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No matter what type of business or brand you have, a professional website is essential for success. Customers want your online presence to be informative and visually appealing. That’s why it’s important to use a website builder that lets you build out your website and easily customize the details. Wix and Squarespace are two of the most popular options for website building, and both are solid choices for anyone looking to create their own site. Here’s how they compare, so you can decide which is best for you.
Featured Partners
1
Wix
Starting price
$16 USD ($21.88 CAD) per month
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes
E-commerce in entry-level plan
No
2
BlueHost
Starting price
$2.95 USD ($4.05 CAD) per month
Storage and bandwidth
Unmetered bandwidth, and SSD storage starts at 10GB
Extras and inclusions
Free domain name and SSL for a year, free CDN
3
Squarespace
Starting price
$16 USD ($21.88 CAD) per month
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes
Standout Features
Free domain and SSL certificate, no transaction fees, award-winning templates
Wix vs. Squarespace: At a Glance
Wix offers website building for beginners and allows users to edit and customize nearly every detail. Many users appreciate the option of a free starter plan.
Squarespace is also designed for beginner website building, offering modern templates and an excellent blogging feature. You really can’t go wrong with either platform.
BEST FOR CREATIVES
Squarespace
Starting price
$16 USD ($21.88 CAD) per month
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes
E-commerce in entry-level plan
No
Starting price
$16 USD ($21.88 CAD) per month
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes
E-commerce in entry-level plan
No
Squarespace is one of the most popular and best website builders because it’s packed with useful features. You can create an online store, blog, portfolio site, a small business website or a membership site. The editor is user-friendly, but it may take a while to learn the location of menus and features. It’s kind of a cross between a drag-and-drop editor and a point-and-click editor.
Squarespace is known for its templates—the website builder has won awards for design. Most of the templates are minimalistic, bold and modern, and they’re all created by professional designers. They’re also mobile-responsive, so you don’t have to design a whole other site just for mobile users.
Standout feature: Squarespace lets you enable accelerated mobile pages (AMP), which lightens the load of blog pages. Reducing the size of images, using a specific font and removing custom code speeds up loading time on mobile phones.
Learn More: Read our Squarespace Review.
Who should use it: Squarespace is one of the best website builders for creatives—photographers, designers and other artists would do well with a Squarespace design. It’s also a good choice for an online store, especially with specialty features like the limited availability of labels.
- Stunning, modern designs
- User-friendly editor
- AMP formatting available
- Good amount of apps for added functionality
- Limited availability of labels for e-commerce
- Limited customer support
- Lacks design & customization freedom
- More expensive than most website builders
Though Squarespace isn’t the cheapest website builder on the market, every plan is suitable for professional use. That said, many businesses will find that even its entry-level plan is a good value as it is packed with features from an extensive template library to a free domain and SSL certificate. Businesses looking to sell online will find its Commerce plan worth the price as it has zero transaction fees, which can save a good deal of money.
BEST FOR CODE-FREE CUSTOMIZATIONS
Wix
Starting price
$15 per month
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes
E-commerce in entry-level plan
No
Starting price
$15 per month
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes
E-commerce in entry-level plan
No
Wix is one of the most popular website builders because it offers something for everyone. You can use the free plan to create a website, but you’ll be on a subdomain and have Wix display ads. The lowest-priced plan is a bit limiting, but you have access to lots of free apps to extend your site’s functionality.
On the higher-tier plans, you’ll get SEO and analytics tools, an events calendar and a logo maker. E-commerce plans offer even more, but they’re also a bit pricey.
Standout feature: Wix offers one of the biggest template libraries for an all-in-one website builder. There are more than 900 designer-created templates. Not all of them are winners—some look very dated—but most are modern and fit for multiple industries.
Learn More: Read our Wix Review.
Who should use it: Wix is a great option for new small business owners, especially those that want to try running an online store. Although the e-commerce plans seem pricey, Wix’s plans are comparable to competitors.
- Free plan available
- 900+ designer-made templates
- 250+ apps available
- Easy to use
- 24/7 customer support
- Dropshipping features
- Limited storage
- No SEO & analytics tools for low-tier plan
- Pricey e-commerce plans
How the Builders Stack Up
Structured vs. Unstructured Design
Many beginning users appreciate the structured design options that Squarespace offers. Column, row and box locations are predetermined and can only be placed in certain page locations.
