Squarespace vs. WordPress: Differences, pros and cons in 2024

Squarespace vs. WordPress: Overview

Squarespace and WordPress are two of the most popular website building platforms available. While both can be great options for business owners looking to create an outstanding website, there are clear advantages and disadvantages for each. Which one to choose depends on whether you prioritize getting set up quickly, ease of use, maximum functionality or a more affordable option. 

What is Squarespace?

Squarespace is a platform and website builder used for e-commerce sites, displaying a portfolio of work or general business marketing and branding. The company has been around since 2003, and customers have created millions of websites using the service.

Squarespace allows you to choose from over 150 website templates, which you can customize to suit your needs. The platform provides features like: 

• Built-in search engine optimization (SEO) tools.
• Website analytics.
• E-commerce tools like inventory management and shipping integration.

Squarespace’s plans range from its barebones Personal plan, which costs $25 per month and has limited functionality, to the Commerce plan, which has many more features and starts at $72 per month.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open source website building platform used by over 43% of all sites on the internet. In this article we primarily focus on WordPress.com, a service of the company Automattic, which is a hosted version of the WordPress software with various additional features. 

WordPress is perhaps best known for its extensive marketplace of plugins, which provides a wealth of options for adding various features to a user’s website. With over 50,000 plugins available, mostly created by third parties, you can add functionality such as:

• Contact forms.
• Advanced SEO.
• Social media sharing.

Many of these are free, although some require subscription fees.

The higher-tier WordPress.com plans, including the Business and Commerce plans, offer access to these plugins. WordPress.com also provides many built-in features, including:

• Newsletter automation.
• Analytics.
• E-commerce tools.
• Performance enhancement.
• Security.

There are also hundreds of website templates, called themes, to choose from. 

WordPress.com offers free and low-cost plans with fewer features, which could be of interest to business owners who are just starting out and not ready to invest much money yet. 

Squarespace vs. WordPress: Pricing

Winner: WordPress

WordPress.com offers a free plan, which is supported by showing ads to your site’s visitors. If you do not want to be forced to show ads to your users, WordPress.com offers paid plans starting at $4 per month (paid annually). This is a significantly lower cost than Squarespace’s entry-level plan, at $16 per month (paid annually). Squarespace does not have a free option. 

Considering the more full-featured plans, Squarespace and WordPress.com are more comparable in terms of pricing. When you pay annually, WordPress.com has a cheaper plan for its highest tier ($45 per month) compared to Squarespace’s $52 per month.

Both services offer plenty of functionality to satisfy the needs of most business users. Due to the free option, as well as much lower rates for the lower-tier plans, and competitive rates for higher-tier plans, there is a clear winner when it comes to pricing: WordPress.com.

Squarespace vs. WordPress: Design and user interface

Winner: Squarespace

Squarespace wins on the design and user interface. Alexa Stimpfel, founder of The Shoe Fairy, said, “Squarespace offers simplicity and user-friendliness, making it a great choice for small businesses with limited technical expertise. It provides easy-to-use drag-and-drop tools.”

Still, others point to available WordPress plugins to customize your website building experience. Gauri Manglik, CEO and co-founder of Instrumentl, said, “With WordPress, you can use a template builder like Elementor or Beaver Builder to create your own custom layout from scratch or use one of their pre-made templates as a starting point for creating something new.”

While WordPress.com provides options to choose your own user interface, most business users will prefer an easy-to-use experience right off the bat, without having to deal with finding a plugin that makes the experience better. Squarespace provides a great out-of-the-box solution.

Squarespace vs. WordPress: Features

Winner: WordPress

Squarespace and WordPress.com are both packed with all the features most businesses need. They are both all-in-one solutions, with e-commerce capabilities, SEO, analytics, security and 24/7 customer support. But if you’re looking for an advantage over your competitors, WordPress.com has the edge. 

WordPress.com provides performance boosting features that minimize site load times, helping ensure that your visitors won’t leave due to delays. These include serving your content from data sites closest to your visitors and utilizing high performing CPUs to generate pages.

As for security, WordPress.com has more advanced security tools than Squarespace. 

Perhaps most importantly, WordPress.com gives you access to a vast amount of plugins While Squarespace also has its own version of plugins, which it calls extensions, the number and variety are nowhere near what you can get on WordPress.com.

Squarespace vs. WordPress: Security

Winner: WordPress

Squarespace and WordPress.com both offer essential security features like two-factor authentication, denial of service (DoS or DDoS) protection and SSL certificates. WordPress takes this a step further with:

• A web application firewall.
• An isolated site infrastructure.
• An anti-spam protection.
• Malware scanning.

If you’re looking for a higher level of security in an insecure world, WordPress.com might be the better option.

Squarespace vs. WordPress: E-commerce options

Winner: Squarespace

In terms of e-commerce capabilities, Squarespace and WordPress.com are closely matched. They both offer a variety of payment methods, streamlined checkout inventory and product management and shipping integration.

Squarespace has a more intuitive design and user interface, which is especially important when it comes to building a high-quality e-commerce site. Because of this, Squarespace gets the win here.

Squarespace vs. WordPress: Customer support

Winner: WordPress

When it comes to customer support and service, WordPress.com and Squarespace both have quite a bit of room for improvement. Neither offers support by phone, only email and live chat.

While both promise 24/7 customer support, Squarespace’s live chat is only available on weekdays with somewhat limited hours. Its 24/7 claim only applies to email, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook Messenger.

Customers generally do not give either company high marks on Trustpilot, with many comments complaining of poor customer service.

Which is best for your business?

Winner: WordPress

Squarespace and WordPress.com are among the best website building platforms you can use. They both have the essential features that most businesses would need or want. Still, each service has distinct advantages. Squarespace is lauded for its user-friendly design and easy customization, while WordPress.com offers better performance, security and flexibility with access to a vast plugin marketplace. 

Although neither service is known for having great customer service, WordPress.com gets slightly higher marks in this area than Squarespace. WordPress.com also wins on cost, offering budget-friendly plans, including a free option and competitive pricing at the higher end. 

For all these reasons, we recommend WordPress.com over Squarespace for most business owners.

WordPress.com is the best option for business owners who are looking for one or more of the following when building a website:

• Lower costs.
• More power and functionality.
• Higher security.

Squarespace would be appropriate for those prioritizing:

• Ease of use.
• Quick setup.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Is Squarespace as good as WordPress?

Whether Squarespace is as good a platform as WordPress.com depends on your goals. If you prioritize ease of use, design aesthetics and simplicity, Squarespace may be the better choice for you. If you value customization and a vast array of options, Squarespace may not meet your needs as well as WordPress.com would.

Should I use WordPress or Squarespace for my portfolio?

If you prefer more customization and options for your portfolio, WordPress.com is the best choice for a portfolio website, with its extensive themes and plugins. However, if you want to get your portfolio set up quickly, with an intuitive-to-use website builder and a polished design, Squarespace is a great choice.

Do I own my own content on Squarespace?

Squarespace’s terms of service make clear that you maintain ownership of all content you add to your Squarespace site. That said, it claims the right to use your content to “improve, promote and protect” its services.

Can I keep my domain if I leave Squarespace?

Yes, your domain is yours to keep, regardless of which website platform you use.

Is it hard to switch from Squarespace to WordPress?

Squarespace allows you to download your website content into an .xml file, which you can then import into WordPress. However, not all content will be exported, such as audio blocks, video blocks, product blocks and style settings.