The 5 Best Squarespace Alternatives in 2022
Elizabeth Kraus has more than a decade of first-hand experience building and growing a boutique digital marketing agency and double that in small and mid-size business marketing management. She provides expert answers to marketing questions related to branding, content marketing, web development, email, social media, and SEO.
This article is part of a larger series on Small Business Websites.
Squarespace is a highly rated and popular website builder. However, it’s not the cheapest and is limited regarding website design and third-party integrations. Fortunately, the best Squarespace alternatives are there to fill the gaps with cheaper plans, more design customization, hundreds of third-party integrations, and niche features a business might need. We ranked the top five Squarespace competitors for cost, features, and ease of use.
Based on our research, here are the five best Squarespace alternatives for small businesses:
- Wix: Best Squarespace alternative overall and offers the most customization of design and functionality
- Weebly: Best Squarespace competitor for online stores
- Bluehost Builder: Best alternative to Squarespace for building a WordPress website
- IM Creator: Top Squarespace alternative for content-heavy websites, such as a photography portfolio
- GoDaddy: Built-in booking system makes it the best alternative to Squarespace for service-based businesses
Squarespace & Best Squarespace Alternatives at a Glance
Squarespace & Competitors | Free Plan | Starting Monthly Cost of Paid Plans* | Starting Monthly Cost for Ecommerce* | Free Domain & SSL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ✕ | $14 | $23 | ✔ |
 | ✔ | $16 | $27 | ✔ |
 | ✔ | $12** | Free | ✔ |
 | ✕ | $2.95 | $9.95 | ✔ |
 | ✔*** | $8 | $18 | ✕ |
 | ✔ | $6.99 | $13.99 | SSL only |
*Billed annually
**First ad-free paid plan
***Ad-free premium plan for artists, students, and nonprofits
Wix: Best Overall Squarespace Alternative
Wix
What We Like
- Free-forever plan
- True drag-and-drop site editor for maximum visual design customization
- Large third-party app marketplace for plug-and-play features and tools
- 800+ templates and premade content block variations
- Robust ecommerce plans
- Create a website in under an hour via artificial design intelligence (ADI)
What's Missing
- Plans are on the more expensive side, especially for ecommerce—with Weebly, you get ecommerce starting from free
- Having so many design choices can slow the process of creating a website
- Limited storage, even in higher tiers
How They Compare
- Wix websites are more customizable
- The Wix interface is more intuitive
- Wix has over 800 templates while Squarespace has ~110
- Marketplace of 250+ app integrations vs a few dozen with Squarespace
- Wix tools and integrations supply functionality that Squarespace requires you to purchase add-ons for, e.g., membership and restaurant tools
- Wix sites are automatically backed up whereas Squarespace doesn’t have a complete backup system
Cost overview
- Free plan with ads on a Wix subdomain
- $16 per month (billed annually) with a free domain and SSL certificate
- $27 per month (billed annually) to add ecommerce features
- Annual and monthly billing available
Wix is a leading website builder known for its true drag-and-drop editor. It’s a great site builder if you’re looking for a modern business website with a ton of functionality. Like Squarespace, it offers sleek templates you can start with to save time, and you don’t need any coding knowledge to build a professional website and build your brand’s online presence.
As an all-in-one small business website builder, Wix offers the most customizable design tools of all leading Squarespace alternatives. There are more than 800 premade templates for easy site design, each of which has premade content blocks and variations you can add to a page, and hundreds of app integrations for even more functionality.
A sample Wix website
Despite this, its interface is known to be extremely beginner-friendly. While paid plans start at a little higher than that offered by Squarespace, there is a free plan. You can use the free plan forever or just to test the Wix website editor and interface before committing. In addition, you also get a 14-day money-back guarantee for peace of mind.
Content-heavy sites like larger ecommerce sites or digital portfolios may require unlimited storage and bandwidth, which isn’t included in Wix’s plans. For this, look to other Squarespace alternatives like IM Creator and GoDaddy, which include unlimited storage and bandwidth regardless of plan level.
