Are Squarespace Templates Actually Good For Businesses?
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In this Squarespace review, I wait at all the fundamental pros and cons of i of the best-known website builders bachelor. Is Squarespace right for your online business— or should you lot utilise an alternative platform?
Let's find out.
In this in-depth look at Squarespace, I'thou going to requite you:
- an overview of what Squarespace is, and how it works
- an evaluation of its templates and key features
- a list of all the main pros and cons of Squarespace
- a adept idea of the best Squarespace plan for you
- a listing of the best alternative website builders
Past the end of the review, yous'll have a much clearer idea as to whether the platform is right for you.
But get-go…
What is Squarespace? And how many people use it?
Squarespace is a website builder tool that is aimed mainly at pocket-size business owners and 'solopreneurs.'
Founded in 2004 as a solution to let people without spider web development skills build and manage their ain website, Squarespace now powers millions of websites worldwide.
Although information technology initially started life as a tool for edifice static, brochure-fashion websites, Squarespace has evolved over contempo years into a platform that now offers built-in ecommerce and marketing features.
As you'll see after on in this review, the platform can now exist used to host an online shop, run email marketing campaigns and even help you create video ads.
Cyberspace statistic visitor Builtwith.com estimates that there is a full of ii.9 million live Squarespace sites, making the platform ane of the nigh pop website builders currently available. Over 1,600 people work for the company.
How does Squarespace work?
Squarespace is a 'hosted' solution. This means that it runs on its own servers and you lot don't take to pay for a hosting service or install software anywhere to use it.
The platform lets you lot create a website in a spider web browser without coding, and edit it easily thank you to a convenient content management system (CMS).
In other words, rather than loading Dreamweaver or a similar web design package and churning out lines of code to construct a site, you do information technology all online using Squarespace'due south templates and style editor. All you lot need to build and maintain your site is access to a web browser and the Cyberspace.
You pick a template, click on the bits of the design you want to tweak, and then accommodate controllers in the style editor to change them.
For case, you can click on some text and employ a new typeface; click on a background and change its color; and so on.
Only in full general, Squarespace is not actually a website builder that is designed for those who want to edit their blueprint extensively — it is a platform that encourages you to pick a template, make a few design tweaks, add together some content and hit the 'become' button.
Squarespace is a 'software as a service' (SaaS) tool — this means that you don't own a re-create of the production, but instead pay a monthly fee to apply it.
And speaking of fees…
Squarespace plans and pricing
In that location are 4 Squarespace plans bachelor:
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Personal — $nineteen per month
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Business concern — $33 per calendar month
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Basic Commerce — $36 per calendar month
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Avant-garde Commerce — $65 per month
If you pay upfront for a year, discounts of 25% to 30% are applied to the above fees, depending on the programme.
Additionally, there'due south an 'Enterprise' plan bachelor. This gives y'all admission to priority back up and 'white glove' consultancy services to help you create and manage a website; pricing for this is negotiable and based on your requirements.
If you'd like to try Squarespace out before buying, a two-week trial is bachelor, which you can access here.
While you're here… have y'all seen our Squarespace video review?
Key differences between the Squarespace plans
When information technology comes to the primal differences between Squarespace pricing plans, some of the main things to look out for are:
Ecommerce features
The 'Personal' Squarespace program is the but one which doesn't permit you to sell online — ecommerce functionality is not provided on this plan at all.
All the other plans allow you to sell an unlimited number of products on your online store — but the commerce functionality you become depends on the programme.
For example, a fundamental ecommerce feature, abased cart saving — a manner of identifying and automatically emailing users who put items in their carts but don't complete a purchase — is only available on the most expensive plan, 'Avant-garde Commerce.'
Other important online store features, including avant-garde discounts, subscriptions, existent-time shipping rates and admission to the Squarespace API are restricted to the 'Avant-garde Commerce' programme too.
Transaction fees
You can avert transaction fees on the 'Bones Commerce' and 'Advanced Commerce' plans. If yous opt for the 'Business organization' programme; however, Squarespace will accept a 3% cut of all the transactions fabricated via your online shop.
Depending on the volume of sales involved, this may brand the 'Bones Commerce' or 'Advanced Commerce' plans more than cost-constructive than the 'Business' one quite speedily.
Whether or non y'all can add together CSS and scripts to your site
The 'Personal' Squarespace programme doesn't permit yous style your website with your ain CSS.
CSS is the lawmaking used to manner a template — and it can be useful to accept admission to this if you want to have 100% command over the design of your site.
The 'Personal' plan as well prevents you from adding JavaScript to the header of your website. Doing then is oftentimes necessary for integrating other apps and services with your site, or calculation bespoke features.
The number of website contributors you tin can have
The 'Personal' plan restricts the number of contributors to your website to 2 (there's no cap on contributors on the other plans).
Third-political party integrations
Y'all can just make utilize of Squarespace's premium blocks and integrations if you're on a 'Business' program or higher. These allow you to connect your website to third party apps and services like Opentable, Amazon and Mailchimp.
The Squarespace Video Studio app
The Squarespace Video Studio app is a new product from Squarespace that aims to help you make videos that match the blueprint and branding of your website. On the 'Personal' plan, you get limited access to this — unlike all the other plans, this limits you to using four of its video-making templates, not the total range.
(I discuss the Video Maker app in more depth after on in the review).
Promotional pop-ups / mobile information bars
On the $33 per month 'Business organisation' plan or higher you tin can use Squarespace's promotional pop-ups and banners. These allow you to highlight particular offers on your website, or ask users to sign upwards to mailing lists.
You can likewise add together 'mobile data bars' on these plans (pictured below). These make it easier for mobile users to phone call, e-mail or locate your business quickly.
Ownership a domain proper name with Squarespace
To incentivize you to pay upfront for a year's service, Squarespace gives anyone taking out an annual plan a free custom domain for their offset twelvemonth of using the platform (subsequently which you'll have to pay for your domain, with domain proper noun costs ranging from $20 to $70 per twelvemonth).
This lets you avail of your ain domain proper noun, www.yoursite.com etc., and connect it easily to your Squarespace site.
