Wix vs. Squarespace
Individuals and SMBs use website builder software to create professional websites without any code. Some even use website builders to run their ecommerce businesses. In a market filled with many different website builder solutions, it can be difficult to choose the best one for you.
We’ve created this guide to help you understand the characteristics that differentiate Wix and Squarespace from one another. Below, we explore the key differences between each tool – including pricing, features, and the types of website creators each platform is best for.
All of our recommendations are based upon research, discussions with website creators, and dozens of hours spent hand-testing the leading website builder software platforms. The details of our research process can be found on our website builder category page.
Comparison Summary
Wix and Squarespace are two very popular website builder solutions. We rated Wix 92 out of 100 and Squarespace 90 out of 100, respectively.
Wix was rated higher than Squarespace because it offers more features, which are also high-quality, and can support beginner website creators. Squarespace received a lower rating because it is not as feature-rich and slightly less intuitive to use.
In terms of pricing, Wix and Squarespace are comparable to one another. Wix is only slightly cheaper than Squarespace, but does offer a wider range of website builder and ecommerce plans. Overall, we find the pricing fair for both Wix and Squarespace, so we recommend focusing on each solutions’ key features when deciding between the two.
Both platforms include standard website builder features: a drag & drop website builder, a WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce tools, SEO customizations, and traffic and sales analytics. Compared to Squarespace, Wix’s features are more user-friendly. As a result, Wix is better suited for beginner website creators and ecommerce owners. In contrast, Squarespace is best for those who prioritize the visual aesthetic of their website.
Here’s a few key differences between the solutions to determine which is best for you:
- You want to build your website from scratch
- 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
- You prioritize the visual aesthetic of their website
- You want higher quality traffic and sales analytics
- You want a mobile app that lets you edit your website
Table of Contents
- Comparison Summary
- Wix & Squarespace Price Comparison
- Wix & Squarespace Feature Comparison
- Wix & Squarespace Top Feature Comparison
- Bottom Line
Wix & Squarespace Price Comparison
Overall, Wix is slightly more affordable than Squarespace. Most Wix customers pay $23 per month for its website plan, and $27 per month for its ecommerce plan. Most Squarespace customers pay for its $26 per month for its website plan, and its cheapest ecommerce plan costs $35 per month. Unlike Wix though, Squarespace lets you save up to 30% if you pay for an annual plan upfront.
Wix Pricing Details
Wix pricing ranges from $14 to over $500 per month. Wix offers website plans, business & ecommerce plans, and enterprise plans at different price points. Here’s an overview of Wix’s plans and pricing:
| Plan Type | Plans & Pricing |
|---|---|
| Website |
|
| Business & Ecommerce |
|
| Enterprise | Starts at $500 per month |
Squarespace Pricing Details
Squarespace’s pricing ranges from $16 to $54 per month. It offers website and ecommerce plans at different price points. You can also save 30% by purchasing an annual plan upfront. Here’s an overview of Squarespace’s plans and pricing:
| Plan Type | Plan & Pricing |
|---|---|
| Website |
|
| Ecommerce |
|
Wix & Squarespace Feature Comparison
Wix and Squarespace both offer the standard features found in most website builder solutions. This includes a website builder, a WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce tools, SEO customizations, and traffic and sales analytics. However, as shown below, Wix offers features not found in Squarespace.
For a full analysis of each solution’s features, read our Wix review and Squarespace review.
| Feature | Wix | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Social Media Marketing | Yes | No |
| SEO Tools | Yes | No |
| Drag & Drop Website Builder | Yes | Yes |
| WYSIWYG Blog Editor | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile App | Yes | Yes |
| Comments | Yes | Yes |
| Displaying Most Recent Posts on the Homepage | Yes | Yes |
| Plugins/ Extensions/ Applications | Yes | Yes |
| Contact Forms | Yes | Yes |
| Email Marketing | Yes | Yes |
| Abandoned Cart Recovery | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic Shipping Rate Calculations | Yes | Yes |
| Coupons | Yes | Yes |
| Traffic Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Sales Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Visitor Engagement Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic Tax Calculations | No | No |
Wix & Squarespace Top Feature Comparison
Below we provide our in-depth analysis of five key features that are included in Wix and Squarespace – website builder, WYSIWYG blog editor, ecommerce tools, marketing tools, and analytics. Overall, these features in Wix are more user-friendly when compared to Squarespace, and better suited for beginner website creators and ecommerce business owners.
