Table of Contents
About Squarespace
With plans that start at $16/month and 113 beautifully designed, mobile-optimized website templates, Squarespace is renowned for being one of the best-looking builders. But it’s also feature-rich and easy to use, thanks to recent improvements to its editor.
Overall, Squarespace scores 4.7 out of 5 in our research, meaning it has the second-highest rating of all the builders we’ve tested so far.
There are a lot of qualities that make Squarespace such a winner. Below, we’ll use our extensive research to take a deep dive into everything Squarespace, exploring its ease of use, pricing, design, tools and features, and help and support.
Everything to make sure you’ve got all the information you need to decide whether Squarespace is the right website builder for you.
Overview of Squarespace
Squarespace is a website builder designed to help creatives build their own websites and showcase their work, no matter their technical ability. Squarespace’s latest version, 7.1, makes it easier than ever to enact sitewide design changes.
We carry out hours of in-depth research on every builder we write about, and Squarespace is no exception. We even got other people to use it and tell us what they thought, to make sure we’re giving you facts you actually want to know.
Before we start dishing out truths, here’s a quick overview of how Squarespace scored:
Pros
- Stunning templates optimized for desktops, tablets and mobile devices
- Excellent marketing features, including email and social media support – perfect for business growth
The best help and support out of all the builders we’ve tested
Cons
- Doesn’t give full customizability – you’ll only be able to customize within your template’s preset rows
- The editor can be a little too manual – for example, you’ll be prompted to save your work after each change, but it doesn’t autosave on its own
If you’re already sold on Squarespace as a platform, but aren’t sure which plan to go for, hit the ‘Start Now’ button below. We’ll quickly cross-reference your needs with the features of each plan to deliver you our recommendation:
Here’s a small selection of websites built using Squarespace, to give you an idea of just what you can do with this website builder.
Who Is Squarespace Best For?
Squarespace is one of our top-rated builders, with high scores across all of our research categories. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for everyone. So who is Squarespace best for?
Squarespace is great for photographers, artists, and anyone who loves design and wants their website to look as good as the content they’re showing off online.
This is where Squarespace shines – there’s a reason it was ranked #1 in our list of the Best Photography Website Builders! However, this does mean that if you don’t have high-quality images – or if you have a very text-heavy site – you may struggle to make the most of Squarespace’s visual designs.
Online stores can also sell unlimited products with no transaction fees, so you won’t hit a product limit as you would with some other website builders.
If you’re looking to launch an ecommerce empire, however, you may want to look at switching to a dedicated ecommerce platform like Shopify or BigCommerce to help maintain long-term growth.
Ease of Use
Once upon a time, Squarespace had a reputation for being a bit “difficult.” The editor wasn’t the most intuitive, and users often complained that it took a long time to ride a steep learning curve before you could really get anywhere with it. But we’re pleased to tell you that such problems are now a thing of the past.
Our research doesn’t just mean analyzing data and comparing prices. We got everyday people to test Squarespace and tell us exactly what they thought.
Overall, Squarespace was a big hit with our users. Many of them highlighted the aesthetic strengths of the templates, and the majority felt that it was easy to produce a good-looking website because of the structured editor.
However, some would have liked to see more consistent prompts or tips when in the editor , to help them along with building their website.
People mostly agreed the editor was uncluttered and simple to use, although others still thought it might take some time to learn your way around. Overall, though, they agreed the builder really shines in terms of design, as well as the features provided within templates.
Squarespace’s Pricing and Value for Money
All yearly plans come with unlimited storage and bandwidth, a free custom domain, and SSL security. You’ll unlock extra features as you upgrade, including ecommerce functions and promotional pop-ups.
The cheapest Squarespace plan is the Personal plan at $16 a month, which has website features but no ecommerce functionality. For an online store, the lowest plan is $27 a month, which includes unlimited products, no transaction fees, label printing, and more.
Squarespace has two plans dedicated to website building (rather than creating an online store):
- Personal plan: $16/month, billed annually – best for setting up a new website
- Business plan: $23/month, billed annually – best for a growing business
Squarespace’s $16 per month Personal plan gives you everything you need to set up a straightforward but fully fledged website. Unlike other builders, which tend to restrict the features on their starter plans, Squarespace offers unlimited storage and bandwidth on its Personal plan.
While Squarespace sadly doesn’t have a free plan like some website builders, it does offer a 14-day free trial on all its paid plans – all you need is an email and password to get started.
Once you’re ready to choose a paid plan, you can save money by purchasing an annual plan, or applying a discount code. There’s also a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you’ll get a refund if you cancel within the first two weeks.
