Squarespace review: Pros and cons in 2024

Editor’s Note: This article contains updated information from a previously published story.

Squarespace

Blueprint Rating

Learn More

Via Squarespace's website

Starting monthly fee

$25

Free trial

Yes (14 days)

Integrated SEO and marketing tools

Yes

Pros

• Templates are available to match various site types and design preferences.
• Drag-and-drop builder.
• Can edit websites through the mobile app.

Cons

• Not as customizable as other services.
• Website editor is not as user-friendly as some.
• No free plan.

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Web.com

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Monthly fee

$19.99

Free domain

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Squarespace

Learn More

Via Squarespace’s website

Monthly fee

$23

Free domain

For one year

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Squarespace is a website builder known for its wide assortment of attractive templates and design options. It also offers e-commerce features, allowing you to set up an online store to sell the products or services offered by your business.

However, each business has a unique set of needs and priorities. Read through our Squarespace review to determine whether the platform matches the website design needs and budgetary constraints of your small business.

Squarespace overview

Squarespace is a popular website builder that allows users with little to no design experience to craft beautiful and functional pages. With a wide assortment of templates, fonts and color palettes, businesses can create web pages that match their vision and support their priorities. 

Squarespace users can also create an e-commerce store to sell products or services to their customers. Additionally, the company offers marketing and SEO tools to help businesses build their customer base and increase their sales.

Unlike some other website builders, Squarespace does not offer any free plans. It has the following plans: 

• Personal: $25 per month; $16 per month, billed annually. 
• Business: $36 per month; $23 per month, billed annually.
• Commerce (Basic): $40 per month; $28 per month, billed annually. 
• Commerce (Advanced): $72 per month; $52 per month, billed annually.

You can try out the features by signing up for a 14-day free trial.

Squarespace pros and cons

As with any website builder, there are pros and cons associated with using Squarespace. Weighing these against your business goals and web design needs can help you determine whether the platform will be the best fit for your business.

Pros

Squarespace offers a wide array of templates to match a variety of website types and design needs. A few of the many available categories include health and beauty, food, entertainment, travel, photography, real estate and properties, fitness and media and podcasts. 

As Carly Chamerlik, a flight instructor and photography business owner who uses Squarespace for her business website, Fly with Carly, shared, “Squarespace has the market cornered on aesthetically pleasing website builders. [Its] templates are visually attractive, modern and trendy.”

Heather Pressler, the founder of BlueHuki, shared another pro of the website builder. She explained that with the “intuitive drag-and-drop interface” of Squarespace means that “even beginners can easily make changes on the platform.” You don’t need any coding knowledge or experience; Squarespace’s Fluid Engine makes it easy to position and size images and fonts so that you can customize the look and feel of each webpage.

Squarespace users can also make edits or updates to their site using the mobile app, which is available for iOS and Android. You can write and post new blog entries, review site analytics and keep an eye on your inventory, even if you’re away from your computer.

Cons

Despite all of the benefits associated with Squarespace, there are some drawbacks that you’ll want to consider before determining whether it is the ideal fit for your business needs. First, while the drag-and-drop editor helps with design, you may find that webpages are not as customizable as with some other services. Pressler explained that “depending on the template, some customizations are not intuitive, easy to code or may not be possible.”

There are some other downsides to Squarespace’s website editor as well. For example, it is not as automated as you may expect. There is no autosave feature, so you’ll need to make sure you save changes as you go to avoid losing what you’ve accomplished. Once you do save your progress, any changes you make are automatically published. This could be a potential downside if you want to finish a series of updates before having anything go live on your site.

While many other website builders, such as Square, Strikingly, Weebly and WordPress, offer free plan options, Squarespace does not. Its least expensive plan, designed for personal use, starts at $25 per month, with business and e-commerce plans costing even more. While there is no fully free plan, users can sign up for a 14-day free trial before committing to monthly or annual billing.

Squarespace pricing and value

	PERSONAL	BUSINESS	BASIC COMMERCE	ADVANCED COMMERCE
Cost	$25 per month	$36 per month	$40 per month	$72 per month
Key features	Mobile-optimized websites. Templates.	Website analytics. Integrated e-commerce features. Ability to check customers out on your domain.	Merchandising features to boost sales. Point-of-sale. Product reviews.	Additional shipping options (free shipping/variable shipping rates). Discount options. Ability to sell subscriptions.

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Squarespace users can choose from four different plan options. While it does not offer a free option, you can sign up for a 14-day free trial for any of the plans, allowing you to test the features and ensure that it is the right fit for your needs. 

All Squarespace plans include a free custom domain, customizable template options, the drag-and-drop editor, mobile-optimized websites, SSL security, unlimited bandwidth, 24/7 customer support, SEO features, video hosting, Squarespace AI and Squarespace Extensions.

The first plan is the Personal tier. It costs $25 per month (or $16 per month if you choose annual billing). As the name implies, this tier is intended for personal, not business, use and includes the most limited features.

The next tier, the Business plan, costs $36 per month (or $23 per month with annual billing). In addition to everything included with the Personal tier, it also includes website analytics, the ability to have users check out on your domain and integrated e-commerce features (with a 3% transaction fee).

The Basic Commerce tier adds to the features offered by the business plan with more merchandising features, such as low-stock alerts, product waitlists and displaying related products. It costs $40 per month (or $28 per month when you sign up for annual billing). This plan tier removes the e-commerce transaction fees.

The final plan is the Advanced Commerce tier for $72 per month or $52 per month with annual billing. With this plan, Squarespace adds more shipping options (such as the ability to offer free shipping with select order totals or to adjust shipping rates based on where your customers live). 