Wix Pricing
Free | Combo | Unlimited | Pro | Business | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Price per Month* | $0 | $16 | $22 | $27 | $27 |
Storage | 500MB | 3GB | 10GB | 50GB | 50GB |
Bandwidth | 500MB | 2GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Site Backups | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Third-party Integrations | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Ad-free | X | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Free Domain & SSL | X | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Connect to Domain | X | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Ecommerce | X | X | X | X | ✔ |
SEO Features | Basic | Basic | Site booster | Site booster | Site booster |
*On an annual billing cycle; monthly billing is available at a higher rate
Ecommerce requires subscription to a Wix Business plan. While this increases your cost, it does offer robust selling tools and capabilities for online stores, restaurants, service-based businesses, and more. For example, there are specialty features from the first ecommerce plan for membership websites, fitness professionals, restaurants, and online bookings. For similar tools, you are required to purchase add-ons with Squarespace.
Our Expert Opinion
Wix is a leading website builder and tops our list of the best Squarespace alternatives. The design freedom that comes with its true drag-and-drop editing capabilities far surpasses that of most other site builders, and you also get more than 800 website templates and an extensive app integration marketplace.
Learn how to build a Wix website in five easy steps.
Weebly: Best Squarespace Alternative for Ecommerce
Weebly
What We Like
- Robust ecommerce with all plans, even the free one
- Beginner-friendly
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Drag-and-drop multilevel site navigation menus
- Large third-party app marketplace
- A new library of 100% responsive templates
What's Missing
- Limited ability to customize your theme
- Limited number of templates compared to Wix
- Less intuitive interface for building your website than other Squarespace competitors
How They Compare
- Ecommerce starts with Weebly’s free plan—Squarespace doesn’t offer a free plan and comparable ecommerce plans cost $27+ per month
- Weebly’s paid plans are slightly less than those of Squarespace overall
- Weebly includes restaurant tools in the free version that cost a lot more with Squarespace
- Create a membership website with Weebly from the first paid tier; Squarespace requires you to buy an add-on for this
- No transaction fees for U.S. stores on all plans; Squarespace charges 3% until the third-tier plan
Cost overview
- Free plan with ads on a Weebly subdomain
- Ad-free paid plans from $12 per month (annual billing) with a free domain and SSL
- Ecommerce starting with the free plan
- Annual and monthly billing available
Weebly is another extremely popular all-in-one website builder for beginners. It’s easy to use and, like Wix’s paid plans, provides a free domain for a year beginning at the Professional plan as well as a free SSL certificate. It’s the best alternative to Squarespace for ecommerce stores thanks to the integration of Square’s payment processing features.
What sets Weebly apart compared to Squarespace alternatives the most is that ecommerce services are available on all of its plans, including the free one. On its paid plans, Weebly offers ecommerce features like tax calculators (available for U.S. stores), digital selling, and a variety of payment gateways, which Squarespace only offers starting at $23 per month.
Weebly is also the best website builder for restaurants. Beginning with the free version, restaurants can take online orders for in-store pickup, process payments, extend coupons to drive sales, and sell gift cards. Plus, it’s well-known for seamless integration with GloriaFood’s Restaurant System for free online ordering and reservations.
A standard Weebly template
Weebly’s biggest drawback used to be outdated template designs and site templates that were not 100% responsive, but they have made great progress in eliminating that gap. For sleek modern templates that rival those Squarespace offers, however, you might want to check out IM Creator.
Weebly Pricing
Free | Personal** | Professional | Performance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Price per Month* | $0 | $6 | $12 | $26 |
Free Domain & SSL | SSL only | SSL only | ✔ | ✔ |
Connect to Domain | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Storage | 500MB | 500MB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Unlimited Bandwidth | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Site Backups | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
SEO Features | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Online Ordering & Payments | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Unlimited Products | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Inventory Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Third-party Apps | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Advanced Ecommerce | X | X | X | ✔ |
Subscriptions | X | X | X | ✔ |
*On an annual billing cycle
**Not recommended for business use as it displays Weebly ads
Our Expert Opinion
Weebly is a fantastic option for those who find Squarespace’s ecommerce features too expensive. Weebly includes ecommerce capabilities on all of its plans, including its free one, with no transaction fees for U.S.-based stores.