Wix allows for much more unstructured page building, which is ideal for users seeking to place design elements exactly where they want them.
It’s very much a personal preference, but for unlimited creative design freedom, Wix is the best choice. It’s also worth noting that Wix offers their Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) tool that will automatically build a design for you based on how you answer a quick introductory survey. It might not give you the perfect site on your first try, but it could at least provide a good starting point.
SEO Tools
SEO is what drives your website to the top of search engines and involves using optimized keywords and strong content to rank higher. Wix offers a built-in “SEO Wiz” feature, giving users full control over meta titles and descriptions, along with custom URLs. Google Analytics is available only with paid plans.
Squarespace also allows control over meta titles, descriptions and custom URLs. Google Analytics is available with all plans, but some older Squarespace templates can be problematic and don’t allow users to customize their page titles. That being said, there is a third-party downloadable plugin that does provide SEO tools for Squarespace called SEOSpace.
Planning To Blog?
If you will be using your website for blogging, Squarespace has a slight edge. Once your site is built, Squarespace allows you to begin a blog right away. Features include scheduling, tagging, comment moderation, categories and drafts. It also allows for collaboration and multiple authors on a post.
Wix offers a similar set of blogging features as well as a number of free apps and integrations to help boost your web presence. It offers standard scheduling, tagging and category functionality.
E-Commerce Options
Both platforms allow users to sell physical and digital products and offer point-of-sale (POS) integration. Squarespace permits sales of services, and Wix offers a similar set of features in its e-commerce packages. Meanwhile, Wix allows users to sell offline and accept payment upon delivery while Squarespace does not. Both offer e-commerce plans starting at $35 per month.
Backup and Storage
In terms of sheer storage capability, Squarespace offers unlimited storage and wins by a mile. Wix limits users to a maximum of 50GB of storage, which is fine for most smaller websites, but will limit growth.
Wix does take the pressure off remembering to back up your website content, as this feature is automatic. Squarespace users must take the extra step of backing up their content manually.
Bottom Line
Both Squarespace and Wix are solid choices for building a website, and each one offers a good amount of support options for any questions you may have along the way.
Which one to choose depends on what you want your site to look like and offer. If you will be blogging frequently and want to sell services online, Squarespace is a bit more robust.
If you are a beginner looking to completely customize your website and achieve high-quality SEO without a third-party plugin, Wix will be your best bet.
Featured Partners
1
Wix
Starting price
$16 USD ($21.88 CAD) per month
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes
E-commerce in entry-level plan
No
2
BlueHost
Starting price
$2.95 USD ($4.05 CAD) per month
Storage and bandwidth
Unmetered bandwidth, and SSD storage starts at 10GB
Extras and inclusions
Free domain name and SSL for a year, free CDN
3
Squarespace
Starting price
$16 USD ($21.88 CAD) per month
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes
Standout Features
Free domain and SSL certificate, no transaction fees, award-winning templates
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Which is more customizable: Squarespace or Wix?
Wix is more customizable than Squarespace due to its true drag-and-drop site editor. Unlike Squarespace, which is customized based on content blocks, with Wix you have nearly full design flexibility without any custom code.
How does Wix compare to WordPress?
In general, Wix is a much easier way to build and manage a website. Unlike WordPress which involves a steep learning curve, Wix is very intuitive and easy to learn. In return, Wix is recommended for those who need a professional site, but do not have a great deal of time to invest in building one. Meanwhile, WordPress is best for those who have unique site specifications as it is more customizable than Wix. Check out the full comparison of Wix vs WordPress.
How can my business benefit from a website builder?
A website builder makes it possible for you to design a website step-by-step that meets your specifications and allows you to choose where to host it when it comes time for it to go live. If your budget allows, Wix and Squarespace both can meet your needs.
Is Squarespace good for e-commerce?
Squarespace is a great option for businesses that want to add e-commerce functionality to their website. Users have the ability to set up an online store quickly rather than spending months or years developing it from scratch. Not only does Squarespace give users a robust platform to design their website, but it also offers inventory management, shipping options and discount codes for e-commerce stores.
