OVERALL RATINGS
Best for?
- Online Stores
- Portfolio Site
- Business Site
- Landing page
- Blogs
Price
Starting at $16 per month
Our Verdict
Squarespace offers an excellent solution for crafting cost-effective, professional, and creative websites. Additionally, it provides powerful sales tools for your online business.
Squarespace positions itself as the go-to builder for blogs, portfolio sites, and online stores. This review covers the main aspects of Squarespace version 7.1 features.
As an experienced experts in software tool testing and web application development, we’re dedicated to providing an in-depth analysis that guides your hosting decisions and optimizes your website’s search engine visibility.
Squarespace stands out with its powerful blogging feature, excellent support, and 140+ mobile-friendly templates. The Fluid Engine editor allows easy drag-and-drop customization, and Squarespace Blueprint enables custom template creation.
While the platform has improved, it may take some time to get used to the Squarespace interface due to usability issues. Pricing starts at $16/month.
In this review, we dive into our research on Squarespace performance. Our in-house team conducts hours of hands-on testing, and Squarespace is no exception.
Squarespace Feature Images
Is Squarespace the Best Choice for Your Next Website?
Squarespace, with its impressive overall rating of 4.3 out of 5, stands as a top contender in the website builder arena. However, the key to making the most of it lies in understanding who benefits the most from this platform. So, let’s delve into the world of Squarespace and explore its ideal use cases.
Who Benefits from Using Squarespace?
Squarespace thrives in the hands of those who appreciate the art of design and desire their websites to mirror the quality of their content. Here’s a closer look at who Squarespace suits best:
1. Photographers, Artists, and Design Enthusiasts: If your heart beats for aesthetics, Squarespace is your canvas.
Its stunning templates and user-friendly design tools make it a haven for creators looking to showcase their work in a visually captivating manner. However, if your content is text-heavy or lacks high-quality visuals, other platforms might be more fitting.
2. Ecommerce: For those stepping into the world of ecommerce with a modest inventory or digital products, Squarespace is an appealing choice. It offers a range of ecommerce tools that simplify the process.
But if you’re aiming for a complex or large-scale online store, it might be wise to explore more specialized platforms like Shopify or Woo-commerce in WordPress.
3. Bloggers: Squarespace is tailor-made for bloggers who weave their narratives with visuals.
Its array of built-in tools supports image-centric blogs, making it an ideal platform for the 32% of marketers who prioritize visual content. Multiple contributors, seamless social media integration, and a mobile-friendly Blog App make blogging a breeze.
4. Small Businesses: Squarespace is a favorite among small businesses. It not only empowers you to create a distinctive brand but also provides a toolbox filled with features to streamline your operations.
From email campaigns and analytics to SEO tools and integrations with popular services, Squarespace is your partner in success from day one.
5. Personal Branding:
- Individuals Building Portfolios: If you’re trying to create a unique online portfolio or personal branding site, Squarespace has your back. Its in-house designed templates and extensive customization options allow you to craft a web presence as unique as your work.
- Scalability Made Simple: Squarespace’s generous storage and bandwidth options make it an ideal choice for a wide range of projects. You won’t outgrow the space quickly, and there are no product limits for online stores. Plus, you can sell an unlimited number of products without transaction fees.
While Squarespace is a versatile and visually appealing website builder for various purposes, it’s essential to align your specific needs with its strengths. Squarespace might be your best choice if your vision involves design, blogging, small business ventures, e-commerce, or personal branding. However, for those with grand ambitions of growing into an e-commerce empire, exploring specialized platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce could be the strategic path to long-term success.
Squarespace Pricing
Squarespace is a website builder that stands out for its excellent value. Despite not offering a free long-term plan, it provides a 14-day free trial. Squarespace’s pricing plans range from $16 to $49 per month when billed annually. All yearly subscriptions come with benefits like unlimited storage, bandwidth, a free custom domain, and SSL security. You can analysis the table below for the plan that perfectly suits your business model.
| Pricing Plans | Monthly Plan ($/month) | Annual Plan ($/month) | Savings (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $23 | $16 | 30% |
| Business | $33 | $23 | 30% |
| Ecommerce Basic | $36 | $27 | 25% |
| Ecommerce Advanced | $65 | $49 | 24% |
While Squarespace’s pricing may not be the most budget-friendly, it excels in delivering high-quality plans, making it a top choice for those valuing features and quality over budget considerations.
Squarespace Pros and Cons
- User-Friendly: Squarespace intuitive interface makes website creation and management accessible to beginners, eliminating the need for technical expertise.
- SEO Tools: Squarespace integrated SEO features provide the necessary tools to enhance your website's search engine ranking.
- Mobile Optimization: All Squarespace templates are mobile-responsive by default, ensuring an exceptional user experience across devices.
- Security: Squarespace robust security features safeguard your website from online threats, providing peace of mind.
- Steep Learning Curve: Mastering advanced features in Squarespace may require time and effort, especially for beginners.