In just five steps, learn how to build a business website with Weebly today.
Bluehost Builder: Best for Easily Building a WordPress Site
Bluehost Builder
What We Like
- Drag-and-drop WordPress editor reduces the learning curve for beginners wanting a WordPress site
- WordPress templates and plugins (free and premium) provide vast design and functionality for your site
- WordPress-recommended hosting company
- All-in-one plans come with web hosting, domain, SSL, site builder, and email addresses
What's Missing
- Lack of variety and options with the included templates
- Takes time and a bit of learning curve to find and integrate plugins for specific functionality or features
- No monthly payment option, and no free plan or free trial to test the site builder
How They Compare
- Tens of thousands of templates and plugins with Bluehost’s WordPress builder, unlike Squarespace
- At $2.95 a month for the first year and $11.99 on renewal, it’s cheaper than Squarespace’s entry-tier plan
- WordPress plugins starting from free for features that require add-on purchases with Squarespace, e.g., member-gated content, online booking, restaurant tools, and more
- WordPress users can get free ecommerce with the WooCommerce plugin but will pay at least $23 per month to sell online with Squarespace
Cost overview
- $2.95 per month (the first year, with annual billing) with a free domain, SSL certificate, and 5 email addresses on your domain
- $9.95 per month (the first year, with annual billing) to add ecommerce
- $24.95 per month (the first year, with annual billing) online store plan
- 1-year and 3-year terms available
Bluehost is a well-known website hosting provider that includes access to its beginner-friendly, drag-and-drop WordPress website builder with all hosting plans. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help you build a well-designed website without needing any prior site-building experience. Unlike the other Squarespace alternatives on this list, Bluehost integrates with WordPress’ many themes and plugins.
Bluehost’s editor
(Source: Bluehost.com)
This gives you an almost endless amount of customization without having to learn how to create a website with WordPress in plans that come with a free domain, SSL certificate, and email addresses for you and your team. Although the Bluehost Builder is beginner-friendly, it still takes some time to find and configure all the desired plugins and themes you need to create a fully functional website.
Because of this, Wix’s all-in-one site builder may still be your better option. It offers full customization capabilities and an extensive range of templates and themes, which can make it far easier to build your website and get it up and running more quickly.
Bluehost Builder Pricing
Basic | Pro | Online Store | |
|---|---|---|---|
Intro Price per Month* | $2.95 | $9.95 | $24.95 |
Renews At | $10.99 | $14.99 | $39.95 |
Storage | 50 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Unlimited Bandwidth | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Free Domain & SSL | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Integrations (Plugins) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Site Backups | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Accept Online Payments | X | ✔ | ✔ |
Booking Plugin | X | X | ✔ |
Subscription Plugin | X | X | ✔ |
Advanced Ecommerce Features | X | X | ✔ |
*On an annual billing cycle
Our Expert Opinion
Bluehost made our list of the best website builders for WordPress. It’s the best Squarespace alternative for beginners who want to build a WordPress website without the steep learning curve. Plus, pricing for the first year is discounted steeply, giving you time to build your website and get your lead generation and sales efforts off the ground.
Read our expert Bluehost review to find out if it’s the best place to host and build your small business website.
IM Creator: Best Squarespace Alternative for Content-heavy Websites
IM Creator
What We Like
- Extremely sleek templates, comparable to or even better than Squarespace in design
- Free premium plans for artists, students, and nonprofits
- Very affordable for small businesses at $8 per month
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth needed for digital portfolios and other heavy-content sites
What's Missing
- Lacks appointment booking tools
- Very few third-party integrations (even fewer than Squarespace’s)
- Ecommerce features are very basic
How They Compare
- IM Creator is a cheaper alternative to Squarespace
- $8 per month IM Creator plan includes ecommerce and all available features, while Squarespace’s entry-tier costs more and limits access to premium content blocks and integrations
- Designed for creatives, IM Creator’s templates are just as sleek and modern as Squarespace’s
Cost overview
- Free for artists, students, and nonprofits (application required)
- $8 per month, includes ecommerce
- $350 per year for agencies and freelance graphic designers who want a white label option for unlimited client sites
IM Creator is a fairly new website builder. It’s been making waves with creatives, with extremely sleek templates that rival those of Squarespace and more affordable pricing. In fact, it’s one of the cheapest Squarespace alternatives. Plans cost $8 per month, but you can use IM Creator free (after applying and being approved) if you’re a student, artist, or nonprofit.
