Bluehost vs Squarespace: Price, Features & What’s Best in 2019

Bluehost and Squarespace are leading web hosts that enable businesses to maintain a professional website. Bluehost is a top web host provider for those building a site with WordPress. Squarespace is a web host and website builder in-one, so it’s best for those looking to build their own website without any technical expertise.

When to Use Bluehost

Bluehost is a reliable, low-cost web hosting provider that comes packed with extras such as a free domain name, SSL certificate, business email, and one-click WordPress installation. Given these features, Bluehost is best for those with some technical expertise and are looking to build a site in WordPress. It’s also the best for those who want to build a business website that involves custom features as sites built in WordPress are incredibly versatile.

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When to Use Squarespace

Squarespace is the ideal choice for those looking to quickly and easily build their own website without any technical skills. It uses a very simple and intuitive drag-and-drag website editor with which users can completely customize a pre-built template. It’s a good solution for those that want a very easy way of building and maintaining a professional-quality business website that requires zero technical abilities.

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Bluehost vs Squarespace at a Glance

How We Evaluated Bluehost vs Squarespace

When comparing Bluehost vs Squarespace, we considered common hosting features, but also noted that they are different platforms—Bluehost is a web hosting provider only, whereas Squarespace is a drag-and-drop site builder and web host in-one. Therefore, we considered common factors like pricing, ease of use, storage and bandwidth, inclusions such as a free domain name and email hosting, high uptimes, customer service, and customer reviews.

To compare Bluehost vs Squarespace, we considered:

• Price: Affordability is key in choosing a web hosting platform for small businesses. We considered not only price, but value offered in each provider plan.
• Ease of use: The best platforms make it easy for businesses to use their service, so we considered how easy each is to use, along with whether or not it requires any technical expertise or a learning curve.
• Storage & bandwidth: We compared storage and bandwidth limits for each provider, including storage and bandwidth across various plans.
• Features & inclusions: Both Bluehost and Squarespace come packed with features such as a free domain name and a free SSL certificate. However, they each offer different features such as a drag-and-drop site editor and one-click WordPress installation. We looked for those that give businesses the most value for their money.
• Reliability: Professional business websites rely on high uptimes (the amount of time a host server is “up,” or not offline) to ensure websites are always accessible. Without this, a business might experience lost sales and a poor representation of their brand. For this reason, we compared Bluehost vs Squarespace to find which has the highest average uptimes and the best uptime guarantees.
• Customer service: Quality customer service is important for businesses, so we evaluated each provider’s customer service quality by looking at when they are available, what channels (chat, phone, or email) are available, and average response times.
• Customer reviews: It’s important to look at what real customers are saying about each provider to get further insight into user experience and overall customer satisfaction. This was a central consideration in our review.

Given these criteria, we found that Bluehost is the best for businesses building a site using a CMS platform such as WordPress. Squarespace is the best choice for businesses looking for a DIY site builder that includes both web hosting and a drag-and-drop editor for easy site creation. While Squarespace is a lot easier to use and includes unlimited storage and bandwidth even in its cheapest plans, it does cost more than Bluehost and has nearly the same uptime.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: Pricing & Features

Bluehost and Squarespace each offer web hosting but they are very different platforms with differing features and inclusions. Therefore, they have very different pricing. Bluehost has annual plans starting at just $5.45 per month for web hosting, while Squarespace starts at $12 per month with annual billing for both web hosting and an easy-to-use website builder.

Bluehost Pricing

Bluehost’s web hosting plans start at $5.45 per month with an annual contract and go up to $7.45 per month for additional storage and features. Plans include a free domain name, an SSL certificate, business email, and one-click WordPress installation. Bluehost plans are feature-rich and low cost, making them a great value.

Bluehost Tiered Pricing & Features

Basic Plan

The Bluehost Basic plan costs $5.45 per month with a 12-month contract, or just $2.65 per month on a 36-month contract. It includes hosting for one website with 50GB of storage, unmetered bandwidth, one free domain name, a free SSL certification, five custom email addresses, and one-click WordPress installation.

The Basic Plan is best for WordPress-familiar businesses looking to build a basic, informational website. This is because unlike Squarespace, it doesn’t include unlimited storage, so the site won’t be able to include a lot of large media files such as images and videos. Given that WordPress is one of the most versatile website platforms, it’s a good option for those building sites that may need a lot of custom features, but that are not content-heavy.

