Squarespace Review: Is It The Website Builder For You?

In this comprehensive review, we will delve into the core aspects of Squarespace to help you determine whether it’s the ideal website builder to realize your online aspirations.

Key Takeaways

• Squarespace is a comprehensive website builder that stands out for a wide range of contemporary and stunning templates to create a professional website without coding skills.
• It is an excellent choice for creative individuals, small businesses, artists, and those who value aesthetics. 
• Squarespace is particularly suited for beginners due to its user-friendly editor, pre-designed templates, and built-in features like SEO optimization and mobile responsiveness.

What Is Squarespace?

Squarespace serves as an all-in-one website-building platform tailored for creative individuals and website owners aiming to craft exceptional online sites. It is best known for its stunning template designs to build professional websites without the coding knowledge required.

Squarespace began as a blog hosting service before expanding into a more expansive platform with built-in ecommerce and marketing features. So far, Squarespace has reached nearly 4 million users around the world, with nearly 3 million websites across the whole internet made with this platform.

Squarespace offers a user-friendly interface that allows users to create stunning websites with the drag-and-drop feature. The platform provides customizable templates for unique designs that suit individual and business preferences. 

Squarespace Review: Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Unlimited storage and bandwidth on every plan
• Stunning and award-winning templates
• User-friendly interface with drag-and-drop and intuitive content management systems
• Mobile users optimization
• Packed with basic and advanced website metrics
• Fully integrated eCommerce on most plans, a comprehensive range of social media integrations.
• Excellent and reasonably-priced built-in marketing tools (emails, SEO, social media, etc.)
• Dedicated customer support (24/7 email, weekly live chat)
• Free trial and refund policy

Cons:

• No free plan available for new website builders
• Do not have phone support
• Limited customizations 
• No multi-currency selling functionality
• Limited payment gateway providers
• No autosave for pages and posts – manual for editors
• POS system only supports in the USA
• Poor compliance – need to integrate with third-party tools to ensure

What Do Customers Say About Squarespace?

Customer opinions about Squarespace are diverse, reflecting both positive and negative experiences. Many users praise the platform for its visually striking templates, user-friendly interface, and ease of use with which they can create and manage their websites. 

The built-in tools for e-commerce, SEO optimization, and analytics are often highlighted as valuable features contributing to a comprehensive website-building experience. Squarespace’s reliable hosting and mobile responsiveness also earn praise for ensuring websites perform well across devices.

However, some customers express concerns about the limited features compared to other paid plans from many platforms at the same price. While the templates are beautiful, some users mention limitations in customization options, which might not suit those seeking highly unique designs. 

The learning curve can be steep for beginners, particularly if they are unfamiliar with website-building concepts. Additionally, customer support experiences vary – some users report quick and helpful assistance, while others find the support lacking in responsiveness.

Who Should Use Squarespace?

Squarespace caters to diverse individuals and businesses seeking to establish a strong online presence. Its user-friendly interface and visually appealing templates make it a compelling choice for various users.

Photographers, artists, designers, and other creatives can showcase their work in style with Squarespace’s visually captivating templates. The platform’s emphasis on aesthetics allows them to present their portfolios in a visually appealing manner.

For small businesses looking to create a professional website or an online store, Squarespace offers the tools to get started without the need for extensive technical knowledge. It’s an excellent choice for those who prioritize aesthetics and want an easy-to-manage platform.

Squarespace’s blogging features are well-suited for individuals who want to share their ideas, stories, and content online. The platform’s templates allow for visually engaging blogs that can attract and engage readers.

Whether it’s a personal portfolio, resume, wedding website, or online CV, individuals looking to create a polished and professional online presence can find suitable templates on Squarespace.

Nonprofit organizations can get discounts from Squarespace and leverage them to create informative and engaging websites that showcase their missions, share success stories, and facilitate online donations.

Entrepreneurs aiming to sell products online can also benefit from Squarespace’s integrated e-commerce functionality. The platform provides the tools to set up an online store, manage inventory, process payments, and track orders.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace offers 4 different pricing plans catering to the diverse needs and goals of each individual and business. They are Personal, Business, Basic Commerce, and Advanced Commerce.

The budget-friendly plans are Personal and Business, ideal for individuals with essential website needs. For advanced options, the Basic and Advanced Commerce plan will provide a comprehensive toolkit to support the growth of e-commerce businesses.

Website Builder Plans

Subscription fees

The Personal plan costs $16 per month (billed annually) or $23 per month (billed monthly). It gives you comprehensive tools to build a solid website with unlimited bandwidth, SEO tools, complete access to the template collection, and round-the-clock customer support through chat and email. 

The Business plan comes with $23 per month if paid annually (or $33 if paid monthly). Besides the features of the Personal plan, it adds many extra tools like a professional Google email, advanced website analytics, promotional pop-ups and banners, and complete customization.

Transaction fees

Among the four plan options on Squarespace, only the Business plan charges a 3% transaction fee on every sale and donation.

