For years, Squarespace has made it possible to build a professional website without knowing how to code, managing hosting, or dealing with much of the technical work.
But some Squarespace users are now rebuilding their websites from scratch using AI.
They're not necessarily moving to Webflow, Framer, or another website builder. Instead, they're using tools like Claude Code, ChatGPT, and Codex to create custom websites, then hosting them independently.
And not all of them were unhappy with Squarespace.
Their reasons for leaving generally fall into three categories.
Cost: Why am I paying hundreds of dollars a year for a relatively simple website?
Control: Why can't I change my website exactly the way I want?
Workflow: Why am I manually editing a website when AI can make the changes for me?
These aren't entirely new frustrations. But AI has made it easier for people to do something about them.
And some of the people making the switch have documented exactly how they did it.
A website that worked, but a workflow that didn't
In September, PPC consultant Jonny Swift published an account of rebuilding his Squarespace website with AI.
He had been using Squarespace for his freelance business and still considered it a good option for people who wanted a straightforward website.
But as AI became a bigger part of his everyday work, he started running into friction.
He could dictate a blog post, have AI organize it, and prepare it for publication. But he still had to manually transfer the finished content into Squarespace.
Other changes required similar workarounds, and some were difficult to accomplish within the platform.
So he decided to rebuild his existing website using ChatGPT and Codex, with GitHub storing the code and Cloudflare handling hosting.
The process took about a week.
His existing website gave him a starting point. Rather than asking AI to invent a design from scratch, he could provide his current pages and content as references.
Recreating the website wasn't necessarily the difficult part. Getting everything working correctly and deploying it took more effort.
Swift had to learn his way around GitHub and Cloudflare, troubleshoot problems, and work through AI usage limits.
But once the new website was running, he could manage it differently.
He could ask AI to investigate technical problems, make changes directly to the website's code, and add new content without manually working through an editor.
He also saved money. His Squarespace subscription had been £244.80 annually. He estimated the new website's direct annual running costs at roughly £20, excluding the ChatGPT subscription he already maintained for other work.
Swift doesn't suggest everyone should follow his example. He still recommends Squarespace to people who prefer a conventional website editor and managed hosting.
He had found a way to work on his website that better suited how he was already working.
When the website editor becomes the obstacle
Swift isn't alone in wanting a different way to maintain his website.
In July, John Brophy described replacing Squarespace with a simple HTML website hosted on GitHub Pages.
He called his approach "My CMS Is a Chat Window."
Instead of opening an admin panel, finding a page, and editing its contents, he describes the changes he wants to Claude Code.
The AI modifies the files, and the updated website can be published.
Brophy preferred giving instructions to working through a drag-and-drop interface.
His replacement site requires neither a traditional content management system nor a website builder subscription.
Product designer Sanjay Tarani documented a similar migration in March.
He had been paying $44 per month for Squarespace but wanted greater control over his portfolio's design, a blog connected to Notion, and a custom appointment-booking experience.
Using Claude Code, he built a Next.js website and deployed it on Vercel.
He also documented the prompts he used, the integrations he configured, and the complications of moving his domain.
In another example, Isaac Seiler shared his Squarespace-to-AI rebuild on LinkedIn.
Seiler said he had never taken a computer science or UX/UI class in college, yet was able to create a custom portfolio using ChatGPT, Codex, and Vercel.
What surprised him wasn't that AI could write the code. It was how much of the work still depended on knowing what he wanted.
He still had to figure out the design, goals, and creative direction.
None of these people needed to become experienced developers before attempting to build their websites outside Squarespace.
They could describe what they wanted, work with AI to build it, and make adjustments along the way.
More control comes with more responsibility
Not every migration went smoothly.
In May, Sophie Kazandjian published a detailed account of rebuilding her website using Claude Design.
She had used Squarespace for years. It gave her a website she could maintain without worrying about hosting, DNS, or other technical responsibilities.
Over time, however, she became frustrated with the limits of its design system.
She wanted layouts and interactions that were difficult to achieve, even with custom CSS.
