Squarespace Website Builder Review 2024: Features, Pros & Cons

Squarespace scored highly against its competitors for several reasons including its scalability, beautiful templates and lengthy trial. We were able to thoroughly test the website builder in the allotted 14-day trial for this Squarespace review. It was nice to know that we could start with the entry-level plan at a reasonable rate and upgrade as needed. Though we like the site-building tools and added features of Squarespace, not everything was intuitive. Below are the biggest benefits and drawbacks of Squarespace:

Pros

• Drag-and-drop editor: The editor is easy for anyone to use regardless of your coding or design skills. You can easily customize content, change fonts and adjust sizes of blocks without disrupting the template.
• High-quality templates: Squarespace offers more than 140 pre-made templates in multiple categories including personal, portfolio and e-commerce store.
• Unlimited storage and bandwidth: For the most part, you don’t have to worry about adding too many pages, photos or videos because Squarespace doesn’t strictly monitor your storage or bandwidth. However, the company suggests adding no more than 400 pages for the sake of your site’s speed.
• Integrated e-commerce: It’s rare among most website builders to offer e-commerce functionality on most plans, but Squarespace includes it in all of its plans except the entry-level one. It offers lots of built-in features such as a shopping cart, shipping calculator and payment processing.

Cons

• No phone support: Although Squarespace offers 24/7 support, it’s only by live chat or email. It can be frustrating to not be able to call support and get help immediately.
• Too structured: We think the site builder Squarespace offers is easy to use, but it’s subjective. Some new users find it less intuitive than other website builders and for seasoned users, Squarespace’s builder can be too structured, not allowing you the freedom to build exactly what you want (and CSS and JavaScript aren’t possible on the low-priced plan).
• No free plan: There is a 14-day free trial that doesn’t require you to enter payment details but there is no free plan from Squarespace. Many of Squarespace’s competitors offer free plans and have a spot on our list of the best free website builders.

Featured Partners

Advertisement

1

Wix

Starting Price

$17 per month

Drag & Drop Editor

Yes

E-commerce (low-priced plan)

Yes

1

Wix

Learn More

On Wix's Website

2

Squarespace

Starting Price

$16 per month

Drag & Drop Editor

Yes

E-commerce (low-priced plan)

Yes

2

Squarespace

Learn More

On Squarespace's Website

3

Shopify

Starting Price

$29 per month

Active Deal

3 days free + First Month for $1

Standout Features

Drag & drop editor, AI Tools, Customize with 8k+ apps, Sell everywhere

3

Shopify

Learn More

On Shopify's Website

4

Web.com

Starting price

$2.99; code BUILD50 for 50% off annual purchase

Website Building

Yes

Standout Features

Customizable templates, Easy drag-and-drop technology, SSL certificate

4

Web.com

Learn More

On Web.com's Website

For our Squarespace review, we spent hours testing its core features. At the heart of Squarespace is its drag-and-drop editor. We navigated menus and buttons, added a blog and tested out the nuances of its e-commerce site builder. What we discovered was that it was possible to create a great website in a matter of hours (but getting support took nearly as long).

Website Builder

We started our own free trial to create an e-commerce site. We followed the instructions from the assistant pop-up window on the right side of the screen and found it was easy enough to change the site title and logo, add a page and change fonts. Although the assistant offered a helpful walk-through, its positioning on the screen kept interfering with our attempt to edit the top section.

Branding is important whenever you’re making a website for a small business, so we added our own images and logo. To change the splash image at the top of your site, navigate to the Background menu. Squarespace offers a built-in gallery of free images from Unsplash, so you can use those or upload your own.

Editing anything on your site with the Squarespace website builder requires multiple clicks. For example, it took three clicks just to get to the window where we could edit our logo. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s redundant and we’ve had better experiences (and fewer clicks) with other site builders. Editing sections is also a bit tedious, as the window doesn’t stay open if you click anywhere else on the page to allow you to edit multiple listings at once.

Despite all our minor complaints, Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor is easy to use. We added a new section (an appointment booking section), which saved a lot of time building a section from scratch. Then we were able to drag and drop multiple elements to make the section even better. Choose from buttons, forms, quotes, lines, text boxes and coding boxes, among others. Depending on which plan you choose, you can add HTML, JavaScript or CSS code to your site.

Templates

One of the main reasons people gravitate toward Squarespace is for the award-winning templates. There are more than 140 available, and the company tends to add new ones often. All of the templates look clean and modern, but some users complain that it’s easy to tell when a site uses Squarespace because so many of the templates look the same. The best way around this is to really ensure your site has a cohesive color palette and branding that makes it stand out.

