What’s the difference between Squarespace and Square?
In recent years, both Squarespace and Square have become familiar names to more and more customers and business owners. I’ve noticed that there is some confusion about what the two companies do and how they’re different. Since I’m a Squarespace website designer, I thought it was time to untangle the confusion.
Squarespace is a website hosting and building platform
Squarespace is a website hosting and building platform. That means that you can create your website with the Squarespace website building tools and pay for a hosting plan that keeps your website running and available to the public. The company mission states that “Squarespace exists to help people with creative ideas stand out and succeed. We enable millions to build a brand and transact with their customers in an impactful and beautiful online presence.”
The company was founded by Anthony Casalena in 2003 in his dorm room at the University of Maryland and moved to New York City after his graduation in 2007. The company reports that it now has over four million subscriptions.
Squarespace has a drag-and-drop website builder with beautiful designs
Website designers love Squarespace for its beautiful design templates and its flexibility in creating unique, standout websites for their clients. And as one of the most highly rated do-it-yourself, drag-and-drop website platforms, it is very popular with small-business owners who want the ability to maintain their websites themselves.
Squarespace has been my favorite website builder and hosting platform for my business ever since a friend introduced me to the platform.
Squarespace is also an eCommerce online store platform
If you pay for the premium Business or Commerce plans for your Squarespace website, you can sell physical and digital products from your website, as well as services and event tickets. The required payment processor for using your Squarespace website in this way is Stripe. You can optionally add PayPal as a second payment processor.
Note that Square is not supported as a payment processor for online purchases on your Squarespace website. It is only allowed for in-person purchases, which can then be monitored through your Squarespace website.
Squarespace email marketing and appointment scheduling are add-on features
In 2018, Squarespace introduced Email Campaigns, so you can set up a mailing list through your Squarespace account and connect a signup form easily to your website. The emails you send to your subscribers automatically pick up the colors and fonts of your website. That add-on costs $5 a month or more as of July 2023, depending on the number of subscribers. Note that you’ll need to pay at least for the premium Core package if you want to add an automatic Welcome Letter sequence for new subscribers.
In 2019, Squarespace acquired Acuity Scheduling. With that acquisition, it was able to integrate the Acuity Scheduling code as an add-on to Squarespace websites. That premium feature starts at $16 a month as of July 2023. It gives you the ability to accept payments and manage appointments and class reservations from your Squarespace website.
These additions provide a convenient way to manage popular business marketing and automation tasks under one umbrella.
Square started out as a payment processor, but now offers website hosting and building
Square was founded in 2009 as a payment processor company, offering a groundbreaking piece of mobile sales hardware called the Square reader. With the inexpensive Square reader, sellers could accept payments for sales from anywhere—not only in their brick-and-mortar stores, but on the go at fairs, farmers’ markets, events, and trade shows.
Square is a Point-of-Sale (POS) system
Over time, Square added larger pieces of hardware to its seller tools for POS (point of sale) purchases, including registers and tabletop stands. You may have seen these in use at your favorite local stores.
Square can integrate with an external website to allow online purchases
Square, as a payment processor company, also gives you the ability to turn your website into an online (eCommerce) store so you can sell products and services online. If your website builder supports it, you can connect your website to your Square account, activating payment options on your website.
When people make an online purchase with a credit card, the website connects to Square to complete the transaction. Square charges fees to handle this secure transaction and to verify the credit card. Connecting your bank account to Square allows you to receive the payment.
Squarespace doesn’t support online purchases with Square
It’s important to note that Squarespace does not allow online payments from your website with Square as your payment processor. It has a partnership with Stripe as its primary payment processor. Squarespace only allows you to connect Square as a payment processor for in-person purchases and you must be on the premium-level Squarespace Commerce hosting plan. You can read about the payment processors allowed with Squarespace in this Help article.
Square is also a website hosting and building platform
In 2018, Square acquired Weebly, a popular DIY website hosting and building platform. It used that acquisition to make use of the Weebly website building and hosting software to create its own proprietary website hosting and building platform called Square Online.
Square Online gives you a free website, sort of
If you have a free Square account, you are charged per transaction, but don’t pay for a monthly service plan. Within your free Square account, you can create a basic professional website using Square Online, but you’ll have limited design options compared to Squarespace.
This basic website allows you to promote your business with product pages and informational pages. The website is free, which sounds pretty good, until you realize that you can’t connect a custom domain name for free. Your free website will be a subdomain, such as mybiz.square.site. A business using a subdomain name can’t be found as easily as one with a custom domain like mybiz.com.
