How to Move a Squarespace Site to Cloudflare (Domain Too)

You can move a Squarespace site to Cloudflare, and it comes in two halves: the domain and the site. For the domain, you add it to a free Cloudflare account and change its nameservers, which are the settings that say who answers when someone types your address. Moving the domain's registration to Cloudflare is a separate, optional step. For the site, Squarespace's export gives you a content file, not a finished website, so the pages are rebuilt as plain files that Cloudflare serves for free. This guide walks through both halves in order, with the limits and the traps.

The whole move in one table

Steps 1 to 3 are the domain, and step 3 is optional. Steps 4 to 7 are the site. If you only want the domain at Cloudflare, stop after step 3.

The domain: steps 1 to 3

Two different things get called "moving a domain", and mixing them up causes most of the trouble. Cloudflare's docs say that transferring a domain moves your registration from your current registrar to Cloudflare, and that changing nameservers makes Cloudflare the one that answers for the domain. The registrar is the company you pay for the domain name.

Step 1: add the domain to Cloudflare. Cloudflare can scan and copy your existing DNS records (the entries that tell the internet where your website and email live). Cloudflare says that scan is not guaranteed to find all of them, so you need to review the records yourself, email especially. If you switch with records missing, visitors may see errors. Follow Cloudflare's setup page.

Step 2: change the nameservers. First, if your domain has DNSSEC (a security setting on the domain) switched on, turn it off at your current registrar and wait at least 24 hours before you change nameservers; this is Cloudflare's instruction from its transfer page. Then change the nameservers where you bought the domain, which may be Squarespace. Cloudflare says that the last step may have to happen outside of Cloudflare, at that registrar (nameserver instructions). If your registrar does not let you change nameservers, Cloudflare lists three ways out: move the domain to a registrar that allows it, transfer it to Cloudflare Registrar, or use a CNAME setup (Cloudflare's option that skips the nameserver change) that needs a Business or Enterprise plan. If your domain is registered with Squarespace, its own nameserver guide covers that case. It says that adding custom nameservers disconnects the domain from your Squarespace site, prompts you to disable DNSSEC, and makes the records in your Squarespace DNS settings stop applying, so email records such as MX or DKIM have to be added again at the new provider. It also says the change "can take up to 48 hours" to work properly. Note whether the domain's registration is billed through Squarespace, because step 7 depends on it.

Step 3, optional: transfer the registration. You can skip this and keep paying your current registrar. If you do transfer, and DNSSEC is on, switch it off first as in step 2. Cloudflare's transfer page sets the rules:

• The domain must be active on Cloudflare first. Cloudflare will not take an authorization code (a one-time password your current registrar gives you to approve the transfer) until then.
• It must be at least 60 days past registration and past its last transfer, and you must not have changed the registrant (the owner's name, organization or email on the domain) in the last 60 days.
• Cloudflare says its domains are sold at cost, with no markup. Cloudflare Registrar lists .ca.

For a .ca domain there are two more traps. CIRA, which runs .ca, bars a change of registrar within 60 days of registration or of a previous change (CIRA rules). And Cloudflare says a separate verification email may follow the transfer, and its troubleshooting page says it comes from noreply@emailverification.info, not Cloudflare. Missing it may result in domain suspension. Check your spam folder. For the same transfer from another builder, see How to Transfer a Wix Domain to Cloudflare.

The email trap. Squarespace's pricing page says a Google Workspace account that came free for the first year renews at the standard rate after it. If your mailbox runs through Squarespace, check your account page for how it is billed once the site is cancelled, and decide where the mailbox will live before you touch nameservers. Cloudflare Email Routing forwards mail sent to your domain to an existing mailbox; it is not a mailbox itself.

Domain-only readers can stop here.

What it costs

Squarespace's CAD pricing page on November 9, 2026 listed these plans, per month (official pricing page):

The page also showed a 50% off badge on each plan, with no terms stated, and Squarespace's help center says that discounts apply to your first payment and the next renewal is charged at full price. It also says that a price-increase email applies at your next renewal date. Got a Squarespace Price Increase Email? What to Do covers that in more detail.

Cloudflare has two products that serve a static site, Pages and Workers, and as of November 2026 its Pages overview says to start new projects with Workers (Cloudflare Pages). You may see either name in the dashboard. On the free plan, Pages allows 500 builds a month, up to 20,000 files per site and files up to 25 MiB each (Pages limits). Workers static assets allow 20,000 files per version and 25 MiB per file (Workers limits). Cloudflare says requests to static assets are free and unlimited on Pages and on Workers (Pages pricing, Workers billing). Workers needs your domain's nameservers to be managed by Cloudflare, which step 2 gives you (Cloudflare's migration guide). What stays on your bill is the domain, any mailbox you pay for, and the AI assistant if you edit by asking (more on that below). For the longer version, see A Website With No Monthly Fees: What It Takes.

The site: what the export holds (step 4)

As of November 2026, the two lists below, of what the file holds and what it leaves out, come from Squarespace's page Exporting your site.

Step 4: export your content from Squarespace

The export is a single .xml file in WordPress format. You do not have to import it into WordPress; the file is just text that other tools can read. Your site must be published and set to public, and you cannot export from a trial site.

