Squarespace E-Commerce Review (2024)
Our Research
Squarespace is an all-in-one website builder best known for its stunning designs. The popular platform makes it easy to establish your online presence, manage your site and set up an online shop. Between its affordable pricing and intuitive interface, Squarespace offers a great package for both individual users and new business owners alike. Read our in-depth Squarespace review to decide if it’s the right website builder for your needs and budget.
Squarespace Pros & Cons
Pros
- Create a gorgeous, professional-caliber website even with limited design and technical skills
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Fully integrated eCommerce on most plans
Cons
- No phone support
- Upgrading from Squarespace version 7.0 to 7.1 requires a site rebuild
- No free plan available
Squarespace at a Glance 9.3 Editor Score
Features & Integrations
9.6
Security Features
9.5
Ease Of Use
9.0
Pricing & Packages
9.5
Customer Service
9.5
9.3 Editor Score
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Overview
Squarespace Commerce is the most recent addition to the unique Squarespace platform. It’s a toolkit of features that allows you to turn your site into an Ecommerce store and sell items online. You can accept secure payments by way of Apple Pay, Stripe, and PayPal, create sales promotions and easily manage your products, SEO, inventory, and marketing. The platform allows you to sell unlimited products—with no transaction fees when you sign up for the commerce tier plans—and sell them through Instagram, and helps you create discounts and gift cards for customers. These are only a few of the many features for Squarespace, which also provide 24/7, award-winning customer service. It’s easy to use Squarespace and can have even the smallest business running an online store in no time.
Ideal for
Businesses of any size that want to create an online store and also be able to track their sales and inventory, as well as take advantage of marketing tools like coupons, which can increase customer outreach and boost word-of-mouth for your company. Users don’t need to have any prior experience in web design or running an Ecommerce site.
Why Go With Squarespace Commerce
Squarespace Commerce is easy to use and doesn’t require any special know-how to set up an online store. The company doesn’t charge any transaction fees and doesn’t put a limit on how many items you can sell. It also integrates with a large number of Ecommerce programs, as well as social media accounts and helps you run customer outreach and loyalty programs, and everything is defended by SSL security. Also, the company’s award-winning customer support representatives are available 24/7 to help you.
Features
- Powerful Ecommerce metrics
- Abandoned cart autorecovery
- Label printing available
- Mobile-optimized website
- Order APIs (for advanced users)
- Social media integration
- Analytics data
- Email campaigns
Customization
Squarespace’s customizable website layouts allow you to easily drag & drop images onto your site, and move, add, or delete sections of a page. Further customize with specific settings including fonts, colors, and page configurations.
On Squarespace Commerce you can easily customize your site’s checkout page. You can add a custom product form as well as a custom checkout form which customers can use to fill out when and where they want to receive their order. You can work in a referral survey for customers at checkout, and a spot where customers can fill out messages which can be included in their purchases—ideal for customers who are purchasing gifts. In addition, you can add a spot where customers can agree to subscribe to a newsletter or your company’s email campaigns. All of these features help you build an online store with a more welcoming and engaging experience that can help increase your chances of success.
Beyond checkout, there is a wide range of Ecommerce programs that can integrate with Squarespace, and it’s up to you which you decide to incorporate into your site. You can also manage your payment options, including Apple Pay, PayPal, and other options. You can also decide how much you want to integrate your site with your social media accounts. This includes synching your products with Facebook’s product catalog, or tagging them in your Instagram posts.
Payment Processing
Squarespace makes closing sales easier with it’s single-page, mobile-optimized checkout, which features abandoned checkout recovery, and flexible payment options.
You can connect PayPal, Stripe, or Apple Pay to your Squarespace Commerce site to take payment after simply setting them up in the payment settings section of the site. You must be based in a country where these platforms are supported, and you will be required to pay their processing fees.
Marketing Capabilities
There are over 160 marketing extensions that you can add to your website to promote your store and capture more sales. You can also add essential functionality to your site via integrations with your email marketing solution and social channels, and use WooCommerce extensions to create coupons and discounts, gift cards and loyalty programs for your online store.
With WooCommerce, you can also extend your sales reach by adding extensions that let you sell on other platforms such as Etsy, eBay and Walmart.
SEO Tools
Squarespace builds SEO directly into every site. Squarespace automatically creates a sitemap for every website, which is good for Google rankings. The site’s pages have clean HTML and URLs and use automatic tagging and redirects. You might not know what these terms mean (you’re not alone there), but they can definitely help with your search engine rankings. This is no small thing—your position on search engines can have a big impact on your sales and in how many people see and engage with your website.