Website Builder
Wix and Squarespace include website builders for customers to design their websites. Both offer templates you can base your website design on and let you upload a wide range of multimedia – including images, text, videos, buttons, social media icons, custom code, and forms – into your pages. However, Wix’s drag & drop website builder is more flexible when it comes to the arrangement of your site elements and is more intuitive to use.
An advantage of Wix’s website builder is that you can start from scratch, whereas Squarespace requires you to use one of their templates as a base. Wix also includes grid lines in its builder that let you arrange your site elements symmetrically on screen. You can also design specifically for mobile and desktop on Wix.
If you prefer to use a template, Squarespace offers more modern designs than Wix. However, its drag & drop filter is less flexible and the arrangement of your site elements are subjected to a grid layout. We recommend Squarespace if you want to present visual work online and do not need the full customizability and freedom of Wix’s website builder.
WYSIWYG Blog Editor
Wix and Squarespace offer WYSIWYG blog editors, which let you edit your content as it will appear when published. Overall, these features in Wix and Squarespace are comparable to one another, but Wix’s blog editor is slightly more user-friendly.
Both blog editors let you upload various multimedia – including images, video, code, and files. They also let you tag your posts, which makes it easier for your readers to look up specific content. Tags also let search engines know what your content is about. Both solutions also come with SEO features that help your blog posts appear higher up in search engines – including editing each post’s URL slug, title, and description.
Ecommerce Tools
You can use Wix and Squarespace to run ecommerce businesses. They both offer tools that help manage your inventory, orders, calculate tax and shipping rates, and recover abandoned carts. Overall, Squarespace’s ecommerce tools are slightly more mature in some areas when compared to Wix, but both are best suited to supporting small to medium sized businesses.
Advantages of Squarespace for ecommerce include:
- The ability to write SEO optimized product titles and descriptions
- Automatic shipping rates for FedEx, UPS, and USPS
- 0% transaction fees if you choose an ecommerce plan
Marketing Tools
Wix and Squarespace offer tools that let you market your website once it’s been published. We found that Wix offers superior social media marketing and SEO tools, while Squarespace offers superior email marketing tools.
Wix offers an in-platform feature that lets you create still or video social posts for platforms like Facebook and Instagram. While this feature is basic, it is useful for simple social media posts and saves you time by not having to move to a different platform to promote your website on social media.
Unlike Squarespace, Wix also offers tools that help you optimize your website for SEO. Below we describe the tools Wix offers and why they are important for SEO.
| SEO Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Sitemaps | These help search engines find the most important pages of your site. |
| Robots.txt File Editor | You can edit this file to tell search engines which pages of your site to crawl. |
| Site Verification | You can add meta tags from the search engines below to verify and claim ownership of your site. |
| URL Redirect Manager | This feature lets you send site visitors and search engines from an old URL to a new URL. |
| SEO Patterns | With this you can edit your site's default SEO settings here and they'll automatically update across your site. |
Squarespace lets you create email blasts, and send emails that are automatically triggered by certain events. You can customize email newsletters, promotional emails, sign-up confirmations, and abandoned cart emails. Squarespace also lets you build your emails from scratch or use one of their templates.
Analytics
Wix and Squarespace offer tools that let you observe how your website and ecommerce business are performing in terms of traffic and sales. Overall, we found these features to be slightly more superior in Squarespace.
Traffic
Both Wix and Squarespace let you view your website visits, unique visitors, and pageviews and display your traffic information graphically. However, Squarespace also shows you the percentage change in these numbers per day, week, month, and year.
Sales
If you run an ecommerce business with either Wix or Squarespace, both offer a dashboard that displays your sales information. Both depict your business’s total revenue and number of orders, but unlike Wix, Squarespace also shows you your conversion rate and revenue per visit. Squarespace also shows you the percentage change of these numbers over days, weeks, months, and years.
Bottom Line
Overall, Wix is a more well-rounded solution and better for beginner website creators and ecommerce store owners. It can also support those who prefer a platform with greater website design flexibility.
While Squarespace’s platform is less flexible, some of its features are more mature than their equivalents found in Wix. It’s also the better choice for those who prioritize the visual aesthetic of their website and is better suited for those who prefer the convenience of using a website design template.
If you’re interested, visit Wix or Squarespace today to get started.