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Squarespace Pricing and Plans Explained: Which One to Choose and Why

Squarespace is one of the most well-respected visual website builders in the industry. Users who sign up for Squarespace can access hundreds of specialized templates, a code-free site builder and blogging platform, and an eCommerce platform. But what is Squarespace pricing like? What plan provides the best value?

In this guide, we’ll explore the pricing and features of Squarespace’s main plans. We’ll then compare the plans to the pricing offered by other website builders to help you determine if Squarespace is really the best option for you.

Squarespace pricing

In this guide, we will explore the main Squarespace pricing plans:

Squarespace pricing plans explained

All Squarespace plans come with a free domain, access to the site builder, basic website metrics, guaranteed 99.9% uptime, and fast loading speeds. You’ll also get unlimited bandwidth and storage on all plans. This is quite distinct from the strict limits imposed by most website hosting plans, including plans for website builders like Wix.

Squarespace also offers a variety of extensions to all users. These include things like integration with QuickBooks and dropshipping through Printful. These extensions make it easy to expand your business and improve your existing organization systems.

Here’s a quick overview of the main Squarespace plans:

Squarespace pricing and plans
Personal Business Basic Commerce Advanced Commerce
Storage Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Bandwidth Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Analytics Basic Advanced Advanced + Ecommerce Full Ecommerce Analytics
Ecommerce No Yes, 3% transaction fee Yes, no transaction fee Yes, no transaction fee
Cost $16.00/month ($144/year) $23/month ($276/year) $27/month ($324/year) $49/month ($588/year)
Squarespace pricing

Personal

The personal plan is designed for professional portfolios and hobby sites. The plan is affordable and comes with all of the major benefits of Squarespace, including access to the full library of extensions. These extensions make it possible to build a business on a Personal plan, but you’ll be locked out of some of the best Squarespace business features.

⚙️ Notable features

  • Free domain
  • Unlimited storage space and bandwidth
  • Access to all Squarespace extensions
  • Two contributor accounts

⛔ Notable limitations

  • No access to the Squarespace ecommerce system
  • Limited analytics
  • No advanced customization (CSS or JavaScript)

💵 Pricing

The Squarespace Personal plan costs $16.00/month ($144/year) when purchased annually.

🤔 Who this plan is best for

The Personal plan is ideal for people looking to build a professional profile or a website for a service-based business.

Business

The Squarespace Business plan allows business owners to set up a simple ecommerce store. You’ll get access to everything from the Personal plan, plus access to the basic features of Squarespace’s ecommerce platform. However, at this tier, you’ll be stuck paying a 3% transaction fee on all purchases. This can easily add up to spending more on transaction fees than you do on your plan.

⚙️ Notable features

  • Unlimited contributors
  • Access to full customization through CSS and JavaScript
  • Professional email from Google
  • Advanced analytics
  • Pop ups and banners
  • Fully integrated ecommerce platform

⛔ Notable limitations

  • No access to things like abandoned cart recovery and customer accounts
  • 3% transaction fees on all purchases

💵 Pricing

The Squarespace Business plan costs $23/month ($276/year) when purchased annually.

🤔 Who this plan is best for

The Squarespace Business plan is ideal for users who want to set up an ecommerce store on a limited budget.

Basic Commerce

The Basic Commerce plan offers access to a variety of key ecommerce features, such as customer accounts and the ability to run checkout directly on your site. All that with zero transaction fees. However, this plan doesn’t include some features that are generally considered essential for a successful ecommerce store, such as abandoned cart recovery.

⚙️ Notable features

  • Ability to host checkout on your domain
  • Ability for customers to create accounts
  • Merchandising tools
  • Ecommerce analytics
  • No transaction fees

⛔ Notable limitations

  • No access to abandoned cart recovery
  • No ability to sell subscriptions

🤔 Who this plan is best for

The Basic Commerce plan is ideal for business owners who want to create a high-quality shopping experience on Squarespace.

💵 Pricing

The Squarespace Basic Commerce Plan is available for $27/month ($324/year) when purchased annually.

Advanced Commerce

The Advanced Commerce plan gives you access to the full range of Squarespace ecommerce features, including abandoned cart recovery, advanced discounts, and the ability to sell subscriptions.

⚙️ Notable features

  • Abandoned cart recovery
  • Ability to sell subscriptions
  • Advanced discounts
  • Advanced shipping

⛔ Notable limitations

None.