- Transaction Fees: Depending on your plan, SquareSpace may impose transaction fees on ecommerce sales, affecting profitability.
- Limited Customization: While Squarespace templates are visually appealing, customization options may be limited, potentially restricting those with specific design requirements.
Best Use Cases for SquareSpace Hosting:
Personal Websites: Ideal for bloggers, artists, writers, and anyone building a personal brand or portfolio, thanks to user-friendly features and design-focused templates.
Small Businesses: Perfect for small business owners looking to establish and grow their online presence, with ecommerce tools, basic SEO, and marketing features.
Online Stores: Great for entrepreneurs and ecommerce enthusiasts, offering seamless ecommerce integration for easy store setup and management.
Event Websites: Convenient for creating event websites, such as those for weddings or conferences, with templates and event management tools.
Scenarios Where SquareSpace Hosting May Not Be Ideal:
Complex Web Applications: If your project requires highly customized functionality like facebook and intricate web applications, SquareSpace’s customization limitations might be restrictive.
Budget Constraints: Not suitable for those on tight budgets due to the absence of a free plan and potential ecommerce transaction fees.
Advanced Developers: Experienced developers seeking complete control and advanced technologies might find Squarespace too simplified.
Squarespace Feature Ratings
EASE OF USE
Squarespace functions as a drag-and-drop website builder, yet it diverges from other builders like Wix in that it operates on a section-based system. This approach may initially require a bit more time to become familiar with. However, after spending a few minutes exploring its functionality, you’ll discover that this structured approach aids in maintaining a clean and organized overall site design. Interestingly, one of our users who tested Squarespace found it to be superior to Wix.
Templates
Squarespace offers a stunning array of professionally designed templates. These templates are not only visually appealing but also highly customizable, allowing users to create unique and visually captivating websites. Whether you’re establishing a personal blog, an online store, or a portfolio, Squarespace templates provide a solid foundation for your site’s design.
Widgets
Squarespace provides a variety of widgets that you can easily integrate into your website. These widgets add functionality and enhance the user experience. Whether you need social media feeds, newsletter sign-up forms, or custom code for specialized features, Squarespace widgets offer a convenient way to extend the capabilities of your site.
Blog
Squarespace’s blogging features are robust, making it an excellent choice for bloggers. The platform supports image-centric blogs and offers tools for managing multiple contributors, sharing content on social media, and even mobile blog management through the Blog App. With Squarespace’s blogging capabilities, you can create and manage engaging content with ease.
Visitor Statistics
Understanding your website’s performance is essential for making informed decisions. Squarespace offers built-in visitor statistics and analytics tools. These features provide valuable insights into your site’s traffic, user behavior, and more. With these statistics, you can refine your content and marketing strategies to improve your website’s effectiveness.
Contact Form
Squarespace simplifies the process of connecting with your audience through customizable contact forms. You can create forms tailored to your specific needs, whether it’s for general inquiries, customer support, or feedback. These forms are easy to integrate into your site, enabling seamless communication with your visitors.
Social Media Integration
Squarespace simplifies the process of spreading the word by enabling you to connect your profiles from more than 20 social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. You can effortlessly synchronize your photo collections via Dropbox or directly import content from platforms like Instagram and Twitter to your website. Additionally, Squarespace allows you to host your podcast on your site and share it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
SEO & Marketing
Squarespace excels in SEO, earning a 4.5 out of 5 in its SEO tools and maintaining adherence to SEO best practices on all its pages. It empowers you with diverse capabilities, including title management and the addition of keywords and alt text, enhancing the discoverability of your website on search engines. In our extensive testing of website builders, Squarespace emerges as one of the top performers, sharing the first-place position with Wix and WordPress.com.
Email Marketing
Squarespace offers a versatile set of email marketing features designed to streamline your marketing efforts and unify your brand presence. You have two primary options for email marketing.
By utilizing Squarespace’s Email Campaigns platform or integrating with Mailchimp, you can unify your brand’s messaging across your website, ensuring a consistent and engaging experience for your audience. When combined with Squarespace’s robust SEO tools and social media integration, your online presence becomes a compelling force that captures the internet’s attention.
Security
Squarespace prioritizes the security of your website, implementing a range of protective measures to ensure a safe and trustworthy online environment for your visitors. Here are some key security features:
1. Free SSL Certificates: Every Squarespace and third-party domain connected to your Squarespace site receives complimentary SSL certificates. This encryption is crucial, especially for websites handling online payments, such as e-commerce stores.
2. Malware Defense: Squarespace has integrated security measures to combat malware and prevent unwanted bugs from compromising your website’s integrity.
3. DDoS Protection: Squarespace is equipped with DDoS protection to safeguard your site from DDoS attacks from hackers, ensuring uninterrupted accessibility for your users.
Backup and Restore
Squarespace maintains extensive backups across multiple servers and storage types, ensuring data security. Additionally, it supports offline editing for mobile users with intermittent internet access. While manual saving sets Squarespace apart from some competitors, the content recovery and backup systems offer crucial safeguards for website content and data.