Blogging

Before we get into Squarespace’s blogging features, it’s important to understand that if you have a blog with the intention of making money blogging, you don’t want to use Squarespace to host your site. Instead, use WordPress, which is widely accepted as the best platform for professional bloggers.

Now, with that out of the way, let’s take a look at Squarespace’s blogging capabilities. Its best use is for businesses whose primary function is commerce (whether e-commerce or brick-and-mortar), and that use a blog as a way to educate their audience.

The platform makes it easy to integrate a blog into your website. You can choose from a variety of templates, all of which are designed to showcase your content in an engaging way. Squarespace also offers several features that are designed to help you promote your content, such as social media integration and email capture forms. Plus, its search engine optimization (SEO) features are top-notch, which is important for getting your content seen by your target audience.

We had no trouble adding a blog to our site and editing content. The menus made it obvious where we could change SEO titles and meta descriptions. We discovered we had to be patient with images showing up. They didn’t populate on our blog page immediately, but after a visit to the help center (to no avail) and then just a few refreshes later the image showed up.

E-Commerce

If you plan on selling products or services online, Squarespace is a great option, and it made our list of the best e-commerce platforms in the industry. Most of its plans come with e-commerce features that are fully integrated into the platform. This means you don’t need to install a separate e-commerce plugin, as you would with WordPress. It also offers a wide range of beautiful templates that are designed for online stores.

Squarespace makes it easy to add products to your website and accept payments. Plus, its built-in shipping calculator makes it easy to calculate and display shipping rates to your customers. And, if you need additional features, such as abandoned cart recovery or APIs, they can be easily added with its highest-tiered plan.

One downside of using Squarespace for e-commerce is that it charges transaction fees on all sales (unless you’re on a Commerce plan). So, if you’re selling products or services online, you’ll need to factor that into your pricing.

Adding products was as simple as adding blog posts to our site. We just added photos, descriptions and variants. There are some limits on how many products you can add to each page and even each row depending on which product template you choose. Just like any other page, you can add other sections to your product page such as testimonials, events or a blank section to add more information.

We especially like Squarespace for site building because it offers gorgeous templates and structured design. New users don’t have to worry about having graphic design skills to create a beautiful website because Squarespace makes it so easy to plug in a template, fill in the blanks with your own content and then publish.

These examples of templates show you how clean an e-commerce site can look, how striking a portfolio of food or photographs appear on a gallery-style website and how lovely a simple wedding site can look. We tried these templates with our own photos and found that the design elevated our content.

Squarespace offers four plans that range from $16 per month to $49 per month, billed annually; month-to-month plans are 24% to 30% higher. Although Squarespace’s pricing is quite a bit higher than some of the budget-friendly website builders, such as HostGator and Zyro, Squarespace is about on par with Wix ($16 to $159 per month) and GoDaddy ($10.99 to $20.99 per month).

The primary difference between Squarespace plans is the number of features offered. E-commerce functionality is available on all plans except the Personal plan. We find the value of a Squarespace plan mostly lies in its ease of use and beautifully crafted templates.

	Personal	Business	Commerce Basic	Commerce Advanced
Annual Plan Cost	$16 per month	$23 per month	$28 per month	$52 per month
Monthly Plan Cost	$25	$36	$40	$72
Savings	30%	30%	25%	24%
Users	Two	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
AI Brand Tool	✔	✔	✔	✔
Full Customization	–	✔	✔	✔
Pop-Ups and Banners	–	✔	✔	✔
E-Commerce	–	✔	✔	✔
Squarespace Transaction Fee	–	3%	0%	0%
POS	–	–	✔	✔
Facebook and Instagram Sales	–	–	✔	✔
Abandoned Cart Recovery	–	–	–	✔
Support	Email and live chat	Email and live chat	Email and live chat	Email and live chat

See More See Less

Personal Plan

For $23 per month (or $16 when paid annually), the Squarespace Personal plan comes with unlimited bandwidth, SEO features, full access to the Squarespace template collection and 24/7 customer support via chat and email. The Personal plan also includes basic website metrics and up to two contributors.

Business Plan

For $33 per month (or $23 when paid annually), the Squarespace Business plan includes all the features of the Personal plan plus a professional email from Google, advanced website analytics, promotional pop-ups and banners and complete customization with CSS and JavaScript. The Business plan also includes fully integrated e-commerce with a 3% transaction fee.

Basic Commerce Plan

For $36 per month (or $27 when paid annually), the Squarespace Basic Commerce plan includes all Business plan features plus point-of-sale functionality, customer accounts and merchandising. The plan also lets you sync your products with Instagram so you can sell there, too. Transaction fees are eliminated on this plan.

