Squarespace Competitors & Alternatives
The information in this article is based on our research, interviews with customers, as well as dozens of hours hand-testing each solution. The details of our review process and research methodology can be found in the Why You Should Trust Us section on our website builder category page.
Squarespace is a popular website builder with over one million paying customers. The platform is intuitive and one of the best in terms of website design. We recommend Squarespace for beginner and more experienced website creators who place an emphasis on website design. Squarespace’s ecommerce features are also sufficient and not too intimidating for newer ecommerce business owners.
There are five website builder solutions that are worth considering before you purchase Squarespace. They differentiate based on feature quality, feature-richness, and ultimately the website creator type each is best suited for. Understanding these differences will determine how well a platform will integrate with your business.
- Wix is more user-friendly, robust, and offers one of the most flexible website builders for design
- Weebly is strong, but is best for building simple websites
- WordPress is slightly more expensive, but is better able at building an advanced website through the installment of plugins
- Webflow is more expensive and less user-friendly, but is the best for designing a professional, complex website
- GoDaddy is a basic website builder with high quality in-platform digital marketing features
Here’s a breakdown of our review criteria. We rate each piece of software based on its features, usability, pricing, and customer support availability. Here is how Squarespace and it’s competitors rank in each category.
In this article, we’ll provide an overview of Squarespace as a platform. Afterwards, we’ll compare and contrast Squarespace against its top competitors. If you’d like a full description of Squarespace, check out our in-depth Squarespace review.
Table of Contents
- Squarespace's Top Features
- Squarespace Competitor Overview: Features
- Squarespace Competitor Overview: Pricing
- Top Squarespace Competitors
- Bottom Line
Squarespace Top Features
Squarespace offers most of the key features needed to build professional, no-code websites and run smaller ecommerce businesses. This includes a drag & drop website builder, a WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce tools, marketing tools, and various performance analytics. Below, we describe the top eight most important features in Squarespace.
| Squarespace Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Drag & Drop Website Builder | Squarespace offers a drag & drop builder that lets you build your website based on a template from Squarespace’s library. You can also add over 25 site elements in these sections – including images, videos, forms, buttons, and a search bar. |
| WYSIWYG Blog Editor | A WYSIWYG blog editor lets you edit your content as it will appear when published. Squarespace lets you optimize your posts for SEO including editing their URL slugs, titles, and descriptions. You can also tag your posts so readers can find related content and search engines understand your content. |
| Ecommerce Tools | Squarespace includes ecommerce tools that help you manage your inventory, orders, and calculate your tax and shipping rates. Advantages of Squarespace’s ecommerce tools include an in-platform abandoned cart recovery tool, automatic shipping rates, and 0% processing fees for credit and debit card payments if you are on any commerce plan. |
| Email Marketing | Squarespace lets you create email blasts and automated trigger emails. This includes email newsletters, promotional emails, sign-up confirmations, and abandoned cart emails. Squarespace also lets you create these from scratch or use one of their email templates. |
| Squarespace Extensions | Squarespace offers extensions that you can use to enhance the functionality of your website. Squarespace offers extensions for SEO, analytics, and ecommerce. |
| Traffic Analytics | Squarespace offers a dashboard that displays data about how your website is performing in terms of traffic. You can view your website visits, unique visitors, and page views. Squarespace also displays the percentage change in these numbers per day, week, month, and year. |
| Sales Analytics | If you run an ecommerce business through Squarespace, you can view your sales data through a dashboard. Squarespace lets you view your total revenue, orders, conversion rate, average order value, and revenue per visit. Squarespace also shows you the percentage change of these numbers over days, weeks, months, and years. |
| Visitor Engagements | Squarespace also offers dashboards for different forms of visitor engagement. This includes an activity log, and information about your form & button conversions, popular content, and site search keywords. |
| Mobile | Squarespace offers a mobile app that lets you manage and edit your website. You can also view your traffic and sales information, form submissions, button clicks, and abandoned carts. |
Squarespace Competitor Overview: Features
The chart below shows you the main features found in website builder software, and the solutions offered by each solution. We recommend paying attention to the kinds of ecommerce and marketing tools each platform includes because this is where solutions differ the most from one another.
Squarespace Competitor Overview: Pricing
Considering Squarespace’s functionality, the platform is reasonably priced. Its pricing is most similar to Wix, and while not as feature-rich, is an effective, robust platform. Unlike alternatives like WordPress, Squarespace can also function without the need to purchase extensions for an additional cost..