Ecommerce Plans

Subscription fees

The Basic Commerce plan is priced at $27 per month when billed annually ($36 per month for monthly billing), serving as an affordable choice for individuals seeking to establish an online store. This plan opens the door to more than just website design and steps into the realm of e-commerce.

The Advanced Commerce plan, an optimal choice for a higher level of e-commerce functionality, is priced at $49 per month with annual billing ($65 per month for monthly billing). Abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping, gift card creation, and flexible discounts are equipped on this plan package.

Transaction fees

No transaction fees are charged on these two ecommerce plans.

Processing fees

Irrespective of the annual payment structure, a payment processor fee is levied based on the chosen gateway and applies to all plans.

Two giant providers connecting with Spacesquare are Paypal and Stripe, which charge processing fees starting from 5.4% and 2.9% + 30¢, respectively.

Ease of Use

Squarespace Editor

Squarespace offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop website builder that makes the process of creating a website intuitive and efficient. However, it allows less space to drag as usual.

Instead of allowing complete freedom in placing elements anywhere, Squarespace follows a more section-based approach. This might require a slightly longer adjustment period, but as you delve into its functionalities, you’ll find that this structured method enhances the organization and neatness of your site’s design.

Squarespace’s latest update introduces the Fluid Engine, a new editor that allows you to freely position elements wherever you desire on your website. It also gives you much control over your site design, responding on both desktop and mobile versions. The Squarespace site editor automatically takes care of the mobile optimization on your behalf.

The noteworthy aspect is that you don’t need coding knowledge. While coding is an option, one of the standout features of Squarespace is its accessibility to individuals without coding expertise, enabling them to craft a polished website. This approach offers a straightforward method of website creation, allowing you to observe the changes as you make them.

Squarespace Templates

Squarespace provides a diverse selection of over 100 professionally designed templates to choose from with no add-on fees, catering to various industries and aesthetics. While the number of templates may not be as extensive as some other platforms, the quality is high, ensuring that your site will have a polished and modern appearance.

Every template arrives with tailored features and layouts that align with the corresponding industry, yet you can effortlessly modify a template’s design and features to suit your requirements. 

Additionally, all of Squarespace’s templates are designed to be responsive on mobile devices, ensuring that businesses can meet the demand of the mobile users’ market in the digital world.

Squarespace’s templates offer exceptional flexibility, allowing you to personalize them according to your preferences. You can effortlessly swap images, include or remove sections, input text, and manage multiple pages concurrently.

The platform assumes users will have a substantial collection of high-resolution photos. These images are intended to fill the various blocks within the templates. If you’re lacking a sufficient number of pictures, you might encounter some challenges.

Tools And Features

Social Media Integration

Squarespace offers seamless integration with various social media platforms, allowing you to effectively connect your website with your social media presence, including Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Dropbox, Pinterest, etc.

You can easily link your social media accounts to your Squarespace site, displaying icons that direct visitors to your social profiles. This integration enables you to effortlessly share your content across different platforms, enhancing your online reach and engagement.

Additionally, Squarespace’s social media integration extends to features like social sharing buttons and tracking social feeds, enabling visitors to easily share your website content on their social media accounts and build an attractive feed. This can help drive more traffic to your site and increase your online visibility.

SEO & Mobile Responsiveness

Squarespace excels in Search Engine Optimization, a crucial aspect for any business aiming to achieve higher visibility in search engine results. The platform seamlessly integrates effective SEO strategies into its backend, allowing business owners to optimize their websites for improved search engine rankings.

Furthermore, every page you create adheres to SEO best practices, enabling you to add keywords to alt-text, manage blog titles, and implement other essential SEO techniques. This emphasis on SEO empowers you to enhance your website’s discoverability and reach a wider online audience.

Squarespace offers the option to enable SSL for free, contributing to a secure browsing experience for customers and aligning with Google’s preference for safe websites.

As for mobile responsiveness, all Squarespace templates are designed to adapt seamlessly to various screen sizes and devices, ensuring that your website looks and functions beautifully on desktops, tablets, and smartphones. This is crucial as search engines take mobile-friendliness into account when ranking websites.

Email Marketing

Regarding other email marketing solutions, Mailchimp stands out as an appealing option for most plans. This enables you to initiate data collection and customer engagement without exceeding your budget. This proprietary system also offers an excellent method to harmonize your brand identity across all elements of your website, spanning from your homepage to your marketing communications.

Squarespace also provides an all-in-one email marketing platform named Squarespace Email Campaigns. With this tool, you can design personalized emails directly from your website, ensuring your marketing aligns seamlessly with your site’s branding with an extra cost of as low as $5/month.

Extension Integration

The Squarespace Extensions store offers 36 valuable third-party tools and plugins to assist users in enhancing e-commerce capabilities, improving SEO, integrating social media, or managing the online presence more effectively.

The extensions can be easily added to your website through the Squarespace interface, often with just a few clicks. Whether you’re adding a booking system, integrating a newsletter signup form, or incorporating social media feeds, the extensions seamlessly blend into your existing design.

