Wix vs Squarespace
(Head-to-Head Comparison)

I think you will agree when I say:

Building a website as a beginner is painstakingly hard!

Where do you even start? Do you need coding knowledge? Do you know how to set up web hosting, SSL certificates or installing a CMS? What are the costs? How long will it take?

These are probably some of the hard questions keeping you away from your dream website.

The good news is there is a solution.

Building the perfect website for your business is incredibly easy with website builders such as Wix and Squarespace.

To the uninitiated, a website builder is a tool (program, software, etc.) that helps you to create websites visually without writing code or having to download/install anything.

In this Wix vs Squarespace comparison post, I pit two of the best website builders against each other.

But before we jump into the Wix vs Squarespace comparison, first some facts:

According to BuiltWith, Wix is the most popular website builder, controlling 38% of the market share.

Squarespace is the second most popular, powering 19% of websites that use a simple website builder. Together, Wix and Squarespace control 57% of the market share.

Whether you find data from BuiltWith, Statista.com or any other site, Wix always comes out at the top, followed by Squarespace with Weebly and others bringing up the rear.

Still, interest in website builders has grown steadily since 2004, according to Google Trends, as seen in the nice graph below.

It's clear website builders are going nowhere. In fact, they are becoming the mainstay of beginners and experienced users alike. But I digress.

My aim is to help you choose the perfect website builder for your website. Whether you choose Wix or Squarespace, that's entirely up to you.

Without further ado, let us start since there is a lot to cover.

What are Wix and Squarespace?

Wix and Squarespace are the two most popular website builders out there. Both tools help you to create a website without coding knowledge.

How?

They ship with drag-and-drop visual page builders that make building a website as easy as A, B, C.

Additionally, website builders remove the technical aspects of website creation. 

In other words, a website builder offers you a beginner-friendly way to build efficient websites, without worrying about the hard tech stuff.

If you choose to use WordPress, for instance, you must set up web hosting, install the CMS, SSL certificates and take care of many administrative tasks.

All these tasks are challenging, especially if you're not tech-savvy. The guys at Wix and Squarespace take care of the tech stuff, so you can focus on what matters; building your business.

For a paid plan, you get a website builder, web hosting, SSL certificates, domains, support and so on in one package. As such, website builders are the perfect tools to deploy websites quickly.

And they are versatile, too, since you can build simple blogs, stores, and many other websites quickly.

Now that we know what we're working with, let us move on to the next part.

In the upcoming sections, I compare Squarespace vs Wix in terms of ease of use, design options, marketing, ecommerce, 3rd-party integrations, blogging capabilities, and pricing.

Ease of Use

It goes without saying that the website builder you ultimately choose must be easy to use. There is a learning curve, sure, but both Wix and Squarespace are incredibly easy to use you'll be up and running in no time.

For starters, signing up for either service is easy. All you have to do is create an account and start building your website. They are both pretty much straightforward from the word go.

To help you build a website without breaking a sweat, Wix and Squarespace come with intuitive drag-and-drop visual page builders. Yes, complete with the Undo button in case you mess up.

Your workflow is all a matter of picking, dragging and dropping elements into place and you have a website. It can't get easier than that.

There is a big difference between the two, though. The page editors!

Let's start with the Wix Editor.

Wix Page Editor

Wix is more of a blank canvas, meaning you can drag and drop elements anywhere you want. You have full design freedom to build the website of your dreams.

The only limit with Wix is your imagination. Such creative freedom makes Wix perfect for creative designers who can easily tell when they've made an error.

At the same time, it can be overwhelming for the perfect greenhorn who has never built a website before.

To solve the problem, Wix made Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), a fabulous tool that makes major design decisions for you.

Just answer a couple of questions, and Wix ADI will create a website that you can then fill with your content.

Squarespace Page Editor

Squarespace, on the other hand, won't let you place elements anywhere you want. You work with predesigned layouts that won't let you drag and drop elements anywhere you fancy. In other words, there is a fixed region for every element.

Such an approach keeps the designs and layouts in control since you don't have the freedom to commit all manner of atrocious errors. You have a pre-made layout that you can fill with your content, without messing up the overall design.

For this very reason, Squarespace is perfect for a beginner who wants a professional-looking website without the hassle of fixing errors such as aligning margins and so on.

Just customize a template with your content, and you're good to go. This also means Squarespace offers you a great way of designing your website quickly.

Winner is:

Squarespace

I recommend going with Squarespace for ease of use. Don't get me wrong though, both are very easy to use, but Squarespace is intuitive and stays out of your way.

Wix, on the other hand, comes with a million and one features, which is perfect for creative designers, but not necessarily welcome for newbies.

Squarespace will have none of the clutter; just edit the template and you're good to go. The Wix page builder offers you more design flexibility, but that doesn't mean it's easier to use for a beginner.

Design, Layout & Templates

You obviously don't want your website to look like every other website out there. You want to stand out, and you want it now.

