Squarespace is a popular website builder that competes with the likes of Wix, Weebly, Webflow and Strikingly. If you’re thinking about using it and wondering if it’s any good, this piece is intended to help you by listing and summarizing credible Squarespace comments and reviews actual Squarespace customers have sent us (if you’ve used Squarespace yourself, you can comment on what you think of it here). So far, we’ve received 25 comments on Squarespace (listed below), and will continue to update this piece as more comments come in.
Here’s the rundown on what people have said about Squarespace so far. As far as positives, Squarespace is indeed very easy to use for beginners, and even if it’s your very first website and you have zero technical skills, you should have no trouble using it at all. It’s also very affordable (starting at only $12/month), and generally people seem to like the themes and layouts offered compared to Wix (see for example this comment). So Squarespace will definitely allow you to make and host a nice attractive website at a low price.
However, while it’s excellent for getting you started, there’s a lot of criticism for Squarespace in the comments below:
- A lot of people who have used Squarespace have since moved to, prefer or recommend WordPress instead (see for example here, here, here, here and here). WordPress is widely considered a much better choice in the long run because you can do way more with it and it’s a lot more flexible, whereas with Squarespace you’ll easily feel restricted and frustrated when trying to make changes that require you to write code. (EDITORS NOTE: Speaking for ourselves, OutwitTrade.com runs on WordPress and there are tons of features we need that couldn’t be easily done in Squarespace)
- Unlike with WordPress, making global changes across your site in Squarespace can be a pain (see here)
- Squarespace is not great for SEO due to lack of customization options and features as well as less-than-perfect site speed (e.g. see here)
- There have been at least a couple of reports of bad support at Squarespace (e.g. here) (though many others say Squarespace has great support, so support may be fine overall)
The problem of a lack of customization ability with Squarespace compared to something like WordPress is not at all unique to Squarespace — all website builders have this same problem. The trade-off is that they’re much easier to use if it’s your first website.
As far as specifically how Squarespace compares to its competition, I recommend reading through our user-submitted reviews of other website builders that we’ve published. Squarespace’s main competitor is Wix, and an advantage Squarespace appears to have over Wix is that it’s less likely to produce ugly code that slows down your site. Reading through the Wix reviews people sent us, a huge complaint was that code for Wix sites is often horribly bloated, which may be a result of Wix’s editor allowing you to move elements anywhere on the page (even 1 pixel up, down or to the left) vs the Squarespace editor forcing you to keep a certain structure.
Have a read through the comments people sent us below in their entirety. And again, if you’ve used Squarespace yourself — and especially if your experience differs from anything written here — please submit a comment or review on Squarespace here.
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I've worked in web development for over 7 years and have used Squarespace for some of them. It offers good design & shop options, even for novices it is easily learnable but the minute you want to go beyond the basics, its functionality falters. Even essential things like copying settings from one Squarespace site to another is a pain. I'd much rather stick with wordpress, which has a bit of a learning curve for beginners but is much better in the long run. I've used it for my website Webisoda for four years now and have had no complaints. --Sumit Shetty, Aetherwise Solutions PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#sumit |
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Having also tried Wix and GoDaddy, I found Squarespace to be one of the more powerful website building platforms. There is plenty of variety in the templates available if you're looking to create a website fast, and each one has its own flair. With a simple step-by-step process, it highly appeals to the entry-level website designer. Pricing is also fair for those looking to create an online store or use marketing features like pop-ups or announcement bars, starting at just $20 a month for a business account. There's something for everyone, and I'd recommend it over similar competitors. --Mark Hayes, Kintell |
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I have tried Squarespace for a personal blog about a year ago. Overall, I was happy with how simple it was to use, and the cost. My biggest issue was with images. It was hard to incorporate more than 1 or 2 because I wasn't able to customize sizes the way I had hoped. Perhaps a more experienced user could get around this issue, but I had no luck. The templates give you a clean and professional look, so I would recommend giving it a try if you're looking to build a simple website. --Kim Brown, Condo Control Central |
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I've found Squarespace to be a great tool for getting on with content generation without having to worry about the technical details. They take care of your hosting, DNS, and integration with various popular tools like Google Analytics and gSuite, while still giving you control for cases where you might need advanced DNS settings, or other adjustments. Editing content is easy thanks to the GUI editor which is based on an extensive template library. This approach is great for getting started quickly, but it can be a source of some frustration. It's often the case that the feature you want to use is not available in the template that works best for your design. If you just go with the general style the templates offer, you won't have any issues, and you can cusomize that to a huge extent very easily. I was more demanding in what I wanted out of the site design and features, so I probably hit more roadblocks that most would. Using the blocks system in the editor makes adding content easy, and