Create a custom template to unify the design of your organization’s projects.

On an Enterprise plan, you can create a template for your organization from any trial site in your organization dashboard. Your company can use custom templates to apply the same design and branding to multiple sites. Custom templates also help team members have an existing foundation to start new projects.

This feature is for Enterprise customers only. If you’re not an Enterprise customer, duplicate a site to create a similar site with the same template.

Watch a video

Before you begin

• Only trial sites on version 7.1 can be converted to templates.
• This feature converts the original trial site into a template. After a trial site has been turned into a template, it can't be a live site. To create a live site with the template’s design, start from the template when you make a new trial.

Create a custom template

Only Enterprise team administrators can create, edit, and delete templates. Enterprise team members can create a new site from any template created by team administrators.

Before creating a custom template, decide what site you want to use. Keep in mind, the site you choose will be converted into the template, and you can’t use it as a live site. You have two options:

• Use a new trial site - Start a trial site to create the template and use it in the steps below.
• Duplicate an existing site - If you have an existing site you want to use as a template, but you also need to keep the site, duplicate it and use the duplicate site in the steps below.

To create a template for your organization:

1. In your organization dashboard, find the site you want to convert to a template. Ensure that it has a Trial label.

Tip: Following the steps below, you'll open and review your site to ensure it's the one you want to convert. If you don't need to review the site first, click … on the site preview, then click Convert template to convert the template directly from your organization dashboard.

2. Click Website to open and review it.
3. At the bottom of the page, click Convert template to organization.
4. Click Convert to confirm.
5. A pop-up will appear, confirming your new template. The template keeps the name it had as a trial site, but you can change it.

What converts

The custom template retains most of your site's content after conversion, including:

• Pages, sections, and blocks
• Images uploaded to sections, blocks, and elsewhere on your site
• Site style settings
• Custom CSS

What doesn’t convert

Some settings won’t carry over when you convert the trial site to a custom template. These are typically site-specific settings that need to be added to sites individually, including:

• Files uploaded through the link editor
• Third-party integrations that require authenticated access, like connected accounts and API keys
• Website-specific settings and panels, like contributor permissions

Start a site from a custom template

After you've created a template, you and your team members can start a new site in your organization using a custom template or a standard Squarespace template. Your organization dashboard will include the option to start with a custom template from your organization, or start with a standard Squarespace template.

If you’re an Enterprise team administrator, follow these steps to start with a custom template, or share these steps with team members who build sites from custom templates:

1. In your organization dashboard, click Create website, then choose Start with organization templates.
2. Scroll to find the template you want to start with.
3. Hover over the template, then click Start with [template name].
4. You can start editing your new trial site. If other team members need editing access, invite them as contributors.

Edit a custom template

You can edit a template at any time. To edit a custom template:

1. In your organization dashboard, click Create website, then choose Start with organization templates.
2. Scroll to find the template you want to edit.
3. Under the template preview, click Edit, then click Edit on the template pages you want to change. 
4. After making changes, click Save to save your changes and keep editing, or click Exit and then Save to close the editor.

Any new sites starting with this template match the latest template version, but changes made to the template won’t affect existing sites. If you need to make similar changes to existing sites, make them on each site manually.

Delete a custom template

If you don’t need a template anymore, you can delete it. Keep in mind, there’s no way to recover a template after deletion. To delete a custom template:

1. In your organization dashboard, click Create Website, then click Start with organization templates.
2. Click Delete under the template you want to delete.

Deleting a template won’t affect sites previously created using the template.