When your website outgrows Squarespace or Wix
Squarespace and Wix are great for getting a site up fast. The trouble starts years later, when the content piles up, the site needs to do more, and you find out how hard it is to leave. Here’s what we see when clients move, and how to tell if it’s time.
October 29, 2026Last updated October 29, 2026
Picture a small organization that launched its website on Squarespace five years ago. It took a weekend. The template looked good, the price was fair, and nobody needed a developer. Since then the blog has grown to 60 posts, the team wants a page for every program, and a funder asked for a map of where they work. Every new idea now starts with the same sentence: “I don’t think the template can do that.”
That’s the point where a website builder stops saving you time.
Wix and Squarespace together run close to one in ten websites. Wix is on 5.3% of all sites and Squarespace on 4.2%, according to W3Techs. For a lot of small organizations they’re the right first website. Here’s what changes when they aren’t anymore.
Here’s what’s inside:
- Your content outgrows the pages. When adding something means copying a page.
- The template can’t do it. And add-ons start piling up.
- Leaving is harder than joining. What Wix and Squarespace let you take with you.
- Know who you’re paying. Where your Wix subscription goes.
- How to move, and when to stay. A checklist before you cancel anything.
Your content outgrows the pages
Builders are designed around pages. That works until you have a lot of the same kind of thing: stories, programs, locations, team members, events.
Picture a nonprofit with 60 community stories, each built as its own page. Every new story starts by copying an old one and replacing the text, photos and date. After a few years, half the pages are laid out slightly differently, the dates are wrong on the ones that were moved in bulk, and some web addresses still carry the name of the story they were copied from.
The fix is structured content. Every story gets the same fields, from the title and photos to the program and the location. A new story becomes a form to fill in, not a page to design, and every program or city page lists its stories automatically.
If your team copies an old page and edits it every time you add something, your content has outgrown your pages.
The site needs things the template can’t do
It usually starts small. The team wants case studies it can add without help, a page in a second language that actually reads well, a donation form that matches the rest of the site, or a structure that tells search engines and AI tools clearly what the organization does.
Builders can do a lot with apps and add-ons. But each add-on is another monthly fee, another login, and another piece that looks slightly different from the rest of your site. At some point you’re paying for a pile of workarounds instead of a website.
Leaving is harder than joining
This is the part nobody mentions when you sign up.
Wix sites can’t move. Wix says a site must run on Wix’s servers and can’t be hosted anywhere else. If you leave, the site gets rebuilt.
Squarespace has an export, but it’s narrow. According to Squarespace’s own guide, it exports basic pages and one blog in a WordPress format. Store pages, portfolio pages, event calendars, product and video blocks, style settings and custom code stay behind.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use a builder. It means the longer you stay, the bigger the move gets. A site with 15 pages is a quick move. A site with years of posts, events and products is a project.
Know who you’re paying
For many organizations, especially those working for justice, the platform is a values decision too. Wix is an Israeli company, and it took a side.
Within days of October 7, Wix launched “Wix for Swords of Iron,” named after the Israeli occupation forces’ name for their war on Gaza, and built more than 180 websites for war-related causes. An internal Wix channel called “supporting Israel narrative” told staff not to dwell on casualty numbers, because deaths in Gaza “will be significantly higher.”
When a Dublin employee called Israel a terrorist state and criticized the bombing of Gaza on LinkedIn, Wix fired her. Wix later conceded the dismissal was procedurally unfair, and Ireland’s Workplace Relations Commission awarded her €35,000.
Every Wix plan is a monthly payment to that company. If your organization stands with Palestine, your website shouldn’t be paying for the other side.
What to plan before you move
- Make a list of everything. Every page, post, form and file. Builders hide old pages well, and old pages are often the ones people still find on Google.
- Map every old address to a new one. A site with years of posts can need dozens of redirects, so every link anyone has shared still lands in the right place. Skip this and you lose search rankings and break links in old emails and posts.
- Check where your domain is managed before you cancel anything. Many organizations bought their domain through the builder, or let the builder manage its settings. Cancel the plan before those are moved, and your site and even your email can go dark.
- Give the content a structure, not just a new template. A move is the one chance to fix how your content is organized. Copying 60 messy pages into a new design gives you 60 messy pages that look nicer.
When to stay
Stay if your site is a handful of pages, one person edits it, and it does what you need. Squarespace and Wix are fast, affordable and reliable for that. Don’t rebuild a site because a new platform is fashionable.
Consider moving if you keep hearing “the template can’t do that,” if your team copies and edits pages to add content, if you’re paying for several add-ons to patch gaps, or if your site needs to work in two languages the way your community actually reads.
If you’re not sure which side you’re on, book a free 30-minute call. We’ll look at your site with you and tell you honestly whether it’s time.