What goes into the file:

• Layout pages
• One blog page, including all of its posts and up to 1000 comments per post
• Text blocks and image blocks
• Text from embed and Instagram blocks, with minimal structure
• Gallery pages, on Squarespace version 7.0 only

If your site has more than one blog, you pick one and only that one exports. The page states no limit on how many posts a blog can hold, only the 1000 comments per post.

What it leaves out:

• Album, cover, index, info, calendar, portfolio and store pages
• Content in page-specific headers, footers and sidebars
• Any second blog
• Dropdowns
• Audio, product and video blocks
• Drafts
• Style settings and custom CSS

Two more details matter. Because style settings and custom CSS are left out, the file does not carry your design. And if the file goes into a self-hosted WordPress site, Squarespace warns that images might not move, and the image links can stop working after you cancel. Squarespace also says you cannot import this export into another Squarespace site. Some content, such as linked PDF files, appears in the file but cannot be imported into WordPress.

If your Squarespace subscription has already expired, Squarespace says you might be able to export by reactivating first, though depending on how long it has been expired, your content may already be deleted. So export before you cancel, not after.

So treat the export as a safety copy of your text, and download every image from your site yourself before you cancel rather than relying on the file for them. That image advice is our own precaution, not an instruction from Squarespace's page for this route. The layout, the look and anything in the left-out list are rebuilt. That rebuild is the part that takes real time.

The site: steps 5 to 7

Step 5: rebuild the pages as plain files. The export holds your words and one blog, not your design, so every page is rebuilt as files in a GitHub repository, which is the folder GitHub keeps for your site's files. You need a free GitHub account that you own. Use the export file for the text and the images you downloaded in step 4. This step is web development work, and neither Squarespace nor Cloudflare does it for you; it is the largest part of the move. You have three routes: build it yourself if you can code, hire a web developer, or have SiteFree do the rebuild (see below). You can also ask an AI coding assistant to build the pages from your export and images, as long as you check every page against your live site yourself.

Step 6: publish to Cloudflare and check the preview. Cloudflare connects to that repository and publishes whenever you push a change, which means sending it up to GitHub. On Cloudflare Pages, it also builds a separate preview address for every branch (a copy of your site at its own temporary address) without touching the live site (Cloudflare previews). Pages preview addresses are public by default, though Cloudflare marks them noindex. Workers has its own Previews feature, with its own limits. Before you switch anything, list every old address on your Squarespace site and map each one to its new page; the next section says why.

Step 7: point the domain at the new site, then cancel Squarespace. In Cloudflare, add your domain to the site's project as a custom domain; on Pages a free plan allows 100 of them (Cloudflare limits). Open the new site on your domain and click through the pages before you cancel anything. Keep the export file and the images you downloaded. Before you cancel, check what else Squarespace bills you for: the domain, if you registered it there, and any Google Workspace mailbox, as in the email trap above. Check your Squarespace account page for how each one is billed, and see Stop Paying Squarespace and Keep Your Domain if the domain is registered there. Keep the Squarespace plan until you have clicked through every page of the new site and sent yourself a test email. Export before you cancel, not after, as the export section explains.

Will Google still find me?

Moving a site changes its addresses unless you carry them over. Cloudflare's Pages hosting reads a redirects file with up to 2,000 static and 100 dynamic redirects. For a small site that is plenty, but someone has to list every old address and map it to the right new page. No one can promise rankings. What the redirects do is keep old links, bookmarks and search results pointing at a real page.

Can I still edit the site afterwards?

Yes. The rebuilt site is text files in a GitHub account you own, so you can change them yourself, and so can any web developer. Cloudflare builds a preview of any branch before it touches the live site (step 6), so you can check a change first.

Doing it yourself, or having it done

The do-it-yourself route is steps 1 to 7 above. It is realistic if you are comfortable with GitHub and DNS settings, and the hard part is step 5, the rebuild, because the export does not carry the design.

Having SiteFree do it

SiteFree sells this move. It is a Canadian migration service based in Montreal, with prices in Canadian dollars. The site is served from Cloudflare's global network, from a Cloudflare account in your name, with the files in your own GitHub account. It is not Canadian hosting, and the site does not stay in Canada.

What you get: every page and blog post rebuilt to match your design closely, with every old address redirected to its new page. A private preview arrives within two business days of payment, and nothing switches over until you approve. You get up to two rounds of fixes and a full refund any time before you approve, and your old site stays live until then. The domain stays with you, and your email settings are checked before anything switches.

After the move you edit the site by asking an AI assistant in plain words, for example to change the opening hours. Every change starts on a copy, and you get a private preview link. Nothing goes live until you say yes, and the live site updates a few minutes after you approve. Every change is kept in your site's history, so going back means asking your assistant to undo it. The assistant is a plan you subscribe to separately, such as Claude Pro at US$20 a month, and you can stop it between edits. You need a free GitHub account, where the site's files live. If you would rather not use an assistant, you can email SiteFree your changes, and any web developer can edit the files too.

The price is one-time, in CAD. Small, up to 5 pages plus one blog or other section, is C$99 for the first 20 sites, then C$360. Large, up to 100 pages, is C$199 for the first 20 sites, then C$720. A shop, a member area or a site over 100 pages gets a fixed quote, and Squarespace's export leaves store pages out, so a shop is a quote. You can check your site for a page count and price in about ten seconds.