Not every custom domain proper name is catered for — several extensions volition simply be available with a dedicated domain name provider, but the master ones (.com, .internet, .info etc.) are catered for, equally are some country extensions.
The only thing to remember here is that past using Squarespace to purchase your domain name, you are entrusting both your website AND domain to 1 company — so, if you lot ever lost access to your Squarespace business relationship, you'd lose access to your domain proper name too.
From a security signal of view therefore, some users may prefer to avert doing this.
Now that nosotros've looked at some of the fundamental differences betwixt pricing plans, it'due south time to accept a expect at a particularly of import aspect of Squarespace: the visuals.
Squarespace templates and design features
Quality of templates
You can choose from 144 Squarespace templates; all are very bonny and have a slick, contemporary expect and feel — in my view outclassing the offer from many other similar hosted website building tools.
In terms of how this selection stacks upwardly against the free template offering from other site builders, it makes Squarespace more generous than Shopify or BigCommerce (which both only offer a few free templates), just much less generous than Wix (which offers 800+) and WordPress (for which thousands are available).
One matter I'd say about Squarespace templates is that the majority of them work all-time if professional, eye-catching photography is used.
So, if you are because using Squarespace, information technology makes sense to invest some thought and fourth dimension in getting some dandy pictures for your site before you get-go building it.
And speaking of which…
Stock images in Squarespace
A actually nice thing about Squarespace is that information technology provides you with access to all of Unsplash's image library out of the box — significant that you get admission to a large number of royalty complimentary images that you can add directly and hands to your website.
When adding an image to a page, you lot simply click a 'search for image' option and y'all can choose a moving-picture show from Unsplash to insert into it.
And, if the quality of the Unsplash library doesn't appeal, Squarespace offers you the selection to buy images directly from Getty — these images cost $10 each, which is not unreasonable.
As with the Unsplash integration, information technology's very piece of cake to insert Getty images into a Squarespace site — it's simply a case of searching for a stock paradigm using a keyword, trying it out and paying for the pic if you think it works in context.
I've found both the Unsplash and Getty options extremely useful when building Squarespace websites for clients who don't have any images to hand.
In some cases, the stock photography feature has contributed positively to the overall corporate design of my clients' sites — and has been peculiarly helpful when a client has non given whatever idea to the branding or imagery end of things at all (something that happens rather more than I'd like!).
Now, a quick word nigh typefaces.
Typeface pick
A huge range of web fonts — i,000 from Adobe and 600 from Google — is included with Squarespace.
This is far more than provided by most competing website building platforms, and usually makes information technology easier to match your website'due south branding with those used in your offline marketing materials.
How exercise Squarespace websites expect on a mobile?
All Squarespace templates are fully responsive, significant that your site design will adjust itself automatically so that it appears correctly on tablets, mobile devices and desktop computers.
Not only does this brand your site more attainable to a wider range of users, responsive design can provide some SEO benefits too.
Additionally, you tin can enable AMP — Accelerated Mobile Pages — on Squarespace websites. AMP is a Google-backed projection which aims to speed up the delivery of content on mobile devices through the use of stripped down code. Using it tin provide some user experience and SEO benefits.
Enabling AMP in Squarespace is extremely piece of cake — it'southward just a case of ticking a box in your site settings — but it's important to note that currently, you tin can only use information technology with blog posts.
It would be amend even so if you could enable AMP for products too; this is something y'all can do with competing products Shopify (via an add-on app) and BigCommerce (out of the box).
Editing the template pattern
It's generally like shooting fish in a barrel to configure a Squarespace template pattern to your liking. You can use a menu of styling options on the right hand side of the screen to adjust how components — displayed on the left — appear.
You tin adjust things like fonts, colors, website width and so on with a minimum of fuss.
One important thing worth noting about the latest version of Squarespace (7.one) is that it doesn't allow you to switch templates once y'all've selected one.
This is frustrating — but less of a large bargain than it sounds at first, as all the seven.1 templates work the same way, and yous can reach the same look and feel equally another template past tweaking your site fonts and colors.
Withal, it would definitely be better if Squarespace offered the option to switch to some other template blueprint with the click of a button — as many competing platforms do — rather than forcing users to manually change a load of settings.
Customizing your Squarespace template
So long every bit you lot're on a 'Business' or higher program, you tin can add your own custom CSS to your website — code that allows y'all to modify the appearance of it. This is useful when yous want to make a change to your website's appearance that Squarespace's blueprint controls don't really permit.
You won't be able to see the full CSS stylesheet in Squarespace, but you lot can add together your own CSS rules to alter the advent of sure items on your website.
However, it's important to note that if you add together your own CSS, Squarespace's customer support team reserves the right to limit the kind of support they requite y'all.
Some competing products are better than Squarespace when it comes to providing full control over the templates — Shopify and BigCommerce, for example, provide you with complete admission to your site's CSS and HTML on all plans.
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Video backgrounds
Squarespace provides a useful video backgrounds characteristic — this tin can turn an already nice-looking Squarespace template into a stunning one.
This feature lets you use a Youtube or Vimeo URL to create a looped video background for your Squarespace site; y'all can also apply a range of filters to this, and speed up or slow it downward.
(If using Vimeo, note that y'all'll demand to be on a Vimeo Plus plan or higher to remove the Vimeo logo from your videos).
You tin also upload videos to be used as backgrounds (you are given xxx minutes of video storage by default on all Squarespace plans).
However, it would be good to be able to display video backgrounds with audio — or requite visitors an choice to do this.
(Fortunately, there's a nice workaround available for this which yous can pick upward from our Squaresplace plugins page — a 3rd-party Squarespace background video controls plugin).
Squarespace 7.0 vs Squarespace 7.1
There are actually two versions of Squarespace available at the moment: 7.0 and 7.1. This review is focussing on the default version, Squarespace seven.one, but technically you lot can yet opt to build a site on Squarespace 7.0 if preferred. Doing so will give y'all access to a unlike set of templates, and a few features that were removed in version seven.one, including:
- cover pages (landing or 'intro' pages for your site)
- the power to edit the design of your mobile site (without CSS)
- access to a Squarespace developer platform (which tin be used to code bespoke Squarespace sites).
