Squarespace Website Builder Review for 2023 – Forbes Advisor UK

Square footage at a glance

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

Squarespace is a fully hosted website builder, which means you don’t need to purchase hosting services separately like you do with other services. Squarespace’s intuitive drag-and-drop website editor simplifies the process of creating a website, making it a popular option for people without design or coding skills.

Squarespace domains

If you pay annually instead of monthly, you get a free domain for your first year with any plan. Otherwise, Squarespace domain costs range from £16 to £56 per year. All domains include SSL certificate and WHOIS privacy. Unlike other domain providers, Squarespace doesn’t charge you for domain renewals. You renew at the same rate as the original purchase.

You do not have to purchase your domain through Squarespace. If you’ve already licensed a domain from another service, you can easily link it to your Squarespace site. If you have trouble doing this, you can contact the Squarespace support team for help.

Squarespace plans

There are four Squarespace plans, with monthly license fees ranging from £12 to £43 depending on which tier of service you use and whether you want to pay monthly or annually. Although Squarespace offers a free 14-day trial, it does not offer a free plan. For comparison, Wix paid plans range from £4 to £27 per month, and GoDaddy Website Builder plans from £5 to £20 per month.

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

Personal

For £16 per month (or £12 per month per year), Squarespace’s 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 includes basic website parameters and up to two contributors.

Business

For £24 per month (or £17 per month annually), the Squarespace Business plan includes all the features of the Personal plan plus professional email from Google, advanced website analytics, promotional popups and banners, and full customization with CSS. and JavaScript. The business plan includes fully integrated e-commerce with 3% transaction fee.

Basic business

For £28 a month (or £23 a month when paid annually), the Squarespace Basic Commerce plan includes all the features of the Commerce plan plus point of sale functionality, customer accounts and merchandising. The plan lets you sync your products to Instagram so you can sell them there too. Transaction charges are waived on this plan.

Excellent business

For £43 per month (or £35 per month annually), the Squarespace Advanced Commerce plan includes all the features of the Basic Commerce plan plus abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping options, advanced discount and promotional features, and the ability to sell subscriptions.

Other benefits

Squarespace website builder comes with a variety of tools that help with business promotion and performance. The range 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 History Patterns; The Squarespace Unfold app offers templates to help you create visually engaging stories for relevant social platforms.
• Squarespace Website Analytics: Monitor website traffic, learn where your site visitors are coming from, and discover engagement trends using Squarespace’s analytics tools.
• business analysis; Squarespace lets you track order, sales, and purchase trends, helping you maximize conversions.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Squarespace offers integrated features and guides to help you with SEO. Squarespace resources can be complex for SEO, so spend a lot of time with these.
• Professional design services; If you need help designing or customizing 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 to shipping, fulfillment, finance, inventory, and sales and marketing extensions, including AfterShip, Freshbooks, Outfly, and TaxJar.
• Free Logo Maker: Squarespace offers a free logo maker tool to help you create a simple logo for your website.

Email marketing

Grow and connect with your audience using Squarespace email campaigns, which feature attractive email layouts that complement your website design. You pay between £4 and £53 a month for this premium service, depending on the plan you choose and whether you want to pay monthly or annually.

Members-only content

Monetize your content by creating a members-only area on your site. This Squarespace feature costs £7 to £32 per month.

Booking an appointment

Add an appointment scheduling feature to your website so customers can book and manage appointments online. Calendar management plans range from £11 to £40 per month.

Reservations

Use Squarespace Talk’s all-in-one booking system to manage reservations and take online orders. This service is custom priced, so you need to request information on the Squarespace site to learn more about this service. Squarespace charges a 3% commission on pickup and delivery orders.

Good print

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

Expect a learning curve

Squarespace uses a drag-and-drop editor that simplifies the website building process. The editing tool is not as intuitive as Squarespace—especially for true beginners. The good news is that the Squarespace Help Center provides detailed instructions on using the editor, and customer support is just a quick chat or email away.

Version 7.1 vs 7.0

In the year In 2020, Squarespace introduced version 7.1 and with it came many significant changes. In version 7.0, each template was customizable, and you could change templates whenever you wanted. However, converting 7.0 templates requires multiple steps, as not all templates include the full breadth of Squarespace features.

In version 7.1, changing templates is no longer an option. This is because Squarespace includes access to every design feature in every version, so you don’t have to start over. However, if you are on version 7.0 and want to upgrade to 7.1, you will need to rebuild your site. Squarespace provides detailed instructions to walk you through this process.

Navigation

Squarespace limits to one sub-navigation menu. While this isn’t a problem for smaller sites, it can be a problem for larger sites with in-depth content.

Customer support

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

Is Squarespace right for you or your business?

Squarespace Site Builder is a popular choice among solopreneurs like artists, authors, coaches, bloggers, and small businesses like restaurants, salons, financial services, and fitness centers. Not a good solution for large, complex eCommerce sites or those with advanced technical website building skills.

With Squarespace, you can build a simple, mobile responsive website in just a few hours. Ecommerce functionality allows you to monetize your site, while Squarespace’s additional features such as email, calendar management, and reservations provide powerful functionality that many business owners will find helpful.

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