You can also have your products come up in Google search results with the name, image, description, price range, availability, and URL. In addition, Squarespace comes with automatic mobile optimization.
What does it cost?
Personal and Business package prices
| Package | Price per month | Num. of Pages | Bandwidth & Storage | Transaction Fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $12/month | 20 Pages | Unlimited | N/A |
| Business | $18/month | Unlimited | Unlimited | 2% |
Ecommerce prices
| Package | Price per month | Transaction Fees | Label Printing | Automatic Discounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $26/month | None | Yes | No |
| Advanced | $40/month | None | Yes | Yes |
All packages offer a free domain and 24/7 customer support.
Some competitors’ packages do have lower prices than Squarespace, but at only $18/month, the business package gives you a wealth of features that competitors don’t have for that low a price, including unlimited storage and contributors, customer accounts, shopping on Instagram, and checkout on your domain, just to name a few.
Customer Support Services
Squarespace provides 24/7 online support via email and Twitter and has live chat with real live customer service representatives on weekdays between 4am and 8pm Eastern Standard Time. The company does not provide a phone number for customer service.
Squarespace has won multiple “Stevie Awards” (also known as the American Business Awards) for its customer support, including the Gold Stevie in 2013 for Customer Service Department of the Year, in addition to Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards for its customer service department. The company also has an extensive online knowledge base where you should be able to find answers to most questions.
Top Squarespace Alternatives and How They Compare
| Squarespace | Wix | GoDaddy Website Builder | WordPress | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Cost | $16 to $65 | Free to $159 | $9.99 to $29.99 (free plan available) | Free (just pay for hosting) | $5 to $2,000 |
| Number of Templates | 100-plus | 800-plus | 100-plus | Thousands | 100-plus |
| Free Trial | 14 days | 14 days | 30 days | Not needed | 14 days |
| Unlimited Storage Available | Yes | Yes | Yes | Depends on host | Yes |
| Free Version | No | Yes | Yes | Yes, through WordPress.com | No |
| E-Commerce | On all plans except Personal | On Business and eCommerce plans | On the Ecommerce plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free Domain | Included with annual plan purchase | Included on all paid plans | No | Depends on host | No |
Additional Tools and Functionality
Email Marketing
Along with its website editor, Squarespace’s email editor is drag-and-drop, and comes with plenty of customizable templates to nurture and engage your audience via email. All emails are responsive, so they’ll look the same whether your customer views them on a desktop, iPad or cellphone. Email marketing plans start at $5 per month (paid annually) and go up to $68 per month.
As soon as you send your email, you can access analytics in real time so you know how your email campaign performs. And because it syncs with your website’s analytics, you know which traffic comes from your email efforts or which traffic is organic. You can also personalize your emails to include the customer’s name, set up sequences and segment your list.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
These tools include a best practices checklist, integration with Google Search Console, page titles, descriptions, the ability to hide a page from search engines, sitemaps, automatic markup, SSL, mobile optimization, clean URLS, translations and an SEO panel.
Analytics
Analytics is so much more than knowing where your traffic comes from, and it’s much more than page views and unique visitors. Squarespace’s analytics platform tells you everything you need to know about your website traffic and how visitors interact with your site. It gives you insights into where your traffic is coming from, what pages are most popular, how long visitors are spending on your site, what devices they’re using and so much more.
This information is valuable because it helps you understand your audience and what they’re looking for on your site. With this knowledge, you can make changes to your website to improve the user experience and increase conversions. Squarespace also integrates with Google Analytics so you can track your website’s performance on Google Search Console and other Google platforms.
Social Media Tools
Squarespace has a number of social media features and integrations that make it easy to share your content and grow your following on social media. The tool makes it simple to include social media buttons on your website so that people may share your content with their followers. You can also use Squarespace’s built-in tools to schedule and publish posts to your social media accounts. And if you want to go a step further, you can use Squarespace’s integrations and extensions with third-party social media applications to manage your social media presence from one central platform.
Squarespace also has several features that make it easy to create social media-friendly content. For example, you can use Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor to create images and videos that are optimized for social media. And if you’re looking to add a little personality to your posts, you can use Squarespace’s emoji feature to insert emojis into your content.
Squarespace Extensions
Squarespace has many extensions that add functionality and features to your Squarespace website. Extensions are available for a variety of purposes, such as social media, marketing, e-commerce and fulfillment. Some of the most popular Squarespace extensions include Shippo, Printful, QuickBooks, FreshBooks and ShipStation. These extensions allow you to add features such as social media sharing buttons, live chat, email marketing, accounting and e-commerce to your Squarespace website.
