Squarespace Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
When I first started looking for a platform to create a website for my fledgling photography business nearly 5 years ago, there were a few specific characteristics I was seeking: I needed the platform to be easy to use, quick to set up, and to showcase my photos in an optimal way to potential clients. I found all of that and more with Squarespace! I was able to get my website set up in just a few days and was able to do it without any tears or that "I'm going to pull my hair out!" feeling. If anything, it was the complete opposite! I couldn't believe how easy everything was to set up and how professional my website looked.

Cons
The ONE thing I wish Squarespace had more of: more creative templates. Their website templates are a great, solid "skeleton" (if you will), but you definitely have to put extra work in if you want to make your website stand out from others who utilize the same template.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Squarespace is clean, sophisticated, modern, easy to use, and has built-in features such as domain purchasing, email marketing, scheduling, and e-commerce that make it easy to run a business. With Squarespace, I can trust that my clients will be able to manage their website 100% by themselves once I finish designing it for them. With other platforms (like Wordpress), I cannot guarantee the same. I also like how transparent Squarespace's pricing and plans are. It's so easy to upgrade or downgrade as your needs change. In Squarespace, I can design a high-quality website extremely fast and share the draft with my clients easily.

Cons
Squarespace is the least flexible of all the web design platforms that I work with in terms of design customization. There are a lot of different types of widgets and ways to display content that simply aren't available on Squarespace because the platform limits what you can change in the design (probably to prevent websites from turning out bad). I've also noticed that Squarespace websites typically load slower than some of the websites I've built on other platforms like Webflow and Duda.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
SquareSpace has beautiful templates. They are truly gorgeous. SquareSpace also has an easy-to-use sidebar of options that puts everything that you can do on the left side. The interface is as clean as the templates. Hosting of your site is done through Squarespace. That's it when it comes to pros. There are a ton of Cons to using SquareSpace.

Cons
As a WordPress user (who has also designed with Wix), SquareSpace falls short almost everywhere. You can't import your brand font—essential. You have to use code or a back-door solution with AdobeFonts. If you want 5 items in a row, no can do. You get 4 or 6. You can't drag the amount of padding around items and sections. You must use spacer blocks (time consuming and such a bad way to do things). There's no media storage! If you upload your photo it isn't stored anywhere for easy selection later. You must upload the same image multiple times whenever you need it—frustrating. Changes can't be made on individual copy styles. Squarespace sets up its CMS as a global system so if you want to change the way your font looks in just one place, you need to insert code (markdown block). You should be able to select it and change the size or colour. But no. It's CRAZY! So time-consuming. Missing basic word-processing functionality. Squarespace has no plugin options. You can't duplicate a page of your site and you can't duplicate your site! Everything is done from scratch! In WordPress, you download a .JSON file and upload it somewhere else and you're flying. Not with SquareSpace. You can't make your overlays look different per section. Everything applies globally. You can't add borders to images. The biggest CON? There's no undo! No revision history. If you delete something accidentally, it's gone forever. Support is terrible. Every answer is "you can't do that" or "try to find code.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 1/10

Pros
I use this as a host for my website and for an online illustration portfolio and shop. It is a little pricey all upfront, but if I break down the business plan per month, its $18 a month, which I make back in my store, so I always break even/make money. I like that there are templates that you dont have to know any coding for and they are pretty intuative. Same with the store. I've used this for atleast 5 years now and don't plan to change.

Cons
I've been waiting for them to take away the need to enter a physical address when people buy a free digital download from my store, and I contacted customer service and they were kinda dumb and didn't really help me with my issue, but that's been the only issue I've had in years.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
It is easy to use, especially for someone who doesn't understand HTML like me. There are plenty of templates that fit each of my needs for my site as whole. I especially love the ways to set up picture galleries, which are most of what I have on there as I use it as an art portfolio.

Cons
Hooking up multiple domains to a single website can be a bit of a hassle, but eventually I was able to get mine running smoothly, and that is a very specific issue to have regardless.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10