Wix vs Squarespace for a Canadian small business (2026)

The quick answer

• Pick Squarespace if you want a polished site with less fiddling, plan to sell products, and like predictable pricing.
• Pick Wix if you want to place things freely on the page, need bookings built in, or want to try it free before paying.
• Pick neither if you want to own a portable site or need specific plugins. Look at WordPress instead.

Price: closer than it looks

The cheapest paid plans cost the same: $21 a month, paid yearly, on both. The difference is what you get for it. Squarespace Basic can sell (with a 2% store fee); Wix Light can't take payments at all. For a selling business the real comparison is Squarespace Core ($32/month annual) against Wix Core ($33/month regular). Both charge 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment in Canada.

Watch Wix's renewals. Its headline prices are often first-term sales (50% off Core and up when we checked), and the regular price applies from the second term. Squarespace showed no first-term discount; its saving is for paying annually instead of monthly. Full numbers: Wix pricing and Squarespace pricing.

Design: freedom vs guardrails

Wix lets you drag elements almost anywhere, which is great until the mobile version needs separate fixing. Squarespace keeps you inside a grid that tends to look good on every screen. The bigger difference shows up later: Wix can't switch the template of an existing site, so a redesign means a new site. Squarespace's current version (7.1) has no template switching either, but every 7.1 site shares one structure, so you can restyle it completely with site styles.

Bookings, stores and payments

For appointment-based businesses (clinics, trades taking site visits, studios), Wix includes scheduling and services from Core. Squarespace's plans focus on selling products, services, invoices and memberships, with store features like discounts, shipping labels and Google Shopping from Core. If bookings are the heart of the site, Wix has the edge; if a product catalogue is, Squarespace does.

Getting out

Neither is easy to leave. Squarespace exports a WordPress-format file with basic pages, one blog, text and images; store pages and design stay behind (help centre). A Wix site can't be exported at all; contacts and products come out as CSV files. Squarespace is a little easier to leave, but plan on a rebuild either way: see moving off Wix and moving off Squarespace.

Our take

For most small Canadian service businesses that will build their own site, Squarespace is the safer default: steadier pricing, a site that looks right on phones without extra work, and a slightly easier exit. Choose Wix when bookings or design freedom matter more than those. Read the full Wix review and Squarespace review before you commit.