Wix vs Squarespace

Our research found that Wix is better than Squarespace because it has more features and is easier to use.

With a wide range of functionalities like robust ecommerce features and design assistance, Wix edges out Squarespace as the go-to option for businesses that may need to scale their website along with their growth.

That doesn't mean Squarespace is a bad option, though. It offers some of the most impressive and flexible design functionality in our research, making it perfect for bloggers and artists to showcase their work. Suffice to say, both these website builders are excellent choices, depending on your particular needs.

In this guide, we'll cover how these two website builders match up on everything from features and price to ease of use and customer support. Or if you want to quickly compare Wix and Squarespace against other market-leading builders, check out our handy web builder comparison page.

In this guide:

• Wix vs Squarespace: Head-to-Head
• Wix Pricing vs Squarespace Pricing
• Best for Ease of Use
• Best for Website Features
• Best for Design Functionality
• Best for Help and Support
• About Our Research
• Verdict: Wix vs Squarespace
• Frequently Asked Questions

Wix and Squarespace: Head-to-Head

Here's how the two website builders match up on some important criteria for users looking to get started today:

• Wix is better for building an online store than Squarespace
• Squarespace has better design features than Wix
• Wix is more geared towards small businesses than Squarespace
• Squarespace has better blogging and portfolio features than Wix

The battle between Wix and Squarespace is a close one, but Wix definitely takes the cake. In fact, we found that Wix is the best overall website builder for most people and businesses, with a vast set of helpful integrations as well as a myriad of marketing and ecommerce tools, making it excellent value for money.

Squarespace excels with slick design features, offering the perfect solution for people in the creative industries. Wix, on the other hand, provides a more rounded experience and gives everyone the tools they need to create a brilliant site. Both website builders have upgraded over the last few years, adding features and improving ease of use across all plans.

Wix Pricing vs Squarespace Pricing

The pricing plans for Wix and Squarespace can most simply be put into two different categories: plans for standard website building and plans for ecommerce (selling online). Standard website building is for individuals or very small businesses that are merely showcasing work rather than actively trying to sell it on the site. Ecommerce plans, on the other hand, are for setting up an online store, allowing you to sell items directly to your customers.

As far as pricing plans are concerned, Wix and Squarespace offer a considerably different number of options. Wix has quite a few more, with four standard website builder plans and three ecommerce business plans, as well as a free forever plan, which comes out to a total of eight pricing plans for Wix. Squarespace, on the other hand, offers only two standard website builder plans, three ecommerce business plans, and no free plan, for a total of four pricing plans for Squarespace.

Read on for information about how Wix and Squarespace compare on website building and ecommerce pricing plans.

Wix vs Squarespace: Website Builder pricing plans

When it comes to standard website building pricing plans, Squarespace and Wix offer quite similar options when it comes to the starter plans. Both provide a $16 per month personal use plan with basic functionality to get you up and running,

Both website builders also have a more advanced plan for $22 per month (Wix) or $23 per month (Squarespace), which add features like analytics. Squarespace's plan is a bit better than Wix here, due to the ability to integrate ecommerce, although it's quite bare bones compared to actual ecommerce plans and comes with a 3% transaction fee.

On top of those plans, Wix offers two more standard website building plans, Pro and VIP, which cost $27 per month and $45 per month, respectively. These plans still offer no ecommerce functionality, but add other features like events calendars, professional logos, and priority customer support. Squarespace does not offer any plan more expensive than the $23 per month Business plan for standard website building.

Wix vs Squarespace: Ecommerce pricing plans

For ecommerce pricing plans, Wix and Squarespace start off quite similar again, but offering a $27 per month starter plan that can help you get your online store off the ground. Both allow for unlimited products and the ability to sell on Facebook and Instagram. As for the differences, Wix allows for abandoned cart recovery at this stage, which Squarespace does not, but Squarespace allows for product reviews at this price, which Wix does not.

Wix has two other advanced ecommerce plans, which cost $32 per month and $59 per month respectively, whereas Squarespace only has one advance ecommerce plan, which costs $49 per month. For both providers, these plans unlock features like customized reports, advanced discounts, and subscriptions functionality. The most expensive plan from Wix really just allows for unlimited version of storage and dropping shipping.

Wix vs Squarespace: Which has the best free plan?

This one is easy, because Wix offers a free plan for an unlimited period of time and Squarespace doesn't offer. This means that you can create a website for free, forever, with Wix, although there are some big drawbacks, like no customizable URL.

