Stuck on a template website? Here's what you can take with you
You design it, pay every month to keep it, and the site itself can't leave. What Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy's own pages say, and my offer if you're stuck.
By Drew Palframan, Ucluelet · · 6 min read
Photo: Port Hardy, my own.
The short version
- On Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy's builder, the website itself can't be moved to another host.
- Your domain, your words and your photos are yours. The layout and design usually have to be built again.
- Webflow is the fair exception: a paid plan exports your site's code.
- A site I build is yours once it's paid for, and if you ever leave, I send you the code and content.
Here’s how a template website usually goes. You sign up, pick a template, and spend a few evenings, or a few months, making it yours: your words, your photos, your colours, every page laid out the way you want it. You designed it. You built it. And every month, for as long as you want it online, you pay rent on it.
You designed it. You built it. And every month, for as long as you want it online, you pay rent on it.
The rent part I get. Hosting costs money, and I charge for it too. What bugs me is the other part: on most of the big builders, the website you made can’t leave. So you can’t stop paying without losing it. Stop, and it goes offline, gets their ads put on it, or gets deleted. Decide you want out, and the layout, the design and the pages you spent all those evenings on have to be built again somewhere else.
You don’t have to take my word for that. I went through the big builders’ own help pages and terms in October 2026, and I’ve linked their pages as I go, so you can check them yourself. These pages change, so if you’re reading this a while from now, click through and look.
Wix: it has to run on Wix’s servers
Wix’s help centre says a Wix site “needs to be hosted and operated on Wix’s servers”, and that you can’t put it with another host because it runs on Wix’s own technology. To be fair to them, the same page says the content you build belongs to you. But there’s no export of the site itself, it isn’t possible to keep a backup of your site outside Wix, and blog posts can’t be exported to another platform. Your store products, contacts and collections come out as spreadsheets, and you can download the photos you uploaded.
If you cancel your plan, the site doesn’t disappear. It goes back to a free wixsite.com address with Wix ads on it. So you keep paying, or your business’s website carries their ads.
Squarespace: some of your words come out, the design doesn’t
Squarespace does have an export, and I’ll give them that. It makes a file of some of your content, meant for importing into WordPress. But their own page lists what doesn’t come with it: your style settings, your custom CSS, and whole kinds of pages, including store pages, portfolio pages and album pages. Products and contacts come out as spreadsheets, and photos you download one at a time. Their terms say your content stays yours. On the template underneath it, they put it in four words: “Squarespace owns the Templates.”
Cancel, and anyone who visits your domain gets a “Website expired” message instead of your site.
GoDaddy: their agreement says the website is theirs
GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing builder is the bluntest about it. Their Website Services Agreement says that apart from your own content, the websites made with it “belong to GoDaddy”, that you have a licence to yours only while you’re subscribed, and that you “may not migrate or otherwise transfer” one to another hosting provider. Turn off auto-renew and, in their help centre’s words, once the subscription runs out the site is “automatically deleted”. The only exports I could find are your online store’s products and orders.
I’ve done this one myself. I moved a Port Alberni bookkeeping practice off GoDaddy’s builder: same pages, same words, same photos, rebuilt in code, with every link and their email left working.
The others
Square Online: I couldn’t find any way to export a site in Square’s own help pages, just the product list as a spreadsheet. Shopify lets you download your theme’s code, but it’s built to run on a Shopify store, a theme from their store is licensed to one store, and their backups cover products, customers and orders, not your pages or blog posts. Webflow is the fair exception: on a paid Workspace plan it exports your site’s code for you to put on your own server, though the copy leaves out the CMS content, and Webflow’s own form handling and site search stop working.
| Builder | Can the site itself leave? | What you can take out | If you stop paying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | NoIt has to run on Wix’s servers. | Products, contacts and collections as spreadsheets, and the photos you uploaded. Blog posts don't export. | Back to a free wixsite.com address, with Wix ads on it. |
| Squarespace | NoThe design and templates stay. | Some content, as a file for WordPress. Not your style settings, custom CSS, or store, portfolio and album pages. | Visitors get a “Website expired” message. |
| GoDaddy | NoTheir agreement says you may not migrate it. | Your online store's products and orders. | The site is automatically deleted once the subscription runs out. |
| Square Online | No documented whole-site export that I could find. | The product list, as a spreadsheet. | Not covered in the pages I read. |
| Shopify | PartlyThe theme code downloads, but it’s built to run on Shopify. | Products, customers and orders. Not your pages or blog posts. | A store frozen for an unpaid bill has to be paid up before the domain can go. |
| Webflow | YesA paid Workspace plan exports the site’s code. | The site's code, without the CMS content. Forms and site search stop working. | Not covered in the pages I read. |
| A site I build | YesOnce it’s paid for, under a permanent licence. | Your domain, words, photos and design, and a copy of the code and content if you leave. | If you leave, once your account's paid up, I send you the code and content within 30 business days. |
So what actually comes with you?
Add it up and it isn’t quite ground zero. Your domain name is yours, and you can transfer it to another registrar. If you bought it, moved it or changed its contact details recently, there’s usually a 60-day lock to wait out first, and on Shopify a store frozen for an unpaid bill has to be paid up before the domain can go. Your words and photos are yours, even if getting them out means copying and downloading them one by one. Your product list and customer list usually come out as spreadsheets.
On every builder here but Webflow, what doesn’t come is the website itself: the layout, the design, the pages you spent those evenings on. That part has to be built again.
Yes, I charge monthly too. Here’s the difference.
Hosting with me is $30 a month, for the server, the padlock and my monitor checking your site every minute, so I’m not going to pretend I don’t charge rent. And to be fair to the builders, their monthly fee also pays for the editor you change your site with. With me, most changes go through me, on Care or by the hour. The real difference is what happens when you want to leave.
Once it’s paid for, your domain, your words, your photos and your design are yours. The code is licensed to your business rather than sold, but the licence is permanent and royalty-free, and it lets you host the site anywhere and change it however you like. If you ever leave me, I send you a copy of the code and content (once your account’s paid up, within 30 business days of you asking), and you take the site with you. Some custom tools, like a booking calendar, may need a developer to reconnect them on the new host. I’ll tell you which ones before you go, and if you want my help with that, it’s by the hour. The full answer is under “Do I own my website?”
Not here. And if you’re stuck, I’ll help you out.
If you’re on one of these builders and you’d rather own what you made, here’s my offer:
- If your site is one page with a contact form, I’ll move it for free when I host it. You keep your words, your photos and the look you chose, and I rebuild it in my own code, so nothing of the builder’s comes with it. You pay hosting, $30 a month.
- If it’s bigger, I quote it at the package it matches and take $1,000 off. Foundation is normally $3,500, so moving to Foundation comes to $2,500.
- The $1,000 comes off a package’s regular price. It doesn’t go on top of a founding price.
- Right now Foundation also has a founding price for my first 10 clients, which is lower again. If you can get that, you get that instead. Founding pricing is $2,100, paid like any upfront build: 50% to start, 50% at launch. Managed Hosting is billed separately at $30/month, the same as on any build. The monthly plans are at the standard price; the founding discount applies to paying upfront.
It’s a launch offer, so it won’t last forever. When it changes, I’ll update this post.
If you want to know what it would take to move yours, book a call and send me the address. Or get an estimate first: it shows the regular price, and the move comes off when I quote you.