Using Squarespace 7.i gives you a more sophisticated layout engine that provides access to more page layouts and lets yous brand use of both 'content blocks' and 'content sections.' Information technology'south also going to exist better supported by Squarespace going forward, and it's the version of the platform into which new features will be introduced.
In my tests, I've institute that Squarespace 7.one is mostly faster than 7.0 — and page speed is important for SEO. Version vii.one also meets Google'due south new 'Core Web Vitals' standards on site speed and stability better too.
So overall, my advice would be to go for a vii.i plan rather than vii.0 1 — and you can browse Squarespace seven.1 templates here.
Designing logos with Squarespace
A useful feature included with Squarespace is a logo designing app.
A choice of symbols and typefaces are provided in the app which you tin use to create your logo.
Yous drop your text and symbols onto a filigree, move things almost a bit and, when you're happy with the results, you can download a hi-res version of your logo which tin be used either on your site or on printed fabric.
It's pretty basic, and then won't be right for all users, simply it has its uses. The main matter I'd like to see added to it are more typefaces — the selection bachelor is very limited, especially by comparison to Squarespace's primary site architect.
This font shortage makes information technology hard to find a logo that matches any existing brand assets you may accept, or a Squarespace template that you've picked.
Appropriately, if y'all're in demand of a logo, I'd advise investigating a more comprehensive graphic design app, similar Canva (you lot can check out our Canva review here).
Content management in Squarespace
In that location is a LOT to similar about Squarespace's arroyo to content management. Let's become through some of the good stuff get-go.
Content sections
Squarespace's 'layout engine' is very straightforward to utilize and lets you lot drag and drop 'content sections' anywhere on your site easily (images, text, forms, videos, code snippets etc.). This makes for very flexible, bonny presentation of content.
When you set up upwardly a page, you can choose from a range of pre-defined page layouts — for example contact pages, about pages, squad pages etc. — which can further speed things upward.
These layouts are extremely helpful to website-building novices who are not terribly familiar with the best ways to present their content.
In one case you've got your page, you can add 'content sections' to it. These include:
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text
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images
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audio
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galleries (in slideshow, filigree, carousel, or stack format)
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eating house menus
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event listings
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content summaries
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calendars
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maps
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lawmaking
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markdown
…and that'south just a few examples actually.
It'south likewise very piece of cake to change the position of your content sections; information technology's but a example of grabbing an element and dragging it to some other location on the page.
It'southward easy to place elements within content sections also — you merely add together 'content blocks' (pictured below). Every bit with Squarespace'southward content sections, these tin exist positioned effectually the page easily.
All in all, the Squarespace content management arrangement is excellent, gives y'all a great range of pattern options. It'due south one of the strongest arguments for using Squarespace over a competing platform.
(Interestingly, WordPress — i of the main alternatives to Squarespace — recently introduced a new drag and drop editor, Gutenberg, that bears more than a passing resemblance to Squarespace's site editor. This in my view speaks to its quality).
Images
The fashion Squarespace lets yous work with images is another key plus bespeak of the platform — its image manipulation and management tools are actually potent.
You tin can resize, crop or rotate whatever paradigm you add together to your website with ease in Squarespace. You can also pick a 'focal betoken' for your images; this helps ensure that no matter which device a user is viewing your site on, the function of the image you lot care the almost about is e'er on display.
In this era of responsive websites, where images are resized according to device, this can exist a bit of a blueprint lifesaver, ensuring that your images always 'brand sense' regardless of the device you're using.
In terms of using galleries and slideshows, Squarespace offers you several different presentation options — including slideshows, carousels and grids — and all wait first-class.
This wide range of gallery features makes Squarespace a particularly good option for photographers who need a website to showcase their portfolio.
Equally discussed earlier, another nice aspect of working with images in Squarespace is that you can browse Unsplash and Getty images directly within Squarespace and insert them really hands into your website.
Then all in all, a really big thumbs-upward for image management in Squarespace.
Blogging features
What is Squarespace similar as a blogging platform?
Well, first the adept stuff:
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Unlike some competing platforms, you tin can take as many blogs as you like on your Squarespace website. This is useful, because you can create different blogs for different types of content (news, reviews, tutorials so on). Or, alternatively, you can stick with i blog and use categories and tags to split out your posts in various ways.
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You lot can create really stylish summary blocks of your blog and drop them into any page of your website, and filter these so that the most relevant posts for a item context are displayed. Anyone who is interested in creating a magazine way layout for their site will love this.
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Whereas competing website builder tools oftentimes restrict you lot to using tags just, yous tin can use categories AND tags in Squarespace — this ways you can present your content in a more flexible manner (and gives your readers more options on how they filter it).
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As discussed earlier, you tin enable AMP on your weblog posts, which means that they will load very quickly (something that tin can help y'all rank higher in search results).
- Squarespace blogs come up with an RSS feed, meaning that y'all can ability eastward-newsletters with them, or let people characteristic your blog content on their sites in various means.
In that location are however, some flaws in Squarespace's blogging setup that definitely need to be pointed out:
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There's no autosave. This is a big omission and it tin can lead to lost content (for instance if your browser crashes mid-sentence, or y'all accidentally delete part of a weblog post).
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There'south no revision history (i.due east., an archive of older versions of posts).
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If yous want to update an existing blog postal service, you can't work on a typhoon version and publish it when y'all're fix; you have to update the alive version.
The bottom line with blogging in Squarespace is that it's fine for most users — simply if you're a professional blogger, or intending to run a large publication, at that place are better options available to yous, not least WordPress.
Importing and exporting content and products
Imports
It'southward easy plenty to get content and products into Squarespace. Helpful 'wizards' are provided to aid you lot import pages, blog posts and other content from WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr.
I thing to note however is that you lot need to be on one of the more expensive 'Commerce' plans in order to import products. These plans let you lot import upward to ten,000 products via CSV or, using an import tool, from Shopify, Etsy or Big Dare.
Exports
Yous can export certain content from Squarespace into a WordPress-format XML file — not everything exports, but the blazon of content that you tin get out of the platform includes primal items like pages, posts and galleries.
