In our previous post, we compared Wix and WordPress, but we gave special attention to which one would serve photographers the best. Meanwhile, in this article, Wix will again lock horns with another popular website builder – Squarespace. We will conduct an in-depth and systematic review on Wix vs Squarespace.
In addition, we will take a comprehensive look at each website from different angles, comparing their main features side-by-side along the way.
So, read along to find out how we will dive into the core areas that should impact your decision when choosing between Wix and Squarespace.
Wix vs Squarespace: A quick head-to-head comparison
| Wix | Squarespace | |
| Pricing | $13-$22/month | $12-$18/month |
| Editor | It gives you the absolute freedom to drag-and-drop elements around as you like. | The drag-and-drop feature is more structured and can be done within a page. |
| Templates | It offers more than 500 themes with the option to create a template from scratch. | Provides customizable themes for a website builder with over 70 templates to choose from. |
| Supported Languages | Up to 19 languages | Up to 6 languages |
Over all we recommend Wix over Squarespace. But in some circumstances, you won’t regret going for the latter. What matters most is for you to be able to identify their unique differences and can navigate yourself around them.
Who Wix is best for
Wix site provides a better overall value for many start-ups and small business owners. Since Wix gives absolute control for its drag-and-drop feature, businesses such as photographers, graphic designers, fashion designers, interior designers, web designers and the likes would find Wix very useful to showcase their portfolios.
To sum it up, Wix is the best site for beginners. It’s simple to use, and with it, you can create and publish a stunning website in a single afternoon.
Who Squarespace is best for
Squarespace is best for creative minds – those who have more time in their hands. Squarespace has SSL certification, which makes it the ideal platform for companies that offer online product services, subscription services, event coordination, and the likes.
Here is the thing though: businesses that we recommend Wix for can as well get professional touch-ups if they choose to build their site with Squarespace – vice versa. Consequently, the most important thing is knowing how to approach and navigate your way around it to suit your needs.
Wix vs Squarespace: The main difference
Wix is a cloud-based, beginner-friendly site builder with a variety of attractive and modern templates that are highly customizable.
On the other hand, Squarespace is a software program but is likewise stylish and modern. It offers premium templates but not as easy to use as Wix, especially for beginners who are just trying their hands on web design.
Therefore, we’d say that Squarespace is more complex to use than Wix.
Another difference is that Wix offers a free plan that can last for as long as you want. They also have a huge number of additional apps than Squarespace.
Squarespace, on the other hand, provides a 14-day free trial to have a taste of their services and evaluate if it’s right for you.
Ease of Use
One of the things that determine the ease of use of a website builder is by looking at the interface of the Editor. Still, there are other essential aspects to be considered.
Wix and Squarespace both have drag-and-drop editors, even though their mode of functionality is sort of different.
The tech world is getting easier by the day, and Wix is definitely in tune with the latest technology. As a result, Wix uses an Artificial Intelligence-powered assistant known as the ADI to design a niche-relevant website for you automatically.
Creating a website is much easier on Wix
Once you’ve signed up on Wix, you can choose how you want to create your website either with the guide of the Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) or using the Wix editor. It’s simple and straightforward.
Since the ADI is aimed at making web building very simple, all you will be required is to answer a few questions, follow step-by-step instructions, and it’ll set up your website.
The ADI will tailor your needs by gathering a few information from you. Interestingly, the user experience is incredibly visual. You just click the element you want to change, and that’s it. Another interesting thing is that you still can switch back to the regular editor if you find ADI too limited.
The regular drag-and-drop editor, too, is quite simple. Everything is clear so that you feel intuitively at home with the platform from the start. More on Wix editor in this article.
Here is a video on how ADI works in more details:
Squarespace too is considerably easy
Squarespace is also far from being a technical nightmare. Thanks to the latest updates that addressed some of the UX-related pain points. Still, getting along requires extra clicks and probably more time to get to the same results as with Wix.
To customize your own website on Squarespace, you can pick from the variety of well-designed templates, the one that’s right for your needs.
