Squarespace Pros and Cons: Choosing the Right Website Builder for You

Key takeaways: 

• Squarespace is a popular website builder option for individuals and businesses looking for a more user-friendly website designing experience.  
• Although it offers a lot of pros that benefit its users, it also has a few drawbacks that users should consider before signing up.  
• There are various Squarespace alternatives in the market that might suit your needs better or fill in the gaps that Squarespace is lacking.  

When planning to build a website, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is how to create it. This includes not only the design and user experience, but—most importantly—the platform you choose to build and host it on.   

An example of this platform is Squarespace, a website builder known for its flexible templates and intuitive design tools. With all the essential features for bloggers and businesses, Squarespace allows users to easily launch, manage, and enhance their websites without the need for coding. 

While there are many pros to using Squarespace, there are also some significant cons to consider before making your decision.  

This blog explores the pros and cons of Squarespace, explains its capabilities, and highlights its limitations compared to other platforms. By the end, you’ll have a clearer understanding if you should create a Squarespace account or find a better website builder platform that might best fit your needs.  

What is Squarespace? 

Squarespace was originally founded as a blog hosting service in 2003 and has evolved into a powerful website building platform known for its broad selection of design templates and ease of use.   

You might choose Squarespace for its extensive array of customizable templates and features. It’s one of the many “no-code” drag-and-drop website builders that lets beginners with limited coding and design knowledge create a visually stunning website.  

Aside from its design capabilities for building websites, Squarespace also offers comprehensive hosting and website management features such as free domain management, marketing tools, and eCommerce functionalities that allows you to easily navigate and control your domains, engage with customers through email marketing campaigns, and manage your online store seamlessly.  

Because of these offers, Squarespace has grown significantly over the years. Its focus on simplified design and user experience has made it popular among creatives and entrepreneurs looking to build visually appealing websites. It attracts a wide variety of users, including artists, small businesses, and eCommerce stores. 

Squarespace plans and pricing

Currently, Squarespace offers two billing options: annual and monthly. Each option comes with its own set of pricing tiers, which include the following:

Note: Pricing is accurate as of April 2025 and may change. For more updated pricing, please visit Squarespace’s website.  

Pros of using Squarespace 

Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned professional, Squarespace offers tools that streamline the design process and make website management easier. 

Design and templates

As mentioned above, one of Squarespace’s biggest benefits is the wide selection of website templates offered on the platform. Known for their visually appealing designs, these templates showcase Squarespace’s focus on enabling anyone to create an attractive website while. Here are a few more benefits of Squarespace’s design capabilities:  

• Wide variety of beautiful templates. Squarespace offers numerous professionally designed templates to suit various industries and styles without sacrificing functionality.  
• Customizability and flexibility. Squarespace’s templates offer a high degree of customization, which allows users to modify templates to their unique content and branding needs.  
• Mobile optimization. Squarespace’s templates are fully optimized for mobile devices, which ensures websites look great and work well on all screen sizes.  

eCommerce and marketing tools

Beyond aesthetics, Squarespace also offers an array of robust eCommerce features that are a popular choice for business owners that want to build an online store. Squarespace integrates with various payment and shipping services and allows businesses to easily connect their ordering and fulfillment operations to their website. Here are some ways Squarespace streamlines operations for business owners:  

• Seamless payment integration. The platform supports major payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay.  
• Shipping solutions. Easy integration with shipping providers to streamline order fulfillment.  
• Advanced eCommerce features. Squarespace has tools for managing products, inventory, discounts, and more. 

With these features, Squarespace sites are easy for business owners to run their online stores efficiently and effectively.  

Along with its eCommerce sales capabilities, Squarespace also provides tools to improve online marketing. These include: 

• Email marketing tools. Squarespace’s email campaigns feature helps businesses automate workflows, engage with subscribers, and analyze email performance.   
• Search engine optimization (SEO) tools. Squarespace’s SEO features improve online visibility and search results page rankings in Google and other search engines.  
• Social media integration. Squarespace also includes various social media tools to help users promote their products and services across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and X (formerly known as Twitter).  
• Banners and promotions. Squarespace incorporates promotional features like pop-ups and announcement bars to help highlight seasonal or holiday sales for eCommerce platforms.  