Advanced Commerce Plan

For $65 per month (or $49 when paid annually), the Squarespace Advanced Commerce plan includes all Basic Commerce plan features plus abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping options, advanced discount and promotion features and the ability to sell subscriptions.

Squarespace is one of the easiest site builders to use. The platform is completely drag-and-drop, so you can easily add content and rearrange it on your pages without having to touch a single line of code. And, if you do want to get into the code, Squarespace makes that easy, too, provided you have a Business plan or higher.

If anything, we found Squarespace a little difficult to get used to. Not everything is immediately intuitive, but that sometimes comes down to the individual and experience they have with other website builders. For example, when we tried to move our home page and shop into the main navigation menu, we couldn’t find a place in settings to do so. After a few failed attempts, we finally tried simply dragging and dropping, which worked.

Safeguarding your site is important, especially if you’re running an e-commerce store. Squarespace offers several safety and security features to help keep your site and your customers’ information safe.

All Squarespace sites come with SSL encryption to protect data in transit. It also hashes your passwords and uses two-factor authentication (2FA) for additional security. Should a security issue occur with Squarespace, it has a formal incident response process to remedy the problem.

There’s also a section for a cookie banner to let users know that you’re using cookies to track their behavior and location. We were able to easily toggle this banner on and choose either an opt-in or opt-out choice for site visitors. This type of notification and options for users is necessary for you to stay GDPR compliant.

Squarespace customers have access to 24/7 email and chat support, as well as the Squarespace Help Center. In this knowledge base, access tutorials, guides, videos, webinars and a community forum. Phone support is not available, which can be problematic when you need to troubleshoot a complex problem quickly.

The default method of help is the support center articles. Using the live chat connects you to a bot that tries to answer your question. You have to specifically request to speak with an agent to connect to a live support agent. We sent a message and had to verify who we were with our name, email address and URL on Squarespace.

The wait time was nearly an hour. When we finally were connected with an agent, they were helpful in showing us how to add an image to a blog post (not just a featured image). We’d stepped away toward the end of the wait, so when the agent reached out to ask if we were still there, it was 20 minutes before we responded; the agent was still there to see if we still needed help.

Squarespace Domains

You’ll receive a free domain for your first year with any plan if you pay annually instead of monthly. Otherwise, Squarespace domain costs range from $20 to $70 per year. All domains include an SSL certificate and WHOIS privacy. Unlike other domain providers, Squarespace does not gouge you on domain renewals; you just renew at the same rate as the initial purchase.

You don’t have to purchase your domain through Squarespace. If you already license a domain through another service, you can easily connect it to your Squarespace site. If you have trouble doing this, you can reach out to Squarespace’s support team for help.

Aside from the award-winning templates and easy-to-use site editor, Squarespace includes features sometimes not available from competitors. By adding email marketing, appointments and professional design services, you shouldn’t have to look for third-party services. We tested some of these features to determine whether it’s worth using Squarespace’s built-in additional features or if you’re better off finding another service.

Email Marketing

Along with its website editor, Squarespace’s email editor is drag-and-drop, and comes with plenty of customizable templates to nurture and engage your audience via email. All emails are responsive, so they’ll look the same whether your customer views them on a desktop, iPad or cellphone. Email marketing plans start at $5 per month (paid annually) and go up to $68 per month.

As soon as you send your email, you can access analytics in real time so you know how your email campaign performs. And because it syncs with your website’s analytics, you know which traffic comes from your email efforts or which traffic is organic. You can also personalize your emails to include the customer’s name, set up sequences and segment your list.

For this Squarespace review, we created a simple thank-you email to send to customers after they made a purchase. There were half a dozen email templates from which we could choose, but they’re all fully customizable. After adding the details (subject line, sender and address), we included the automation rules, such as what action should trigger the email creation, and when it should deliver to the recipient. All of this is as plug and play as the rest of Squarespace’s tools.

Squarespace also includes pop-ups, announcement bars and a URL builder. We created a pop-up for lead generation for a newsletter and an announcement bar to draw attention to a new product launch. It was easy to adjust the content, colors and buttons, as needed. You have two options for the pop-up: use it as a lead generation tool or to drive traffic to a specific page.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

These tools include a best practices checklist, integration with Google Search Console, page titles, descriptions, the ability to hide a page from search engines, sitemaps, automatic markup, SSL, mobile optimization, clean URLS, translations and an SEO panel.

Adding all the necessary titles and descriptions for good SEO happens as you’re adding pages, editing your website or blogging. We added tags and categories, set up custom URLs and added alt text to images. The SEO checklist was helpful in that it was a good reminder to ensure we took all the necessary steps to structure our content properly and get Google to index our site.