you can drag and drop blocks anywhere and it will (usually) handle columns and embeds really well. There are lots of options and that'll probably work in 90% of cases, but sometimes you want something a little more bespoke. I've learned to work with what the tools allow and design within that. The block placement options are reasonably flexible, so you can work some magic with a little experimentation, but it's probably the biggest limitation I've come across and takes some messing around if you want to shake things up a bit and still be client responsive. If you really want to break out of that you do have access to edit code and CSS if you need to, and there are third parties that provide pre-written modules you can buy to do specific things you might want, but there's always a risk you might break things, and support won't help you if you've gone down that path (which is fair enough). --David Mead, LinkdHome.com PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#david |
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I personally think it’s worth it if you are looking for certain things such as flexibility, ease of use, a non-coding solution, one stop shop and the like. I’ve also used WIX (a competitor), and would say the same things about it. Normally, I prefer WordPress for the automation and more robust features and control, but I suggest SquareSpace (or WIX) to clients that need a small site they can update themselves and are intimidated by anything more complicated. I also recommend it because the service keeps the code up to date on the back end. They also provide well-designed templates that are responsive. That’s said, the downsides are that the interface is a little clunky/fiddly. Also, because clients can edit a site themselves, it opens the possibility for changes that may or may not look good. --Roberta Morris, Leave It to ’Berta PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#roberta |
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Squarespace is awesome for beginners. If this is your first time building a website, or if you simply need a fast solution to prop up an online portfolio then Squarespace is awesome. Their platform removes an incredible amount of build complexity and speeds up the learning curve to get a site live. We built my wife’s photography business website in Squarespace. She had mostly been working as a hobbyist when a client contacted her with interest to see her portfolio for a possible hire. Of course, she didn’t have one yet. Using Squarespace went from concept to client in an afternoon. We stuck with it ever since. Squarespace offers a variety of modern and attractive templates that plug and play with a variety of common SMB models. The page builder is simple and intuitive, and makes branding and populating a site rather fast. While the monthly license and hosting fees are rather expensive, the convenience outweighs the cost if you haven’t built another site before. Especially if you’re in a time crunch. Squarespace isn’t great for SEO. With all of the benefits that Squarespace provides novices for simple and attractive page building, there are significant SEO drawbacks. My primary business relies on organic search to generate an audience. I would never consider Squarespace as a potential solution to build and host that site. Site speed is a ranking factor in search engines like Google, and in my experience Squarespace leaves a lot to be desired in that area. My wife’s site experiences lagging speeds and periodic downtime through Squarespace’s hosting solution. My business requires speed and flexibility to structure page data, and update meta information about the media published on my site. While many of these functions are available in Squarespace, they are slow and clunky and not nearly as advanced as what I can accomplish in Wordpress. There are limitations on how effectively you can control page schema for local businesses. We consider this a drawback for my wife’s photography business, since it would benefit her to show more often in local search results. We decided that the tradeoff is worth it (for now) because word-of-mouth has been a much better client driver for her than internet search. That’s where our focus goes. Overall Recommendation I would advise anyone who relies on organic search to build their audience to consider a different option than Squarespace. It may be easy to rank for branded terms on a Squarespace site, but if you intend to target other business-relevant keywords then you can find a better host and build solution. It may take extra effort to set-up, but the returns will be worth your effort. --David Lewis, Kitchen Ambition PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#davidl |
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We're now entering into our fourth year on the platform, and whilst the ease and functionality of Squarespace is excellent, as the website grows its audience and output, the once useful paired back functionality starts to become a real hindrance. Unlike Wordpress, Squarespace does not have a bespoke template function available for either its pages nor its blog post formats, and so making global changes across the site can be incredibly time consuming and costly. For small businesses, Squarespace is perfect, as it can provide elegant and stylus templates with just a few clicks through its incredibly intuitive user interface, that requires very little maintenance. And should you run into difficulty there are an abundance of tutorials, and a very large community of helpful users on hand. It just works. However for large websites and blogs, it quickly becomes very limiting and overly complicated to carry out standard amendments and tasks. We love the platform, but it's difficult to imagine staying with it long term. --Chris Michael, archisoup PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#chris |
