How to move your site from Wix or Squarespace to Netlify

By Ranjit Bhinge, founder of Blur Studio · Updated October 30, 2026 · 6 min read

Short answer: Neither Wix nor Squarespace lets you export your actual site, its design, layout and code, to another host. Both are closed, proprietary platforms built to keep your site running on their own infrastructure. What you usually can take with you is your content: blog posts, product listings, images and written copy, exported as files you re-enter into a new site rather than a working copy of the old one. Confirm your own account's exact export options directly before planning around this, since specifics can vary by plan and have changed over the years. Moving to Netlify in practice almost always means rebuilding the site rather than migrating it, either by hand or, increasingly, by having an AI tool rebuild it from your old site's content and structure.

You're ready to leave Wix or Squarespace for Netlify and want to know honestly what actually comes with you, versus what you'll have to redo.

I'm Ranjit, and I run Blur Studio: 15+ years building software, 120 apps taken live, and clients who have gone on to raise $10M+. I build AI systems and processes that help businesses do a lot more with a lot less time. I also work differently from most of what else is out there, more on that further down this page. Say hello.

This page may contain affiliate links from which Blur Studio earns commissions.

Netlify is a hosting platform that deploys sites built from your own code, whether that's plain HTML, a static site generator, or a framework like Next.js or Astro. Wix and Squarespace are the opposite kind of product: website builders where you design and edit the site inside their own closed system, and the site only runs on their infrastructure. That difference is exactly why moving between them is never a simple "export and import."

What can and cannot move

What usually moves:

Blog posts. Both platforms generally let you export blog content in a portable format, which can then be imported into a new blog setup elsewhere, though formatting and images sometimes need manual cleanup afterward.
Product listings, if you run a store. Product names, descriptions, prices and inventory counts can usually be exported as a spreadsheet file and re-imported into a new store platform.
Your own written copy and images. Anything you wrote or uploaded is yours; you can always copy text manually and re-download images, even without a dedicated export tool.
Your domain name (if you bought it separately, or can transfer it out), which is the one piece that genuinely carries over cleanly regardless of platform.

What essentially never moves:

The actual design and page layout. Wix and Squarespace sites are built inside their own proprietary editors; there's no code export that recreates the visual design elsewhere.
Page structure and navigation exactly as built. You'll be rebuilding your site's structure in whatever you move to, not transplanting it.
Any platform-specific app or widget (a booking widget, a specific gallery tool) tied to that platform's own ecosystem.

This is a well-established, long-standing characteristic of both platforms rather than a recent change, but specifics can vary by your exact plan and have shifted over the years, so confirm your own account's current export options directly in your Wix or Squarespace dashboard before planning a move around an assumption.

The real steps to move from Wix or Squarespace to Netlify

Export whatever content your platform allows: blog posts, product data, and a list of every page and its copy, even if that just means copying text into a document yourself where no formal export exists.
Decide how the new site gets built. Since the design doesn't transfer, you're choosing between hand-coding a new site, using a page builder, or using an AI website tool that builds a working site from a description or existing content.
Build (or rebuild) the site using whichever method you picked, using your exported content as the source material rather than starting from a blank page.
Connect your project to Netlify by pushing it to a Git repository and importing it in the Netlify dashboard, or uploading the code directly if it isn't in Git.
Point your domain at Netlify. Update your domain's DNS records (or transfer the domain itself) to point to your new Netlify site, ideally during a low-traffic window. DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to around 48 hours to fully propagate depending on your domain's settings, so plan the cutover for a day you can monitor it rather than walking away immediately after making the change. Putting your website on your own company web address covers the domain side in detail.
Check your email separately. If you use email addresses on the same domain through Wix or Squarespace's own email service, moving your domain's DNS records can break that email if you're not careful. Confirm whether your email is hosted through the same provider and, if so, either move it deliberately alongside the website or make sure its specific DNS records (MX records) are preserved during the switch. Pointing your domain at a new website without breaking email explains how.
Set up redirects from old URLs where possible. If your new site's page URLs differ from your old one's, redirecting the old paths to their new equivalents protects any search ranking and existing links you've built up.
Keep your old site live until the new one is fully tested, then cancel the old subscription only after you've confirmed the new site, domain and email (if hosted through the same provider) are all working.

