Squarespace "Website expired"

Your pages aren't gone straight away, but the clock is running. Squarespace says that once a site has been expired for more than 30 days, it's not possible to recover its content.

What happens, day by day

Renewal day

The payment fails. Squarespace emails you and shows a "past due" banner on your site that only you see when you're logged in. Visitors still see your site.

The next 15 days

Squarespace tries the card again. Squarespace doesn't give extensions beyond these 15 days.

Day 15

If the payment still hasn't gone through, the site is marked expired. Visitors and search engines see a "Website expired" page instead of your site, at every one of your domains.

30 days after it expired

Content may be permanently deleted, and Squarespace can't bring it back.

A free trial

When a trial site expires, it's no longer public and Squarespace marks the content for permanent deletion. You can extend a trial by seven days without entering payment details, or upgrade it to a paid plan.

If you're visiting a site

The business's Squarespace subscription has lapsed. Nothing on your side can fix it. Contact them by phone or email: they may not have noticed, as the warnings go to whoever holds the account.

If it's your site: reactivate it

These are Squarespace's own steps. Do them as soon as you can, and within 30 days of the site expiring.

1. Go to your site's address. On the "Website expired" page, click Owner login and log in. Pictures and galleries may look wrong until you've reactivated.
2. If the old card was the problem, update your payment method and click Save.
3. Click Subscribe in the banner at the bottom of your site, pick a plan, check the order summary and click Confirm and purchase. You can't go back to an old (legacy) plan once a site has expired.
4. Give it a few hours. Squarespace says content can take up to a few hours to come back.
5. Check your site at your own address in a private (incognito) window. If it works at its .squarespace.com address but not at yours, the domain needs attention (next section).

If the site is only past due (not yet expired), you don't need to resubscribe: open the Billing panel and, under Subscriptions, click Retry payment, or update your payment method and Squarespace processes the payment automatically.

Your domain and email renew separately

Every Squarespace subscription renews on its own, so check each one in the Billing panel and the Domains dashboard:

• A Squarespace domain that has also expired has to be reactivated separately. After its grace period, there's a redemption fee on top of the renewal price.
• Google Workspace email bought through Squarespace is suspended if the card fails for 15 days, and you lose access to your inboxes. You then have 40 days to reactivate it.
• Customer subscriptions you sell end when the website expires; customers have to buy them again.

If someone else (a designer, a former volunteer) set up the account, the warnings went to their email. Send them the message below.

Is the "your website expired" email real?

Squarespace warns about fake emails that copy its design. Don't click the link in the email. Go to your site's address yourself, or log in at squarespace.com: if it's real, you'll see the expired page or the past-due banner there. Squarespace says:

• an email asking for your password, bank account or Social Security number is a sign of phishing: never share them,
• it never contacts you about billing or domains through your website's contact form,
• it doesn't phone its customers,
• suspicious emails should be forwarded, with the subject and header, to reportphishing@squarespace-security.com.

Spot scam emails about your website has five checks before you click.

Stop it happening again

• Keep the card on your Squarespace account in date, and put the expiry in your calendar.
• Make sure the account's email is one you read, so the failed-payment email reaches you within the 15 days.
• If your domain is registered elsewhere, Site health shows the date it's registered until, where the registry publishes it. We can't see your Squarespace billing, so the site subscription itself is down to the card and the email.