Choosing a template is not the big deal here but working your way around it, especially customizing it to your taste.
Who Wins? Wix wins with its excellent beginner-friendly interface and extra flexible control ability. In addition, Wix has a powerful backup system, so you won’t fear to lose your works.
Wix vs Squarespace Editor
The editor interface is probably one of the most notable things between Wix and Squarespace.
Wix Editor
Wix gives you a straightforward drag-and-drop editor, which makes it faster to learn for beginners. You have absolute freedom when working with it. Just move the elements to the canvas and straight up, you can edit them as you like.
Meanwhile, Wix provides a separate block for the mobile version, which lets you design and preview your website for mobile configuration. Thoughtful.
One great thing is that you don’t have to worry if the mobile structure will affect the desktop site. Wix will automatically adjust that for you to fit all screen sizes.
With so much freedom, though, comes the possibility of messing up your website if care is not taking. But thanks to the backup and restore feature that can easily take you back to your previous site versions.
All sections of the editor contain tips to put you through as you are working on them. Further, all options and widgets have their pop up explanations and instructions that’ll guide you along the way.
Wix provides an additional guide
In addition to the pop-up guides and great video tutorials, Wix provides a comprehensive list of articles to serve as a knowledge base center. From there, you can find additional information by using the search option.
Another essential part of the Wix editor is the functionality of working with photos. The Wix media section lets you upload videos and pictures. You can choose from the available stock photos and videos, download online, or upload pictures from your computer straight to the site page.
You can as well adjust the quality and sharpness of photos when they are displayed on the website, flexibly customize the layout of the output image – the structure, the size of thumbnails, indents, a saturation of the college, and orientation of the image.
See how easy it is to add pages and user the website builder:
Squarespace Editor
Very similar to Wix, Squarespace editor also has the drag-and-drop function but is more structured and restrictive than it is on Wix. Unlike Wix where you can move elements just about anywhere on the page, Squarespace uses a grid system (called Content Blocks). You can as well drag and drop elements into columns, but they all need to snap-in.
For instance, image resizing On Squarespace could involve creating columns, use spacer elements, and adjust to fit into the exact size you want. This can be inconvenient, especially for a beginner.
Another inconvenience is that all edits being made on Squarespace editor will be published live as there is no “publish” button as it is on Wix. Consequently, visitors can see how you work and notice any errors made while still working on your site.
Unlike Wix, you can’t drag elements just anyhow and anywhere on the page on Squarespace. But the good thing about Squarespace’s structured editor is that it keeps your page in an organized fashion, without the fear of messing things up.
Here is an real example on how editing you squarespace site looks:
As an icing on the cake, Squarespace integrates free Logo Creator on its editor page for premium subscribers. You can use the logo creator to form a custom logo for your brand using a variety of available icons.
Who wins? Many would love having a well-structured editor that helps keep things intact. But having absolute control when working on your site is more than pleasing. Apart from the flexibility and total control on all elements, Wix wins with its innovative backup system.
Elements
There’s an enormous selection of handy features to use on Wix. The truth is, you can’t seem to exhaust them all. For many users, the sheer amount of freedom on Wix will likely fascinate them.
Wix’s extensive options of elements could be overwhelming, but they come so handily. There are navigation options, arrows, lines, shapes, icons, and lots of useful buttons.
With this wide range of elements to work with, you could even design your own theme from scratch, something you can’t do with Squarespace.
Squarespace Elements too are intuitive
Squarespace also offers a wide range of elements known as Content Blocks. They are thoughtfully designed and fully packed to help set everything right on your website.
One of the notable content blocks we found on Squarespace is the restaurant menu. It’s often a challenge trying to create distinct formatting for restaurant menus due to its unusual setup. But Squarespace figured this out correctly.
They created an original design structure that automatically converts into a stylish restaurant menu. It’s a well-designed and straightforward solution to a somewhat complicated structure.
The UX design is simply amazing. It was designed in such a way that site visitors can easily find information about your services.
