Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Price, Features & What’s Best in 2020

Squarespace and GoDaddy are both top all-in-one website building platforms known for their easy-to-use site editors, professional templates, and affordable pricing. Where they differ is that Squarespace is best for those seeking a highly customizable website, whereas GoDaddy is best for those that need to build a simple website in minutes.

Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Compared at a Glance

When to Use Squarespace

Squarespace is a leading website-building platform known for its ease of use while offering comprehensive features and site capabilities for as little as $12 per month. No coding or web design expertise is required to build a professional business website using its expertly crafted templates and its drag-and-drop site editor. It’s best for businesses looking to build a highly customizable and robust business website with advanced ecommerce features.

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When to Use GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a leading domain name and web hosting company that also offers its users the ability to easily build a professional website using its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, drag-and-drop site builder. The all-in-one website plan includes everything a business needs to create a site, including a free domain name, web hosting, a free SSL certificate, and business email for as little as $10 per month. It’s best for businesses looking to quickly build a website or those buying a domain.

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How We Compared Squarespace & GoDaddy

Squarespace and GoDaddy both appear to be nearly identical website builders in terms of everything from template options to pricing. With such seemingly similar offerings, it can be difficult to determine which provider is best for your website. So we put the two to the test by comparing them based on a number of key factors such as price, ease of use, storage and bandwidth, features and inclusions, customer support, and customer reviews.

We used the following criteria to evaluate Squarespace vs GoDaddy:

• Price: Affordability is key for small businesses, so we compared plans to find which provider offers lower-priced plans that offer the most value.
• Features and inclusions: Website builders come packed with a variety of features and extras, with everything from a free domain name and SSL certificate to built-in website grader tools and email marketing tools.
• Ease of use: The purpose of using a drag-and-drop website builder is to easily (and quickly) build a professional website without code or web design experience. We analyzed each provider’s editing interface to determine which is easier to use and involves less of a learning curve.
• Template quality: Taking ease of use a step further, we considered the quality and availability of templates from each provider. By offering high-quality and expert-designed templates with a wide range of styles, layouts, and functionalities, businesses can more easily build a site because fewer customizations will be required.
• Customer support: When needed, quality customer support is crucial. We looked at the availability of customer support for each provider, including the mediums in which it’s available, to determine the best of the two.
• Customer reviews: You shouldn’t just take our word for which provider is better, so we took a look at what real customers have to say about each. This gave us further insight into user experience and the ability to better determine which provider is best.

Based on the criteria above, the best overall website builder for small businesses is GoDaddy. This is because it’s not only easier to use and slightly cheaper, but because it’s an artificial intelligence-driven builder that intuitively includes elements that your site needs based on the type of business you have. Squarespace is best for those who want the ability to include a good deal of customizations and unlimited storage.

Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Pricing & Features

Squarespace and GoDaddy are very similar in terms of pricing, with just a $2 price difference between comparable plans. At first glance, both also offer similar features and inclusions, such as a drag-and-drop website editing interface, a free domain name with annual plans, and a free SSL certificate. However, upon further inspection, their offerings differ in customization capabilities, intuitiveness, and built-in tools.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace’s all-in-one website building and hosting plans start at $12 per month when paid annually or $16 per month when paid monthly. Ecommerce-enabled plans range from $26 to $40 per month. All plans include full access to its drag-and-drop editing interface, dozens of professionally designed templates, unlimited storage and bandwidth, a free domain name (with annual payment), and a free SSL certificate.

GoDaddy Pricing

GoDaddy offers web hosting-only plans starting at $5.99 per month, as well as all-in-one website building and hosting plans starting at $10 per month with annual billing or $15 without a contract. The all-in-one plans come with everything a business needs to build a website quickly and easily, including a highly intuitive, AI-powered editing interface, a free domain name, SSL certificate, and extras like business email and email marketing tools.

Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Pricing & Features

*Unmetered bandwidth indicates that the speed of data transfer is not monitored, whereas unlimited bandwidth indicates that there is no limit (within reason) to the amount of data that can be transferred within a period of time, such as a month.

Templates: Squarespace vs GoDaddy

In terms of templates, it’s a tie between the two as they both have a very similar number of templates available and their design is nearly identical. Both offer dozens of templates that are modern and professionally designed, and what is helpful is that both platforms break out templates by business type. For example, they include template categories such as an online store, home services, real estate, professional services, and restaurant and food.

Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Ease of Use

While both Squarespace and GoDaddy are designed to give users an easy way of building a professional business website, GoDaddy is easier to use. This is because GoDaddy’s AI-powered interface is very intuitive and the platform requires almost no learning curve. On the other hand, Squarespace has more customization capabilities, making it a better choice for those with some technical expertise and customization demands.

Squarespace Ease of Use

Squarespace is highly regarded as an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop website builder. Users get to choose from dozens of professionally designed templates that have vast customization capabilities, including the ability to add custom code. The platform does require a bit of a learning curve for those new to it, whereas GoDaddy’s platform is a little more straightforward, making it the overall easier-to-use website builder.

Interested in learning more about what’s involved with creating a Squarespace site? Get the step-by-step details on how to build a website with Squarespace.

GoDaddy Ease of Use

GoDaddy’s website builder is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and it shows. It’s not only very easy to use, requiring little to no learning curve, but it automatically connects relevant features and tools based on your business type. For example, a user who indicates that they are building a website for a restaurant will be given a list of features that they would likely be interested in, such as menus, an online reservation system, and the ability to accept online orders for delivery.

Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Customer Service

Both Squarespace and GoDaddy both offer top-rated customer service with 24/7 support options. It’s a close call as to which is better, though GoDaddy wins out as it offers customer support via phone, which Squarespace does not. Instead, Squarespace offers 24/7 support via email, which doesn’t provide immediate assistance like phone support does.

Squarespace Customer Service

Squarespace offers highly rated customer support via live chat and email. Support is available 24/7 via email and live chat is available weekdays from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time. Unlike GoDaddy, it does not offer support via phone. However, it does offer a comprehensive help center that is packed with resources where users can troubleshoot issues on their own. It also has an active community forum where users can post questions and get answers from others.

GoDaddy Customer Service

GoDaddy wins in terms of customer service because it offers support 24/7 via phone. It also offers assistance via live chat for those who do not wish to speak to a customer service representative. What’s unique about GoDaddy’s customer support, beyond offering support via phone, is that it also offers support lines for a number of different countries, making it a good choice for those that live outside of the U.S. or those who frequently travel internationally.

Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Customer Reviews

Squarespace is the hands-down winner when it comes to customer reviews. Squarespace has an average user rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, compared to GoDaddy’s 3.9 out of 5-star average rating.

Squarespace Customer Reviews

Squarespace has a high 4.4 out of 5-star rating on our reviews page. Positive reviews tend to revolve around how easy the platform is to use and build a professional-quality website without any coding or technical expertise and its team’s dedication to maintaining 100% uptimes. The couple of negative reviews typically centered around the platform being on the higher end price-wise.

GoDaddy has a 3.9 out of 5-star rating on our reviews page for its website building platform. Positive reviews frequently comment that they like how fast and helpful customer service is and that they feel the plans provide a lot of value with so many features and extras. Negative reviewers commented that they feel it’s an expensive platform. However, it’s one of the lowest cost, all-in-one website building platforms on the market.

Not sure either is quite right for your business? Check out these Squarespace alternatives.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the best website builders?

There are a number of high-quality website builders that make it easy for nearly anyone to build a professional business website without code or web design experience; the top website builders include Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, Shopify, and WordPress (with drag-and-drop website builder plugins). Learn more about the best website builders to find which one is right for your budget, skill level, and website needs.

Which is better: Squarespace or Shopify?

Squarespace and Shopify are both top website building platforms with one major difference: Squarespace can be used to build an informational business website or an online store, whereas Shopify is only used for building an online store. Discover which platform best suits your needs by reading the complete breakdown of Shopify vs Squarespace.

What’s the best way to build a small business website?

Businesses have a number of options when it comes to building a website, from fully customizable sites built with a content management system, such as WordPress, or quickly and easily using a drag-and-drop site builder, such as Squarespace or Wix. Which method is best for you will depend on your individual needs, web design experience, time frame, and budget. Find out which best fits your business and learn how to build a small business website.

How do I build a WordPress website?

The first step in building a WordPress website is to purchase web hosting and get a domain name. Then, follow your web host’s one-click WordPress installation to connect WordPress to your web host. Next, select your WordPress theme, customize your header and footer, build your menu and pages, and finally launch your site by clicking the “publish” button. Follow the step-by-step details on how to make a WordPress website.

Bottom Line: GoDaddy vs Squarespace

Squarespace and GoDaddy are leading all-in-one website building solutions that give users the ability to create a professional business website without web design experience. While they’re very similar platforms in terms of price and design, GoDaddy is the best for budget-conscious businesses that want an ultra-easy way of building a site, whereas Squarespace is best for those building media-heavy sites and those who need vast customizations.