Squarespace Pricing Explained (5 Things You Need to Know)

Want to know if Squarespace pricing is good value for money?

If you’ve ever considered using a platform to create your own website, I definitely recommend Squarespace as it allows you to create a professional-looking website in a matter of minutes, without need to learn complex code.

People often choose website builders because they are more affordable than hiring a web developer or web designer. Squarespace is one of my favourite website builders because it actually looks like a professional has built your website.

The Squarespace platform offers extremely high-quality templates, awesome features, and overall great service. But is there a catch?

In this blog article, we’re going to explore Squarespace’s price and plans. We’ll see how much it will cost to build a website yourself, create an online store, and lots more.

Let’s take a look at the pricing plans Squarespace has on offer before diving in deeper.

Squarespace Pricing Plans

Squarespace has four pricing plans which all offer something unique. Before we look at all of the features on offer, let’s take a look at the difference you’ll pay between monthly and annual plans:

As with most website builders or web hosting plans, paying annually will save you a lot of money in the long run. For example, if you sign up to their personal plan on an annual basis, you’ll basically get 3 months for free.

Which plan is for you?

• Personal plan (£10/month): If you don’t plan on selling any products, the personal plan will likely be suitable enough for you. If you run a personal website or blog, you’ll get a custom domain, SSL and 24/7 support. You’ll have access to the same great templates and editor as all of the other plans.
• Business plan (£15/month): Upgrading to the business plan is a great choice if you plan on starting to sell online. This plan is ideal for selling a few products or for those who want the option in the future. There’s not as many features as the Commerce plans, but you’ll get a taste of what’s to come.
• Basic Commerce (£20/month): The Basic Commerce plan is ideal for a user who wants an entire online store. It’s designed to offer tools and features the other plans don’t have and is optimised for eCommerce. You’ll get mobile-optimised checkouts, customer accounts, social media integration and lots more.
• Advanced Commerce (£30/month): Once you have an established online store, you may want to consider upgrading to the advanced plan. Here you’ll be able to explore the abandoned cart recovery tool, offer gift cards, and generally increase your ROI.

Visit Squarespace.com (£10/Month)

Squarespace Website Plans

Although there are four pricing plans on offer from Squarespace, I’d consider two of them to be more suited to ‘just’ websites. By this, I mean people who don’t want to sell products online. For this reason, I’m splitting the pricing plans up into two categories, the first being website plans.

Core Features

The core features on offer from Squarespace cover the basics of getting a website up and running. These generally include a domain name, SSL, and storage/bandwidth limitations. Most website builders offer a free plan that offers the bare minimum in terms of core features, however, Squarespace scrapped this idea and offers a free trial instead.

Marketing Features

The main difference between the Personal and Business plan is the marketing features that are included. If you want to take your website one step further, it’s important you extend your reach to the correct audience. Understanding your customers is key to this, which is why the business plan includes website analytics.

eCommerce Features

As I briefly touched upon earlier, Squarespace’s Business plan does offer some very basic eCommerce features. If you want to test out selling a few products rather than jumping onto their eCommerce plan straight away, this is a great learning curve.

Visit Squarespace.com (£10/Month)

Squarespace Commerce Plans

If you’re serious about selling online, Squarespace’s commerce plans will definitely be able to offer you a step in the right direction. Unlike some website builders, Squarespace’s commerce plans don’t charge transaction fees which is a real bonus in my opinion.

For £30 per month, there’s an awful lot on offer here. SquareSpace’s Basic and Advanced Commerce plans almost have no limits at all. There are no transaction fees, you can sell via social media, and the overall cost is probably less than you pay for your TV and internet per month.

Squarespace vs Competitors

When you’re looking at just one website builder, it’s easy to become wrapped up in their features and pricing. I sign up for every service I write about, which is why I can be totally honest about my opinions and recommendations.

I thought it would be a good idea to look at SquareSpace and it’s competitors; namely Wix and Weebly. Let’s first consider their pricing plans overall:

• Basic: Both Wix and Weebly offer a very basic plan to get started on their website builder. With Wix, you’ll get 1GB bandwidth, 500MB storage and the ability to connect your domain. However, you will have Wix branding and adverts on your website which doesn’t look very professional. Weebly’s free plan is very similar, offering 500MB storage. However, it comes with a free domain and is free for life.
• Personal: Wix and Weebly’s personal plans are undoubtedly cheaper than SquareSpace. However, SquareSpace offers a lot more in terms of their features. SquareSpace doesn’t have any bandwidth or storage limitations, unlike Wix and Weebly.
• Standard: Wix’s Unlimited plan offers unlimited bandwidth, but still limits storage to 10GB. Weebly’s Pro plan does allow you to sell online but doesn’t offer as much compared to SquareSpace in terms of analytics, SEO and marketing credits.

I’ve outlined a few of the main differences between SquareSpace, Wix, and Weebly above. Each website builder offers something different for their customers, but I genuinely believe SquareSpace has a lot more features and are therefore considered better value for money overall.

Visit SquareSpace.com (£10/Month)

Squarespace Extra Costs

There’s no doubting that SquareSpace is slightly more expensive than it’s competitors. However, we have established that they offer a lot more features and their plans are potentially catered more towards professionals compared to Wix and Weebly.

You may be wondering, why am I mentioning extra costs. Don’t worry, Squarespace offer exactly what they say they’re going to offer. However, they do have optional extras you can pay for, on top of their pricing plans.

SquareSpace Domains

Although all of SquareSpace’s pricing plans include a free domain, you can purchase domains through Squarespace themselves. All of their domains include WHOIS privacy and claim to renew at the same price.

If you already have an existing domain with another domain name provider, you can transfer it to Squarespace for free. You may find other providers are cheaper than Squarespace, so it’s a good idea to check out other options first. As I said, you can always transfer it for free later down the line.

SquareSpace Email Marketing

After launching a fantastic online store, how are you going to reach out to customers and get them to return? Well, you’ll need email marketing to do that! SquareSpace offers their own email marketing plans which are highly recommended for those wanting to grow and engage with their audience.

SquareSpace Transaction Fees

Although this isn’t technically an ‘extra’ as such, it’s worth talking about this in more detail. Earlier when we were looking at the differences in pricing plans, we categorised the four plans into two; websites and eCommerce. The Business plan, although it allows you to sell products online, charges a 3% transaction fee. This means Squarespace will take 3% of each sale you make.

For example, if you sold a t-shirt for £20, SquareSpace would take 60p of that sale. Now, that doesn’t seem like much does it? However, if you sold a piece of jewellery worth £2500, Squarespace would take £75.

The Business plan is essentially designed for small stores or businesses. It’s a great option for start-ups who aren’t looking to spend too much, to begin with, but the option to upgrade is there.

SquareSpace Pricing Plans Summary

I personally really like Squarespace. I can understand why they’re so popular; their pricing plans honestly reflect what you get for your money, and that’s a big thumbs up from me.

Although at first glance their prices may seem a little steeper compared to its competitors, now that we’ve dug deeper, I hope you can understand why. In my opinion, I’d rather spend a few quid more per month and get a bucket load more features and better service, wouldn’t you?