Squarespace Website Builder Review for 2021 – Forbes Advisor UK

Squarespace at a glance

Squarespace launched in 2003 and now has a team that’s over 1,100 strong. The company boasts that millions of websites have been created on its platform.

Squarespace is a fully hosted website builder, which means you don’t have to purchase hosting services separately as you would with some other services. The intuitive drag-and-drop Squarespace website editor simplifies the process of creating a website, making Squarespace a popular option for those lacking the design and coding skills to build a professional-looking website from scratch.

Squarespace domains

You’ll receive a free domain for your first year with any plan if you pay annually instead of monthly. Otherwise, Squarespace domain costs range from £14 to £51 per year. All domains include an SSL certificate and WHOIS privacy. Unlike other domain providers, Squarespace does not gouge you on domain renewals; you just renew at the same rate as the initial purchase.

You don’t have to purchase your domain through Squarespace. If you already license a domain through another service, you can easily connect it to your Squarespace site. If you have trouble doing this, you can reach out to Squarespace’s support team for help.

Squarespace plans

There are four Squarespace plans, with monthly licencing fees ranging from £9 to £40 depending on what tier of service you use and whether you want to pay monthly or annually. Squarespace does not offer a free plan, though it offers a free 14-day trial. For comparison, Wix’s paid plans range from £10 to £36 per month, and the GoDaddy Website Builder plans range from £5 to £22 per month.

The primary differences between the plans are the number of features offered. E-commerce functionality is available on all plans except the Personal plan.

Personal

For £12 per month (or £8 a month when paid annually), the Squarespace Personal plan comes with unlimited bandwidth and storage, SEO features, full access to the Squarespace template collection and 24/7 customer support via chat and email. The Personal plan also includes basic website metrics and up to two contributors.

Business

For £19 per month (or £13 a month when paid annually), the Squarespace Business plan includes all the features of the Personal plan plus a professional email from Google, advanced website analytics, promotional pop-ups and banners and complete customization with CSS and JavaScript. The Business plan also includes fully integrated e-commerce with a 3% transaction fee.

Basic commerce

For £25 per month (or £19 a month when paid annually), the Squarespace Basic Commerce plan includes allBusiness plan features plus point-of-sale functionality, customer accounts and merchandising. The plan also lets you sync your products with Instagram so you can sell there, too. Transaction fees are eliminated on this plan.

Advanced commerce

For £39 per month (or £29 a month when paid annually), the Squarespace Advanced Commerce plan includes all Basic Commerce plan features plus abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping options, advanced discount and promotion features and the ability to sell subscriptions.

Other benefits

The Squarespace website builder comes with a variety of tools that help with business promotion and performance. The sheer number of tools offered makes Squarespace one of the best website solutions available today.

• Social media integration: You can easily integrate with popular social channels on your Squarespace website.
• Social story designs: The Squarespace Unfold app offers templates that help you create visually compelling stories for relevant social platforms
• Squarespace website analytics: Monitor website traffic, learn where your site visitors are coming from and spot engagement trends using Squarespace analytics tools.
• Commerce analytics: Squarespace lets you track orders, sales and buying trends, which helps you optimise conversions.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Squarespace offers a suite of integrated features and guides to help you with SEO. Squarespace resources for SEO can get complicated, so spend ample time with these.
• Expert design services: If you need help designing or customising your site, Squarespace Experts will match you with a third-party designer.
• Squarespace extensions: Squarespace lets you extend the power of your site by connecting with shipping, fulfilment, finance, inventory and sales and marketing extensions, including AfterShip, Freshbooks, Outfly, and TaxJar.
• Free logo maker: Squarespace offers a free logo creation tool that helps you create a simple logo for your website.

Email marketing

Grow and communicate with your audience using Squarespace Email Campaigns, which features attractive email layouts that complement your website design. You’ll pay £3 to £50 per month for this premium service.

Members-only content

Monetise your content by creating a members-only area on your site. The cost for this Squarespace feature is £6 to £29 per month.

Appointment booking

Add an appointment scheduling feature to your website so clients can book and manage appointments online. Calendar management plans range from £10 to £36 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.

Fine print

Squarespace is an excellent web builder that generally earns strong reviews from users. Still, there are a few things you want to know about before you launch your website on this platform.

Expect a learning curve

Squarespace uses a drag-and-drop editor that simplifies the website build process. The editing tool is not quite as intuitive as Squarespace purports it is—especially for true beginners. The good news is that the Squarespace Help Centre offers detailed instruction on using the editor, and customer support is just a quick chat or email away.

Version 7.1 vs 7.0

In 2020, Squarespace introduced version 7.1, and along with it came several significant changes. With version 7.0, every template was customisable, and you could switch templates anytime you wanted. However, changing 7.0 templates often required multiple steps as not all templates included the full breadth of Squarespace features.

With version 7.1, switching templates is no longer an option. That’s because Squarespace includes access to every design feature in every version, so you don’t have to start over. However, if you’re on version 7.0 and want to upgrade to 7.1, you will need to rebuild your site. Squarespace offers detailed guides for walking you through this process.

Navigation

Squarespace limits you to one sub-navigation menu. While this isn’t an issue for smaller websites, it could be problematic for large sites with deep levels of content.

Customer Support

Squarespace offers customer support via online chat and email. Phone support is not available, which can be problematic when you need to troubleshoot a complex problem quickly.

How Squarespace stacks iup

Is Squarespace right for you or your business?

The Squarespace site builder is a popular choice among solopreneurs like artists, authors, coaches, bloggers, and small businesses, such as restaurants, salons, financial services, and fitness centers. It’s not a great solution for large, complicated eCommerce sites or those with advanced technical website-building skills.

With Squarespace, you can build a simple, mobile-responsive website in a matter of a few hours. Ecommerce functionality allows you to monetise your site while Squarespace’s add-on features, like email, calendar management, and reservations, provide robust functionality that many business owners find helpful.

While there are cheaper platforms on the market, like Wix or GoDaddy Website Builder, the value for the features and design flair Squarespace offers is worth the modest additional expense. If having an attractive, modern website design is important to you, Squarespace delivers.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)