Squarespace Review: Is Squarespace Worth It in 2022?

Squarespace pricing for the Personal plan makes it one of the more value-packed base plans of any major website builder. For $14 a month (or $19 paid month-to-month), you get unlimited storage and bandwidth, SEO tools, basic site metrics, access to Squarespace’s third-party extensions, and the ability to embed code. Alongside access to Squarespace’s library of sleek templates, it’s one of the best website builders for personal portfolios, resumes, and blogging.

A discovery made during our Squarespace review is that all plans now include its Video Studio App as well as 30 minutes of video storage space. To get full Studio access requires an upgrade to any of the higher tier Squarespace plans, and to get additional video storage you’ll have to add a Members Area plan ranging from $9-$35 per month (billed annually).

Keep in mind that you can’t download your videos, so you will lose access to them if you cancel your Squarespace account. This also means you can’t upload them directly to other sites, like YouTube or social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

As far as Squarespace ecommerce, you can’t conduct transactions on this plan, unlike Weebly’s plans that all have unlimited product ecommerce functionalities (including Weebly’s free plan). Nor can you add appointment booking functionality to your site without adding a Members Area plan. In comparison, GoDaddy includes robust appointment booking features in its $19.99 per month Premium plan and one-time appointment booking in its free version.

With your first upgrade, you get basic Squarespace ecommerce features—you can sell on your website and accept donations. Note that on this plan, Squarespace has a transaction fee of 3%, so if you’re planning on selling in bulk, taking large amounts or multiple donations, or charging membership fees, either of Squarespace’s Commerce plans could be more cost-effective.

Aside from added ecommerce abilities, Squarespace also gives you access to advanced coding so you can customize your website and add extra features like IDX integration. This plan targets very specific industries like small real estate agencies, very small sellers ( like those selling handcrafted goods), and small charities with limited merchandise.

If you’re selling or receiving donations in larger quantities, Squarespace’s more expensive plans may be better options for you. In the same vein, if you’re a blogger or an artist with no need for ecommerce, we suggest sticking to the Personal plan.

With this and higher plans, you receive a free professional email by way of a Gmail and Google Workspace subscription for one year. It’s worth noting as the price increase from Personal to Business is nearly offset by the inclusion of the Workspace account. It also comes with premium integrations for generating leads and growing your contact and customer databases.

Marketing tools that start at this level include advanced website analytics including sales and conversion metrics. You also get up to $100 credit toward Google Ads and the ability to use promotional pop-ups and banner ads on your website to drive sales, extend offers, make announcements, and drive email subscriptions and sales. In addition, you get full access to all the templates in the Squarespace Video Studio App.

Despite the selling capabilities of the Business plan, the Commerce Basic plan is really where Squarespace’s ecommerce begins, based on our Squarespace review. On this plan, there are no transaction fees outside of fees charged by payment gateways. You also get advanced analytics, a built-in point of sale, and Instagram Shopping integration.

To access advanced ecommerce features like abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping and discounts, and commerce application programming interfaces (APIs), you need to upgrade to the highest-tier plan, so this plan is better for small online sellers. Larger ecommerce stores will either need to upgrade to Commerce Advanced or go with an ecommerce platform like Shopify.

The most expensive Squarespace plan, Commerce Advanced comes with all the features of all lower-tier plans. It also has extras like abandoned cart recovery, subscriptions, advanced shipping, and advanced discounts. You can also create custom integrations through APIs, enabling any number of custom third-party integrations. However, regardless of plan, Squarespace only has two integrations for dropshipping.

For what you get, it’s somewhat overpriced. Wix, for example, offers subscription and abandoned cart recovery on its $27 per month Business Unlimited plan, as does Weebly in its highest tier $26-per month Performance plan. Likewise, comparable Shopify plans start at $29 a month. For a large online seller or dropshipper, we suggest going with an alternative unless the value of Squarespace’s design features and templates outweighs these shortcomings.

Squarespace has separated some features you can find in other site builders (like membership tools and email marketing) into add-ons. When comparing the Squarespace website builder to other options, you’ll need to evaluate whether it’s important to save money by going with a site builder that includes these tools in various plan offerings.

For Member Areas, Email Marketing, and Squarespace Scheduling, the prices shown represent the monthly cost when billed annually. You can also pay monthly at a higher rate.

Member Areas: To gate off and monetize member-exclusive content, you will need one of Squarespace’s Members Area plans. All plans include unlimited members, are ad-free, and allow you to offer discounts and promotions.

• Starter: $5 for one member area and 7% transaction fees
• Core: $18 for three member areas and 4% transaction fees
• Pro: $35 for 10 member areas and 4% transaction fees

Email Marketing: To access native email marketing tools requires a subscription to a Squarespace Email Marketing plan. All plans include unlimited subscribers, advanced analytics, mailing lists, and sender profiles. Automation is included with all but the entry tier plan.

• Starter: $5 for three campaigns and up to 500 sends
• Core: $10 for five campaigns and up to 5,000 sends
• Pro: $24 for 20 campaigns and up to 50,000 sends
• Max: $45 for unlimited campaigns and up to 250,000 sends

Squarespace Scheduling: Squarespace Scheduling is a stand-alone offering that can be purchased alone or integrated with your Squarespace website. It offers a robust appointment booking system for multiple team members, employees, or locations. All plans include calendar syncing, custom payment settings, card vaulting, and automated appointment reminder emails.

