The short version
Squarespace suits a business owner who wants a professional-looking site they can update themselves, with no server to look after, and who expects to stay on Squarespace. It suits less well anyone who needs specific third-party features, wants to own a portable copy of their site, or is running a store with complex rules.
Good
- Billed in Canadian dollars, from $21 a month on an annual plan (pricing).
- Hosting, the security certificate and platform updates are included. Nothing to patch.
- Built-in selling on every plan, with no Squarespace store fee from Core ($32/month) up.
- 14-day free trial with no credit card.
- 24/7 customer support on every plan, per its pricing page.
Watch out for
- No free plan, and Basic adds a 2% fee on store sales.
- Code injection and advanced code blocks need Core or higher.
- Export is partial: one blog, basic pages, text and images. Store, album, portfolio and index pages stay behind (help centre).
- You can't export one Squarespace site and import it into another, per the same help page.
- No plugin marketplace on the scale of WordPress's; you work within its blocks and extensions.
What it costs
Basic is $21 a month on an annual plan ($252 a year) or $30 month to month. Core, the plan most selling businesses end up on, is $32 or $45. Card processing through Squarespace Payments is 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic and Core. The full breakdown, including the break-even where Core becomes cheaper than Basic (about $6,600 a year in online sales), is on our Squarespace pricing page.
Design and editing
Squarespace's strength is that a non-designer can end up with a site that looks deliberate. Templates are coherent, the editor keeps layouts within sensible limits, and mobile versions are handled for you. The flip side is that the limits are real: if you want something the blocks don't do, your options are custom code (Core and up) or living without it.
Selling and bookings
Every plan can sell products and services, send invoices and take donations. Core and up remove Squarespace's store fee and add discounts, shipping labels, carrier-calculated shipping and Google Shopping listings. Digital content and memberships carry their own fee (7% on Basic down to 0% on Advanced). For a small shop or a service business taking deposits, it's enough. For a large catalogue or wholesale pricing, look at Shopify instead.
Leaving Squarespace
This is the part to understand before you start. Squarespace exports a WordPress-format XML file covering layout pages, one blog, text and images. Products export separately as a CSV, up to 10,000, without reviews or variant images (help centre). Your design, styles and custom CSS don't export. Moving means rebuilding; our guide to moving off Squarespace walks through it.
Who should pick Squarespace
- Pick it if you want to build and edit the site yourself, care how it looks, sell a modest range of products or services, and are happy to stay put.
- Skip it if you need a particular plugin or integration, want to own a portable site, need detailed bilingual (English/French) handling, or don't want to rebuild if you ever leave.
Still deciding? Compare it with Wix and WordPress, or see the Wix review and WordPress review.
Sources
Each checked October 22, 2026. Platforms change prices often; their own page is the final word.