Create a beautiful site with IM Creator
In addition to its low cost, you get unlimited storage and bandwidth. This makes IM Creator the best site builder for building a media-heavy portfolio (especially since you can get it for free as an artist). Find out more about IM Creator and why it made our list of the best website builders for photographers and other creatives.
Although it sounds too good to be true, keep in mind that functionalities are still lacking with only limited customizability and integrations. For example, it doesn’t have a built-in booking system like GoDaddy, making it a poor choice for a service-based business. Plus, it has only limited ecommerce features; for that, we recommend Weebly, or for the most customization options, go with Wix.
IM Creator Pricing
Students, Artists & Nonprofits | Premium | Unlimited Licenses & White Label | |
|---|---|---|---|
Price* | $0 | $8 per month | $350 per year |
Connect a Domain | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Unlimited Storage & Bandwidth | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Basic SEO Features | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Basic Ecommerce Tools | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Ad-free | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
*Annual billing cycle—there is no option for monthly billing
Our Expert Opinion
IM Creator made our list of the best site builders for creatives as well as the best cheap website builders. It is the best and most affordable Squarespace alternative to try if you’re looking for the same level of modern, sleek website templates found with Squarespace for a content-heavy site.
GoDaddy: Best Alternative to Squarespace for Service-based Businesses
GoDaddy
What We Like
- Robust online booking tools—even in the free version
- Free plan to use forever or to test the site builder
- Native features like contact forms, email marketing, and social media integrations—starting with the free plan
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth on all paid plans
- Easy to build a website, even for true beginners with no previous web design experience
What's Missing
- No access to full template library; instead, one is chosen for you during setup
- Limited ability to change your theme
- No app marketplace, limiting options to native tools available in plan tiers
How They Compare
- The GoDaddy website builder’s interface is more intuitive and the editor is easier to use than Squarespace’s
- More native features, like a booking system and gated content (memberships), which Squarespace only offers as add-ons
- Overall less expensive than Squarespace for most small businesses
Cost overview
- Free plan with ads on a GoDaddy subdomain
- Paid plans from $6.99 per month with free SSL (but not a domain) and ability to accept payments
- Ecommerce (online stores) from $14.99 per month
GoDaddy is the best alternative to Squarespace for service or sales-based businesses that need a reliable appointment booking system complete with payments enabled. It’s included on all plans, but to get recurring appointments, you’ll need to upgrade to the Commerce plan. This is a rarity in entry-tier plans; for example, Squarespace requires you to purchase an extra feature called Squarespace Scheduling to get any sort of booking system.
Build a website quickly through GoDaddy
GoDaddy is one of the simplest ways to get online. Its section-based editor is much easier to use than Squarespace’s drag-and-drop, although as a trade-off you get a bit less customizability. A template is preselected when you first set up your site, but you can change it to one of a dozen or so variations as soon as you start editing.
The templates and themes in the free version are repetitive and somewhat outdated—a far cry from the design that you see from both Wix and IM Creator. However, with any paid plan, you get full access to hundreds more template designs.
GoDaddy Website Builder Pricing
Free | Basic | Premium | Commerce | Commerce Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Price per Month* | $0 | $6.99 | $13.99 | $14.99 | $29.99 |
Renews At | N/A | $11.99 | $21.99 | $24.99 | $44.99 |
Connect to Domain | GoDaddy subdomain | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Free SSL Certificate | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Unlimited Storage & Bandwidth | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Take Online Payments | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Transaction Fee | 2.3% + 30 cents | 2.3% + 30 cents | 2.3% + 30 cents | 2.3% + 30 cents | 2.3% + 30 cents |
Integrations | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Appointment Booking | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Recurring Appointments & Subscriptions | X | X | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
SEO Features | Basic | Basic | Advanced | Advanced | Advanced |
Email Sends per Month | N/A | 100 | 25,000 | 25,000 | 100,000 |
*On an annual billing cycle
Our Expert Opinion
The GoDaddy website builder is the best Squarespace alternatives for service-based businesses thanks to native appointment booking tools, starting in the free version. Like other Squarespace competitors, the platform has additional functionality not found in other options, such as free chatbots and email marketing and social media tools.