In that location are limitations to picket out for when it comes to products however — only physical products tin can be exported, and you can just export up to 10,000 products (with each variant counting as a product).
Charts — but no tables?
An unusual merely potentially useful feature in Squarespace is its 'charting' functionality — this lets you drop some information into Squarespace and apply it to create a pie chart, line chart or bar chart.
These look good and are a handy mode to include a visualization of your information in your site content.
A related feature that's sadly missing nonetheless is the power to insert tables into Squarespace pages and posts.
I routinely go requests from clients to add tables into Squarespace websites and it's always a pain to practice. It involves either finding a table widget somewhere; coding and styling something manually; or creating JPG versions of tables.
Navigation limitations
Every bit things stand Squarespace is not really a swell tool for creating websites with 'multi-level' navigation systems.
While all Squarespace plans technically allow yous to create up to i,000 static pages (and an unlimited number of blog posts), limits apply to how you lot organize them.
In practice, the platform but permits you to create very 'flat' websites, with a maximum of two levels of navigation.
In human being ways this is a good thing, because your site will end up being easy to navigate; merely some businesses — particularly those offer a wide or complex range of services — may crave a deeper website hierarchy and a suitable navigation system to facilitate this.
Version history
Unlike Wix and WordPress, Squarespace doesn't automatically go on a history of changes to your website. This ways that if you accidentally mess upward a page (or worse, permanently delete it!), you tin can't restore an earlier version.
That's not to say that Squarespace doesn't back up your website — the visitor says that it keeps copies of its customers' content in multiple locations and that your data is condom with information technology.
But the fact that the Squarespace help page on troubleshooting lost content encourages yous to try to retrieve accidentally deleted content by searching an internet archive (the Wayback Motorcar) or visiting a Google-cached version of a page doesn't really inspire confidence…
Creating multilingual versions of a Squarespace website
Users who wish to use Squarespace to create a website for a company operating in many dissimilar locations or languages may also be disappointed — Squarespace is not really designed to let you lot create a network of multiple sites using the same design.
Out of the box, for example, you can't really apply Squarespace to host a full U.k. version of your site at www.yoursite.com/britain/ and a full German version at www.yoursite.com/de/.
WordPress Multilingual or WordPress Multisite would exist a better bet for applications like that (note: you tin find out more about our WordPress development services here).
And, if multilingual ecommerce is going to be a cardinal part of your project, yous might besides want to investigate Shopify, which lets you lot build up to xx different linguistic communication versions of a site.
If you're adamant to use Squarespace to host a multilingual website however, you lot could considering investing in a third-party tool like Weglot, which automatically creates a multilingual version of your site for you.
File management
Although Squarespace doesn't however provide a standalone WordPress-style media library, its new prototype re-employ feature goes some fashion towards providing a media library of sorts, in that information technology allows you lot to search for and re-use images y'all've already imported to the platform.
Mobile apps
If you'd similar to manage your Squarespace site on the go, at that place are iii apps to help you exercise this:
- 'Squarespace'
- 'Schedule Admin'
- 'Scheduling Client'
All three are available for both iOS and Android.
The 'Squarespace' app is the chief one you'll need to manage your Squarespace site using a smartphone — it lets you lot edit pages and posts, view Squarespace analytics and manage orders.
The Squarespace scheduling apps are designed to let you manage appointments that your clients have booked through your Squarespace site.
The 'Schedule Client' app allows people to book and alter appointments, and the 'Scheduling Admin' app lets you manage them.
A new mobile app from Squarespace: Video Studio
Squarespace has recently added a new mobile app to the platform: Video Studio.
The aim of this is to allow yous make professional person videos that match the look and feel of your Squarespace site. This is done via 'guided project templates' that are designed to assist you create professional videos without a production team. These tin can then exist exported into various formats for utilise in various contexts (on your site, as social media ads etc.).
On the plus side, the app makes information technology extremely easy to for complete novices to create pretty slick videos showcasing products and other site content — it just grabs content from your Squarespace site automatically and uses this as the starting signal for your videos.
However, the app currently fails to live up to the claim fabricated on the Squarespace website that it lets you make "videos that lucifer the design and branding of your Squarespace site."
This is simply because it doesn't let y'all use the full range of typefaces that are available in the chief Squarespace interface — you're limited to merely 14 of the 1600+ fonts that are available in the desktop version of Squarespace.
Given the importance of typography to branding, this makes the app a lot less useful than information technology could be — which is a shame, because in that location is lots to otherwise similar about information technology.
The app is available on all Squarespace plans (with the 'Personal' programme restricting the number of 'guided templates' you can use to four) — and interestingly tin even be used on the Squarespace free trial.
Integrations with other apps
Congenital-in integrations
Squarespace offers several built-in integrations with key web applications — you can incorporate apps and services like Mailchimp, Dropbox, Google Drive, Pinterest (plus quite a few others) into your website in lots of useful ways.
Yous volition need to be on a 'Concern' plan or higher though to get total access to these integrations, nevertheless.
Squarespace extensions
Squarespace recently introduced 'extensions' for its platform — a range of paid-for add together-ons that add functionality to your website.
The number of extensions is currently modest — at fourth dimension of writing, there are just 29 add together-ons bachelor — but you lot can use them to hook your site upwardly to several central admin apps including Quickbooks and TaxJar, or impress aircraft labels.
The extensions bachelor are useful, but a bit pricey by comparison to offerings in other platforms' app stores.
Squarespace-Zapier integration
If a built-in integration or extension isn't available to help yous become Squarespace talking to a particular app, then you might detect the Squarespace-Zapier integration a adept option.
This allows you to send data captured via forms in Squarespace to a wide range of 3rd party applications. Zapier is an 'if this, then that' (IFTT) tool that allows you to create rules every bit to what should happen with data from 1 application when it'south sent to another.
Y'all will usually demand a premium Zapier plan to become the most out of this, though ($29.99 per month), and will demand to be on a 'Business' program or college to make utilise of the integration.
Squarespace plugins
There's also the option of buying 'lawmaking snippets' to enhance the functionality of your Squarespace website from various providers.