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For the first 2.5 years of business, I hosted my website through Squarespace and just recently switched over to Shopify because of a pivot in my business. Here are a few pro's and con's I discovered during my time using Squarespace: Pro's - Beautiful, free, and easy-to-use templates available when first launching a website. - Great for low-inventory, direct to consumer sales. - Helpful tips available for free to develop a basic understanding of how website development works. - Integrates well with Google. - Pages are easy to set up. - Great for a portfolio or blog website with minimal or no products. Con's - Templates are all fairly simple and not great for large-inventory stores. - Dropshipping integration is very challenging and confusing. - Requires basic knowledge of coding if trying to customize website outside of the template you choose when you start. - Updating products is confusing and there is no way to upload multiple products at once. --Danielle Damrell, Damrell Designs PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#danielle |
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I run my marketing business from a Squarespace website. While there are many platforms available, I find Squarespace is incredibly easy to use and maintain. Owning a small business and working with other businesses, I wanted something that I didn't have to spend a lot of time on, and Squarespace made it possible. The other thing I like about it deals with SEO and marketing. All the options are set up so that you can build a great looking site that has the potential to rank well in search engines too. This is important to any business if they want to succeed online. --Jeff Moriarty, jmoriartymarketing.com |
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I have built three websites using Squarespace. I appreciate the easy to use interface and found it worked well for a simple site that only required the basics. However, I needed some additional functionality for one of my sites, and it wasn't easy to do what I wanted using Squarespace. For example, if you are a member of an affiliate program and want to create product links, the links must be nofollow, according to Google. I use many buttons on my site, and Squarespace does not have a native or easy to implement process for adding nofollow to links on buttons. This meant that I had to create custom code for every button with an affiliate link, which was time-consuming work. If you are looking for a simple site to display your photography, then Squarespace is a good option. However, if you have an affiliate site, I think Squarespace becomes unnecessarily difficult to use unless you are comfortable creating small pieces of code to get the function or look you desire. --Dianne Birtley, cargearguru.com PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#dianne |
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I have been using Squarespace for my mom blog since January of 2019. When I started out, I had zero experience building a website and didn't understand the first thing about coding. The reason I chose Squarespace is because they advertise themselves as being sort of a website in a box. They do all of the coding and complicated stuff behind the scenes for you so you can focus on creating content and personalizing your website. Here are the reasons why I love using Squarespace: - Easy to use for beginners - Stylish and professional themes to choose from - Excellent customer service with online chat - Email templates that match my website theme - Endless tutorials and how-to pages available on their website - Integrations for things like marketing, social media, images, and videos If you know how to code and want more freedom to change up your website, Squarespace might not work the best for you. There is an option in advanced settings to add coding if you want to customize your site further, but the downside to that is customer service won't be able to troubleshoot any issues you might have without you removing the code first. I love using them for what I need and it's been going great so far. --Alice Anderson, Mommy to Mom PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#alice |
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I'm a business owner with a site that runs on Squarespace. In the recent past, I also acted as the VP of Marketing for a SaaS startup running on a Squarespace site. While there are cheaper options out there and more robust and customizable ones as well, Squarespace remains a reliable starting place. I compare Squarespace to Mailchimp. Mailchimp can't do everything, and other email providers so some things better, but there's a reason Mailchimp is the go-to email service. You will lose some functionality and control and there are quirks with things such as file hosting and formatting options, but most of these are minor and the rest can typically be overcome with custom CSS (plenty of freelance coders and designers available for this as well). --Derek Gillette, plain.run PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#derek |
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I have successfully used Squarespace for over 6 years. I have used it for multiple businesses as well as created websites for clients. Squarespace is easy to use, has beautiful design templates and the ability to change those templates to create a unique customer experience. There are also classes you can take to learn more about Squarespace formatting/editing, like the ilovecreatives Squarespace course. With it’s drag and drop capabilities, I am able to revamp my entire website in a few hours. There are various tiers from personal to business and beyond, offering different perks like product hosting for an e-commerce set-up. Squarespace has partnerships with various apps, including appointment scheduling, to help your business run smoother. Their customer service is also extremely helpful. Easy to contact through chat services and lots of video tutorials to answer your questions. I always get compliments on my Squarespace website. I’m a big fan! --Tess Palma-Martinez, Completely Golden |
