Before You Cancel Webflow | How to Keep Your Site and Domain (2026)

Note: the steps and screens for moving to Lolipop are from 2023. In October 2026, we added a section on what happens when you cancel Webflow, where to move to now, and the latest pricing.

The conclusion first. When you cancel a Webflow Site plan, any custom domain connected to it is automatically disconnected. If you want to keep the site and the domain, export the code and publish it to a new destination before you cancel, switch the domain over, and only then cancel. As of 2026, our first choice for the destination is Cloudflare (static hosting on Workers).

Hi, I’m Kurita, Representative Director of Webharu Inc.. I’m answering the following question.

“I want to keep running the site I built in Webflow cheaply. I want the site and domain to survive even after I cancel Webflow. I want to know which parts of the exported code to edit.”

✓ What you’ll learn in this article

• How to migrate from Webflow to a server of your own
• Which server is cheap and saves time
• How to use the code exported from Webflow.

I run my business on Webflow, and I’ve actually exported code and published a site that way myself. This article shares what that experience taught me.

This blog requires no specialist knowledge. It’s written so it makes sense even if all you can do is no-code.

Key takeaways

Canceling Webflow — what it means

Canceling Webflow means stopping the contract on a Site plan (and the Workspace plan). Canceling a Site plan reverts the site to the free Starter plan and automatically disconnects the custom domain. To keep the site, export the code before canceling and move it to another server.

Contents

What happens to your site when you cancel Webflow? (October 2026 update)

When you cancel a Site plan, the site reverts to the free Starter plan, and every custom domain connected to it is disconnected automatically. Reconnecting it requires buying a paid Site plan again (source: Webflow Help Center, “Reconnect a custom domain if your Site plan is canceled”, confirmed October 5, 2026).

In other words, if you cancel first and then look for a new home, your visitors will find nothing there if they open the domain in the meantime. The order matters.

The order to follow before canceling Webflow

1. Export the code on a paid Workspace plan (CMS articles and forms don’t come with it)
2. Put the files on the new destination and check they display at a temporary URL
3. Switch the domain’s DNS over to the new destination
4. Confirm it displays on the custom domain
5. Only then cancel the Webflow Site plan and Workspace plan

For a site running articles through the CMS, exporting won’t bring the article pages with it. If you have a lot of articles, it’s faster to treat canceling Webflow as a rebuild rather than a straight migration.

What you need in order to migrate away from Webflow

• Code export: requires the Workspace “Freelancer plan, $16/month”
• The export itself is over in 3 clicks
• CMS articles aren’t exported along with it
• Forms stop working > substituting Google Forms is the easy option.

(October 2026 update: code export is still available on a paid Workspace plan. The Freelancer plan is $16/month billed annually, or $24/month billed monthly. The Core plan, aimed at in-house teams, is $19/month billed annually, or $28/month billed monthly. CMS content still can’t be exported, and forms still stop working. Confirmed on Webflow’s official pricing page on October 5, 2026.)

Code export is done by clicking ① in the image below and saving.

Here I’m exporting static pages only, with no CMS. If you bring a CMS into it, you’re migrating to WordPress instead, so the work involved changes.

The server I moved from Webflow to Lolipop in 2023

The server used here is Lolipop. My reasons for choosing it were as follows.

• It’s seriously cheap: about ¥5,000 for a year, about ¥7,000 for three years
• It’s been around a long time and is well known.

Publishing a site on Webflow without a CMS cost $14 (about ¥2,100). I wanted to shave off even ¥100 of running cost, so I went looking for the cheapest server around. There are plenty of servers out there, but I’ll walk through the one I actually used. While I’m at it, here’s my referral link. The 10-day free trial is here

(October 2026 update: Webflow revised its pricing in May 2026. The cheapest plan with a custom domain, Basic, is now $15/month billed annually or $25/month billed monthly; Premium, which includes the CMS, is $25/month billed annually or $39/month billed monthly. Confirmed on Webflow’s official pricing page on October 5, 2026. The Lolipop figures are from 2023.)

How to migrate from Webflow to a server of your own (2023, Lolipop)

The steps run as follows. It’s about five minutes of work.

1. Sign up for a server with Lolipop
2. Register your own domain on the Lolipop user page
3. Enter the same name as the domain into the public (upload) folder
4. Open Lolipop! FTP from the sidebar
5. Upload the files exported from Webflow to FTP
6. Set the public upload folder for the “www.domain” subdomain
7. Change the domain settings
8. Click through the SSL setup
9. Done: wait about a day and check it’s live

Sign up for a server with Lolipop

My view is that you sign up somewhere cheap and upgrade once your pageviews grow.