When she tried Claude Design, she found that she could describe the website she wanted and work through the design conversationally.
She rebuilt the site in two days, including migrating 37 articles.
Then she spent another three days dealing with deployment problems.
Some pages returned errors. Redirects caused loops. Existing article URLs needed attention. At one point, a file-renaming mistake broke all 37 articles.
She eventually resolved the issues, but her experience shows what can happen after the AI finishes generating a website.
Creating a website and keeping it running are two different jobs.
Squarespace handles much of the underlying technical work automatically.
With a custom website, the owner may have to deal with those responsibilities themselves.
Kazandjian has also documented rebuilding a retired client's Squarespace website as a simple page hosted on Cloudflare.
The client barely updated his website and no longer needed many of the capabilities included in his subscription.
He wasn't leaving because Squarespace couldn't do enough.
He simply didn't need everything he was paying for.
Why pay for a website builder at all?
For someone maintaining a small portfolio or brochure website, a Squarespace subscription might cost hundreds of dollars annually.
That price includes more than the ability to display a few pages. Squarespace provides hosting, security, design tools, content management, and a managed publishing environment.
Some customers are happy to pay for all of that.
Others rarely make changes to their websites and don't need most of the available features.
Until recently, someone in that position might still have chosen Squarespace because building and maintaining a custom website required technical skills or hiring a developer.
AI has given them another option.
Instead of comparing Squarespace's subscription price with another website builder's subscription price, they can compare it with the cost of hosting a custom website.
That doesn't mean the custom website is free.
Someone still has to build it, troubleshoot problems, maintain it, and deal with whatever goes wrong. AI subscriptions can also add to the cost.
But the work that previously might have required hiring a developer is becoming something more people can attempt themselves.
And that changes the calculation.
Squarespace is responding
Squarespace is also changing how people can build and customize websites on its platform.
At Circle Day on November 2, the company announced AI Sections, an upcoming feature for conversational website customization using React components, custom styles, and other development tools.
It also announced integrations intended to connect Squarespace with external AI tools, along with additional developer capabilities.
And the company introduced Forma, an upcoming environment for creating websites, applications, and AI agents.
These are some of the same types of capabilities people have been experimenting with outside Squarespace.
But the people documenting these migrations aren't necessarily representative of the average Squarespace customer.
Many are comfortable experimenting with new technology, troubleshooting problems, and learning unfamiliar tools.
There's no evidence from these accounts alone that Squarespace customers are leaving in large numbers.
And plenty of people have no interest in managing a custom website, regardless of how easy AI makes the initial build.
They want to log in, change some text or images, and get back to whatever else they're doing.
For those people, having Squarespace handle the technical side is part of the reason they chose it.
A different relationship with the website
One more example comes from Brandon Burkman, who rebuilt his Squarespace portfolio with Codex and launched the replacement in October.
His account covers the website's design and development, along with testing, analytics, deployment checks, and the release process.
He wanted more control over the website and a system he could understand and extend.
But he retained his Squarespace subscription as a fallback when the replacement went live.
Leaving a managed platform doesn't eliminate the work involved in operating a website. It just changes who's responsible for doing it.
And that helps explain why not everyone who experiments with AI website building will necessarily leave Squarespace.
Still, the reasons these people give for rebuilding their websites are worth paying attention to.
People have complained about Squarespace's pricing and limitations for years.
What's different now is what they can do about those frustrations.
Someone who previously would have needed to hire a developer or learn to code can now attempt to build their own alternative.
And someone who once considered a visual editor the easiest way to maintain a website may discover that they prefer describing changes to AI.
That doesn't mean Squarespace is obsolete. Its customers are paying for more than the ability to create pages, and AI-generated websites introduce responsibilities that Squarespace handles for them.
But it does change what Squarespace is being compared against.
For years, people choosing a website platform were comparing different ways of designing, building, and maintaining a website.
Now some are questioning whether they need a conventional website builder at all.
If you can tell AI what you want your website to do, how much of the traditional website-building experience do you still need?