💵 Pricing

The Squarespace Advanced Commerce plan is available for $49/month ($588/year) when purchased annually.

🤔 Who this plan is best for

The Advanced Commerce plan is ideal for business owners who want to create a robust online shopping experience.

How does Squarespace pricing compare to other options?

We’ve established what Squarespace costs, but how valuable is it? How does Squarespace compare to other alternatives like Wix and Shopify? Is it really worth the price?

Let’s take a look.

Wix

Wix is a visual site builder with a similar range of features to Squarespace. They offer a variety of plans, including a free plan. At first glance, this seems like an automatic win, but the free plan of Wix comes with several limitations. You won’t be able to connect a domain, you’ll be stuck with Wix’s own ads on your site, and you’ll have a strict limit of 500MB storage and 500MB bandwidth.

Another tricky thing about comparing Squarespace pricing to Wix plans is that Wix offers several “Website” plans. These plans have no ecommerce functionality whatsoever. This greatly reduces the versatility of sites built on these plans. Since Wix “Website” plans also come with strict limits on storage, they provide significantly less value than Squarespace offerings.

Wix also offers a variety of “Business” plans for ecommerce stores. These hold up better in comparison to Squarespace plans:

Squarespace pricing vs Wix
Squarespace Business Wix Business Unlimited Wix Business VIP Squarespace Basic Commerce Squarespace Advanced Commerce
Storage Unlimited 35GB 50GB Unlimited Unlimited
Bandwidth Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Abandoned Cart Recovery
Paid Subscriptions
Cost $216/year + 3% transaction fees $300/year one; rises to $314.95/year in year two $420/year one; rises to $434.95/year in year two $312/year $480/year

Overall, Wix Business plans are more affordable than Squarespace plans, particularly if you plan to sell subscription products. The difference is especially noticeable when comparing the lower-tier business plans, as the 3% transaction fee of the Squarespace Business plan adds up quickly.

However, all Wix plans have storage limits. If you don’t want to worry about storage, Wix isn’t the best solution for you.

Shopify

Shopify is perhaps the best-known ecommerce platform in North America, with over 800,000 existing stores. The platform is also known for its easy-to-use interface, numerous themes, and general versatility.

Unfortunately, Shopify isn’t known for its low cost. The “Basic Shopify” plan will cost you $24.00/month, which is slightly more than the Basic Commerce plan on Squarespace. The price only goes up from there, with the medium-tier plan priced at $79/month and Advanced Shopify costing a full $199/month.

Squarespace pricing - Shopify pricing
Shopify Pricing

For businesses that sell digital products, this pricing makes Squarespace significantly more cost effective. However, Shopify can actually save you money by providing significant discounts (up to 88%) when you ship products with DHL Express, UPS, or USPS. If you sell physical products in the US or Canada, this can make Shopify the most cost effective option.

WordPress + third-party hosting

WordPress isn’t exactly a website builder in the same way as Wix or Shopify, but the block editor has made it far more accessible to the average person. Many plugins for things like ecommerce and course building let you further extend your website without using any code. And WordPress itself is free.

What you will pay for in the case of WordPress is the web hosting. Most sites can operate well on a shared website hosting plan. You can get one of these plans from a reputable host like Bluehost for as little as $2.75/month (when purchased for 36 months in advance).

You can also get managed WordPress hosting from a host like SiteGround for as little as $2.99/month. These plans automatically manage your WordPress updates and provide you with access to WordPress experts.

All in all, self-hosted WordPress is significantly more affordable than Squarespace. However, there’s also a more significant learning curve. You may also find that Squarespace has better templates for your particular industry.

Final thoughts on Squarespace pricing

Squarespace is a mid-range website builder in terms of both cost and features. Service-based businesses can make especially good use of the affordable Personal plan, with its generous offer of unlimited storage and bandwidth. Ecommerce businesses will need to spend a little bit more, but the additional cost is reflected in the quality of the ecommerce platform.

If you’re looking for a website builder that provides a lot of value in its plans, Squarespace is a great choice.

Do you still have any questions about Squarespace pricing? Let us know in the comments!

Don’t forget to join our crash course on speeding up your WordPress site. With some simple fixes, you can reduce your loading time by even 50-80%:

 

Layout and presentation by Chris Fitzgerald and Karol K.

Dianna Gunn

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