To connect a custom domain, you must pay for a Plus plan
You can purchase a domain through Square or connect a domain you’ve purchased elsewhere. Then you can connect it to your Square Online website as long as you purchase Square’s Plus plan. That plan costs $29 or more a month as of July 2023, depending on the type of features you need.
Square email marketing and appointment scheduling are options
Square Email Marketing allows you to set up a mailing list to send email campaigns to customers and subscribers. This add-on feature costs $15 or more as of July 2023, depending on the number of subscribers.
With a free Square account you can set up individual appointments, which allows clients to schedule appointments from your website and make payments. You will only be charged the regular Square payment processor transaction fees. If you upgrade to a Plus plan, you can also schedule and collect payments for classes.
Which website platform is better?
The decision to build a website on one or the other platform depends on your priorities. I’ve worked on both platforms and they each have their own advantages.
Beauty, ease of use, and customization = Squarespace
Squarespace wins hands-down for designing all sorts of beautiful professional websites for every sort of business, even if you are a non-technical computer user.
Square Online is a basic website builder, but it is easy to use. You won’t get the wealth of design choices that you get with Squarespace and you can’t start a blog, but you can create both informational and product pages to construct a basic website.
A free website = Square
Squarespace is only free for the two-week trial period (or up to six months if you work with a Squarespace Circle member like me).
Square is free if you’re willing to accept a shared subdomain name that ends in square.site, such as mybiz.square.site. I don’t recommend using a free subdomain for a business website, but if you absolutely need to get online and can’t afford the Square Plus plan, then Square wins for this priority.
Cost for a business website with its own domain = Squarespace
Squarespace Personal and Business plans with a custom domain are both less expensive than the Square Plus plan, which is needed to connect a custom domain. Note that you also need to pay for a custom domain after the first year with either company.
Cost for adding a mailing list = Depends
Take a look at the prices and features available for the different plans. Your decision will be based on how many subscribers you expect to have and how many emails you will generate per month.
Cost for adding scheduling = Depends
Take a look at the prices and features available for the different plans. Square is less expensive if you only need to schedule appointments with individuals. If you also need to schedule classes or group events, Squarespace and Square are roughly the same when you consider you are also paying for a hosting plan.
Transaction fees = Square
As an online seller, you must also consider the fees you’ll pay for each transaction. The payment processor charges fees to provide you with secure credit card transactions and store customer information.
If you use Square Online, you’ll pay Square’s transaction fees, such as 2.9% and 30 cents for each transaction that takes place on your website (as of July 2023).
With Squarespace, you must connect with Stripe to offer online purchases. Stripe’s transaction fees are 2.9% and 30 cents for each transaction as of July 2023. You can also add PayPal as an additional processor, which has its own similarly priced transaction fees. In addition, if you choose the lower-cost Business website hosting plan, Squarespace charges you 3% to offer you the inventory and customer management features that you get for free with the more expensive Commerce plans.
Support = Squarespace
I’ve found Squarespace Support more helpful and knowledgeable than Square Support and easier to reach. For live support, note that Squarespace uses only chat support and Square has both phone and chat support for paid plans.
Squarespace vs. Square at a glance
|
|
Squarespace |
Square |
|
Is a payment processor |
X |
✓ |
|
Website hosting |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Website builder |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Connect custom domain |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Cost with a custom domain |
$16/month for Personal plan or more |
$29/month for Plus plan or more |
|
Free with a subdomain |
✓ (trial period only) |
✓ |
|
Online sales (eCommerce) |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Built-in appointment scheduling |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Built-in mailing list |
✓ |
✓ |
(Prices as of July 2023)
Choose Squarespace, unless..
Squarespace is still my favorite DIY website platform, but I think choosing Square Online for your online store’s website may be useful for certain situations.
You already use Square in person
If you are already using Square as your payment processor for your store, it’s convenient to consolidate your business processes with one company if you are going to start selling online.
If you already have a website hosted somewhere else, you’ll need to re-create it on Square Online and connect your custom domain to the new site. The custom domain will require you to buy a Square Plus plan.
Take a look at the costs and features that you might need and reach out to Square Support if you have questions about which plan to purchase.
You can’t afford to pay for a website and need to sell online
If you are a new business who plans to use Square to sell services or digital or physical products, you might consider building a free site with Square Online. The biggest disadvantage to using a subdomain like mybiz.square.site instead of buying a custom domain like mybiz.com is that it’s harder to be found through online searches. It also looks a little less professional. If you choose this route, be prepared to pay for a Square Plus plan when your budget allows.
Links used in this article
Squarespace
Squarespace compared to other drag-and-drop website platforms
Squarespace Business or Commerce plans
Payment processors allowed with Squarespace