Plus Plan

The Plus Plan costs $7.45 per month with a 12-month contract, or just $4.45 per month with a 36-month contract. It includes hosting for an unlimited number of websites, with unlimited storage and bandwidth. It also includes extras such as unlimited custom email addresses and unlimited domain names.

This plan is best for businesses that are building content-heavy websites on WordPress such as a videographer building a portfolio-style website. It’s also an ideal choice for large businesses with different brands as it includes unlimited free domain names and hosting for unlimited sites. For example, a restaurant with three locations may build three different sites in WordPress, all of which can be hosted under this plan.

Pro Plan

The Bluehost Pro Plan costs $14.95 per month with a 12-month contract, or just $9.95 per month with a 36-month contract. It includes everything from the Pro Plan such as hosting for unlimited sites with unlimited storage and bandwidth, but on a dedicated server (represented by an IP address) instead of a shared server. This gives the site added security and speed as its not sharing a server with other websites.

This plan is best for businesses that need the utmost security and site performance given its inclusion of a dedicated IP address. This would be best for businesses offering a service through their site that requires transfer of a lot of data or the handling of sensitive data. This would include service (SaaS) companies, as well as large ecommerce sites that constantly collect customer payment and shipping information.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace plans are all-inclusive and range from $12 to $26 per month. Its $12 per month Personal Plan includes dozens of free templates, access to its drag-and-drop site builder, unlimited storage and bandwidth, a free domain name, and a free SSL certificate. More expensive plans add features like email and ecommerce tools.

Squarespace Tiered Pricing & Features

Personal Plan

The Personal plan costs $12 per month with an annual contract, or $16 month-to-month. It includes Squarespace features like access to its library of pre-built templates that give businesses a good base with which to build their website using the drag-and-drop editor, along with unlimited storage and bandwidth (for unlimited content and site traffic). Lastly, the plan includes a free domain name, a free SSL certificate, and site analytics.

Given the above inclusions, this is the best plan for non-tech-savvy businesses that are looking for an easy way to build an informational business website. It doesn’t include commerce capabilities, so this isn’t an ideal plan for companies wanting online stores. It’s also best for those who have established email addresses, as this plan does not include email.

Business Plan

The Business plan costs $18 per month with an annual contract, or $26 with a month-to-month contract. It includes everything from the Personal Plan—such as use of its templates, drag-and-drop site builder, and unlimited storage and bandwidth—with the addition of Squarespace features like sales tools, email for email marketing, and basic ecommerce capabilities, such as product listings and payment processing.

This plan is best for businesses that are looking to use their website as a marketing and lead generation tool given its additional sales and email marketing inclusions. It’s also good for businesses that are not necessarily complete online stores, but want to offer a limited number of products or services for sale, such as a restaurant selling merchandise or gift certificates.

Online Store – Basic Plan

The Basic Online Store plan is Squarespace’s ecommerce-ready plan. It costs $26 per month with annual billing, or $30 per month with a month-to-month contract. It includes everything from the Business plan, with the addition of tons of ecommerce features such as unlimited product listings, inventory management, no transaction fees, order management, coupons, label printing, integrated accounting, customer accounts, and checkout from your own domain.

The Online Store – Basic plan is best for businesses building a full online store as it includes all of the features an ecommerce site needs to function properly. It’s a good option for those who sell a lot online, but do not want to take a lot of time to learn how to build an ecommerce site on WordPress, like they would need to if they used Bluehost web hosting. The ease of Squarespace ecommerce setup does make it more expensive than Bluehost, however.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: Ease of Use

In terms of ease of use, Squarespace beats Bluehost. While Bluehost includes one-click WordPress installation, Squarespace is a web hosting and website builder in-one that was designed to make building a website easy for those with no technical ability or web design knowledge. Those looking for the easiest way to build a website without a steep learning curve should choose Squarespace.

Bluehost Ease of Use

Bluehost is a leading web hosting company. While it doesn’t include a drag-and-drop website builder within its platform, it does make it easy for users to get hosting, a domain name, and an SSL certificate for a WordPress site. It also includes one-click WordPress installation, which automatically transfers your domain name to your new WordPress site.