Another example of Squarespace’s thoughtfulness is when working on the images. To display images in a perfect grid, they need to be cropped into squares. Most website builders only let you crop the images around the center and that’s it. Squarespace goes a step further. They make it possible for you to set a focal point to crop around. Handy.
Who wins? It’s a tie. The amount of tools gives a lot to be desired when working on Wix. In the same vein, Squarespace’s thoughtful design is proof of its dedication to providing site owners with a custom user experience.
Pricing
Subscription services, including website builders, often advertise a low monthly rate. But in the real sense, the annual rate is divided by twelve. At first glance, this looks like a great deal but can be confusing at the same time.
Therefore, to understand how Wix and Squarespace subscription works, we have to consider their individual prices based on their all-inclusive offer.
Wix’s Website Pricing
Wix offers an entirely free plan that can last you for as long as you want. You can use their free plan to test out how the platform works. With it, you get access to some of the platform’s functionalities. The free plan comes with many limitations, but you can upgrade your plan to enjoy the full package.
Wix has four-tier pricing for a website subscription plan and three-tier pricing for its business and eCommerce plan.
The least of Wix’s website subscription starts at just $4.50 a month, and the VIP would cost you some $24.50 per month.
The Most Popular (Unlimited) plan is at $12.50 per month with an annual subscription tag on it. For this, you will get value in terms of:
- UNLIMITED Bandwidth
- 10GB Storage
- Connect Your Domain
- Zero Wix Ads
- Free Domain for 1 Year
- 1 Video Hour
- Site Booster App – $60 Value
- Visitor Analytics App – $60 Value
The screenshot below shows the full overview of Wix’s website pricing plan:
As you can see, annual plans are discounted than monthly plans and also come with a free domain name. Apart from the consistent value of a yearly plan, you can as well save up to 20% annually or 30% on a 2-year plan.
Wix ‘Business and eCommerce’ Pricing:
As it sounds, the business and eCommerce plan is best for companies and merchants. As seen in the screenshot below, the Most Popular plan costs $25 per month with practically everything you need to grow your business.
Here is the full overview of Wix’s Business and eCommerce pricing plan:
One great thing about Wix’s subscription is that they offer a 14-day money-back guarantee across the board.
Wix’s first two plans are the cheapest but have some limitations. For instance, the Connect Domain still displays Wix ads on your website, which isn’t quite the best. The next most affordable plan is the Combo that has a limited 2GB bandwidth per month. That limited bandwidth is a turnoff.
Squarespace’s Pricing
Squarespace, on the other hand, does not have a free plan like Wix. They, however, offer a 14-day free trial.
There’s something impressive about Squarespace’s pricing, though. They are pretty transparent about it as can be seen right there on their pricing page:
Wix vs Squarespace ‘Website’ plan
The starting point between Wix and Squarespace plans begins with Wix’s Unlimited plan and Squarespace’s Personal Plan. Both plans offer unlimited bandwidth, with a slightly different monthly cost. But Squarespace offers a cheaper annual plan:
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- 10GB storage
- Connect your domain
- Zero Wix ads
- Free domain for 1 year
- 1 Video Hour
- Site Booster App – $60 Value
- Visitor Analytics App – $60 Value
| Wix’s Unlimited Plan ($12.50 per month) | Squarespace’s Personal Plan ($12 per month) |
| UNLIMITED Bandwidth 10GB Storage Connect Your Domain Zero Wix Ads Free Domain for 1 Year 1 Video Hour Site Booster App – $60 Value Visitor Analytics App – $60 Value | Free Custom DomainSSL Security Unlimited Bandwidth and Storage SEO Features for Site Visibility Templates to Fit Every Need from Blogs to Portfolios 2 ContributorsMobile-Optimized Websites 24/7 Customer Support Basic Website Metrics Squarespace Extensions |
Wix vs Squarespace business/eCommerce plan
Squarespace is more expensive. Wix’s eCommerce plan is $25 / month ($240 annually), and Squarespace’s Basic Commerce plan is $26 / month ($312 annually). But as you can see in the screenshot below, Squarespace has better eCommerce. Let’s compare them:
| Wix’s Business Unlimited Plan ($25 per month; $240 annually) | Squarespace’s Personal Plan ($26 / month; $312 annually) |