Analytics

Analytics is so much more than knowing where your traffic comes from, and it’s much more than page views and unique visitors. Squarespace’s analytics platform tells you everything you need to know about your website traffic and how visitors interact with your site. It gives you insights into where your traffic is coming from, what pages are most popular, how long visitors are spending on your site, what devices they’re using and so much more.

This information is valuable because it helps you understand your audience and what they’re looking for on your site. With this knowledge, you can make changes to your website to improve the user experience and increase conversions. Squarespace also integrates with Google Analytics so you can track your website’s performance on Google Search Console and other Google platforms.

Our experience with this section was minimal given that we didn’t have data to test. However, we were able to set up cookies (disabled cookies will prevent accurate collection of data) and view various data based on history. For example, we could view traffic, sales and engagement based on days, weeks, months or a custom date range.

Social Media Tools

Squarespace has a number of social media features and integrations that make it easy to share your content and grow your following on social media. The tool makes it simple to include social media buttons on your website so that people may share your content with their followers. You can also use Squarespace’s built-in tools to schedule and publish posts to your social media accounts. And if you want to go a step further, you can use Squarespace’s integrations and extensions with third-party social media applications to manage your social media presence from one central platform.

Squarespace also has several features that make it easy to create social media-friendly content. For example, you can use Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor to create images and videos that are optimized for social media. And if you’re looking to add a little personality to your posts, you can use Squarespace’s emoji feature to insert emojis into your content.

When we added SEO titles and descriptions in our blog settings, we made sure to add social images too. We also added our socials to our Squarespace account to make it easy to share new content when we publish.

Squarespace Extensions

Squarespace has many extensions that add functionality and features to your Squarespace website. Extensions are available for a variety of purposes, such as social media, marketing, e-commerce and fulfillment. Some of the most popular Squarespace extensions include Shippo, Printful, QuickBooks, FreshBooks and ShipStation. These extensions allow you to add features such as social media sharing buttons, live chat, email marketing, accounting and e-commerce to your Squarespace website.

We connected a third-party app that collects product reviews from our customers. It was a simple process that required us only to click a button to allow the app permissions to our website.

Squarespace also has a number of developer-friendly features, such as an API and code blocks. These features make it easy for developers to create custom solutions for Squarespace websites.

Professional Design Services

If you need help designing your Squarespace website, Squarespace offers professional design services. With Squarespace’s professional design services, you can work with a certified Squarespace Expert to create a custom website that meets your specific needs and goals.

Squarespace’s professional design services include everything from custom logo design to complete website development. And if you need help with your website’s SEO, Squarespace’s experts can also help you optimize your site for Google Search and other search engines. With its design services, you can get the help you need to create a beautiful and effective Squarespace website.

We only dabbled in the Squarespace Marketplace for a short time for this Squarespace review. We like that Squarespace matches small business owners with experts through a questionnaire, so you get the best expert for your needs.

We think Squarespace is easy enough to use that we didn’t need to hire an expert to help. However, it is a good option for you if you want to outsource the work so you can focus on running your business or if you’re looking to do a full website redesign. Prices seem to vary based on the expert’s experience and the extent of the work you need done.

Members-only Content

Squarespace has numerous features that make it easy to create and manage members-only content. With Squarespace’s membership management tools, you can easily add and remove members from your site, track member activity and manage member permissions.

Create and manage pages, posts and other content that is only accessible to members. And if you need to sell access to your members-only content, Squarespace’s e-commerce features make it easy to set up a subscription-based service. Plans for hosting a membership site start at $7 per month (paid annually) and go up to $69 per month.

Setting up a membership site was easy. We created a pricing plan and customized the look of the page the same way we designed our main site. You can create this as a page on your site or as a separate website altogether.

Scheduling and Appointments

Squarespace acquired Acuity in 2019, so that’s the scheduling tool you can use with your website. It’s easy to get started creating and managing your appointments. You can track appointment availability and send reminders to your customers. It’s an ideal add-on for your account if you offer services in addition to or rather than products, such as is the case with salons, spas, coaches and restaurants.

It was quick and easy to set up our schedule for our services. As we created available times per day, we noted that there’s a copy button and one to set the same times for all days, which was a nice time-saver. Pricing for Acuity Scheduling ranges from $16 per month to $49 per month, billed annually. For medical practices, the highest-priced plan is necessary for HIPAA compliance.