These snippets are increasingly referred to every bit 'Squarespace plugins' — and although these add-ons are not quite equally easy to install as their WordPress equivalents, they however allow you to significantly extend the functionality of your Squarespace site.
Plugins exist for a variety of applications — for example, enhancing video backgrounds, adding sidebars, creating bespoke lightboxes…and much else besides.
Connecting Squarespace to social media accounts is very straightforward — yous simply add together your accounts in your website settings, and Squarespace takes care of the relevant icons and feeds (pushing content automatically to selected social networks if requested).
All the nearly popular social media networks are catered for in Squarespace, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
A way to save money on Squarespace
If you're interested in using Squarespace, the company is currently offer x% off its plans. This can amount to quite a saving, especially if you opt for one of its 'commerce' plans.
This discount is available for a limited fourth dimension merely – to avail of information technology,
1. Grab a free trial on the Squarespace website using this link.
2. Enter the lawmaking PARTNER10 when purchasing a plan.
Data capture and forms
Data capture is ane of the nigh of import features of any website, specially in this era of inbound marketing — a robust approach to data capture is absolutely vital to generating leads and clients.
So how does Squarespace stack upwards in the data capture section?
Well, at that place are 2 ways to arroyo data capture in Squarespace. The first is to simply use code blocks to integrate an email marketing service of your choice (GetResponse, AWeber, Campaign Monitor, Mailchimp etc.).
This gives y'all a lot of flexibility — but ways adding HTML forms to your Squarespace website and styling them using CSS so that they match the residuum of it.
The other fashion to capture data is via Squarespace'due south congenital-in data capture options: the 'form cake' or the 'newsletter block'. These both allow you to construct bespoke forms easily.
Both the form block and the newsletter block permit y'all to send the information captured to
- an email address
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Mailchimp
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Zapier
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Google Sheets
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Squarespace's Email Campaigns tool (more on this below)
The good news first: the forms are actually easy to set up and utilise and they await cracking — if you are happy to transport your data to Google Sheets and Mailchimp, or set upward a 'zap' to some other awarding via Zapier, you lot'll love them. You lot can also integrate Google's 'reCAPTCHA' service into Squarespace information capture forms easily, which helps reduce spammy submissions.
There are some improvements that I'd beloved to see existence made hither, notwithstanding.
Beginning, although the Zapier integration is very useful, opening up Squarespace'southward information capture functionality to users of well-known email marketing products such as GetResponse, Campaign Monitor and AWeber, it still makes life more complicated (and expensive) for these users than it could be.
Another improvement I'd like to meet to Squarespace forms would exist file uploading functionality — as things stand, you can't permit users adhere any files to form submissions in Squarespace.
The other thing I'd love to meet is conditional logic being added to Squarespace forms, so that you can display boosted fields based on user action, or send data to detail people (or storage options) based on what the user submitted.
And finally, yous can't create i form in Squarespace that you then drop into pages as yous delight — you have to create a new form for every page.
If your data capture needs are elementary, you'll be fine with Squarespace — but if yous need to employ provisional logic or facilitate file uploads equally part of your data capture process, you volition probably stop up having to invest in a tertiary party forms app like Wufoo Forms or Jotform, or using custom code to connect your forms to your preferred email marketing app.
Email marketing functionality – 'Squarespace Email Campaigns'
For an extra monthly fee, yous tin carry out email marketing with Squarespace, thanks to its 'Email Campaigns' feature. This allows y'all to capture email addresses and transport newsletters to mailing list subscribers without leaving the Squarespace surroundings.
This brings Squarespace into line with key competitor Wix, which has offered this sort of functionality for some time, via its 'Ascend' feature.
Squarespace offers you four e-mail marketing pricing plans:
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Starter — $vii per calendar month to send upwards to 3 e-newsletters and 500 messages per month
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Core — $14 per month for v e-newsletters / 5,000 messages
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Pro — $34 per month for xx e-newsletters / 50,000 messages
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Max — $68 per month for an unlimited number of newsletters / 250,000 letters
(As with the regular Squarespace plans, these rates are reduced if yous pay for Squarespace Electronic mail Campaigns on an annual ground).
In terms of how this pricing stacks upwards against other email marketing products, the Starter and Cadre plans are inexpensive by comparison to the entry-level plans available from the likes of AWeber and Mailchimp; they allow yous to start capturing data and creating newsletters without spending too much.
In fact, you can technically host an unlimited number of email addresses with Squarespace Electronic mail campaigns, which is very generous.
Another important benefit of using Squarespace'due south Email Campaigns is that you can manage your website AND mailing list — probably the two most important online assets of any business — in i identify, and go on the branding reasonably consequent across both.
On peak of that, the email templates — as yous'd look from Squarespace — are very attractive and mobile-friendly. They are like shooting fish in a barrel to edit too, as the Email Campaigns feature provides a drag-and-driblet user interface that is quite similar to Squarespace'southward web page editor.
Some autoresponder functionality is also included with Electronic mail Campaigns (then long every bit yous are on a 'Core' plan or college). However, the automation provided is currently pretty basic past comparison to that provided by dedicated electronic mail marketing tools like Mailchimp or GetResponse, letting you create unproblematic 'drip' campaigns only.
Furthermore, you can't segment information using custom fields or divide test your mailouts using Squarespace Email Campaigns. So 'ability users' of email marketing needing more sophisticated options will probably better off using another email marketing solution.
Editing HTML and CSS on a Squarespace website
HTML — adding widgets and code blocks
Unlike competing platforms like WordPress or Shopify, in Squarespace you can't really toggle betwixt a WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you lot get') editor and HTML mode on pages and posts.
It is, however, possible to add 'HTML code blocks' to a Squarespace website, so y'all can comprise a third-party class / widget etc. into proceedings easily.
CSS — styling your website
Yous can add custom CSS to your Squarespace website (if you're on the 'Concern' programme or higher), simply it's non entirely encouraged: y'all are warned when doing so that 1) calculation lines of CSS can interruption your design, and ii) you might not be able to avail of full support if you add CSS.
That said, if y'all know what you're doing with CSS, the freedom to add bespoke visual improvements to your site is definitely welcome.