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I've had to build my own website and first chose WordPress for the job, but eventually moved to Squarespace. I would definitely recommend it because it is more intuitively designed for a non-coder like myself to create a customized feeling website that reflects my music's message. In comparison to WordPress, it is more streamlined and a lot easier to wrap your head around. It doesn't require manual updates, plugins or add-ons to perform at an optimal level. Squarespace has all those elementa already included into their web builder (which is drag-and-drop, no coding necessary). Another huge factor in my decision was the fact that they allow for you to have an e-commerce store. The back-end of which they've designed to be foolproof for you to operate yourself. Lastly, in comparison to WordPress and other web builders like Wix, Squarespace's themes and layouts for their web page designs just look more sleek, modern, and less blocky. I would recommend Squarespace to anybody. You pay a lot more than almost any other what builder, but you do get value. And there's support staff is incredible. --Arnold Pinkhasov, SPELLS AND CURSES PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#arnold |
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Our original website was custom coded in the early 2000's, so we knew it was time to upgrade. The idea of being able to manage our website ourselves seemed appealing (so we could make changes on the fly, etc). Being a local service-based business (we build and install metal gates), SEO was another big priority for us. All that led us to Squarespace. We made the switch in 2017 and it has been GREAT for us! We are now ranking first in our target keywords & have been able to implement all changes ourselves (like adding Google Tag Manager). In our experience, Squarespace is great for small businesses looking to take their online presence from 0 to great. That being said, we are currently migrating to Wordpress. The success we saw with the Squarespace website helped us realize features and strategies that can grow our business, but we've maxed out the potential of Squarespace. A great example is increasing page load times (for SEO reasons). Squarespace is fast, but there aren't a lot of options to make it FASTER. --Dillon Hill, Irish Iron PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#dillon |
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I initially chose Squarespace because I wanted a website that looks good. I tried using Wix before, and I think Squarespace's responsive websites look much better on desktop and mobile. There are a number of templates to choose from, and if you are a designer, illustrator or creative, you will be able to make your website really stand out. However Squarespace does have a few drawbacks. I think it's one of the most expensive website builders. The way you change styles can also take some getting used to – although once you have the hang of it, it is pretty straightforward One of the biggest problems with Squarespace is that I often worry about my SEO. I've run a few SEO checks and some features like render blocking (which would improve my speed) cannot be removed. Although, this may be something that affects all website builders and may not be specific to Squarespace... Would I recommend it? Yes, if you're looking for a website builder that is quick to set up and simple to use, Squarespace is great. If you have a lot of beautiful imagery, video and content Squarespace will make it look fantastic. If you're not as fussed about what your site looks like, you may want something a bit more cheaper and simpler. If you don't want to be limited in what you do, you may want to go elsewhere too. --Brad Hynon, Hynon Painters & Decorators |
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Squarespace websites are perfect for businesses that are just starting out and need to get a cost effective solution up online to create an online presence. As a visual website builder, Squarespace is pretty robust and allows you to create some really nice designs. The trouble comes in when you start wanting to rank on Google for even slightly competitive keywords, you're experiencing a high flow of traffic to your website, or you collect sensitive information on the website. Squarespace websites don't have the same capability to rank as their WordPress and Magento counterparts and they don't have the server capacity that a professionally built and hosted website will. They also don't offer the most sophisticated security. If you were an interior designer who received a lot of referral work and wanted a website to show your current samples, design inspiration, and to collect enquiries through a contact form — Squarespace is great. If you then wanted to rank, I'd recommend moving onto a WordPress website. Same if you were growing rapidly or suddenly wanted to host a client portal on the site. --Laura English, Sonder PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#laura |
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I've been using squarespace for about 6 months and I love it. I can pay monthly, which is very easy on my bank account. Plus, they have a tool that let's you know once a week if something on your site is not working or if you need to add something. They also help out in the event that you need anything with your website. I had a trouble adding my facebook links and after contacting support, they had it up in less than an hour. Since I'm not a very tech savvy person, it's really nice to have a website that is easy to use and one that has a great customer service. Also, I'll admit, I'm not that creative when it comes to visual things, so I love that I can edit the website and add my own content myself, without having to rely on someone for it. This allows me to have a blog and a portfolio all in one place. Lastly, since I only need a small business website, I have no need for a lot of other features. Squarespace really has everything you need and its very user friendly. --Emily Wendzich, Gift and Giving PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#emily |