OVERALL RATINGS
Squarespace Help and Support
Squarespace continues to lead the way in providing top-tier help and support, which is expected from a high-quality platform. It shares the top spot with Wix and IONOS, boasting an impressive score of 4.3 out of 5. While Squarespace had previously received a perfect 5 out of 5 for support, we’ve observed no significant improvements since last year. Additionally, with price increases factored in, the support score has marginally decreased by 5%.
Nonetheless, Squarespace remains a top choice for support. What sets it apart are its select yet high-quality support options:
- Live chat is available Monday to Friday.
- 24/7 social media support via Twitter.
- 24/7 email support.
- An extensive knowledge base.
- A vibrant community forum.
- Access to helpful video tutorials.
Squarespace’s commitment to providing a robust support system ensures that users receive the assistance they need, maintaining its reputation as a top-notch platform.
Squarespace Performance Tests
The reliability of a hosting service’s website uptime is paramount. When your site experiences downtime, it means that potential clients or customers won’t be able to locate your website or access the products and services you offer.
Squarespace Speed Test
During our extensive 14-day free trial of Squarespace, we conducted an in-depth examination of the platform’s site speed, utilizing GTmetrix, a reliable tool for analyzing page load times. This rigorous test aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the loading performance of Squarespace websites, incorporating technical details for a thorough assessment.
Our findings revealed that Squarespace consistently excelled in the realm of site speed. The websites hosted on this platform consistently achieved impressive PageSpeed scores of “A” and YSlow scores of “B,” which are crucial metrics for evaluating website performance. The average page load times for Squarespace sites ranged from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds, indicating efficient content delivery.
Key technical details observed during the test included optimized image loading, minimized server response times, and efficient browser rendering. Squarespace employs content delivery networks (CDNs) to distribute site content globally, reducing latency and enhancing page load times.
This comprehensive analysis underscores that Squarespace is not only known for its visually appealing and feature-rich websites but also boasts exceptional site speed, ensuring a smooth and swift user experience. The technical optimizations in place make Squarespace a reliable choice for those who prioritize website performance.
Squarespace Uptime
During our rigorous evaluation of Squarespace’s hosting services, we conducted an extensive uptime test to gauge the platform’s reliability. To ensure utmost accuracy, we performed this test within the 14-day free trial period that Squarespace generously offers to its users.
We employed a professional website monitoring tool specially designed to track a website’s uptime. This tool diligently pinged our Squarespace-hosted test site every 15 minutes. In the event of a failure to establish contact with the site for at least one minute, it promptly notified us via email.
The results of this thorough assessment were nothing short of remarkable. Throughout the entire 14-day testing period, our Squarespace-hosted site displayed exceptional stability, with no instances of downtime recorded. This finding underscores Squarespace’s unwavering commitment to providing a rock-solid hosting environment, establishing it as a dependable choice for individuals and businesses seeking consistent website availability.
My Verdict on Squarespace: Do I Recommend It?
Squarespace is especially compelling for those seeking an elegant, cost-effective, and feature-rich website without the need for coding skills. While it does require a minimum investment of $16 per month, the absence of a free plan is mitigated by a generous 14-day free trial, allowing you to evaluate its suitability before committing.
Squarespace’s evolution has addressed past criticisms, with a more user-friendly editing interface, enhanced features like Members Areas, Courses, Email Campaigns, and the Tock restaurant reservation system. While there’s room for improvement, it is on a trajectory to become a comprehensive, all-in-one business platform.
Although Squarespace Extensions could expand its app library, its consistent introduction of new features and dedication to user experience make it an excellent choice for beautiful and functional websites. Try Square space now
Squarespace Alternatives
If you explore Squarespace’s 14-day free trial and it doesn’t quite meet your needs, there are alternative website builders to consider. Here are some options:
Wix: Wix offers a broader spectrum of website features compared to Squarespace, although its design quality may not be on par.
Shopify: Ideal for e-commerce, Shopify excels in online selling, although it relies heavily on third-party apps for extended functionality.
GoDaddy: GoDaddy provides an ADI function for swift website creation.
Hostinger: If you’re seeking an affordable and straightforward alternative, Hostinger offers a single plan for your website needs.
Exploring these alternatives can help you find the right fit for your specific requirements.
Squarespace Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is Squarespace suitable for e-commerce websites?
Squarespace is a solid choice for e-commerce. It provides a range of features for online stores, including inventory management, secure transactions, product display, and more. The available e-commerce features depend on the plan you select, with options for small online stores up to more extensive e-commerce needs.
Can I use my own domain with Squarespace?
You can use your own custom domain with Squarespace, which is a great way to maintain your brand identity. Squarespace also offers domain registration services if you need to purchase a domain.
How much does Squarespace cost?
Squarespace offers various pricing plans, starting from $16 per month for the Personal plan. While there’s no free plan, you can try Squarespace for free with a 14-day trial. Pricing varies based on the plan you choose and whether you opt for monthly or annual billing.