Squarespace also has a number of developer-friendly features, such as an API and code blocks. These features make it easy for developers to create custom solutions for Squarespace websites.
Professional Design Services
If you need help designing your Squarespace website, Squarespace offers professional design services. With Squarespace’s professional design services, you can work with a certified Squarespace Expert to create a custom website that meets your specific needs and goals.
Squarespace’s professional design services include everything from custom logo design to complete website development. And if you need help with your website’s SEO, Squarespace’s experts can also help you optimize your site for Google Search and other search engines. With its design services, you can get the help you need to create a beautiful and effective Squarespace website.
Members-only Content
Squarespace has numerous features that make it easy to create and manage members-only content. With Squarespace’s membership management tools, you can easily add and remove members from your site, track member activity and manage member permissions.
Create and manage pages, posts and other content that is only accessible to members. And if you need to sell access to your members-only content, Squarespace’s e-commerce features make it easy to set up a subscription-based service. Plans for hosting a membership site start at $9 per month (paid annually) and go up to $40 per month.
Scheduling and Appointments
With Squarespace’s appointment-scheduling tools, you can easily create and manage appointments, track appointment availability and send reminders to appointment participants. These are perfect for businesses that need to handle appointments, such as salons, spas, restaurants and coaches. Scheduling plans start at $14 per month (paid annually) and go up to $50 per month.
Reservations
Use the Squarespace Tock all-in-one reservation system to manage reservations and take online orders. This service is custom-priced, so you’ll need to request information on the Squarespace site to learn more about this service. Squarespace charges a 3% commission on takeout and delivery orders.
Review in Short
Squarespace has earned an industry-wide reputation for quality in web hosting and the Squarespace Commerce package has the infrastructure to help Ecommerce stores succeed. The Squarespace Commerce package includes features for customers to make secure, easy, and quick purchases online. It’s a good platform for featuring your products, it integrates easily with social media and Ecommerce programs, and is highly customizable and secure.
About
Squarespace was founded in 2003 in a dorm room at the University of Maryland. It has helped create millions of websites, has received a string of awards, and has offices in New York City, Portland, and Dublin.
Squarespace vs. Wix
One of the largest differences between Wix and Squarespace is that Squarespace doesn’t offer a free plan, and Wix does. So if you’re looking for a free website builder, then Wix is a better option. Wix also offers considerably more video storage than Squarespace. The least amount of storage it offers is 30 minutes for its cheapest plan, which is what Squarespace offers for each of its plans. However, Wix’s most expensive plan has unlimited storage.
What Squarespace does better is structured design. It has a far better selection of modern, clean-looking templates. What’s more, its editor is more intuitive and easier to use. So if you want an easier platform to use and better-looking templates, Squarespace is a better choice.
Squarespace vs. WordPress
If you’re looking for a simple, easy-to-use website builder, Squarespace is the platform you want to choose. However, if you want ultimate flexibility and customization, WordPress is the platform of choice. This is because it’s an open-source platform, which means that there are thousands of themes and plugins available for it.
However, this also makes WordPress more complex than Squarespace. If you’re willing to give it a go, WordPress has thousands of third-party tutorials on getting started and managing your site, so provided you have a little time, you can learn how to use it effectively.
Squarespace vs. Shopify
Shopify is built for e-commerce, making it ideal for those wanting to sell online. With it, you can sell via social media, dropship or even create an omnichannel experience for your customers. Squarespace, on the other hand, is better for those wanting to create a simple website or blog. It doesn’t have as many features as Shopify, but it is one of the simplest drag-and-drop website builders to use.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
While WordPress offers more design flexibility and features than Squarespace, those with limited technical and design skills sometimes struggle with WordPress. Squarespace is a relatively easy-to-use website builder that offers a drag-and-drop editor and stunning design templates, making it a popular choice among those who want a DIY website option.
If you seek great design and a simple builder, and you’re willing to give up custom features and some design flexibility, Squarespace may work best for you. If you need considerable design flexibility and custom features, WordPress is the better choice.
Squarespace is an excellent blogging platform for beginners. Many bloggers prefer Squarespace because the website builder makes it easy to create a beautiful website quickly. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform, which means you don’t have to acquire hosting services or mess with plugins to accomplish basic blog functions. The templates are gorgeous, and the drag-and-drop editor is intuitive.
There are a few downsides to using Squarespace for blogging. Squarespace costs more than other blogging platforms, you have access to fewer templates and design customization is limited.