Reservations

Use the Squarespace Tock all-in-one reservation system to manage reservations and take online orders. Pricing ranges from $99 per month (billed annually) to $899 per month (billed annually); there are deeper discounts for two- and three-year contracts and upfront payments. Squarespace charges a 3% commission on prepayments for the Base and Essential plans; there’s a 2% fee for Premium plan users and no additional transaction fees for Premium Unlimited plan users.

	Squarespace	Wix	GoDaddy Website Builder	WordPress	Shopify
Monthly Cost	$16 to $72	$17 to $159 (free plan available)	$10.99 to $20.99 (free plan available)	Free (just pay for hosting)	$5 to $2,300
Number of Templates	140-plus	800-plus	100-plus	Thousands	175-plus
Free Trial	14 days	14 days	30 days	Not needed	14 days
Unlimited Storage Available	Yes	Yes	Yes	Depends on host	Yes
Free Version	No	Yes	Yes	Yes, through WordPress.com	No
E-Commerce	On all plans except Personal	On all plans except Light and Free	On the Commerce plan	Yes	Yes
Free Domain	Included with annual plan purchase	Included on all paid plans	No	Depends on host	No
Learn More	On Squarespace’s Website	On Wix’s Website	On GoDaddy’s Website	—	On Shopify’s Website
Read Reviews	—	Read Wix Review	Read GoDaddy Website Builder Review	Read WordPress Review	Read Shopify Review

See More See Less

Squarespace vs. Wix

One of the largest differences between Wix and Squarespace is that Squarespace doesn’t offer a free plan, and Wix does, which is why we named it one of the best Squarespace alternatives. So if you’re looking for a free website builder, then Wix is a better option. Wix also offers considerably more video storage than Squarespace. The least amount of storage it offers is 30 minutes for its cheapest plan, which is what Squarespace offers for each of its plans. However, Wix’s most expensive plan has unlimited storage.

What Squarespace does better is structured design. It has a far better selection of modern, clean-looking templates. What’s more, its editor is more intuitive and easier to use. So if you want an easier platform to use and better-looking templates, Squarespace is a better choice.

Learn more: Squarespace vs. Wix

Squarespace vs. WordPress

If you’re looking for a simple, easy-to-use website builder, Squarespace is the platform you want to choose. However, if you want ultimate flexibility and customization, WordPress is the platform of choice. This is because it’s an open-source platform, which means that there are thousands of themes and plugins available for it.

However, this also makes WordPress more complex than Squarespace and you’ll have to secure hosting separately (we have a list of the best web hosting services here). If you’re willing to give it a go, WordPress has thousands of third-party tutorials on getting started and managing your site, so provided you have a little time, you can learn how to use it effectively.

Learn more: Squarespace vs. WordPress

Squarespace vs. Shopify

Shopify is built for e-commerce, making it ideal for those wanting to sell online. With it, you can sell via social media, dropship or even create an omnichannel experience for your customers. Squarespace, on the other hand, is better for those wanting to create a simple website or blog. It doesn’t have as many features as Shopify, but it is one of the simplest drag-and-drop website builders to use.

Learn more: Squarespace vs. Shopify

Squarespace vs. GoDaddy

GoDaddy is cheaper than Squarespace, with a free version and paid plans starting at $9.99 per month. It also offers free professional email for your first year, email marketing, list segmentation and advanced marketing analytics. Squarespace charges extra for this. You also won’t find phone support with Squarespace, but GoDaddy offers this 24/7. The biggest benefit of using Squarespace over GoDaddy, though, is its award-winning, customizable templates.

Learn more: Squarespace vs. GoDaddy

Squarespace for Personal Use

Families, couples and individuals often use Squarespace to create beautiful websites to document and share their life experiences. Scrapbookers, travelers and photographers find Squarespace’s clean templates especially well-suited for displaying large amounts of images in an elegant way.

If you need a website to share your work or event, Squarespace offers a easy way to do this thanks to its drag-and-drop editor. It has little learning curve compared to some of its competition, such as WordPress, and you can customize the branding to fit your theme or event.

Squarespace for Business Use

The Squarespace site builder is a popular choice among solopreneurs such as artists, authors, coaches, bloggers and small businesses, such as restaurants, salons, financial services and fitness centers. It’s not a great solution for large, complicated e-commerce sites or those with advanced technical website-building skills.

With Squarespace, you can build a simple, mobile-responsive website in a matter of a few hours, just like we did for this Squarespace review. E-commerce functionality allows you to monetize your site while Squarespace’s add-on features, such as email, calendar management and reservations, provide robust functionality that many business owners find helpful.

While there are cheaper platforms on the market, including Wix or GoDaddy Website Builder, the value for the features and design flair Squarespace offers is worth the modest additional expense. If having an attractive, modern website design is important to you, Squarespace delivers.