual here because Squarespace’s product export leaves alt text behind. Choose a theme that outputs product structured data, so prices and availability can appear in search results. Verify your domain in Google Search Console before launch, then watch it closely: small movements in the first weeks are normal while Google recrawls, and anything that doesn’t settle usually traces back to a missing redirect or missing content.

Running costs compared

On list price, the two platforms overlap. Squarespace’s US pricing runs from $19 to $99 a month billed annually, with a 2% transaction fee on Basic. Shopify’s US pricing puts Basic at $29 a month billed yearly or $39 billed monthly, with Grow and Advanced above it. Local prices differ on each company’s UK site.

The differences that matter are payment fees, the apps you’ll need on each platform and what each plan includes. Add up a year on both before deciding; for a growing shop, apps and fees usually matter more than the plan.

What improves after the move

• Commerce tools built in, from inventory across locations to point of sale and marketplaces.
• A wider app ecosystem for reviews, loyalty, subscriptions and integrations.
• Room to grow without moving platform again.
• More people who know the platform when you need help.

The first month

For the first few weeks, check Search Console every few days for pages Google can’t find and add any missing redirects. Compare organic clicks with the same period before the move, follow your first orders through to delivery, and ask a few loyal customers to try signing in. Once everything has settled, close Squarespace, keeping every export for your records.

When getting help pays for itself

• Thousands of products, with images and alt text to rebuild because the CSV doesn’t include them.
• A blog that brings in customers, with hundreds of posts to move and redirect.
• Order history that matters for customer service or repeat business.
• Integrations with stock, accounting, marketplaces or a shop till.
• No time in-house to reformat data, rebuild content and test.

If only one or two apply, do the imports yourself and get help with the part that worries you. If most apply, a managed migration earns its fee. My Shopify migration package starts from $19,997 USD, or £14,997 + VAT for UK clients, with flexible plans depending on the deposit paid, and runs over four weeks from signed brief to a live store. I’m UK-based and work remotely with retailers all over the world. Outside the UK, the package starts from $19,997 with no VAT, quoted in US dollars after the free store audit. For the full service, see my Shopify migration service.

Common mistakes

When to stay on Squarespace

• Your site is mainly content or services with a small shop that Squarespace handles well.
• You sell a handful of products and aren’t hitting any limits.
• You rely on Squarespace-only features, such as scheduling or member areas, that are central to the business.

Whatever you decide, export your products, customers, orders and site XML now and keep them safe. It costs nothing and gives you options later.

A move costs time even when the tools are cheap. If your Squarespace shop is doing its job, that time may be better spent on marketing. If the shop has become the business, Shopify is usually the better long-term home, and my Wix to Shopify migration guide covers a similar move from another website builder.

Squarespace to Shopify migration: FAQ

Sources

Shopify Help Center, “Migrating from Squarespace”, accessed 24 October 2026. Shopify Store Migration app listing, accessed 24 October 2026. Squarespace Help Center: exporting products to CSV, exporting your site, exporting Commerce orders, managing customers, URL slugs and URL mappings, accessed 24 October 2026. Squarespace prices: squarespace.com/pricing (US), accessed 24 October 2026. Shopify plans, variants and redirect limits: shopify.com/pricing and Shopify Help Center, accessed 24 October 2026. Site moves: Google Search Central, updated 20 August 2026. KA Consultancy prices and proof points as published on the Shopify migration services page.