Code injection
If you'd similar to add scripts to the header department of a Squarespace website, you can practise this via a code injection section (on the 'Business organization' plan or higher).
How good is Squarespace SEO?
As with whatsoever hosted solution, you don't accept full access to the inner workings of the Squarespace platform or the ability to cull a super-fast host for your site. Accordingly, this ways at that place will always be some limitations effectually SEO with Squarespace.
That said, websites congenital with Squarespace do quite a lot of things that Google and other search engines like:
- they are secure
- they automatically generate a sitemap.xml file
- they create clean HTML markup
- they employ responsive pattern, making them mobile friendly (Google prioritizes websites that announced quickly and brandish correctly on mobile devices)
- they provide some AMP features.
Squarespace lets you tweak virtually of the cardinal search engine optimization elements hands enough — page title tags, headings, meta descriptions, alt text etc.
The platform also allows users to enable free SSL on their sites (and very easily too). This is important, considering sites using SSL certificates tin can be treated preferentially by Google in search.
And I've noticed that sites I've built in Squarespace vii.i are starting to pass Google's new 'Core Web Vitals' tests more ofttimes than sites I've built on other similar platforms.
(The Core Web Vitals targets focus on various aspects of site performance and stability, and sites that run into them can occasionally receive higher search rankings).
Yet, Squarespace sites could definitely load a bit faster (folio speed is important for SEO). The pagespeed scores I've got when testing Squarespace sites in Google's PageSpeed Insights tool have tended to be pretty mediocre.
Note: if y'all're interested in finding out more nearly optimising your Squarespace website for a search engine, exercise check out our Squarespace SEO resource.
And don't forget that built-in SEO tools are only one part of the picture when it comes to SEO; you'll need to remember near using tertiary-party keyword enquiry tools like Moz and Ahrefs also.
Ecommerce in Squarespace
The ecommerce functionality in Squarespace is pretty stiff. It's easy to create, edit and manage products and production catalogues. You lot tin can definitely create an attractive online store with the platform — and i that'southward easy to manage.
Key features include
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a user-friendly shopping cart system
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the ability to sell an unlimited number of products
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the power to sell physical appurtenances, digital goods, services and subscriptions
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a 0% transaction fee (on 'Commerce' plans)
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automatic abandoned cart recovery (on 'Commerce Advanced' plan)
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souvenir cards and discount codes
- customer accounts ('Commerce' plans only)
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point-of-sale functionality (US simply)
.
I particularly similar the style Squarespace handles production images. Dissimilar some competing platforms, Squarespace allows you lot to automatically utilise image ratios to all the products in your online store — a huge timesaver for larger ecommerce projects.
It's worth flagging upwards the subscription functionality as some other potent feature of Squarespace — the platform makes it very piece of cake for y'all to accept recurring payments for goods or services.
An interesting aspect of Squarespace ecommerce is its new member areas feature. This lets you charge users for admission to a private area of your website, assuasive you to sell courses, video and other exclusive content to your audience.
Although this requires an additional fee — ranging from $ix to $twoscore per month depending on how many fellow member areas yous want to set up, or hours of video yous'd similar to sell — the feature does potentially give you a great way to monetize your website and site traffic.
The video below contains an overview of how member areas can exist used.
There are a few areas in the ecommerce department where Squarespace definitely needs some improvement, yet.
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Squarespace doesn't facilitate multi-currency transactions. This won't be a showstopper for anyone who wants to use the platform to sell products locally, but if your sights are set on selling goods all over the earth, then platforms like BigCommerce or Shopify are a better bet, as they allow you to show product prices and facilitate checkout in local currencies (BigCommerce existence a especially skilful choice for this).
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Point-of-sale functionality (POS)— which allows you to sell your products in physical locations using your online store to process payment and handle inventory management — could be a bit better too. It'southward currently express to the USA, but iOS devices are supported, and the hardware yous can use is express to a bill of fare reader (i.e., no barcode scanners or cash registers can be used).
- If y'all desire to use Squarespace to sell on a variety of different sales channels (similar Instagram, Amazon, eBay, Facebook etc.) yous'll ordinarily need to use the 'Torso' extension to do so. This starts at $35 per calendar month, so will add significantly to your costs.
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The dropshipping options are a bit limited too: you lot can merely use a few dropshipping providers. If dropshipping is going to be the central focus of your business, you may be ameliorate off with Shopify
, which offers a huge range of dropshipping options. -
Every bit things stand up, automated tax calculations are restricted to the The states.
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Payment gateway options are restricted to Stripe and Paypal. The almost pregnant upshot of this is that Google Pay is not supported by Squarespace (Apple Pay is, nevertheless).
Competing ecommerce platforms typically requite you a lot more selection when it comes to payment methods.
Overall, I really similar the Squarespace ecommerce features, and they're great for any modest business concern that needs a unproblematic online store and doesn't mind selling in just i currency.
Merchants who take more than advanced requirements however would be better off looking at a dedicated online store builder like BigCommerce or Shopify — these are more than fully-featured platforms that provide more professional person features for running an ecommerce concern with.
Ease-of-utilize
Squarespace is a very user-friendly production.
In fact, I've yet to employ a hosted website edifice platform with an interface that feels quite equally slick and as straightforward to use as Squarespace's.
Whenever I build a website in Squarespace and hand information technology over to a client for them to edit themselves, there are rarely any problems — we are non talking about a steep learning curve here at all.
The main criticism I take about Squarespace in the ease-of-use department is that in the latest version of the product (version 7.1), y'all can't switch templates.
This ways that if you want to recreate the look and feel of another template, you'll take to rejig all your blueprint settings. This is achievable — just it can exist time consuming.
That issue aside, I recollect Squarespace provides one of the easiest-to-employ and most intuitive content direction systems out there, and the quality of the interface is probably one of the strongest arguments for using information technology.
(Our Squarespace tutorial video below gives you an thought of the how the interface works, and how you lot employ it build a website).
Complimentary Squarespace trial | Full Squarespace tutorial | Squarespace resources
Squarespace customer support
Squarespace provides customer support via electronic mail (24/seven) or live chat (8am-8pm EDT, Monday to Friday); no phone back up is bachelor.
