Guides · The Promptable Sites team · Updated October 2026

Should You Leave Squarespace After the 2026 Price Increase?

Short answer: Leave if you want to run your site with AI: changes made in minutes by asking, an AI agent that keeps your site up to date on a schedule, a faster site, and no template limits. Stay if Squarespace’s store, member areas, or editor are central to how you work. And don’t move just to save money. Over three years, moving to a site you own usually costs about the same or more than staying, once you count the move itself.

What changed in July 2026

Squarespace told customers about higher prices by email in July 2026, with no detailed public announcement.¹ For US-dollar plans on annual billing, the changes apply at your next renewal:¹

Month-to-month prices rose less: Core went from $36 to $39, and Plus from $56 to $65.¹ Current prices are on Squarespace’s pricing page.²

Who should stay

Squarespace is a good product. Stay if:

• You run a real store. Inventory, variants, shipping, taxes, and checkout all live inside Squarespace. Rebuilding that elsewhere is a big project.
• You sell memberships or courses through Squarespace’s member areas.
• You like the editor. If dragging blocks around is how you enjoy working, that’s worth paying for.
• Your site works and the price doesn’t bother you. A move always carries some risk. If nothing is wrong, you don’t have to fix it.
• You want Squarespace’s built-in AI. It can rewrite text, generate images, and, where it has rolled out, change site text and styles from a chat.³ Compare: Squarespace AI vs Editing Your Own Site With Claude

Who should consider moving

• You want changes done fast. With a site you own, you describe the change to Claude and it edits the files directly. No editor, no waiting on a developer.
• You want AI to keep your site current. Claude can run on a schedule you set, review your content, flag outdated posts, and draft updates for you to approve.⁴
• Your site is slow on phones. Platform sites carry a lot of code you don’t control. A site built as plain files can load much faster.
• You’ve hit the template’s limits and want changes Squarespace won’t let you make.
• You want to own it. On Squarespace, you rent your site. On your own setup, the files, the hosting account, and the domain are all in your name.
• Your site is mostly pages, a blog, a portfolio, and forms. These move cleanly.

What moving really costs over three years

Here’s an honest comparison for a simple service-business site, using Squarespace Core, a common plan for small business sites.

Three takeaways:

1. Doing it yourself saves money, if your time is free and the move goes well. Read Moving Squarespace to Claude Code Yourself before you decide.
2. Paying for help costs more over three years. The yearly saving is about $150, so a paid move takes years to pay for itself.
3. Many owners already pay for Claude for other work. If you do, your yearly cost after the move is close to zero.

So if saving money is your only reason, staying is reasonable. The reasons to move are speed of change, letting AI maintain your site, and owning it.

A good time to decide: before your renewal

Squarespace refunds annual plans only if you cancel within 14 days of first signing up. Renewal payments aren’t refundable.⁷ If you’re leaning toward moving, decide before your next annual renewal, so you aren’t paying for a year you won’t use.

Keep Squarespace running until the new site is live and checked. Cancelling too early can break images, which stay on Squarespace’s servers.⁸ The full process is in our guide: Leaving Squarespace in 2026.

Questions owners ask

Is Squarespace going to keep raising prices? Nobody outside Squarespace knows. The July 2026 increase came by email, with no detailed public announcement.¹

Will I save money by moving? Only if you do the move yourself, or over many years. The bigger gains are speed, AI that keeps your site current, and ownership.

Can I move just my blog and keep the rest on Squarespace? It’s possible, but it splits your site across two systems and two sets of addresses. Most owners are better off staying or moving everything.

I have a small store. Can I move? Maybe. A few products can work with a simple checkout link from a payment provider. A full store usually means staying, or moving to a store platform like Shopify.

What if my site is on another platform? Email hello@promptablesites.com for a custom migration assessment.

Sources