Wix vs. Squarespace

Wix and Squarespace are both popular website builders that boast easy website setup. Although both builders have some appealing features, there are differences between the two that should not be ignored.

An Overview

	WIX	SQUARESPACE
URL	http://www.Wix.com	http://www.Squarespace.com
LIVE WEBSITES	2.5 Million	4.5 Million
PRICING	$0-49 / month	$12 and up / month
EASE OF USE	Simple	Average
BLOGGING OPTIONS	Built into Wix	Integrated CMS
ADD-ON FEATURES	Plentiful	Available
SEO OPTIONS	Better	Good
EDITOR TYPE	Drag and drop	Drag and snap
TEMPLATE LIBRARY	Vast (500+) mobile-ready template collection.	Moderate (70) responsive template collection
Customization	More customizable	More structured
SEO TOOL INCLUDED	YES	YES
SUPPORTS VIDEO CONTENT	Embed or upload	Embed only
MOBILE APP WEBSITE MANAGEMENT	YES	YES
CUSTOMER SUPPORT OPTIONS	Knowledge Base Help Ticket System VIP Support	FAQ Section Help Ticket System E-mail Support Community Help Forum

Wix and Squarespace are both powerhouses when it comes to website builders. In fact, between the two companies, Wix and Squarespace are responsible for fifty-five percent of the total websites built using website builders.

Both website building solutions include the basic features you would expect

• A simplified draggable editor
• Templates
• Photo gallery features
• Video embedding
• Form embedding
• Map pages

There are quite a few differences between these website builders, too (we will cover these a little later.) These differences are why you will find one of these builders to be more appealing than the other – something that will be determined by your website building experience and your project requirements.

Overall Popularlity

There are currently approximately two and a half million live websites that use Wix – more than eighty percent of those are based in the United States (Source.)  

Squarespace has over four and a half million live websites but a much more diverse audience, with just three percent of their sites based in the United States (Source.)

Although the popularity of a website builder has little to do with its function, it does give you a good idea of which of the two platforms is preferred and by whom.

Cost

Wix offers three different types of plans: website plans that are for personal use, business and eCommerce plans that are for business use, and enterprise plans that are customizable for bigger businesses.

Wix also offers a limited free plan that includes advertisements.

Within the personal and business use plan types, there are tiered service levels (shown below.)

WIX
Website Plans
	Combo $14/month	Unlimited $18/month	Pro $23/month	VIP $39/month
Business and e-commerce
	Business Basic $23/month	Business Unlimited $27/month	Business VIP $49/month
Enterprise
	Custom packages starting at $500/month

Squarespace offers four plans: personal plans, business plans, basic commerce plans, and advanced commerce plans. They do not have tiers within each plan as Wix does, but they offer monthly plans and annual plans.

SQUARESPACE
Monthly Plans
	Personal $16/month	Business $26/month	Basic Commerce $30/month	Advanced Commerce $46/month
Annual Plans
	Personal $12/month	Business $18/month	Basic Commerce $26/month	Advanced Commerce $40/month

Determining the cost of comparable plans in Wix and Squarespace can be difficult due to the Wix pricing structure. To find comparable plans, look at those that offer similar features at a close price point.

Personal Plans

We have two comparable plans from the Wix and Squarespace personal website options and compared them side by side in the table below.

	WIX PERSONAL UNLIMITED	SQUARESPACE PERSONAL
COST	$23 / MONTH or $18 / MONTH WHEN PAID ANNUALLY	$16 / MONTH or $12 / MONTH WHEN PAID ANNUALLY
SSL SECURITY	YES	YES
STORAGE SPACE	10 GB	UNLIMITED
CUSTOM DOMAIN	YES	YES
FREE DOMAIN FOR A YEAR	YES	YES
AD-FREE	YES	YES
CONTRIBUTORS	1	2
SITE STATS APP	YES	YES
$300 AD VOUCHERS	YES	NO

Basic Business Plans

We have two comparable plans from the Wix and Squarespace basic business website options and compared them side by side in the table below.