Aside from these, it’s also worth mentioning that Squarespace’s sales features, such as unlimited product listings and advanced tools for managing sales, further enhance the eCommerce experience.  

Analytics and insights

Like most website builders, Squarespace also features an analytics dashboard where users can track site traffic and visitor activity to help manage their website.  

Reviewing website analytics helps you understand who’s visiting your Squarespace site, when they visit, and what content creates the most engagement. Squarespace provides data on website usage, including:  

• Information on visitors
• Sales data
• Purchase funnels
• Search keywords
• Visitor activity logs

This data assists in tracking visitor stats and behavior, which helps you understand what works and what doesn’t on your Squarespace websites. Squarespace also provides a Purchase Funnel tool within the analytics dashboard to allow you to track customer behavior throughout the buying process.   

Additionally, Squarespace’s analytics can track conversion metrics like sign-ups, form submissions, and even offer insights into eCommerce metrics such as sales and revenue.  

Ease of use 

One of the biggest Squarespace pros is its ease of use. The intuitive interface and “no-code” functionality let users focus on creating the experience they want without having to deal with the technical complexities of web development. This ease of use is evident in several key features: 

• Drag-and-drop builder. Squarespace’s website editor simplifies the website creation process and allows users to drag and drop page elements like images and texts onto their own website, which makes it easy and convenient for users with no technical background.  
• User-friendly interface. Squarespace’s clean and straightforward interface enhances the user experience by providing easy navigation.  
• Comprehensive tutorials. The platform also offers numerous tutorials and guides to help website owners navigate the platform effectively.  

Website extensions 

Squarespace extensions further enhance website functionality by integrating various tools and services. Users have the option to include extra features to streamline workflows, increase efficiency, and connect users with their audience. These Squarespace extensions are categorized as:

• Sales and marketing. This includes email marketing tools, affiliate marketing, translation, SMS and email campaigns, SEO, and website optimization.  
• Inventory and products. This includes tools for managing inventory, printing services, drop shipping, and inventory syncing.  
• Finance. This includes tools for sales tax calculations.  
• Shipping and fulfillment. This includes tools for easy shipping automation, shipment tracking, and courier services.  

Customer support

Squarespace also offers available 24/7 support so you can get answers and assistance whenever needed to ensure your website operates smoothly. Squarespace provides the following self-service and on-demand support options for users:  

• Extensive help center. Squarespace users have access to a rich library of articles, videos, and community forums to help them navigate and learn all the tools and features. 
• Expert assistance. Squarespace has an in-house knowledgeable support staff to provide quick and effective solutions. 

Web hosting and security

Squarespace provides a fast and reliable hosting infrastructure, ensuring your website delivers a seamless experience to visitors globally. This integrated hosting eliminates the need for a separate service, simplifying your setup.   

Key benefits include: 

• Fast hosting. Squarespace’s infrastructure aims to deliver fast loading times and consistent accessibility for website visitors, regardless of their geographic location.  
• 24/7 monitoring. Squarespace’s platform has 24/7 monitoring to maximize uptime and ensure your website is always available.  
• Automatic backups. This safeguards your Squarespace site against security breaches or accidental errors, ensuring you can recover critical information in case of data loss.  
• Free SSL certificates. These automatically protect sensitive data exchanged between websites and visitors.  

Cons of using Squarespace

Although there are several pros to using Squarespace, no platform is perfect. It has certain limitations that could be deal-breakers for some users. We’ll highlight the important constraints you should consider before choosing Squarespace below:  

Customization constraints

Squarespace’s templates may work well for beginners and less tech-savvy users, but they can be too restrictive if you have a specific design vision for your site. The trade-off of using templates designed to be as simple as possible is that their flexibility only goes so far. You may have to sacrifice creativity and adapt your website design to fit the templates instead of vice versa.  

Though Squarespace supports CSS, HTML, and JavaScript editing, it still presents limitations for advanced development. This could create even more technical complexity for those seeking highly customizable options. Additionally, Squarespace has limitations in supporting multiple languages for website creation, requiring manual translations and lacking solid multilingual features.  

Even though the latest version of Squarespace enhances the Site Styles editing option by offering some global design customization, it doesn’t allow users to switch to completely different templates on the same site.   