I love variety, and so do you, which means  – for this section – we are picking the website builder that offers more design and layout options.

Both Wix and Squarespace offer you an extensive list of design and layout options. In other words, you are never short of the options you need to build a remarkable website.

Wix offers you over 500 ready-made and highly-customizable templates that are perfect for any business. Sadly, not all templates are mobile-friendly or responsive.

However, Wix offers you a separate editor to create a mobile version of your website. I don't know about you, but that's a dealbreaker for yours truly.

Other than that, once you pick a template in Wix, you're stuck with it. If you change the template, you will have to build your site from scratch. What a bummer.

Still, Wix offers you a ton of different design and layout options. They offer you multiple text options, vector art, galleries, menus, images, buttons, grids, lists, social media and so much more. There is essentially an option for anything you'd need.

You can add each element to your website easily and customize it extensively in the Wix Editor. Since Wix features a free-form editor, you can place each element anywhere you want.

Squarespace, on the other hand, handles design differently. The website builder offers you over 60 templates and a wide range of elements known as Content Blocks.

All templates are fully responsive from the get-go, meaning you don't need to make tweaks on your own later on. On top of that, the content blocks are thoughtful and full-featured, allowing you to build your website block by block.

Each content block offers you tons of options for colors, font styling, layout and more. You can easily modify each content block to create an entirely new design.

Whereas Wix allows you to take a template and completely customize it, Squarespace allows you to make deep modular changes on a per-element basis.

In other words, Wix is flexible enough, which allows you to create a new theme from scratch, something you can't do with Squarespace.

At the same time, Squarespace allows you to customize your website in a matter of clicks thanks to its framework-style approach to web design.

Winner is:

Squarespace

Squarespace is the unmistakable winner when it comes to design and layout options. Wix might have more templates but in a classic case of quality over quantity, Squarespace takes the trophy home.

Wix offers you a lot of design flexibility to customize any template until you drop. However, you will have to build your website from scratch if you change your template.

Squarespace doesn't offer you much drag-and-drop functionality, but you can easily change templates without rebuilding your website from the ground up. The templates are fully responsive right off the bat, which is an added plus.

3rd Party Apps & Add-Ons

A great website is more than just great aesthetics. You need all the tools you can find to run a successful website. Most website builders offer you a lot of basic functionality by default.

When you've exhausted basic and need more power, you turn to 3rd-party apps.

Now, I won't lie; Wix has a larger app marketplace than Squarespace. Like 17 times larger.

You get all manner of free and premium apps to extend your Wix website in many ways. For instance, you can easily add Facebook Chat, grow traffic, create events, collect emails and so much more.

That's right, the Wix app marketplace offers you over 235 apps.

On the other hand, the Squarespace marketplace offers you, well, a dozen extensions at the time of writing.

You have a couple of apps for shipping, taxes, print-on-demand, inventory management, and order tracking among other things.

If you need more Squarespace add-ons, a quick search on Google should suffice. Always go for apps from reputable developers.

Squarespace, however, has some great builtin options that make up for the lack of 3rd-party apps. For instance, Squarespace comes with builtin Instagram galleries, which requires an app in Wix.

Other built-in integrations include audio/video embeds, maps, Google AMP, Disqus Comments, and Google Fonts among others.

Winner is:

Wix

Wix outdoes Squarespace in the add-ons department, what with a huge list of apps. All the same, the 3rd-party add-ons and apps you end up using depend entirely on your needs and preferences.

Wix offers you more apps than Squarespace, but the latter features builtin integrations that almost make up for the lack of 3rd-party apps.

SEO & Marketing

Website owners and marketers spend a lot of time and money generating relevant traffic because it is the lifeblood of any website. Without traffic, your website is as good as dead.

That being said, what do Wix and Squarespace offer in terms of SEO and marketing? Well, both website builders offer you all the basic marketing tools you need.

Whether you choose Wix or Squarespace, you get email marketing, Google Ads, Google Analytics, MailChimp integration, logo maker, Facebook ads, and social sharing out of the box.

Additionally, you have a lot of 3rd-party marketing apps at your disposal. For instance, each website builder allows you to integrate with email marketing providers such as MailChimp among others.

On top of that, each platform offers you adequate SEO options to optimize your website for search engines. You can add meta descriptions, SEO titles, and so on.

In terms of SEO and marketing, you have enough options to keep you busy. Both website builders are SEO-friendly, allowing you to drive more organic traffic to your website.

Winner is:

Tied

Considering the success of your SEO and marketing campaigns is directly proportional to the work you put in, it is hard to decide a winner. Besides, both Wix and Squarespace offer you all the tools you need to launch successful marketing campaigns.

If we go with the sheer number of marketing apps available in each tool, Wix carries the day. Squarespace has nothing on Wix in terms of quantity. Nonetheless, marketing isn't all about the tools you have, but how you use the tools available to you.

