Check out this Squarespace review and see if this website builder is for you.
Thinking of building or growing your business? If yes, then, going digital is the way to go. Nowadays, people expect to find your products and services online. This is why having a website is important for accessibility, convenience, and credibility. Having a website is like having a digital store with all the essential functions that you can get in having a physical space, but with minimal operational costs.
Putting up a website is not as expensive as constructing a physical store because everything that you need for a website is just at your fingertips. Making a website is much easier than you think, and anyone can have it even without a background in coding. This is where Squarespace comes in.
What Is Squarespace?
Squarespace is a website builder and hosting platform that offers designs and tools suitable for every business and creators’ website needs. It simplifies things for you so you can create a website in just a few minutes. It comes with pre-designed layouts, customizable templates, built-in eCommerce checkout tools, PCI compliant, and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate protection. It is a certification that most consumers look for when accessing a website and even before processing payments as it encrypts any information entered in your website.
Squarespace started as a blog hosting platform in the year 2003, but it catered to a wider market when it extended its tools, making it one of the leading choices of creatives and entrepreneurs.
Squarespace for Creatives and Freelancers
Many creatives and design professionals love it because of its award-winning website templates and drag-and-drop editing tools, not to mention the third-party/social media integrations that make it a convenient choice for them. Booking for appointments or discovery calls is easier with appointment tools that they can integrate on their website.
Basic Features
- Website builder
- Blogging tools
- Built-in SEO tools and analytics
- Third-party apps integrations
- Mobile editing
- Custom CSS
- Commenting system
- Multiple contributors and access level
- Password and page locks
- Custom redirects
- Custom site search engine
Blogging Features
- Customizable layouts
- Workflow
- Markdown support
- Scheduled posts
- Podcasts support
- Email campaign integration
- Excerpts and source URLs
- AMP integration
- RSS Syndication
- RSS blocks
- Category/Tag support
- External link options
- Multiple author support
Portfolio Features
- Add and edit images, video, and audio
- Lightbox presentation
- Image meta-data importing
Squarespace for Entrepreneurs
Business owners need not fret because Squarespace is not just all about making a visually-appealing website, but functionality as well. Apart from eCommerce templates, it also offers website analytics, reports, email marketing tools, checkout and payment channels, and search engine optimization (SEO) solutions. However, access to advanced eCommerce tools is only available to certain plans — starting from business plans.
Commerce Features
- Sell products, services, subscriptions, digital content, and merchandise
- Product management tools – merchandising, organizing, quick view, and zoom options
- Limited availability labels
- Inventory management
- Discounts
- Related product suggestions
- Order managements
- Flexible product variants
- Store manager permissions
- Customizable checkout
- Mobile-optimized checkout
- Express checkout mode
- Checkout on your domain
- Customer accounts
- Customer insights
- Point-of-sale
- Member areas
- Digital gift cards
- Sell on Instagram
- Donations
- Multiple payment methods
- Buy now, pay later option in select countries
- Accepted currencies
- Shipping
- Commerce marketing tools
- Sales analytics
- Import and export products and data from other eCommerce platforms
Are you finding this Squarespace review informative so far? Keep on reading…
Pros and Cons
The Pros
- It’s the ideal platform for creatives and those seeking to have a portfolio as it offers visually-appealing designs and intuitive tools.
- It’s an all-in-one platform for bloggers and small business owners as it offers marketing tools and site insights and analytics.
- Designs are mobile-optimized so any design you choose will surely work well on any device.
- 24/7 customer support via live chat
- Video tutorials to onboard users
The Cons
- No free options
- Can get quite expensive
- Limited marketing and SEO tools
Pricing
To complete this Squarespace review, here’s some pricing info you need to know.
Before choosing a plan, ask yourself what is your purpose for having a website. Is it mainly for blogging, to showcase your portfolio, or to sell products and services? Understand what it is that you need and select the best plan for you.
Squarespace made it easier for you by categorizing their plans into 4: Personal, Business, Online Store (Basic), and Online Store (Advanced).
Personal Plan pricing
You can set up a website with a personal plan for as low as $12 per month if you choose annual payment, but it gets a bit pricy if you opt for monthly charging which is worth $16. It comes with the basic design tools and CSS backend customization you need to start and keep your site running. It is suitable for bloggers, creatives, freelancers, and content creators who need a hosting platform to showcase their works.
What’s great about it is that it is mobile-optimized already. It also allows access to up to 2 contributors. However, just like any other website builder, your access to sophisticated design tools increases as you upgrade in membership.
Business Plan Pricing
If your purpose is to sell products and services, and you have extensive content, then this plan could be the best option for you. It includes all the basic features in personal plan and other premium features to support your business needs like $100 Google Ads credit, announcement and mobile information bars, store analytics, eCommerce third-party apps integration, promotional pop-ups, and unlimited contributors.
The plan is worth $26 per month if paid monthly, but you can save $7 if you opt to pay annually as it will only cost $18 per month. This plan can also be set up as an online store, but with a 3% transaction fee. This is a great choice if you have other platforms to sell your products, like Amazon, eBay, or Lazada. But if you need an eCommerce store, then the online store plans are the choices for you.
Online Store Plans to Price
If you have a wide array of products to sell, and your main purpose of setting up a website is to build an eCommerce store, then online store plans are the options for you. There are two online store plans to choose from: Basic and Advanced.
You can build an online store and sell unlimited products without a transaction fee when you subscribe to the Basic Plan worth $26 per month (if paid annually). You’ll also get access to different payment channels, label printing, and inventory management tools. But if you need access to additional premium features like abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping, flexible discounts, and gift cards creation, then the Advanced Plan is the best choice for you.
If you need a more advanced plan with additional e-Commerce features, then the Advanced Commerce Plan is the one for you. Although it’s more expensive at $40 per month paid annually ($46 per month paid monthly), it also has more features, including things like abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping, gift card creation, and flexible discounts.
Conclusion
Squarespace makes website building accessible for every entrepreneur and even for small business owners. In today’s world, digitization is the key ingredient for businesses to grow and survive. With Squarespace, anyone can have a strong digital presence— whether you are a freelance professional, creative, or business owner, with its simple and intuitive design tools.
It is said that 65% of the websites on the internet will be low code to no-code as more people choose it for convenience and agility. Nowadays, businesses are becoming leaner and more agile in their approach and choices for greater revenue.