When rebuilding with AI is easier than a manual migration

Because there's no real "migration" in the traditional sense, just a rebuild using your old content, this is one of the cases where an AI website tool genuinely earns its place instead of being a gimmick. Wegic, a conversational AI website builder that designs and builds a site from a chat-based description rather than a drag-and-drop editor, can take your exported copy and a description of your old site's structure and produce a working starting point fast, which you then connect to Netlify the same way as any other project. For a simple brochure site or a small blog, this can replace the slower process of manually rebuilding every page by hand. Starting a build through Wegic is worth trying if you want a fast first draft to then refine, rather than designing from scratch.

Where this approach runs out: a site with unusual custom functionality, a complex booking or membership system, or a design you need to match exactly rather than approximately. Those are better served by a developer rebuilding the specific pieces that matter, using the AI-generated draft (if you made one) as a starting point rather than the finished product.

The cost side of the move

One genuine upside of leaving Wix or Squarespace worth factoring in: both charge an ongoing monthly subscription for hosting and the editor together, typically somewhere between $17 and $40 a month depending on the plan. A site rebuilt as code on Netlify can often run free or close to it on Netlify's entry tiers, confirmed live on netlify.com/pricing as of October 2026, for a typical small brochure or blog site's traffic level. That doesn't make the move free, since you're trading a monthly subscription for either your own time rebuilding the site or a developer's time doing it for you, but it's worth having an honest number for the ongoing hosting savings when you're deciding whether the move is worth the upfront effort. What it costs to host a website has the wider numbers.

A worked example: a 12-page service business site on Squarespace

Say you're running a 12-page site on Squarespace: a homepage, services, about, a blog with 20 posts, and a contact page. Realistically, you'd export the blog posts in whatever portable format Squarespace offers, copy the text of the other 11 pages into a document, and gather your images. From there, either rebuild the pages by hand in your new site, or feed that content into an AI builder to get a working structure fast, then adjust the design and copy from there. Either way, once the new site exists as code, connecting it to Netlify and pointing your domain at it is the easy, mechanical part; the actual work is almost entirely in rebuilding the content and design, not the technical hosting switch.

How I'd approach this

I treat a Wix or Squarespace move as a rebuild project from day one, not a migration, because that's honestly what it is. The useful question isn't "how do I export my site" since the real answer is "you mostly don't," it's "what's the fastest, cheapest way to rebuild what's actually working about my current site, and fix what wasn't." For a straightforward brochure site, an AI-assisted rebuild followed by a Netlify deploy is often genuinely enough. For anything with real custom functionality or a brand-specific design that has to look exactly right, that's where I'd get involved to make sure the rebuild doesn't quietly lose something that mattered on the old site. Best website hosting for small business compares ten options if Netlify isn't the only one you're weighing.

Questions people ask

Can I export my Wix or Squarespace site's design to Netlify?

No. Neither platform offers a way to export the actual design, layout or code. You can usually export some content (blog posts, products) but the visual site has to be rebuilt.

Will I lose my SEO rankings when I move?

Not necessarily, if you set up redirects from your old page URLs to their new equivalents and keep your core page content substantively similar. Losing rankings usually happens when pages simply disappear with no redirect in place, not from the host change itself.

Is my domain name tied to Wix or Squarespace?

Only if you bought it through them. If so, most registrars allow transferring a domain out; if you bought your domain separately, this step is simpler since you're just repointing DNS.

Can an AI tool really rebuild my old site accurately?

For a straightforward brochure or blog-style site, reasonably well as a starting point, especially if you feed it your actual exported content. For complex custom functionality or an exact design match, treat the AI output as a draft a developer then refines.

How long should I keep my old Wix or Squarespace subscription running during the move?

Until your new site, domain, and any email hosted through the same provider are fully tested and working. Cancelling early, before confirming everything transferred correctly, is one of the most common and avoidable mistakes in this kind of move.

What's the hardest part of this move, honestly?

Not the technical hosting switch, which is mechanical. It's recreating the design and functionality of your old site, since that part genuinely has to be rebuilt rather than transferred.