Additionally, some extensions may come with additional costs, which should be factored into your budget.

Domains

Acquiring a domain through Squarespace is a straightforward process, and you can link your existing domain if you already possess one.

When you subscribe to an annual paid plan, you’re entitled to a complimentary domain for the first year. It’s important to note that this free domain offer is valid only for the initial year, and subsequent renewals will be charged at the regular rate.

Renewing an existing domain or acquiring a new one through Squarespace starts at a rate of $20 per year for commonly used extensions like .com or .net. However, specific extensions, like .software, may be more expensive, potentially exceeding $50 per year.

Ecommerce

Squarespace offers a comprehensive suite of e-commerce solutions that enable 

businesses to easily create and manage online stores. From product listing to transaction processing, let’s take a quick look at Squarespace’s e-commerce capabilities:

• Unlimited product and variant: Squarespace provides a user-friendly interface for adding, organizing, and showcasing an unlimited number of products from the Basic plan and up. The platform supports multiple types of products, even physical and digital goods, making it suitable for various types of businesses.
• Inventory management: Squarespace offers basic inventory management features, including stock tracking and notifications for low inventory levels. While suitable for smaller businesses, larger enterprises with extensive inventory might require more advanced tools.
• Multiple payment methods: The platform provides a seamless checkout process, including integrated payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal. However, it’s important to note that transaction fees apply to certain plans and additional processing fees might be charged by the third-party providers.
• Abandoned cart recovery: This feature is available in higher-tier plans. It allows you to send automated email reminders to customers who added items to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase, potentially boosting conversion rates.
• Gift cards and discounts: Squarespace enables businesses to create and sell gift cards and apply discount codes to products and subscription plans. This can be a valuable marketing strategy to attract and retain customers.
• Shipping and tax calculations: The platform offers options to set up shipping rates based on location and weight, along with automatic tax calculations. However, more complex shipping needs might require third-party integrations.
• Point of sale: Squarespace offers a point-of-sale (POS) system that allows you to sell products in person, whether you have a physical store or you’re participating in events, markets, or pop-up shops. However, this feature is only available on the Basic and Advanced Commerce plans and for merchants in the US only.
• Advanced shipping: If you’re on the Advanced Commerce plan, you have the ability to set your shipping zone and rates. You can opt for flat rates, real-time rates, or weight-based rates. Squarespace collaborates with renowned carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and USPS, enabling you to use carrier-calculated shipping for automated cost calculations based on rates.

Squarespace’s Help and Support

Lastly, a good and powerful e-commerce platform also requires great customer support service in order to guide and solve the problem that may appear to customers during the time of use.

Unlike many other website builders that reserve premium support for their highest-paying customers, Squarespace takes a different approach. Although its support offerings are somewhat constrained, lacking phone support, the platform offers a variety of alternatives, including

• 24/7 email support
• 24/7 assistance through social media
• A comprehensive knowledge base (FAQ page)
• Informative video tutorials
• An active community forum
• Live chat is available during the week
• Social media support

Squarespace provides the same 24-hour support to all users, regardless of their chosen plan. Moreover, the knowledge base is brimming with articles, guides, video tutorials, and more, establishing it as one of the most reliable and comprehensive resources for self-help assistance.

Squarespace Alternatives to Try

When it comes to creating a website, there’s no shortage of options available in the market. While Squarespace offers a unique blend of features and ease of use, it’s important to consider alternatives that might better align with your specific needs and preferences.

Shopify

Shopify is the most widespread and dedicated e-commerce platform known for its robust features tailored to online businesses. Unlike Squarespace, which offers a wider range of website-building capabilities, Shopify focuses primarily on helping businesses set up storefronts and manage their online stores. 

With a strong emphasis on e-commerce, Shopify provides a comprehensive suite of tools for product management, inventory tracking, order processing, and secure payment gateways. More specifically, it offers over 8000 apps Shopify App Stores to customize and optimize your store management, the in-house Shopify Payments, and over 100 payment gateways catering to a wider customer base. 

This platform is especially suitable for businesses that are primarily focused on selling products online and want a specialized and advanced e-commerce solution.

Wix

Wix is a versatile website builder that offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, allowing users to create various types of websites, including personal portfolios, blogs, and online stores. 

While Wix also provides e-commerce functionality, it may not be as feature-rich as Squarespace’s dedicated e-commerce plans or Shopify’s specialized e-commerce tools. The platform is packed with a wide range of over 900 beautiful templates; however, they seem as not professional as Squarespace’s templates.

Wix is ideal for individuals, small businesses, or starters looking for an easy-to-use platform to build a wide range of websites, including online stores, without needing extensive technical skills.

Final Thoughts

As we wrap up our exploration of Squarespace, it’s clear that this website builder offers a wealth of features and functionalities for individuals, businesses, and creatives looking to establish their online presence.

However, like any platform, Squarespace has its pros and cons. Before making a decision, it’s crucial to evaluate your goals and requirements to determine if Squarespace aligns with your vision. 

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