Registering a domain

Domains have nothing to do with SEO or anything like that, but the stylish choice is short and easy to understand. For a personal blog, something like “mblog.com”; for a company, something like “recruit.co.jp”. When it’s short, people can tell what the site is just from the domain, which is kind to users.

Endings such as .com and .jp go in and out of fashion to some degree. In no-code circles, .io is common. Around November 2023, .ing had just launched and was causing a bit of a stir. code.ing, eat.ing and the like are unique and popular. Watching what’s trendy and buying accordingly is fun too.

Mine, by the way, is “non-haru.com”. I lined up the names of the cats I used to keep. Maybe it could’ve been a bit shorter, but if you’re attached to it, that’s fine.

‍There are things you shouldn’t do when setting a domain.

• Putting another company’s name into it
• Names that get you banned on social media (banned-word territory)

Avoid those.

Register your own domain on the Lolipop user page

Now set up your own domain. If you can’t find where to do it, click the company logo at the top left. That takes you to the page below. Click the custom domain setting and go through to the page below.

You already have the domain, so now we move to step 2, pointing the domain at Lolipop. Set it up as follows.

• The custom domain to set: enter the domain you registered
• Public (upload) folder: enter the same name as the domain
• Lolipop! Accelerator setting: ON (either is fine, but turn it on just in case)

Enter the same name as the domain into the public (upload) folder

This item is where I got stuck, so let me share the mental picture I use.

• Files on my PC > Server A (upload) > Server B (read) > shown to the user

The “public (upload) folder” you set here means choosing the file where the HTML to be published is stored. But that stage is “Server B” above. First comes the work of uploading to “Server A.”

Open Lolipop! FTP from the sidebar

We use a service called FTP to upload the HTML and everything else to Server A.

Upload the files exported from Webflow to FTP

There are all sorts of FTP services, but installing one is a hassle, so I use Lolipop! FTP.

Lolipop! FTP has automatically created a file with the name you entered in the public (upload) folder. That makes things easier to follow later, so I recommend it.

Put the code exported from Webflow into that automatically created file and you can publish. Let’s get on with it.

Unzip the ZIP exported from Webflow and upload everything inside it. The HTML goes in as is; anything that came as a CSS folder or other folder gets a matching folder created inside FTP and goes in level by level.

That’s it. Basically, if you create the files and folders exactly as Webflow exported them, it works.

Set the public upload folder for the “www.domain” subdomain

If you were hosting on Webflow, you’re probably also publishing on the www. domain. So set up www on the Lolipop server too. Enter a file with the same name as the public (upload) folder you just created and you’re done. (In this case, that’s the domain name.)

Change the domain settings

Go to wherever your domain is managed, delete the DNS you set for Webflow, and switch to the following.

The format you set here is a little different from Webflow’s. I normally use Google Domains, but since Google Domains was acquired by Squarespace, I’m holding off on a specific screenshot walkthrough for now. On Google Domains, the following settings solve it.

• Delete the default name servers
• Open custom name servers and click “switch settings”
• Enter the following name servers. Primary name server: uns01.lolipop.jp. Secondary name server: uns02.lolipop.jp

(2026 update: Google Domains has completed its migration to Squarespace, and domains are now managed from the Squarespace dashboard. Check the current help pages of your own domain registrar for the name server screen and its wording.)

Click through the SSL setup

Go back to the first screen and to the SSL item.

Click free SSL. That’s it.

Done: wait about a day and check it’s live

Once everything is finished, click the URL and check. It usually reflects immediately, but SSL and the www. version can take time. So once the work above is done, leave it about a day before checking.

I actually checked right away, thought “hm, I’m getting an error,” went to sleep, and found it had resolved itself.

These days, the destination after canceling Webflow is Cloudflare (October 2026 update)

In 2023 I published to Lolipop. If I were doing the same thing now, I’d serve the site statically on Cloudflare Workers. There are two reasons.

• Cost: by Cloudflare’s own account, requests to static files are free and unlimited, and storing the files carries no extra charge either (source: Cloudflare Docs, “Billing and Limitations”, confirmed October 5, 2026)
• Effort: there’s no FTP work creating folders one by one — you publish the whole exported folder with a single command

In fact, Webharu’s own company site graduated from Webflow in July 2026 too, and now runs on Cloudflare. Rather than Webflow’s code export, though, we rebuilt it in Astro with Claude Code. Webflow’s subscription cost us $576 a year (about ¥83,000) in real terms; now it’s just the domain fee, ¥1,500 a year (as measured in 2026. I wrote up the rebuild process in the complete record of building our site with Claude Code).