Squarespace’s website plan pricing starts at $16 per month. Its most popular website plan is $26 per month. Its cheapest ecommerce plan costs $35 per month.
| Website Builder Software | Website Plan Pricing | Ecommerce Plan Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Wix |
|
|
| Squarespace |
|
|
| Weebly |
| Performance: $29 per month |
| WordPress |
| Ecommerce: $59 per month |
| Webflow |
|
|
| GoDaddy |
| Ecommerce: $29.99 per month |
Top Squarespace Competitors
Squarespace is more well-rounded and advanced than basic solutions like Weebly and GoDaddy. Its top competitor is Wix, which is more feature-rich and user-friendly. Overall, Squarespace’s platform is intuitive enough for beginner website creators and ecommerce business owners, but robust enough for intermediate users.
The top Squarespace competitors are:
1: Wix
Wix is one of the best website builders for small businesses. It is the only solution that we ranked above Squarespace. This is because Wix is slightly more user-friendly and more feature-rich. Overall, Wix is better for beginner website creators and ecommerce business owners, and Squarespace is better for those who prioritize the visual design of their website.
Read a direct comparison in our Squarespace vs. Wix article.
- You prioritize the visual aesthetic of your website and prefer to use templates
- You want higher quality traffic and sales analytics
- You want a mobile app that lets you edit your website
- You want to build your website from scratch, not with a template
- You want a solution that is friendly for first-time website builders
- You want stronger SEO tools – including sitemaps, site verification, and a URL redirect manager
2: Weebly
Weebly is one of the most user-friendly website builder solutions available for small businesses. Weebly is more affordable than Squarespace and, as a basic platform, is well-rounded in terms of features.
We recommend Weebly over Squarespace for new website creators and ecommerce store owners who only need to build simple website pages.
- You want a more advanced platform that specializes in website design
- You want higher quality email marketing tools – including email newsletters, and promotional emails
- You want dashboards that display visitor engagement – including activity logs, and site search keywords
- You want a more affordable website builder platform
- You want to build more basic, yet effective websites
- You want ecommerce features like automatic tax calculations
3: WordPress
WordPress is a very popular website builder platform. Compared to Squarespace, WordPress has a steeper learning curve and is not as feature-rich. However, WordPress does give you more control over your website’s functionality through the use of plugins. WordPress’s plugin library is much more extensive than Squarespace’s.
Read a direct comparison in our Squarespace vs. WordPress article.
- The visual design of your website is highly important to you
- You prefer a more user-friendly platform
- You want email marketing tools – including email newsletters, promotional emails, and sign-up confirmations
- You have more experience building websites
- You want more SEO control – including editing your page titles and descriptions
- You want to customize your platform through the use of plugins
4: Webflow
Webflow is an advanced website building platform that offers one of the best builders for design. It gives you the most control over your website’s aesthetic and is the best in term web page customizability.
However, Squarespace’s platform is easier to use and more robust in terms of features. Squarespace is also better for those who want to build professionally designed websites with the help of a template.
- You want a WYSIWYG blog editor
- You want ecommerce features like automatic shipping rates and an in-platform abandoned cart recovery tool
- You want in-platform email marketing tools – including email newsletters, promotional emails, and sign-up confirmations
- You want an advanced website builder with Photoshop level customizability – including editing borders, padding, and adding drop shadows
- You want in-platform SEO tools – including sitemaps, and web page indexing
- You want automatic tax calculations
5: GoDaddy
GoDaddy is a basic website builder platform that includes a wide range of in-platform digital marketing tools. Its platform is best for building basic websites and simple web pages. Overall, while slightly more expensive than GoDaddy, Squarespace is a better platform for website building because it is more feature-rich and better for website design.
- You want a drag & drop website builder
- You highly value your website’s design and prefer to design with templates
- You want a WYSIWYG blog editor
- You want a basic platform to build simple website pages
- You want higher quality SEO and social media marketing tools
- You want higher quality customer support
Bottom Line
Squarespace is a highly-rated website builder that is best for those who need a user-friendly platform that is also specialized for website design. Overall, Squarespace’s features are intuitive enough for beginner website creators and ecommerce business owners, but rich enough for more intermediate users.
Here’s a quick recap of who we recommend each website-builder software for:
- If you’re looking for platform that is user-friendly, robust, and need a very flexible website builder for design, then we recommend Wix
- If you’re beginning your website building journey and want to create basic, but effective website pages, then we recommend looking into Weebly
- If you’re an intermediate website creator that wants full control over the customization of your website’s functionality through plugins, then we recommend looking into WordPress
- If you’re an experienced website creator, and need an advanced builder that lets you edit your website pages with Photoshop level customizability, then we recommend looking into Webflow
- If you need a basic website builder platform and want powerful in-platform digital marketing tools, then we recommend looking into GoDaddy