	WIX BUSINESS BASIC	SQUARESPACE BUSINESS
COST	$28 / MONTH or $23 / MONTH WHEN PAID ANNUALLY	$26 / MONTH or $18 / MONTH WHEN PAID ANNUALLY
SECURE ONLINE PAYMENTS	YES	YES
PLANS AND RECURRING PAYMENTS	YES	NO
CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS	YES	NO
CUSTOM DOMAIN	YES	YES
FREE DOMAIN FOR A YEAR	YES	YES
AD-FREE	YES	YES
STORAGE SPACE	20GB	UNLIMITED
CONTRIBUTORS	1	UNLIMITED
CUSTOM REPORTS	YES	YES
AD VOUCHERS	$300	$100
UNLIMITED PRODUCTS	YES	YES
ABANDONED CART RECOVERY	YES	NO
SELL ON SOCIAL CHANNELS	YES	NO
ONLINE BOOKING PLATFORM	YES	THIRD-PARTY ADD-ON
TICKETS AND EVENT MANAGEMENT	YES	THIRD-PARTY ADD-ON
ONLINE ORDER TAKING	YES	THIRD-PARTY ADD-ON
HOTEL RESERVATION MANAGEMENT	YES	THIRD-PARTY ADD-ON
MONETIZE ART AND CONTENT	YES	THIRD-PARTY ADD-ON

The Editor

The most significant feature of any website builder is the editor that you use to create your website. Wix and Squarespace both have simplified editors, but Wix is a true drag and drop editor, where Squarespace is a structured drag and drop editor – or a drag and snap editor.

What does this mean?

Wix

When you build a website using Wix, you can drag and drop website elements anywhere on the page space to create a visually diverse site. This option is both freeing and limiting, depending on your experience with web design.

To place elements anywhere on the page requires an understanding of the general structure of a webpage. With no design experience, this free-floating editor can be overwhelming.

The free-floating editor also presents the challenge of using absolute positioning. In short, this means that once you have designed your website and locked in that design, you cannot change your theme.

Wix also limits storage space. This limitation can be a problem depending on the size of your business and your web presence.

Squarespace

When you build a website using Squarespace, you can drag and drop website elements like you can in Wix, but these elements are organized into blocks that slot into a page that is structured with columns and rows.

Having a column and row structure on the page can be limiting if you are an experienced designer looking for more creative freedom. If you have little experience with website design, though, you may find this structured system to be a little less overwhelming.

A benefit of using the structured editor is that you are not locked into your theme once you design your site – you can change your theme whenever you like.

The Templates

Wix

Wix has close to seven hundred templates that are divided by niche. Although seven hundred templates seem like a lot, many look similar, and others look quite unprofessional, so your options are pared down.

Wix also gives you the option of creating your template from a blank canvas. This option is good news if you have a custom design in mind.

Squarespace allows you to add custom CSS and HTML, but this functionality in Wix is a little more limited, sometimes making tweaking templates difficult.

We should also note here that while Wix templates are advertised as fully responsive, not all their themes are fully responsive across mobile devices, so you may need to do a little testing before finding a truly responsive theme option.

Despite limitations on responsiveness, Wix does bring something more to the table with their excellent editing options that may have more appeal to those of you with design experience.

Squarespace

Squarespace has only sixty templates, but they are better quality than the templates in Wix and look more professional. Moving elements on these templates can be difficult, though, because of the structured editor.

Although the structured editor makes moving elements challenging at times, it does mean that all Squarespace themes are responsive. That said, you cannot change how these responsive themes are laid out on mobile devices.

If you have a Squarespace business account and are familiar with CSS and HTML, you can add custom elements to templates to customize them for a more unique look. If you have a lower-level account, though, making edits can be frustrating and time-consuming.

E-commerce Solutions

Wix

Wix is compatible with e-commerce solutions if you are selling products and not services. In fact, if you are selling products, Wix is the better of the two services because their features include

• More payment gateways
• An automatic tax calculator
• The option to sell offline
• The option to add discount codes
• E-commerce compatible widgets
• The option to offer gift certificates
• Back in stock and low stock notifications
• Abandoned cart recovery
• The option to offer subscriptions
• Customer loyalty program
• USPS discounts
• Selling via social media
• Drop shipping
• Sell unlimited products
• Secure checkout page on your domain

With all the eCommerce features that it offers, Wix does have some limitations that make it less than ideal for larger corporations (this is namely that they lack the more advanced features that come with a dedicated e-commerce solution.)

Wix has three e-commerce solutions (plus their custom enterprise package) and they are priced between $23 and $49 per month.