The flow for moving to Cloudflare

1. Create a Cloudflare account and add your domain to Cloudflare (switch the name servers to Cloudflare)
2. Unzip the ZIP exported from Webflow and place a configuration file, wrangler.jsonc, in the same folder (write name and assets.directory into it)
3. Publish with npx wrangler deploy and check it displays at the workers.dev URL you’re given
4. Add the custom domain in the Workers settings screen
5. Once it displays on the custom domain, cancel the Webflow Site plan

To connect a custom domain to Workers, that domain needs to be managed by Cloudflare (source: Cloudflare Docs, “Custom Domains”, confirmed October 5, 2026). If you’re unsure where to register your domain, see the article on where to register a domain.

Forms stop working on Cloudflare too, just as with Lolipop. Back in 2023 I substituted Google Forms.

Editing the files Webflow exports

Specifically, there’s a lot you could change — image file names, meta tags, the names of the HTML, CSS and JS files, and more. You can run the site perfectly well without changing any of it.

I meant to write out the method in detail, but a single page needed such a large volume of changes that I gave up. If you’re delivering code to a client, it’s better to tell them you used Webflow. Present it well and you’ll be rated more highly than an ordinary coder. You can also propose managing it through Webflow going forward, so it pays off twice.

For anyone who still wants to make the changes, I’ve put together a short list, so follow the steps below.

1. Change the class names: Webflow uses particular naming conventions to generate its classes. It matters to change these class names so they differ from what Webflow generated. There are quite a few classes called webflow something.
2. Delete unnecessary meta tags: remove meta tags that identify Webflow, such as name="generator", from the HTML.
3. Consolidate the stylesheets: combine the several CSS files Webflow generates into one, and rename the obvious ones such as webflow.css.
4. Consolidate the scripts: consolidate or minify the scripts Webflow generates to reduce direct references to the libraries Webflow provides.
5. Remove Webflow’s branding: strip out any branding or badges Webflow may have added.
6. Optimize the code: edit the generated HTML, CSS and JS files by hand to remove surplus code and customize the file structure.
7. Rename the image files: Webflow sometimes generates image file names in a particular format, so renaming them can make it look as though Webflow isn’t involved.
8. Use Google Tag Manager: manage analytics and other tracking scripts through Google Tag Manager instead of direct tracking code.
9. Changing the forms: for forms, I substituted Google Forms.

If you’re unsure about canceling Webflow

If you’re barely updating the site but still paying for a Webflow subscription, it’s worth canceling and moving to static hosting. On the other hand, if you update the site weekly through the CMS or the Editor, staying on Webflow is the easier path.

• Comparing export tools: a comparison of HTML code export tools
• Webflow’s current pricing: an explainer on Webflow’s pricing plans
• How to connect a domain: how to set up a custom domain in Webflow

We take on consultations about moving off Webflow or rebuilding through the contact form. We also write about cutting a site’s running costs in the newsletter (emails are in Japanese).

Selected work

JTB Americas

A full renewal of the North America site, with the operations team able to update it themselves

Hosted by Nippon TV

High-fidelity Figma-to-Webflow conversion, with load speed and responsiveness optimized

PonTech Lab Inc.

Built with AI (Claude Code) on Next.js and Cloudflare, with the build process published

FAQ

What happens to my site when I cancel Webflow?

Canceling a Site plan reverts the site to the free Starter plan, and any custom domain connected to it is disconnected automatically. Reconnecting it requires buying a paid Site plan again (per Webflow’s own help pages, confirmed October 5, 2026).

Can I keep my domain even after canceling Webflow?

The domain itself survives, since it’s a contract with the registrar you bought it from. What gets disconnected is the link to Webflow. Export the code before canceling, publish it on another server, and switch the DNS over, and you can keep running the site on the same domain.

What do I need to export code from Webflow?

A paid Workspace plan. As of October 2026, Freelancer is $16/month billed annually or $24/month billed monthly, and Core is $19/month billed annually or $28/month billed monthly. CMS articles aren’t exported, and forms stop working too.

Where do you recommend migrating to from Webflow?

As of 2026, our first choice is static hosting on Cloudflare Workers. By Cloudflare’s own account, requests to static files are free and unlimited. Webharu’s own company site went from $576 a year on Webflow to just ¥1,500 a year in domain fees. The body of this article still keeps the 2023 steps for moving to Lolipop (about ¥5,000 a year at the time).

Can a site using the CMS be migrated the same way?

CMS article pages aren’t included in the code export. A site with a lot of articles needs a separate step — either rebuilding at the new destination or moving the content to something like WordPress.

What should I do if the site doesn’t appear right after the migration work?

DNS switching and SSL can take time to propagate. When I moved to Lolipop in 2023, it started showing after I left it for about a day.