Squarespace, on the other hand, only offers a 14-day free trial, and you can use the code “TECHCO10” to receive a 10% discount on all Squarespace plans too.

Best for Ease of Use: Wix

Wix uses an intuitive drag-and-drop system to edit the content on your site’s pages. Want to add some text? Simply drag a text box to the perfect spot on the page. Want to remove an image? Simply drag it off the page.

Squarespace, meanwhile, uses a slightly different system. Page elements can be added or removed by using the sidebar menu, while the actual content of each element has to be edited manually.

Neither of these systems are perfect — both have redeeming and detracting factors. However, in our testing, they easily gained a place among our best website builders for beginners, and you'll be able to get to grips with both systems without too much fuss.

Wix page editor

Wix’s drag-and-drop system is incredibly intuitive – in fact, it's similar in style to (and almost as easy as) creating a Powerpoint presentation.

With that being said, it may take you a short while to get the hang of it. “It sort of throws you into the deep end a little bit,” said one user during our testing. “But then, on the flip side, it’s the only way that you are going to learn how to use the tool.”

The amount of creative control and the abundance of options can prove intimidating at first – it’s difficult to know exactly where to start, and which elements your site needs.

But luckily, Wix won't leave you in the dark. Its “Artificial Design Intelligence” system, or ADI, which can help build a more complete version of your website for you. Simply provide Wix with some information about the sort of site you want to create, how you want it to look, and what you want to do with it, and the ADI will spit out an impressive-looking website design. You’ll find that customization options are slightly more restricted, but it’ll be easier to get the hang of.

Finally, Wix has its Velo app development platform. Essentially, it allows users to code and build custom web applications for their site. For example, you could build a clickable dropdown list with images, or you could create a search menu with more advanced filters and segmentation. It sounds complicated, but there’s plenty of advice and examples online, and it will help make your site truly unique.

Squarespace page editor

Squarespace’s page editor restricts some level of creative control in order to maintain a level of order over the website’s design.

That might sound like a problem – it’s your website, after all – but we think that it’s part of what makes Squarespace great. All of its website designs are fantastic and, as a result, you’re going to be reluctant to change them too much anyway.

Initially, it can seem confusing working out which parts of the page are controlled through which section, but most people get the hang of it. “I did find it rather intuitive,” said one of our users. “Most of the time I was able to work out what to do just through buttons on a page. So even within an hour, I was still able to work things out which I was struggling with earlier.”

Best for Website Features: Wix

Squarespace and Wix offer all the features anyone would reasonably need to run any sort of website. However, Wix's sheer volume of features is unmatched across the website building industry, so we have to give the edge to Wix on this one.

From the CRM functionality and the robust marketing tools to the logo maker and POS compatibility that just launched this year, Wix is simply the cream of the crop when it comes to features available. It scored 4.9/5 for features, higher than any other website builder we tested in our last round of research, compared to the 4.4/5 for Squarespace in the same category.

If you’re running a restaurant, you’ll be pleased to hear that Wix and Squarespace both make it easy to accept takeout orders. With Squarespace, all you’ll have to do is set up your checkout and enable pickup orders. With Wix, you’ll need to enable online ordering, connect the menu, and then enable pickup orders.

Squarespace and Wix don’t have built-in ticket selling functionality, but you can use each builders’ app store to create a workaround. With Squarespace, you can use the Eventbrite app to sell tickets, while Wix has a bespoke app which can add the functionality you need – though users might not be as accustomed to it.

Even better, Wix now integrates with Semrush. This means that users will be able to see up-to-date SEO keyword data directly in their Wix dashboards, improving your ability to reach new customers with helpful insights.

Best for Design Functionalities: Squarespace

Wix is great and definitely our top pick for website builders, but when it comes to design functionality and flexibility, no one beats Squarespace. Now, let's take a look at why.

Squarespace templates

Some website builder platforms offer loads of templates. Squarespace, on the other hand, offers a smaller, more curated selection of just over 60 website styles – and they’re all great.

The Squarespace templates are separated by industry, ranging from blogs, to events websites, and even online stores.

The templates are all completely mobile responsive, with images and text areas that resize automatically to the users’ device. All the templates support parallax scrolling, where elements can move, appear, and disappear based on how far the user scrolls down the page. They also all support video backgrounds, for extra fancy websites.