In terms of the customer service that is bachelor, whilst the staff on Squarespace's support desk-bound are very friendly and provide reasonably quick answers to queries (with the live conversation choice being quickest), they tend to but deal with pretty simple issues.
In essence, if yous want to add together some functionality or pattern aspects to your Squarespace website that are not provided 'out of the box' y'all won't necessarily get much help from Squarespace.
Sometimes you will just be told that what you lot are trying to achieve is not possible (fifty-fifty if actually, with a scrap of perseverance, research or unproblematic coding it really IS) and directed to read the Squarespace blog weekly in case the functionality you're trying to add together to your website gets added as an official feature downward the line.
And, as mentioned briefly in a higher place, if you add custom CSS to your site, y'all may not be able to get full support from Squarespace.
All that said, I have had some very positive experiences with the Squarespace back up team — it'southward just that it has sometimes required a bit more perseverance from my side than I might like.
As with many support desks, the quality of support can often boil downward to who yous become on the day.
Ane final thing to exist aware of is that while Squarespace email support is bachelor in six languages (English, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Castilian), live chat support is English language-only.
The Squarespace help center
In addition to phone and live conversation back up, y'all tin also make use of Squarespace's 'help center' to aid you solve problems.
The assist centre is a searchable online manual / knowledge base containing videos and articles to aid yous empathize how Squarespace works.
Information technology's commonly pretty skilful for getting a sense of the nuts, but there will still be the odd occasion when you may need to go far touch with Squarespace'southward customer service squad for help.
In the era of GDPR — General Data Protection Regulation — it'southward of import to go privacy and information protection issues correct, equally the fines for non doing so are considerable.
Information technology'due south easy enough to sort out some of the GDPR nuts with Squarespace; the data security is robust, and y'all can add privacy policy, website terms of use and cookie notice documents to a site without difficulty.
However, when it comes to compliance in the surface area of cookie consent, Squarespace presents some fairly big challenges to prospective users.
GDPR requires website owners to follow 5 key rules with regard to cookie consent:
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Let site visitors know that cookies are beingness used.
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Explain how cookies are existence used, and why.
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Provide visitors with a means to consent to 'not-essential' cookies being used BEFORE they are run (not-essential cookies include Facebook pixels, Google Analytic, Adsense etc.).
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Log consent of cookie usage.
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Let users to withdraw that consent (i.e., switch cookies they've previously activated off).
Whilst yous can come across the first two requirements with a Squarespace website easily, it's not straightforward to meet the other three.
To do and then you will ordinarily need to use a third-party paid-for tool (we generally use CookieYes) to create a GDPR-compliant imprint that gives users 100% command over the cookies used on a Squarespace site.
Ultimately information technology's a 'could exercise meliorate' here for Squarespace, because you tin't use key business tools similar Google Analytics, Adwords or Facebook ads without dropping cookies.
To be fair, the product is not the just hosted solution that could provide a better solution for meeting these GDPR rules, but Squarespace could be much more proactive well-nigh helping its users deal with this problem — even if that only meant pointing people in the direction of tools that can be used to solve it.
Of the products I've tested to date, Shopify and BigCommerce provide more than options when it comes to making a hosted ecommerce solution GDPR-compliant.
In the instance of Shopify, in that location are (paid-for) apps available which sort out the cookie imprint and other GDPR problems; and in the example of BigCommerce, the platform has some built-in tools that let you manage cookie dropping and capture consent adequately.
Information technology would exist great to come across Squarespace following conform.
Squarespace review conclusion
Whilst not the cheapest website builder available, Squarespace is nonetheless a great pick for individuals and small businesses in search of a tool to build their site or shop with. Its templates and content management are fantabulous, and the learning curve is gentle.
Information technology's worth emphasising however that Squarespace is particularly adept for two chief applications: running a brochure website or hosting a portfolio site.
If you are an artist, photographer or a musician — or building a website for a i-off event like a hymeneals — you'll also find Squarespace to be a smashing pick of platform for building your site (and maintaining information technology in hereafter). Information technology's besides a good option for eatery websites — photographs of meals and menu layouts tin look fantastic in the context of a well-chosen Squarespace template.
Thanks to its easy-to-utilise ecommerce features, businesses needing a simple online store or shopping cart system may also find Squarespace a adept solution — and considering information technology's a hosted solution, using Squarespace doesn't require you to worry about things like server updates or security (other than taking the usual precautions effectually passwords). This brings a LOT of peace of mind to proceedings.
Squarespace does require some improvements to its ecommerce functionality nonetheless — its lack of multi-currency selling features and express point of sale functionality would probably nudge me in the direction of a using a more than dedicated ecommerce platform like Shopify if I needed to build an complex online store.
GDPR is another one of my concerns — although you tin make a Squarespace website GDPR compliant, information technology involves more work than you lot might similar.
The good thing is that — as with a lot of hosted solutions — you can try Squarespace out before committing to it. Appropriately, I'd strongly advise making the most of its free trial. Check every characteristic out thoroughly to ensure the platform meets your requirements.
So, I hope this Squarespace review has helped y'all brand your mind upward on the platform! Below you will detect a summary of the key Squarespace pros and cons.
Pros and cons of Squarespace
Pros of using Squarespace
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Its templates are contemporary and beautifully designed — and thanks to a responsive pattern, websites and online stores created using the platform volition expect smashing not just on desktop computers but on tablets and mobile devices too.
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Its user interface is fantastic — I'd debate that Squarespace has one of the most user-friendly content management systems available.
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Its image direction options are excellent.
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It provides a good range of import tools for importing content from other platforms.
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There are no transaction fees to worry near (so long as you are on one of its 'Commerce' plans).
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It allows yous to work with a very big range of web fonts.
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It integrates nicely out of the box with many well-known third-party tools, including Google Workspace, Opentable and Mailchimp; it likewise lets you push button content to social media networks easily.
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A Zapier integration is bachelor that allows y'all to connect your Squarespace website to a large number of other web applications.
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It comes with a pretty usable and reasonably-priced born email marketing tool.
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You lot can utilise its logo designing app to create a uncomplicated but professional-looking logo.