| Accept Online Payments100% Commission FREEUNLIMITED Bandwidth35GB StorageConnect Your DomainRemove Wix Ads10 Video HoursGoogle AnalyticsFree Domain for 1 YearSite Booster App – $60 ValueVisitor Analytics App – $60 ValueProfessional Logo – $50 Value Social Media Logo files | Free Custom Domain SSL Security Unlimited Bandwidth and Storage SEO Features for Site Visibility Templates to Fit Every Need from Blogs to Portfolios Unlimited Contributors Mobile-Optimized Websites 24/7 Customer Support Basic Website Metrics Squarespace Extensions Professional Email from Google Premium Integrations and Blocks Complete Customization with CSS and JavaScript Advanced Website Analytics $100 Google Adwords Credits Promotional Pop-ups and Banners Fully Integrated E-Commerce 0% Transaction Fees Sell Unlimited Products Accept Donations Point of Sale Customer Accounts Checkout on Your Domain Powerful E-Commerce Analytics Powerful Merchandising Tools Products on Instagram |
Wix vs Squarespace domain name plan;
A domain name costs $14.95 per year on Wix and $20 per year on Squarespace or as much as $70, depending on the domain’s TLD.
Squarespace’s yearly domain plan includes WHOIS privacy. Generally, domain names will collect your contact information, which can expose your contact to the public. That’s where WHOIS privacy comes in. It will keep your contact information anonymous.
Wix charges an additional $9.90 to get WHOIS privacy. And so, if you do the simple calculation, Wix’s yearly domain plan plus WHOIS privacy can actually be more expensive than Squarespace.
But if you really want to get the best deal on domain plans, you can purchase a domain name through another domain provider and then transfer it to either your Wix or Squarespace website. Domain vendor such as Namecheap costs around $8.88 per year for its .com and $11.98 for .net domains, respectively. All plans are WHOIS privacy inclusive.
Who wins? Although Wix looks cheaper on the surface, Squarespace has a much better and transparent plan. They make their charges clear as you’ll find it on their price page. So, the winner is Squarespace.
The Templates
There are loads of well-designed and thoughtful templates for you to choose from. Wix has over 500 templates spread across 17 different categories and sub-categories. Each template gives a vast amount of flexibility.
Another exciting thing about Wix is that they still let you design your own template from scratch. Even if you pick the blank template, you still have excellent customizing tools to work with.
The tools are very flexible and easy to use, so you don’t need technical knowledge before you can use them.
Squarespace also provides a well-curated set of over 80 template families distributed across 14 categories. Each template is unique and custom-enabled for you to add elements and can build your website as you want.
Squarespace, however, does not have blank templates like Wix. So you’re stuck with the templates they provide.
Although Squarespace doesn’t offer an enormous amount of options like Wix, they are careful to handpick just the right type of templates that’ll meet your specific needs. Besides, their templates are neatly designed, modern, and excellent at showcasing your brand identity.
Similar to Wix, Squarespace also has brilliant customization tools that are also flexible and easy to use.
But the major drawback in Wix is that you can’t change your template without losing all your content. Squarespace is not like that. So you have to choose the exact template you can work on for the long term.
Wix vs Squarespace Blogging
If you’re considering blogging full-time on your website, then you have to decide on which one would serve your needs the best. The blogging system on Wix and Squarespace looks quite similar.
For instance, they both have everything you need for your site to function properly. Things like post tags, schedule posts, drafts, social media comments, etc. So, you’d have great experience choosing either of the two for your blogging site.
Here’s the thing though, Squarespace has got the edge over Wix due to its better user experience. For example, you can get a better view of how your post would appear on Squarespace. This is so essential for you to see how your post would appear to your audience before publishing.
Who wins? Squarespace – because apart from the excellent user experience, it has more features for multiple authors. For instance, there is the comment editor and comment moderation section, and even allow authors to work on a single post. At the backend, too, you have the search bar that helps you find older posts. This is not available on Wix.