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I started using Squarespace about 2 years ago, although I have used many other platforms in the past. I now created 3-4 different websites over the last few years using it. There are a few things about it I really like. Many people swear by Wordpress, and I've used it in the past, but it feels very pieced together. Mostly, because it is. You add something, and it breaks something else. Someone updates a plugin, and it breaks the website. I've also used Godaddy as well as Shopify as well. Both are clunky, although Shopify isn't bad. In my mind, Squarespace is the Apple of website builders. It looks great, is dead simple, and everything integrates seamlessly, so long as you are okay with what they do. Because what they do, they do well, and what they don't do, they don't do at all, and you can't really add it. I feel like Squarespace doesn't get the respect it deserves from website builders because it's considered too simple. That's sort of silly though, I don't want to spend 5 hours a week fixing things that randomly stop working on my website or figuring out how a new tool works. I'd much rather have it just work and get onto the business of doing my actual business. I use squarespace for the website, for online sales, for an email list, and for hosting a podcast. --Kolby Granville, After Dinner Conversation PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#kolby |
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Squarespace is a yes for me, for sure! The experience in setting up my online business on Squarespace was amazing yet very easy. The best part about this powerful website platform is that it lets you customise according to your business model. Make the headings and colours bold or go with a warm, subtle setting - all up to you! Also, it’s very reliable, and you don't need to worry about the plugins breakings or any other technical issues. The user-friendly interface makes complex tasks more manageable and requires no prior learning. Lastly, to conclude and yet my most favourite thing is that not only the website’s creation is easy but also the maintenance. There are multiple avenues, both web & app. --Peter Rossi, ByRossi PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#peter |
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My experience with Squarespace has been quite exceptional. I am more than satisfied with this website builder and the features that it has to offer such as cover page builder, Google Workspace integration, and Getty images. What I love the most about Squarespace is that its interface is very user-friendly. Whenever I wanted to make any changes in my website, I had the feasibility to edit live without having to switch back and forth between the site manager and preview manager; which is a blessing for any website manager. Since I had another aim of incorporating a blog on my website, Squarespace seemed to be the best option to choose keeping that in mind as well. This is because its blogging tool is relatively better as compared to most competitors. They have more than 100 flexible templates to choose from which are also mobile adaptable. To top everything off, the platform is quite affordable as well with a monthly payment of only $12. So, if you’re looking for a website builder that is cost-friendly, has one of the best features to offer, and provides great editor usability, I’d highly recommend using Squarespace without any second thoughts. --Daniel Demoss, Dumbellsreview PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#daniel |
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Squarespace is a nightmare to use. It is a good enough software to use if you are looking to build a simple and beautiful website, but that is the extent of it. There are so many things you wish to do with your website as a host which Squarespace does not offer. You may be able to add customizations using javascript and CSS, but you can’t troubleshoot them. In other words, there is no added support for any customizations you make. Some of the most commonly used templates on Squarespace do not offer some fundamental features like a back-to-top button, add more SEO options, and many others. To integrate extra features, you need to hire a developer to add custom code and meet these requirements. There’s no point in using such software that still requires you to hire a developer while you can perform all these activities on WordPress and other hosting softwares yourself. --Julien Raby, Thermo Gears PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#julien |
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Not a trustworthy and user-friendly website builder at all. Squarespace doesn’t help you at all in case of any problem or issue with your website or server. It works fine when you are on a free trial but works the opposite of well after you sign up for a subscription. I wasn’t able to upgrade my website with more sophisticated content as the server stopped responding right after I subscribed for the premium version of the hosting platform. The customer service wasn’t satisfactory at all and made me unsubscribe. And I wasn’t able to access my website because Squarespace had taken it down without any notice, even though I had paid the subscription fee for the ongoing month. Stay away from this platform if you don’t want to be scammed. --Cale Loken, 301consulting.com |
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I use Squarespace for my company website. I would recommend it to first-time business owners and people who are just getting started and might not have a ton of money to invest in creating their website. It's easy to use, quick to operate, provides nice looking templates, and can help you get to a point where your site looks nice and operates efficiently. However, there's only so much it can do and, eventually, you might have to start all over again with a website builder that can do more for you. Personally, I'll probably have to hire someone to create a higher quality site that is more unique. So, while I enjoy Squarespace and it has helped me build my company to this point, I think it definitely has its boundaries. --Darcy Cudmore, Darcy Allan Pr PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#darcy |
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I felt that Squarespace was too limiting for me. Once you start building a site in Squarespace, you really see how difficult it is to customize anything. Buttons, for example, can only be placed in the center, on the left side of the page, or on the right side of the page. It's difficult to build things outside of the templates that Squarespace has already created. I ultimately moved away from Squarespace because I wanted my site to look a certain way. I now have a Wordpress site which I like much better. --Colin Palfrey, Majesty Coffee PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/squarespace-reviews#colin |