Squarespace doesn’t have its own library of stock images. However, it does have integrations with Getty Images and the highly regarded Unsplash library, which should make finding photos a piece of cake.

Wix templates

Wix offers more than 500 templates, and while we wouldn’t say its approach is akin to quantity over quality, the builder’s templates aren’t as visually appealing as Squarespace’s.

With that being said, Wix’s templates have improved in recent years, and should be more than good enough for most people.

All the templates Wix offers are completely mobile responsive. Parallax scrolling elements can be added individually to each template. Video backgrounds are supported, too.

Wix offers its own library of stock photography, as well as an integration with Big Stock photos. It also offers a selection of clip art style cartoons, if you like that sort of thing.

Customization

Again, Squarespace and Wix take slightly different approaches when it comes to levels of customization. Both allow you to add custom coded elements, such as text boxes with custom fonts, but Wix allows you to go deeper.

Wix gives users the ability to completely alter the code of their website. Admittedly, Wix doesn’t make it easy – you have to enter the scarily titled “Dev Mode” on your site to access the code – but it’s there, nonetheless.

Squarespace, meanwhile, keeps all this stuff hidden away, and regularly provides the user with little notices that warn about the pitfalls of getting your coding wrong. However, Squarespace recently announced that it now works on Fluid Engine system, which makes designing and customizing the website on a Mac infinitely easier for users.

Switching templates

However, while we’ve bemoaned Squarespace’s lack of versatility thus far, it does get the edge over Wix when it comes to switching your template.

With Squarespace, and thanks to its small number of templates, you can swap back-and-forth between different designs as many times as you like.

Wix, on the other hand, doesn’t allow you to change your template after publishing. Perhaps this is why it offers so much customization.

Best for Help and Support: Squarespace

As with anything on the internet, there’s a chance that something will go wrong with your website at some point. So, naturally, it pays to pick a builder with good help and support.

We're giving Squarespace the edge on this one. Squarespace scored a perfect 5/5 when it comes to help and support, offering the most comprehensive 24/7 support, combined with an impressive robust knowledge center that definitely beats out Wix, which scored a still respectable 4.8/5 in our research.

Wix help and support

You’ll be heartened to hear that Wix has some of the best customer support that we’ve come across testing website builders. It offers over-the-phone support between 6am and 5pm PST, as well as email, social media, and forum support. It doesn’t currently offer a live chat function.

Wix also has an extensive support center, with loads of articles that can help you fix problems on your own. It also has lots of on-page help – simply click the little question mark next to any element on your page editor, and you’ll get some helpful advice on how to use it.

Squarespace help and support

Squarespace, on the other hand, has a huge support center with loads of extras that Wix doesn’t offer. For example, you can access webinars, workshops, and video tutorials to help you make the most of your website.

However, Squarespace doesn’t offer support over the phone. It does offer live chat (from 3am to 8am PST Monday to Friday) and will apparently respond to all emails within an hour. Still, with the massive knowledge center, our research shows that Squarespace is better than Wix when it comes to help and support.

About Our Research

There are hundreds of sites out there comparing website builders, so it isn't always easy to work out who's actually tried and tested the software they're talking about. Not all websites out there have tested the website builders they review, or worse, have even used products like Wix and Squarespace – so it's hard to know who you can trust.

Here at Tech.co, we always do our own research – and that goes for all the products, services, and software we talk about. We're lucky enough to have a team of researchers that spend their days collecting data on absolutely everything we talk about. They work with our expert writers to bring you accurate, up-to-date information on website builders, project management software, and much more.

Pros and cons

As you may have noticed, Wix and Squarespace received the same overall score of 4.8 out of 5 in our research. While they are both extremely well-suited to website building, the reality is that they have a lot of differences that can contribute to how you see these two providers.

Wix offers some serious value, with a massive feature catalog that can handle virtually any task for any type of business. In addition to the basic features, Wix offers CRM functionality, email and social marketing capabilities, and even a logo maker, to really establish your brand.

While Squarespace can't match Wix on features, it still offers a lot. With some seriously robust marketing features, Squarespace is the ideal website builder for growing businesses looking to grow even more. Plus, with the stunning templates, you'll be able to attract customers to your site with professionalism and style.

Like we said, Wix and Squarespace have both improved greatly over the course of time, and there's a lot of good and some bad when it comes to Wix and Squarespace. Take a look at some of these pros and cons for each provider to understand exactly what they bring to the table:

Wix vs Squarespace: FAQs