Find out how to build a GoDaddy website easily in just five steps.
How We Evaluated the Best Squarespace Alternatives
Squarespace is one of the best all-in-one website builders, but it might not be the right site builder for your business. The best Squarespace alternatives make it easy for beginners to create a beautiful small business website in just a few hours.
We judged Squarespace competitors based on what they include for the prices they charge. As Squarespace is known for beginner-friendly design features, we also took into consideration ease of use, customization, and design capabilities.
Here’s the breakdown of our evaluation:
Pricing
While Squarespace is a fantastic all-in-one website builder, many solopreneurs and startups find its prices a little steep. As small business owners usually have strict budgets, Squarespace alternatives were judged based on their affordability and what their plans offer for the price.
General Features
General features pertain to things like storage, bandwidth, and built-in SEO tools. The top Squarespace alternatives, and any decent website builder in general, will have a good amount of these features present.
Niche Features
Depending on your industry, you may have specific business needs that aren’t supported by certain website builders. Special services like appointment booking systems, built-in marketing tools, ecommerce features, and social media integration differentiate these Squarespace competitors from one another.
Templates
Just like features, different businesses need different templates depending on the services they offer. We not only looked at the quality of templates but at the selection as well. We determined that the best site builders have a categorized library of sleek, modern templates to suit as many industries as possible.
Support
As a part of how easy it is to build a website, good support is a must—especially for beginners. We judged the options on how good support is for these Squarespace alternatives, if support is available 24/7, and the channels where customers can reach them.
Expert Opinion
We used our years of experience in building websites to see just how beginner-friendly these services are, how good the offerings are, if the cost is affordable for what you get, and the reviews from real people all over the world. Together, we used these to weigh each website builder’s overall performance.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do I build a website for my business?
The easiest way to build a business website is to use an all-in-one website builder like Squarespace or its competitors, Weebly or Wix. Alternatively, the best way to build a WordPress website is to choose a hosting company like Bluehost or DreamHost. Both offer all-inclusive plans with hosting, domain, SSL security, and email addresses as well as a WordPress website builder to lessen the learning curve of using WordPress.
On the other hand, with these and just about any other content management system (CMS), you can outsource web development to a professional at Fiverr. Fiverr web development professionals can do everything from helping you set up hosting to writing search-friendly copy and building your site on your preferred site builder (or with WordPress).
Is Squarespace better than WordPress?
Squarespace and WordPress are both great for building websites. However, Squarespace is an all-in-one builder (both a content management system and a host), making it easy even for beginners, while WordPress has a steeper learning curve. Read our Squarespace vs WordPress comparison to see which is better for building your business’ website.
Which Squarespace competitor is best for SEO?
Among the best website builders for SEO are Bluehost, IONOS, GoDaddy, and Wix. Bluehost gets the top spot because WordPress offers more optimization opportunities than site builders. IONOS, while not officially on this list, also has affordable all-in-one site builder plans for small businesses.
Sites built on IONOS have basic SEO features like you will find in most site builders, and they also enjoy multiserver delivery to ensure fast load time and automatic image optimization. Find out more about IONOS and the rest in our list of the best website builders for SEO.
Bottom Line
Squarespace competitors abound, and the best Squarespace alternatives each have something special to offer. Whether you need a low-cost or even free plan, niche or advanced features, industry-specific tools, or plans that scale as your business grows, there’s a website builder for you. Wix is the site builder we recommend as the top alternative to Squarespace. It offers the most design freedom and integrations, and has a free plan so you can try it risk-free.
You Might Also Like…
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- Before committing to WordPress, read our list of the WordPress tips and tricks you’ll need to follow to get the most out of your site.
