Best practices to consider for managing your domain before officially canceling your Squarespace site.

Before you cancel your website subscription, review any custom domains connected to your site. Your visitors associate your domain with your site. If you decide to take your site offline, you may want to keep your domain for future use.

This guide outlines the options you have based on how you registered your domain.

Tip: If you registered a free Squarespace domain before March 5, 2015, skip to the Legacy Squarespace domains section.

Squarespace domains

If you registered a domain through Squarespace, it won't automatically expire when you cancel your website subscription. All Squarespace domains will still be yours and will continue to auto-renew on their renewal date.

Consider your domain options before you cancel your website subscription:

• Keep your domain with Squarespace - You'll continue to own the domain, and can connect it to any site. Note that as long as your domain subscription is active, it stays linked to your canceled site until you move, forward, or point it to another site.
• Move your domain to a different Squarespace site - To use your domain with a different Squarespace site, move the domain to a new site before canceling your website subscription.
• Transfer your domain to a new provider - If you want to manage your domain through a different provider, transfer your domain away from Squarespace before canceling.
• Cancel your domain - If you no longer need your domain, you can disable your domain's auto-renew before or after canceling your website subscription. Your domain will expire at the end of its current billing cycle.

Tip: If your domain links to an expired Squarespace site, you can remove its DNS records. The domain will then show a "This site can't be reached" page.

Legacy Squarespace domains

If you have a free legacy domain, your domain renews for free as long as it’s attached to a site on an active annual website billing plan.

When you cancel a site with a free legacy domain, you’ll choose to either let your domain expire or convert it to a paid domain during the cancellation process. If you choose a paid domain, you’ll be charged $20 on the renewal date. The domain stays linked to the canceled site until you move it to a different Squarespace site, forward or point it to a new site, or transfer it to a new provider.

Note: If you renew your domain for $20, you forfeit the free custom domain offer. Squarespace can't convert it back to a free domain.

Third-party domains

If you connected a domain you purchased elsewhere (like GoDaddy or Google), disconnect it from your Squarespace site before canceling.

Note: If you still have a third-party domain attached to a site you’ve removed from your account, contact us so we can help unlink it.