For a more sophisticated blogging site, you may want to consider using WordPress instead.
Wix vs Squarespace: eCommerce
Both Wix and Squarespace have their in-built eCommerce platform that features all the basic things you need to set up and manage your store. Although they work similarly, you can still identify a few differences from their layouts.
Both Wix and Squarespace have store manager section that lets you organize your products into;
- Collections
- Highlight bestsellers and promote monthly specials
- Create product options such as sizes or colors
- Add multiple photos for each item
- Customize messages for your customers
- Set multiple payment options
- Set shipping and tax rules for each product
- … Plus more
Certainly, Wix is more intuitive and features-packed in this instance. They also have one of the best industry-leading toolkits to promote and manage your business. Ascend by Wix is that tool that lets you connect with your customers the modern way.
Squarespace also has amazing layouts specifically designed to promote your online business. One of the things that make Squarespace so appealing is its inventory and analytical tools that help track, manage, and organize inventory levels, orders, sales, and invoices.
Note:
– The eCommerce business is a big world on its own. Wix and Squarespace do not have dedicated eCommerce platforms. So, if your sole purpose of creating a website is for eCommerce, then Shopify will be the best option. Shopify is an all-encompassing platform for eCommerce. –
Wix vs Squarespace: SEO
Wix is one of the best website builders that has all professional SEO tools built-in for a website to rank higher in search engines.
Taking a step further, Wix includes google integration on its platform. Connecting to Google Analytics and Google Search Console is made very easy on Wix.
Squarespace, too, is an excellent site builder that can help optimize your product’s online visibility. It has notable essentials like automatic XML sitemap, SSL certificate, and some other markups that can improve SEO.
Who Wins? Wix has the upper hand, thanks to its Google Analytics and Google Search Console integration.
In Conclusion
We recommend Wix over Squarespace — but either website builder will provide you with all that you need to get your product and services online.
In short, it ultimately depends on what you need a website for. Wix is the best for beginners and provides a high degree of control and flexibility. It also offers a wide range of options up the point of letting you build a website from scratch.
Squarespace is a well-structured website builder with excellent design templates. You’ll find handy customizable tools to help put your site in the right shape
Now we will go through some more detailed niches to see which platform is best for you.
Wix vs Squarespace for musicians?
Wix was thoughtful with this one, as they always have been. There are dozens of music templates designed explicitly with the artist in mind. It doesn’t matter if you are a solo artist, DJ, producer, own a band, or by some means are connected to the music industry.
Wix composed everything you need to succeed as a musician in one album. With Wix website builder, you can;
- Sell, Play & Distribute Your Music
- Promote Yourself & Your Brand
- Grow Your Fan Base
- Rock Your Social Presence
- Sell Your Merch
- Show Pics & Videos
All you need to do is choose a template that suits your music genre, and you’re good to go.
Squarespace is another great platform that aims at providing music artist with a stunning online presence.
Unlike Wix, Squarespace has limited templates for musicians to choose from. But the few available ones are undeniably sleek in design and also feature-packed.
Like Wix, they also cover everything from SoundCloud integration and eCommerce functionality, which allows musicians to merchandise their creativity to the global audience.
The Winner? Right, Squarespace has got some above par features for musicians. But, Wix beats it with their ease of use and additional design templates that appeals to a wide range of musicians.
Therefore, if you’re a musician that needs a website to amplify your sound and promote your brand, then Wix is the way to go.
🥇 Best platform for musicians is: Wix.com
Wix vs Squarespace: The best for artists?
Not many website builders out there have a specialized plan that accommodates artists and their works. Some that do are mostly half-baked. But not Wix.
Wix has a template category specially designed for all kinds of creative artists. They never disappoint when it comes to offering users more than they can chew in terms of options.
In contrast, Squarespace does not have a dedicated section for artists. As you can see in the screenshot below, we typed the keyword “creative artist” to find a template we can work on. The templates that came up doesn’t really match up with expectations.
Who wins: Squarespace leaves Wix with nothing much of a contest here. So, its Wix.com all the way.