Squarespace Ease of Use

Squarespace was designed to give anyone the ability to create a professional-looking website. It’s one of the easiest website builder platforms available; users pick a pre-built template that they then customize using a drag-and-drop editor. The platform also includes everything a business needs to build a quality website in one place, including a domain name and SSL certificate.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: Customer Service

Bluehost and Squarespace both have very similar customer service quality and offerings, though Bluehost leads the way given its inclusion of support by phone. While they both offer near immediate assistance by live chat, phone is typically a faster way of getting any questions answered. It’s worth noting, however, that web hosting with Bluehost requires more technical expertise than Squarespace, so it needs to provide customers with robust support options.

Bluehost Customer Service

Bluehost is known for its support, which is available by phone and live chat. It gives users both a toll-free U.S. number and an international line for those traveling or living abroad. Like Squarespace, it offers a help center that includes a lot of resources for users, enabling them to troubleshoot on their own and learn more about how best to use Bluehost.

Squarespace Customer Service

Squarespace offers quality customer service by email and live chat. It does not offer customers support by phone, though it does have a large help center that is loaded with tutorials and educational materials to help answer users’ questions.

Bluehost vs Squarespace: Customer Reviews

Overall, Squarespace has better customer reviews than Bluehost. Customers like how easy Squarespace is to use, though occasionally complain about the higher price. Bluehost is highly regarded for its low-cost pricing, but users note it has a less user-friendly interface and occasional downtimes.

Bluehost Customer Reviews

Bluehost has a 3.4 out of 5 star average rating on our reviews page. The positive comments often mention that it has competitive pricing and helpful customer support. On the other hand, negative reviews comment that Bluehost has more downtime than it should and that the interface is a bit dated, making it less user-friendly. Learn more about what users are saying on our Bluehost Reviews page.

Squarespace Customer Reviews

Squarespace has a 4.4 out of 5 star rating on our reviews page. Reviewers frequently comment that they like how it’s so easy to use, praising the high-quality templates and long list of integrations. Negative comments note that users would like even more customization capabilities and that it’s on the higher end in terms of cost of drag-and-drop website builders. Read reviews on our Squarespace Reviews page.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do I build a Squarespace website?

Squarespace makes it very easy for anyone to build a professional business website quickly. First, navigate to the Squarespace website and browse through templates to find one that suits your business. Select it and follow the prompts to create an account. Then, open the site editor and customize your template, add and configure any plugins, connect your domain, and launch your site. For more guidance, read our guide on how to build a small business website.

How do I build a professional business website with WordPress?

WordPress is a leading platform for building websites. In order to build a professional WordPress website, you need to sign up for web hosting through a company like Bluehost. Then, choose a domain name, select and install a WordPress theme, and customize your theme under “Pages” in the WordPress dashboard. Click “Publish” on the upper right-hand corner of each page to make it live. Learn more about how to make a WordPress website.

Can I use Bluehost with Squarespace?

Squarespace plans include web hosting and a website builder. Therefore, there is no need to use a separate web hosting provider, such as Bluehost. All Squarespace plans also come with many of the same extras that Bluehost plans come with, such as a free domain name and an SSL certificate.

Is Squarespace better than WordPress?

Squarespace and WordPress offer users two different things, so while one isn’t necessarily better than the other, Squarespace is best suited to those with no technical expertise. This is because Squarespace was designed with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. WordPress is better for those that have some technical abilities and need a flexible platform for building a scalable, fully custom site.

What are the top web hosting providers?

The top web hosting providers are Bluehost, Siteground, Dreamhost, and GoDaddy. Though each web hosting provider appears to offer nearly the same thing at different prices, every provider includes differing features—from storage and bandwidth to email hosting, uptime guarantees, and contract lengths. Get the full details in our article on web hosting companies.

Bottom Line – Bluehost vs Squarespace

Squarespace and Bluehost are both leading website and web hosting options for small businesses. Though both provide web hosting, they are each used differently. Squarespace is best for those looking for a quick and easy way of building a website with no technical expertise using a drag-and-drop editor, whereas Bluehost is the best for those with some technical abilities who want to build a fully customizable and scalable site in WordPress.