Cloudflare vs Squarespace for your business domain

Once a quarter we get a call from a small business that says "we have to choose between Squarespace and Cloudflare." Almost always, the right answer is that they do not have to choose at all — they are tools that do different things and can sit on top of each other. Sometimes the right answer is to drop one of them entirely.

This guide untangles the two so you can stop paying for what you don't use.

What each one actually is

Squarespace builds and hosts websites. Cloudflare is the layer between your visitors and wherever your website lives — speeding it up, securing it, and handling your DNS. They overlap on domain registration but almost nowhere else.

The four real combinations

Most small businesses fall into one of these patterns:

1. Squarespace only (the default trap)

You bought the domain through Squarespace because it was the easy button. You pay Squarespace $16–$45/month for hosting plus the domain renewal. The site is locked inside Squarespace forever — you cannot move it, only export the words.

Fine for the first year. By year three you are paying $200–$500/year more than you need to and the site is slower than the competition.

2. Squarespace site + Cloudflare DNS (the bandaid)

You move the domain to Cloudflare (saves $4–$15/year on renewal, gives you free SSL, faster DNS resolution worldwide) and point it at your Squarespace site. The site is still on Squarespace — same speed, same template feel — but you control the domain.

Modest upgrade. Mostly useful as a stepping stone toward fully leaving Squarespace.

3. Custom site on Cloudflare Pages / Workers (the upgrade)

You replace Squarespace with a real website hosted on Cloudflare Pages or Workers. Free for almost any small business traffic level. Lighthouse scores in the 95–100 range without effort. Global edge, sub-100ms load times, zero cold starts.

Total cost: $10/year for the domain. The hosting is genuinely free at small-business volume. This is where every Vivid Resources Local build runs.

4. Custom site elsewhere (Vercel, Netlify, Railway) + Cloudflare DNS (the studio choice)

For sites with backend logic, databases, or complex auth — most SaaS apps, anything with Stripe subscriptions — Cloudflare Pages stops being the right host. You move to Vercel or Railway for compute and Postgres, and keep Cloudflare in front for DNS and edge caching.

When Squarespace is genuinely the right answer

• You are the entire team and you will be the one editing the site weekly. Squarespace is real-time WYSIWYG; a custom site usually is not.
• You sell physical products with simple variants and you already use Squarespace Commerce. Their checkout works.
• You make money some other way (in-person sales, referrals, social) and the website is purely informational. Spending more than $30/month on it is a waste.

When Squarespace stops being the right answer

• You have outgrown the template look and your competitors are starting to look more custom than you.
• Your site speed is killing your Google ranking. Squarespace pages routinely score 50–70 in Lighthouse; competitor custom sites score 95+.
• You need integrations Squarespace doesn't support natively — booking systems, custom CRMs, Stripe subscriptions, multi-step forms with logic.
• You are paying $30+ per month and still cannot do the thing you wanted.
• Your business is making real revenue and the site bill is rounding to a meaningful number.

How to move from Squarespace to Cloudflare without breaking anything

Three-step migration we have done dozens of times:

1. 01Build the replacement site first. Either a custom Cloudflare Pages site (recommended) or a different platform. Do NOT touch Squarespace until the replacement is staged and tested.
2. 02Transfer the domain to Cloudflare Registrar. $9.77/year at cost (no markup), free SSL, free DDoS protection. Squarespace will release the auth code on request — it is a 7-day waiting period by ICANN rule, not Squarespace stalling.
3. 03Flip DNS to the new site, kill Squarespace. Once the new site is live on the new domain DNS, cancel the Squarespace subscription. The migration is reversible up until you cancel.

The cost comparison over five years

Even a $2,000 custom build pays for itself versus Squarespace inside two years, and then keeps paying.

Next step

If you are on Squarespace and want to see what your site could look like on a modern stack — for free, no commitment — that is the Free Preview. If you want help with the migration end-to-end, tell us about it.