• Emerging: $14 for 1 calendar
• Growing: $23 for 2-6 calendars, short message service (SMS) text reminders, and packages, gift certificates, memberships, or subscriptions
• Powerhouse: $45 for 7-36 calendars and to add multiple time zones for staff/locations, custom APIs and CSS (cascading style sheets), and satisfy HIPAA* compliance regulations (applies only to businesses in the USA)

*HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

Squarespace has a relatively small quantity of templates compared to some of its competitors, but each is impeccably designed and omni device-optimized. While it only has about 110 templates, there is a variety to choose from for any industry, and most can be easily customized and adapted for pretty much any industry or business type.

Plus, you can switch your templates in case you find that it isn’t right for your business website or you want to refresh its look. This is a true standout feature as you must usually start all over building your website if you want to switch templates using another site builder.

A look at Squarespace’s template selections

Where it lacks in design is its customizability. Since Squarespace doesn’t have a true drag-and-drop editor, there’s only so much you can do with each template.

Plus, all Squarespace templates are image-heavy for visual impact, so if you want a less image-based website, need sections with less whitespace, or simply need more page and section customization options, using Wix or creating a WordPress website using the Bluehost Builder could be a better choice for you.

What it looks like using Squarespace’s section-based editor to customize a web page

The Squarespace website builder balances ease of use with a design-forward mentality. For example, you can create visual interest with section-based animations like fading, scaling, sliding, and more, including options for fast, medium, and slow speeds.

Set sections to fade in, creating visual interest as site visitors scroll down your web pages
(Source: Squarespace website created for Wavecrest Financial)

Squarespace doesn’t necessarily claim to be the best at any one thing. Unlike Shopify or Strikingly, it doesn’t seek to fill a niche role. What makes Squarespace worth it for most small business websites is that you can start with a great design, easily customize it for your business, and access a solid range of native SEO and marketing tools as well as a decent selection of integrations. Together, these capabilities will easily help you scale your business.

What sets Squarespace apart is also just how advanced its features are for a website builder. For example, it doesn’t just have good basic SEO, but it also has a variety of advanced tools like keyword search, ecommerce SEO, site metrics and analytics, and even local SEO.

View your site’s analytics including traffic sources

Getting found online is a fundamental goal for starting and growing a small business. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the means by which you can ensure your website is discovered and indexed to be displayed in online search results on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and other search engines.

Squarespace SEO includes a fairly comprehensive checklist to guide your SEO efforts and tools to discover the best keywords to include in your content. For expert help, you can even hire an expert to optimize your website right from your Marketing → SEO dashboard.

Squarespace SEO checklist and keywords review

From the Marketing tools in your dashboard, you can also manage the locations listed under your Google Business Profile. Create promotional popups and add an announcement bar to catch the attention of site visitors and improve lead generation and conversions, such as adding more subscribers, directing traffic to landing pages with web forms, or generating sales.

Depending on your plan, you can create Instagram posts and tag your store’s products on them for selling on Instagram. Create Instagram stories, connect your Facebook pixel and ad data, and add Pinterest “Save” rich pin buttons to your images.

Among Squarespace’s ecommerce features you will find a range of essential tools for online selling. Site visitors can shop your site and checkout easily, you can offer gift cards and create special offers, and showcase new, featured, on-sale, or coming soon products with its merchandising tools. See how to build a Squarespace ecommerce site in five easy steps.

An example of a Squarespace ecommerce store: see more of the Maca demo site

Squarespace offers from basic to advanced ecommerce features; however, Squarespace may not be worth it when it comes to features included for the price that you pay. You’ll pay $27 per month for features available in Wix’s $23 Business Basic ecommerce plan. At a hefty $49 per month, you get features comparable to Wix’s $27 per month Business Unlimited ecommerce plan.

If you want an extremely beautiful online store that can grow online and locally, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better site builder than Squarespace. If you’re on a tight budget, there are other options available like Weebly, which can even be used for free. If you’re a dropshipper or large ecommerce seller, we suggest heading straight to Shopify.

No Squarespace review would be complete without touching on Squarespace extensions. Extensions are the equivalent of integrations available via other site builders’ apps marketplaces or WordPress plugins. Aptly titled, they extend your business’ website functionality by integrating third-party apps.

Here is a sampling of the 30 or so Squarespace extensions:

• 1800Accountant bookkeeping platform
• Quickbooks Commerce and Connector, to manage online sales and sync information to your Quickbooks Online database
• TaxJar automated sales tax calculator
• Aftership and Delighted post-sale marketing and engagement tools
• Art of Where and SPOD for creating and selling custom or branded products
• Mailchimp for Commerce to drive traffic and sales through personalized marketing
• Shipping tools like ShipBob, Sprocket, Syncee, Shippo, Easyship (and more)

To see if your favorite app is available for easy integration with Squarespace, view the whole list of Squarespace extensions. Alternatively, check out our list of the best Squarespace extensions, plugins, and integrations. Subscribers of Squarespace’s highest plan tier can also create custom third-party integrations through developer APIs.