Cost considerations

Squarespace offers plans that range from $10to $30 per month when paying annually ($14 at a minimum for a month-to-month payment).  While these prices might seem reasonable considering the platform’s features, they might deter users who are conscious of their budget and prefer similar features at a lower price.

Compared to the cheapest website builder options available in the market, Squarespace’s pricing can be higher, making it less attractive for cost-conscious consumers. Aside from the pricing plans, other fees and expenses include:  

• Additional feature costs. Some advanced features and integrations come with additional costs, which can add up, especially for a small business.  
• eCommerce transaction fees. If you use Squarespace’s eCommerce capabilities, be prepared for transaction fees, which can diminish your profits.   

SEO limitations   

Squarespace has been designed to simplify web design and management, which means its SEO tools are simplified, too. These tools are user-friendly, making basic SEO practices accessible even to those with no web development expertise.  

However, users with advanced SEO needs—like custom meta tags, extended indexing controls, and in-depth site performance analytics—Squarespace may not provide the right options to maximize their online visibility. This can limit the platform’s appeal, especially for SEO professionals or businesses aiming to aggressively target algorithms or ad networks and optimize their search engine rankings.  

Unlike WordPress, Squarespace websites don’t support a wide range of advanced SEO tools, plugins or extensions, which means users must rely solely on the built-in tools that may not cover all advanced SEO needs.  

Some users also mentioned that Squarespace websites sometimes experience slower load times due to template limitations and integrated features, which can negatively impact SEO rankings.  

eCommerce limitations

Although Squarespace provides several built-in tools to seamlessly support small to medium-sized eCommerce businesses, these tools are only good for basic online storefront functionality such as inventory management and simple analytics—which might be insufficient for larger businesses or those looking to significantly scale up their operations online.   

Additionally, Squarespace’s number of available integrations is currently limited compared to competing platforms.  

If you need to support complex product configurations, integrate with multiple payment gateways, and offer advanced shipping options for customers, using Squarespace for your online store and for selling online may limit your operational flexibility and scalability. Here are other factors to watch out for:  

• Limited payment gateways. Squarespace supports only a few major payment gateways, which can restrict sellers in countries where these options are not preferred or widely used.  
• Product variation constraints. There is a cap on the number of product variants and options, making it difficult for stores with a wide range of products or complex inventory.  
• Lack of advanced eCommerce analytics Squarespace’s analytics are straightforward and helpful for beginners but lack the depth required by larger businesses that need detailed reporting and custom analysis.  

Customer support issues 

While Squarespace is known for its user-friendly interface and design tools, some users have reported challenges with the platform’s customer support. Although Squarespace offers multiple support options, including live chat and extensive “how-to” guides, the lack of immediate phone support can be a con for users who want to talk to someone for quick resolutions or complex issues.   

Email responses from the Squarespace customer support team can also be delayed depending on the volume of requests they receive. During peak times, the response times can be slow, which can lead to delays that affect business operations.  

Some users also report receiving generic responses to queries, which may not adequately address specific or technical issues they face.   

Consider Squarespace alternatives

When considering website builders, it’s also important to look at Squarespace alternatives if you are looking for more website features that best suit your current and future needs. If you’re looking for more features that give you complete control, look into all the website builders available in the market. 

For example, Network Solutions offers an easy-to-use website builder that covers the basics and helps you get online quickly. Depending on what you’re looking for, it could be the right solution for your website. 

You can check our blog about Squarespace alternatives for a more in-depth look into each option and see which one aligns best with your website goals.  

Find the best website builder for you  

Squarespace is an excellent platform known for its professionally designed templates, drag-and-drop website editor, and business-friendly eCommerce features. However, it’s not without its limitations, including constraints in design customization, technical capabilities, lack of phone support, limited SEO features, and higher pricing.   

Whether Squarespace is the right choice for you ultimately depends on your specific level of experience, creative needs, SEO priorities, and budget. Remember, the right website builder goes beyond the features it offers and helps your website grow as efficiently as possible.  

At Network Solutions, we provide all-around website building services online, from owning a domain name to getting professional digital marketing services. We also have a team of professional web designers to help you create the website you need. Enhance your website with us today! 

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