- Whilst in need of some improvements where font availability is concerned, the new Squarespace 'Video Maker' app gives you an easy way to put pretty slick videos together quickly.
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A ii-calendar week free trial is available.
Cons of using Squarespace
- In that location's no multi-currency selling functionality — if y'all're hoping to create an online store that caters for a global audience, in that location are amend alternatives bachelor (run into below).
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GDPR compliance is poor in the area of cookie consent — you'll need to invest in a third-party tool to make your Squarespace website fully compliant.
- Automatic tax calculations are currently limited to the Usa.
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Payment gateway options are quite limited.
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Although back up for Apple Pay is provided, there'due south no equivalent back up for Google Pay.
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No version history functionality is available.
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There's no autosave for pages and posts.
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Squarespace sites could l
oad a chip more rapidly. -
Point-of-sale is only available in the US, and is quite basic — just a card reader can be used when selling in physical locations (other platforms let you use a wider range of hardware, like barcode scanners, tills, receipt printers etc.).
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The customer support squad tin can be contacted past email or live chat but — no phone support is bachelor.
- Live chat support is bachelor in English only.
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The app store for Squarespace (its 'Extensions' directory) isn't currently very well stocked.
- Unlike some some of its competitors, Squarespace doesn't offer a gratis program. However, there is an extendable 14 twenty-four hour period gratuitous trial available.
Our overall rating: 4.1/5
Free trial / special offer
If yous're interested in using Squarespace, the company is currently offering 10% off its plans. This tin can amount to quite a saving, peculiarly if you lot opt for one of its 'commerce' plans.
This discount is available for a limited time only — to avail of it,
1. Catch a free trial on the Squarespace website using this link.
2. Enter the code 'PARTNER10' when purchasing a programme.
Squarespace alternatives
There are quite a few similar website architect products on the market, including Wix, Big Cartel, Jimdo, GoDaddy Website Builder, Moonfruit and Weebly. Like Squarespace, these are all 'hosted' solutions that involve an ongoing fee, and are products that are chiefly aimed at users who are starting a brand new business concern but lacking in technical web blueprint skills.
If content management is a key concern, and so self-hosted WordPress is an obvious alternative to Squarespace; simply the 2 platforms are rather unlike beasts.
Self-hosted WordPress is a much more than powerful tool, but 1 which commonly involves a more manual setup and customzation of elements — Squarespace is more than of a 'click and point to change something' style solution (and, unless you engage a developer or agency to aid you, you won't have a back up team at your disposal to help you lot with any queries almost your website). I'd propose reading our Squarespace vs WordPress article to go an in-depth comparison of these ii platforms.
You lot could likewise look at hosted WordPress, which is a site builder that works in a similar way to Squarespace (i.eastward., information technology's hosted on a server and doesn't involve much in the way of transmission configuration). However, information technology delivers more than sophisticated options when information technology comes to blogging (not to the lowest degree an autosave feature!).
As far equally selling online goes, the best hosted ecommerce solutions I've tried out to date are Shopify and BigCommerce.
Although the Squarespace template designs are arguably better than the ones y'all get with both of these tools, the Shopify / BigCommerce ecommerce functionality is a lot stronger. For more than information check out our Shopify vs Squarespace postal service mail and our Squarespace vs BigCommerce comparison.
Using an existing online marketplace like Amazon or Etsy equally your ecommerce solution is also an option — this involves a different method of selling than using a hosted solution like Squarespace, only because then many people use these platforms, it offers a ready-made customer base to tap into. Read our Shopify vs Amazon post and our Shopify vs Etsy comparison for more thoughts on this way of selling.
Another thing you could do is use Squarespace to host your content, but install a plug-in similar Ecwid or the Shopify Buy Button to add together a shopping cart.
And and then of course, there's WordPress again, which and so long as you happy to spend time configuring, can be used finer with various ecommerce plugins such every bit WooCommerce, Ecwid or Shopp to sell goods.
And finally, Wix is worth a await — the product provides a similar ecommerce feature set to Squarespace.
A free Wix programme is also available (it'southward very basic, but good for some applications). Bank check out our Wix review, our Wix vs Shopify comparison, our Wix vs Shopify YouTube comparison or Wix vs Squarespace comparison and our Wix vs WordPress post for more than details.
Squarespace review FAQ
Is Squarespace good for beginners?
In general, yeah. Squarespace is a 'do it yourself' website architect, which ways that information technology's aimed at people without coding or web blueprint skills. Similar all similar products, there is learning curve involved, simply of the website builders we've tested, it's definitely ane of the easiest to utilise.
What are the main pros and cons of Squarespace?
The main advantages of using Squarespace are its cute templates; its intuitive interface; its easy-to-utilize selling tools and its lack of transaction fees. The master disadvantages are the fact that it doesn't facilitate multi-currency selling; its lack of revision history features; and its inadequate approach to providing GDRP-compliant cookie banners.
Which is better, Squarespace seven.0 or 7.ane?
Although Squarespace 7.0 does contain a few features not found in seven.ane (primal ones being parallax scrolling, landing pages and the ability to switch templates), in general Squarespace 7.1 is the amend option, considering you tin can create faster sites with it, information technology contains improve ecommerce features and it'due south the version that's going to be developed and supported by Squarespace in the long term.
Is there a complimentary trial bachelor from Squarespace?
Yeah. Yous can endeavor the product free for xiv days. If afterwards that time you haven't quite finished building your site, you can avail of a 7-day extension to this trial.
Are there any discounts bachelor for Squarespace?
Yes. Past paying upfront for a year, you can avail of a 25%-30% discount (depending on program). You lot tin can likewise avail of an additional 10% disbelieve past starting a costless trial and entering the PARTNER10 code when upgrading to a paid program.
- Guide to choosing the best Squarespace template
- How to make a Squarespace website load faster
- BigCommerce review
- Big Cartel versus Shopify
- How to create an online store
- How to start a Shopify store
Now..over to you!
Thank you for reading our Squarespace review! If you've got whatsoever thoughts or queries on the platform, please do gyre downwardly and leave a comment on this post. We read all comments, and will practice our all-time to answer any questions you may have.
Are Squarespace Templates Actually Good For Businesses?,
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