Don't you agree?

Ecommerce Features

If you're wondering whether you can sell on either Wix or Squarespace, you'll love this section. Right out of the box, each website builder offers you plenty of ecommerce features.

Whether you go with Wix or Squarespace, you have all the options to build all manner of web stores – small and big.

Both offer you robust ecommerce options such as multiple payment gateways, automatic taxes, mailing lists, sell digital & physical products, shipping, inventory management, and subscriptions among others.

On top of that, you have many 3rd-party apps to extend your online store in unique ways. For instance, you can sell on social media and recover abandoned carts like a boss.

Setting up your online store using Wix or Squarespace is the stuff of fourth-graders. You don't need coding skills at all. Pick a layout, customize your styles and import your products.
Note, however, you must have a business plan to sell with Wix and Squarespace.

Winner is:

Tied

In terms of ecommerce features, we have a tie. Both website builders offer you all the features you need to run an ecommerce website like a pro. You have all the options to offer a streamlined shopping experience from ordering to shipping and beyond.

Blogging Capabilities

I love blogging, so I'm constantly on the hunt for tools that make it easy to publish and manage content. If a tool makes it harder to run a blog, I'm not touching it with a 10-foot pole.

For content creators, you'll love the fact that Wix and Squarespace ship with brilliant blogging capabilities.

Creating posts in Wix and Squarespace is straightforward I don't expect you to run into any problems. Both website builders feature intuitive post editors that come with typical options.

You can easily save drafts, schedule posts, add categories, assign multiple authors, insert images and generally spruce up your posts.

Both tools help you to create and edit your posts while having a good look at how the post appears to readers. If you have something to say, Wix and Squarespace ensure your voice is heard.

Winner is:

Squarespace

Squarespace offers you better blogging capabilities compared to Wix. While both feature great blogging systems, Squarespace offers you more advanced features than Wix.

On top of that, Squarespace's blogging features are builtin, but Wix blog depends on an app for the really powerful blog features.

Plans & Pricing

With the whole gamut of features, you're probably wondering how much it will cost to build a website using either Wix or Squarespace. Each tool offers you different pricing packages for different budgets and needs.

For starters, Wix offers you a free plan that allows you to test the waters. Squarespace, on the other hand, has a free trial that expires in two weeks.

To sell on your website, however, you will need a premium plan whether you go with Wix or Squarespace.

Wix offers you four personal plans perfect for portfolios and other simple websites.

The Unlimited plan, which costs 12.50 bucks a month is the most perfect package for freelancers and entrepreneurs. You can get through the door for just $4.50 per month, but you get basic features and Wix ads to show for your efforts.

If you need more power for a fully-fledged ecommerce site, Wix offers you three business plans.

The plan you choose here depends entirely on your budget and needs. I always recommend choosing a plan that's suitable for your business needs.

If you have a hard time choosing, however, you can spring for Business Unlimited, the most popular plan of the three, for just $25/month.

Squarespace, on the other hand, offers you four pricing plans, as shown below.

You have the $16/month Personal plan that's suitable for simple websites. To run an ecommerce store and accept payments, you need one of the other three plans.

You can choose the Business plan that will set you back $26 per month, Basic Commerce plan at $30/month, or the Advanced Commerce, which costs $46/month. Again, go for a plan that meets your budget and business needs.

Best value for money is:

Squarespace

Squarespace wins thanks to a simpler pricing structure perfect for any budget. Wix, on the other hand, offers you up to seven pricing plans, which is complicated, especially since Wix users need to upgrade more frequently than Squarespace.

Pros & Cons

I've covered nearly everything in our Wix vs Squarespace comparison post. Now, let us cover the pros and cons of each platform, so you can finally decide which one to create a website with.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Wix and Squarespace?

Wix and Squarespace are cloud-based website building tools that are aimed at people who want to create a website visually using drag-and-drop without writing code.

Which is better, Wix or Squarespace?

Squarespace is better than Wix, but you won't be disappointed with either one because both are excellent website builders. The biggest difference is the editor, and if you prefer a structured (limited) or unstructured (blank canvas) drag-and-drop editor.

Do Wix and Squarespace come with a free plan?

Wix offers a free plan but it comes with limitations and advertising. Wix’s paid plans start at just $13 per month. Squarespace doesn't offer a free plan, only a two-week free trial. Squarespace’s plans start at just $12 per month.

Wix vs Squarespace: Summary

I recommend Squarespace over Wix but you can't go wrong with either website builder. Both site builders come with a bit of a learning curve and ultimately the difference between the two is about personal preference of which editor you feel most comfortable using.

Wix comes with loads of customization options and a high degree of control, almost to the point where you could even design your very own theme from scratch.

Squarespace, on the other hand, is much more of a degree of control (and less choice). They offer curated and well-designed defaults that you can confidently use without making any changes.

Free trials are available for both Wix and Squarespace. Try Wix for free and try Squarespace for free.