Migrating from Squarespace to Ghost on a VPS

Why Squarespace's July 2026 price increase changes the calculation

What self-hosted Ghost gives you that Squarespace does not

• Paid newsletters with zero commission — Stripe connects directly; Ghost takes no percentage of your subscriber revenue, unlike the 10% fee on Squarespace's Core plan.
• Root server access — you can modify the nginx configuration, set caching rules, install an analytics proxy or connect Ghost to your data pipeline.
• Open-source themes — hundreds of Ghost themes are available on GitHub without extra licences; customising them only requires knowledge of Handlebars.
• Full portable export — Ghost exports your content as structured JSON and your subscribers as CSV; you can import these files into any other Ghost instance without losing metadata.
• Predictable cost — the VPS price does not vary with your traffic or subscriber count; only a voluntary upgrade changes the bill.
• Updates on your schedule — you decide when to move to the next major version, avoiding forced migrations that have broken Squarespace themes in the past.

Total cost over 3 years: Squarespace Core vs Ghost on a ServOrbit VPS

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Prerequisites before you start

Migrating from Squarespace to Ghost on a VPS: steps

1. 01

   Export your content from Squarespace

   From your Squarespace dashboard, go to Settings → Advanced → Import / Export Content, then click Export. Squarespace produces an XML file in the WordPress Extended RSS (WXR) format. This format is recognised by Ghost conversion tools — Ghost does not read Squarespace XML natively, but ghost-gscan and third-party converters handle WXR.

   Also export your subscribers: Marketing → Email Subscribers → Export, which produces a CSV file with addresses, subscription statuses and sign-up dates. Keep this CSV carefully — it is your list, and it cannot be recovered after the account is closed.

2. 02

   Prepare the VPS server

   Connect via SSH to your VPS: ssh [email protected]. Update packages, then install Node.js 22 via the NodeSource repository:

   curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_22.x | sudo -E bash -

   sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

   Then install MySQL and nginx:

   sudo apt-get install -y mysql-server nginx

   Secure MySQL with sudo mysql_secure_installation, then create the Ghost database and user:

   sudo mysql -u root -p -e "CREATE DATABASE ghostdb; CREATE USER 'ghostuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strong_password'; GRANT ALL ON ghostdb.* TO 'ghostuser'@'localhost'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;"

   Finally, create a non-root system user for Ghost: sudo adduser ghost-runner.

3. 03

   Install Ghost CLI and Ghost

   Install Ghost CLI globally: sudo npm install ghost-cli@latest -g

   Create the installation directory and transfer ownership to your Ghost user:

   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/ghost

   sudo chown ghost-runner:ghost-runner /var/www/ghost

   sudo chmod 775 /var/www/ghost

   Switch to the Ghost user, then run the installation:

   su - ghost-runner

   cd /var/www/ghost && ghost install

   Ghost CLI will ask a series of questions: production URL (e.g. https://your-domain.com), MySQL login details, and will offer to configure nginx and SSL automatically. Answer yes to both — Ghost CLI writes the nginx configuration and calls certbot to provision the Let's Encrypt certificate.

4. 04

   Convert and import Squarespace content

   The Squarespace XML file must be converted to Ghost JSON format before import. Use the @tryghost/migrate tool:

   npx @tryghost/migrate squarespace --pathToFile export-squarespace.xml

   The tool produces a ghost-import.json file. Check its structure: each post should have a title, a slug, a status and an html field. Images are referenced by Squarespace URL — they will be downloaded during import if you pass the --scrape media option.

   Log into the Ghost administration interface (https://your-domain.com/ghost), create your admin account, then go to Settings → Advanced → Migrations → Import content and upload the JSON file. Ghost processes the import in the background and notifies you by email when done.

5. 05

   Import your email subscribers

   In Ghost Admin, go to Members → Import members and upload your Squarespace CSV file. Ghost recognises the email, name and subscribed_to_emails columns. Map the columns if the headers differ.

   Imported subscribers are marked as 'free members' by default. If some had a paid subscription on Squarespace, you will need to update them manually or via the Ghost Admin API (PATCH /admin/members/{id}) once Stripe is configured.

   Then configure Stripe in Ghost Admin → Settings → Subscriptions to enable paid newsletters. Enter your Stripe API key and set your subscription prices.

6. 06

   Set up 301 redirects from old URLs

   Squarespace generates URLs in the format /blog/post-title or /post-title depending on the template. Ghost uses /{slug}/ by default. If your URLs differ, create a redirects.yaml file in the Ghost directory (/var/www/ghost/content/data/redirects.yaml):

   from: /blog/{slug}
to: /{slug}
permanent: true

   Restart Ghost to apply the redirects: ghost restart. Check each old URL with curl -I https://your-domain.com/blog/first-post — the response should return a 301 pointing to the new URL.

   If your domain was previously hosted at Squarespace, update the DNS records (A or CNAME) to point to your VPS IP. DNS propagation takes between a few minutes and 48 hours.

7. 07

   Check the sitemap and submit to Google Search Console

   Ghost automatically generates a sitemap at https://your-domain.com/sitemap.xml. Open it in a browser and verify that all your posts appear with the correct URLs.

   In Google Search Console, add your domain as a property if not already done, then submit the sitemap via Indexing → Sitemaps. This speeds up re-indexing of your content on the new URLs.

   If your domain had authority on Squarespace, the 301 redirects transfer the SEO signal to the new URLs — expect a few weeks for rankings to stabilise. Avoid changing post slugs at this point: each additional modification adds a step to the redirect chain.

8. 08

   Cancel Squarespace after validation

   Do not cancel your Squarespace subscription until you have verified that the content is correctly imported into Ghost, that DNS points to your VPS and that the redirects work. Allow a minimum 48-hour overlap for DNS propagation to complete.

   In Squarespace, go to Settings → Billing & account → Cancel site. Squarespace keeps the site live until the end of the billing period — during this window, a visitor with the old URL in cache will still see your old site, which is normal and expected.

   Save one final copy of the Squarespace XML and subscriber CSV before confirming the cancellation.

Troubleshooting: common errors during migration

After migration: routine maintenance