Users who choose this plan will also have the ability to offer discounts that their customers can apply during the checkout process. Users will also be able to sell subscriptions with this plan choice.

Website editor features

Squarespace’s website editor is designed to be easy to use, allowing individuals and businesses to create functional and aesthetically pleasing web pages without any coding. 

The first step to creating a website using the editor is to choose a template. As you scroll through the template library, you’ll find countless options with different themes, colors and fonts, allowing you to create a custom look for your webpage.

Once you’ve selected a template, you can explore different layouts for your site. Switching between layouts is as easy as clicking between options such as an overlay grid, simple grid or hover background.

With the template and layout in place, you’re ready to move on to adding content to your site. Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor, called Fluid Engine, makes this process simple. Add text and images and then use your mouse to move them around to the desired position on the page. You can easily resize items by dragging the corner of the image or font. Fluid Engine utilizes a grid system to help you easily position items in a visually appealing format.

Blogging features

If you’re looking to start a blog or want to move your existing blog to a new platform, you may find that Squarespace is a good fit for your needs. With the drag-and-drop editor, stylish templates, color palettes and fonts and flexible layout options, you can build beautiful pages for your readers, helping your content shine.

Squarespace’s blogging features also go beyond the ability to simply create attractive websites. With the available e-commerce capabilities, you can monetize your blog and boost your revenue. Bloggers can sell exclusive content to their readers directly through their website. Such content may include newsletters, training videos, podcasts or printables. 

Squarespace Member Areas is another feature designed to support bloggers. You can create exclusive member-only sites to sell to your customers. These sites could house special content, such as recipes, videos, workshops or community forums.

E-commerce features

Squarespace offers several e-commerce features to help both startups and well-established businesses sell their products and services to customers. Use the web design features to create an online store that showcases everything your business has to offer. There are no limits to the number of products you can add to your online store.

With Squarespace, you can also set up product categories to help visitors navigate the site and find what they’re looking for. You can add detailed product descriptions, embed videos into your listings and choose from different layout options to personalize the look and feel of the space. Squarespace also offers product quick views, allowing users to view details while staying on the current page.

Inventory management is integrated with Squarespace’s e-commerce features. You can add your available products to your online store and keep track of what you have in stock and what you need to make or order more of. Squarespace will also send email alerts to notify you when an item is low in stock.

Shipping and delivery options are another key component of Squarespace’s e-commerce plans. You have the ability to offer different shipping options, purchase USPS shipping labels or even arrange for local pickup.

Customers can choose from different payment options through your Squarespace online store, increasing the chances that they’ll follow through and make a purchase. Credit cards can be used to complete transactions, and you also have the option to integrate your store with PayPal or Stripe.

Squarespace vs. top competitors

While Squarespace is a popular website builder, it is far from the only option on the market. 

	LOWEST MONTHLY COST	UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH	E-COMMERCE FUNCTIONALITY	SERVICE AND SUPPORT	SEO TOOLS	MARKETING TOOLS
Squarespace	$25 per month	Yes	Yes	24/7 email support; limited live chat hours; no phone support	Yes	Yes
Shopify	$5 per month for simple store; $39 per month for Basic plan	Yes	Yes, with all but Starter plan	24/7 email and live chat support	Yes	Yes
Wix	$17 per month	Yes	Yes, with all but Light plan	24/7 phone support, limited live chat hours	Yes	Yes

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Before deciding whether Squarespace is right for you and your business, think about how it stacks up against competitors in the areas that matter to you most.

Squarespace vs Shopify

While Shopify and Squarespace have some things in common, the two platforms also have several key differences that will impact which is right for your business. 

Despite having a cheaper starting plan, Shopify is going to cost most users more money than Squarespace. The $5 monthly Starter plan only allows you to sell through messaging apps or social media, not through an online store. As you get into the more advanced plan options, you could end up paying as much as $2,300 per month compared to Squarespace’s most expensive plan, which costs $72 per month.

The main difference between Shopify and Squarespace lies in overall purpose. Shopify is an e-commerce site. It may be the ideal choice for more established businesses with a larger budget that are looking to sell products or services online. Squarespace, on the other hand, offers some e-commerce features as well, but they are not as extensive as you’ll find with Shopify. 

However, Squarespace’s library of templates could make it a better choice for those who want to create impressive-looking websites. If you only are selling a few products or services or have a more limited budget, you’ll likely find that the e-commerce features are sufficient for your needs.

Squarespace vs Wix

Squarespace and Wix are among the most popular website builders out there. Both offer many similar features, including customizable templates, a drag-and-drop editor, SEO and marketing tools and integrations with third-party apps. While on the surface, both builders may seem very similar, there are actually some notable differences between the two of them. 

If you’re a beginner and are looking for the most straightforward editor, Squarespace might be the best fit for you. The editor may not offer as many customization options, but the interface is less complex and easier to navigate. And, because of the wide assortment of beautifully laid-out templates, you can still craft attractive and professional websites.

Wix, on the other hand, might be the better choice for you if you want to be in complete control of the finished look of your website. There are no limits to where you can drag-and-drop elements on the webpage, compared to Squarespace, which utilizes a grid system and block arrangement. However, if you’re not as experienced or design-focused, the limitless options may make it more difficult to put your website together.

Featured website builder offers

Wix

Learn More

Via Wix’s website

Monthly fee

$17

Free domain

For one year

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Web.com

Learn More

Via Web.com’s website

Monthly fee

$19.99

Free domain

Only when paying annually

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Squarespace

Learn More

Via Squarespace’s website

Monthly fee

$23

Free domain

For one year

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)