Squarespace

Squarespace is compatible with e-commerce solutions whether you are selling goods or services, but they do not offer as many selling features as Wix. Features that are included are:

• The option to offer gift cards
• The option to add discount codes
• Unlimited bandwidth and storage
• E-commerce compatible widgets
• Limited availability labels
• Abandoned cart recovery
• The option to offer subscriptions
• Facebook and Instagram product integration
• E-commerce analytics
• Secure checkout page on your domain

Pricing for Squarespace e-commerce solutions is between $26 and $40 per month (the basic e-commerce and advanced e-commerce packages.

Expansions and Add-ons

Both Wix and Squarespace offer expansions and add-ons that can extend the functionality of your website – think apps and widgets.

Some of the features that can be added to Wix and Squarespace include

• Adding membership functionality
• Adding a forum
• Adding a live chat
• Allowing takeout orders
• Ticket sales and RSVP

Wix

Wix has many add-ons that are branded under the Wix name. Since these add-ons are designed specifically for the Wix system, they are easily integrated into your website.

Despite being self-branded, Wix add-ons often come at an additional fee – either a flat fee or a percentage of sales.

Compared to Squarespace, Wix add-ons are a little more time consuming to implement and use, but once in place, they work seamlessly.

Squarespace

Unlike Wix, Squarespace has just a few of their own branded add-ons and then depend on third-party apps to further extend the functionality of your website. There are plenty of third-party apps out there, so finding one is not a problem, but compatibility can be an issue.

Although Squarespace mostly uses third-party add-on’s, the available add-ons are much easier to implement and to use so long as they are compatible.

SEO Options

Wix and Squarespace both have SEO options built-in, but comparing the two, Wix comes out on top.

Wix

Wix’s website builder is SEO-friendly meaning that you can optimize your website as you build it and improve your chance of being listed in search engines.

Wix even has its own SEO Wiz tool that guides you as you work so that you get the best results from your content.

Among the fields that you can add using Wix are

• Website metatags
• Google analytics
• Page metatags
• Headings
• Image alt tags
• Tags
• Anchors

If you are interested in further optimizing your website content, Wix also has a few add-ons that will let you add extra features to your site that also boost your search engine presence. For example, by adding social networking tools and callback buttons.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s website builder is slightly less SEO-friendly than Wix, but still gives you some control over your SEO settings.

Using Squarespace, you can set your website and your page SEO options. When it comes to your post title SEO settings, though, the editor will select the title of your post and use that for your post SEO setting.

Squarespace’s auto-filled post SEO option for the post title is less than ideal because their system does not let you make edits to the post title SEO field. Aside from auto-setting your post title SEO fields, Squarespace offers is to turn on the “no-index” settings.

Squarespace can also be adapted for better SEO standing by using add-ons to implement additional features, but again, these are third party options that can come at an additional cost.

FAQs

Which is better Overall?

Choosing the “best” of these two website builders is a difficult task because the best option for you is going to depend on your needs. Let us take a look at the pros and cons of each.

WIX

PROS	CONS
Easy to use	Many similar or amateur templates
Many niche-themed templates	Storage space limitations
Blogging platform built-in	Add-ons can be frustrating to set up and implement
They offer a limited free plan	Add-ons often come at an additional cost
More advanced SEO options	Inability to change your template once selected
More built-in e-commerce features	Adding custom CSS is troublesome
More flexible website builder	Customized reports are only available with advanced business packages
No coding knowledge needed	Not all Wix templates are fully responsive
Includes integrated forms and newsletter function	Automated sales tax is limited by transactions
Includes more marketing features than Squarespace	Basic business plans do not allow for subscriptions

Squarespace

PROS	CONS
Allows you to sell services	Slightly more difficult to use
A structured editor is easier for new users to use	Does not support video upload
Unlimited storage	A structured editor can be limiting
A more stable editor overall	Depends on third-party add-ons for many features
More smoothly running	Abandoned cart recovery is not available with lower-level packages
A lot of third-party add-on options	Advanced website analytics are not available for lower-level packages
Includes integrated forms and newsletter function	Only top tier packages offer the ability to checkout on your own domain
Custom CSS and HTML can be added to any template on business plans	Custom CSS or HTML cannot be added to personal plan templates