How Good Are Squarespace’s Templates?
When it comes to design, Squarespace excels. It wiped the floor in this category, scoring 4.7 out of 5. To put that into context, none of the other builders scored anywhere above 4.4. Part of this is down to its 113 professionally designed templates.
This might seem like a very small number compared to Wix’s 500+ templates, but Squarespace goes for quality over quantity – and succeeds beautifully.
If you have some coding knowledge, you can go the extra mile and use those skills to tailor fonts, colors, and backgrounds for a truly unique style. Squarespace recommends only using custom code for more cosmetic changes like these, as trying to edit the layout of your site could have harmful effects.
Even without code, you can customize fonts, colors, backgrounds, images, text, and headings. You can add pages, manage your menu structure, and more. Squarespace’s aim is to help creative ideas succeed – so it makes sense for you to have the freedom to express your own style in its templates.
Squarespace’s Tools
Although design is Squarespace’s strong suit, that doesn’t mean it has neglected its features. After all, what good is a stunning websit that can’t actually do anything?
Squarespace scored a 4.4 out of 5 in the website features category of our research. It was only beaten by Wix, which scored a frankly astounding 4.9 out of 5. However, a lot of this is due to the fact that Wix also comes with a very extensive app market.
Squarespace comes with a much smaller offering. However, this is another case of quality over quantity: All of Squarespace’s features are top-notch and jump across a number of different industries, so there’s something to suit everyone.
If you need further convincing, let us just tell you that the website builder in third place for this category only scored 3.5 – a massive jump down from Squarespace’s store.
If you run a business that revolves around customer appointments, fear not! Squarespace has you covered with its Squarespace Scheduling feature, which was launched in early 2020 after Squarespace acquired the online booking platform Acuity Scheduling.
Squarespace Scheduling makes it super simple for your site visitors to book appointments and classes, displayed by the times that you’re available. It also allows them to pay online and reschedule if they need to.
Squarespace’s Help and Support
Squarespace earned a very comfortable first place in our research for help and support, earning a perfect 5/5. Why is this builder the reigning monarch here? It all comes down to its small but high-quality range of support options:
- Live chat Monday to Friday
- 24/7 social media support via Twitter
- 24/7 email support
- In-depth knowledge base
- Community forum
- Video tutorials
Now, previously, Squarespace missed out on that perfect score because it didn’t offer phone support. This hasn’t changed, so what has? Well, firstly, Squarespace’s knowledge base is one of the best on the market.
It offers a wide range of high-quality, in-depth help articles, as well as guides and video tutorials. Whenever we have an issue or a question, this is the first place we go – and we’re very rarely disappointed!
Squarespace Alternatives to Try
If you try Squarespace’s 14-day free trial and find it’s not for you, you can check out these alternative website builders instead (click on the links to read each builder’s full review):
- Wix – comes with a wider range of website features than Squarespace, but its designs aren’t as good
- GoDaddy – has an ADI function for faster website creation
- Weebly – cheaper starting price than both Wix and Squarespace
- Zyro – a cheaper but more basic builder that uses the same drag-and-drop system as Wix
- Jimdo Dolphin– another ADI builder, but at a cheaper price
Squarespace FAQs
Is Squarespace free?
Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan, meaning you have to sign up to one of its four premium plans. However, Squarespace does offer a 14-day free trial, so you can try out the website builder and all of its features before committing to a paid plan.
How much does Squarespace cost?
Squarespace has four premium plans. The cheapest is the Personal plan, starting at $16 a month (billed annually). The Business plan is $23 a month, with more advanced features than the Personal plan. The two ecommerce plans are the Basic plan at $27 a month, and the Advanced plan at $49 a month.
Is Squarespace good value for money?
Squarespace isn’t the cheapest website builder out there, but the level of customization and professional designs available means you’re paying for a high-quality service. You can save money by signing up for a yearly plan – plus check out our official Squarespace offer code for a discount.
Is Squarespace good for ecommerce?
Yes! Squarespace is not a specialized ecommerce builder like Shopify, but it does offer great ecommerce features which are integrated into its professional template designs.
These features include a built-in shopping cart, unlimited products, and the ability to sell physical, digital, and service-based products. Read our in-depth Squarespace ecommerce Review for more details.
Is Squarespace good for SEO?
Yes! Squarespace has all the standard SEO tools built in to help your page rank in search results, such as title tags, keyword targeting, and mobile-friendly pages. But Squarespace also goes the extra mile, allowing you to customize your website title to be different from your URL (among other inspired touches).
Although it doesn’t come with any inbuilt SEO best practice prompts, it does offer a handy SEO checklist in its knowledge base.
