Squarespace to Webflow: what does not come across
The Squarespace export is one WordPress XML file of one blog. Everything else on the site is a feature rather than content, and features do not export. Here is the full list, and what each one costs to rebuild.
Most Squarespace migration quotes are written after looking at the site and before looking at the export. That is the wrong order, because the site tells you how much there is and the export tells you how much of it you get for free. On Squarespace the gap between those two numbers is unusually large.
The reason is structural. Squarespace bundles a lot of what a business uses into the platform: the store, the scheduler, the events calendar, the galleries, the member areas. On the site those read as content. In the export they are features, and features do not come out.
What the export actually contains
| Content | Exports? | How it comes out |
|---|---|---|
| Blog posts | Yes, one blog only | WordPress-compatible XML |
| Static pages | Partly | Text in the same XML, layout not included |
| Images | Reference only | CDN URLs pointing at Squarespace, not files |
| Products and orders | No | Customer and order data collected manually |
| Events, albums, portfolios, index and cover pages | No | Rebuilt by hand |
| Custom CSS and code injection | No | Copy it out before you cancel |
| Layouts and design | No | Rebuilt, which is the point of moving |
The one blog rule catches people
Squarespace exports one blog. If the site has News and Case Studies and a Resources section all running as separate blog collections, one of them comes out and the others do not. Nothing warns you: the export succeeds, the file looks right, and the missing content is only noticed when somebody goes looking for a post that is not there.
Count the blog collections during the audit. It is a thirty-second check and it is the difference between one import and three extractions.
Images are references, not files
The XML carries CDN URLs pointing back at Squarespace rather than the images themselves. Import that file as-is and the new site renders correctly while quietly serving every image from the platform you are leaving. It works, right up until the subscription lapses, and then every image on the site breaks at once.
Download the media before the old subscription is cancelled, not after. This is the one step in a Squarespace migration that cannot be redone later.
Where the real cost sits
Not in the blog. The XML import is an afternoon. The cost is in whichever bundled features the business actually runs on, because each one becomes a decision rather than a transfer: an ecommerce store becomes a choice between Webflow Ecommerce, headless Shopify or a checkout link; Acuity scheduling becomes an embed or a replacement; member areas become a third-party service. None of those are hard. All of them are scope that a quote written from the design will have missed.
The same inversion shows up on every platform, in a different place each time. Leaving WordPress, the content moves easily and the plugins are the project. Leaving Wix, getting the content out is itself the project. Leaving Squarespace, it is the bundled features. Knowing which one you are dealing with before quoting is most of the skill. The step-by-step is on the Squarespace to Webflow migration page.
