Squarespace website builder review
Our Verdict
Squarespace's beautiful template designs are the best you'll find in the website architect world, and its congenital-in analytics tools are great, merely the editor is somewhat restrictive.
For
- Gorgeous website designs
- Sites work well on mobile devices
- Splendid ecommerce features
- Keen marketing tools
Against
- Restrictive editor
- No complimentary-forever program
- Relatively expensive
- No phone support
Tom'due south Guide Verdict
Squarespace's beautiful template designs are the best you'll discover in the website builder globe, and its built-in analytics tools are great, but the editor is somewhat restrictive.
Pros
- +
Gorgeous website designs
- +
Sites work well on mobile devices
- +
First-class ecommerce features
- +
Smashing marketing tools
- +
Cons
- -
Restrictive editor
- -
No free-forever program
- -
Relatively expensive
- -
No phone back up
Creating a website has continually gotten easier equally new tools simplify the procedure. Squarespace is a website builder that aims to bring website design to the masses, via cute templates matched with potent ecommerce integration, all without you lot having to write a lick of code.
In our comprehensive Squarespace review, we look at what the platform gets right and where it could meliorate, helping you lot decide whether it's pinnacle of the best website builders for your needs, and whether information technology ranks among the best ecommerce website builders and the best small-scale business organization website builders.
Squarespace: Plans and pricing
Squarespace has a relatively simple pricing construction compared to other site builders similar Wix: the price is the aforementioned no matter where you are in the earth, and there are just iv plans to choose from.
Squarespace also gains points for offering a monthly payment plan, while most website builders lock you into an annual plan. You lot can salve 25 to 30% if you opt for an annual payment plan, though.
On the downside, there'southward no gratuitous-forever programme such as competitors Wix and Weebly offer. Instead, you get a gratis 14-day trial where y'all can endeavour out the features, just without the ability to put your site alive. You also have the choice to abolish whatsoever annual subscription inside the first 14 days.
The cheapest plan, Personal, costs $16 a month when paid monthly or $12 a calendar month when paid annually. This includes unlimited bandwidth and storage, a gratis domain proper name for a year, basic website metrics, and SSL (secure sockets layer) support.
There'south no ecommerce functionality on the Personal plan though, then if yous want to sell online through Squarespace, you'll at to the lowest degree need the Business concern plan, which costs $26 a month when paid monthly or $18 a month when paid annually. You get advanced website analytics, promotional popular-ups and banners, and the ability to sell an unlimited number of products through your online store.
Annotation that on this plan you lot volition pay iii% per transaction on all sales on top of any credit card payment processing fees. To remove this fee, you can upgrade to the Basic Commerce plan, at $35 a month when paid monthly or $26 a month when paid annually. You tin now also offer customer accounts on your website, perform analytics on your sales funnel, and sell products on Instagram.
The last plan, Avant-garde Commerce, costs $54 a calendar month when paid monthly or $40 a month when paid annually. You get all the features from the other plans, plus abased cart recovery, advanced aircraft and discounts, and the ability to sell subscriptions.
Overall, Squarespace's pricing is quite high compared to that of other website builders similar Wix and Weebly. The option to cull between a cheap program with a iii% transaction fee or a more than expensive programme with no transaction fee is interesting, simply it'southward probably included to brand Squarespace wait more competitively priced. Whatever business expecting a moderate volume of sales would cull the program with no fee.
Edifice a website with Squarespace
Your experience with Squarespace starts with a magician that asks yous the blazon of business yous're in, and what you hope to attain from your website. Y'all're even asked how far along you are in the process, from "collecting inspiration" to moving an existing website to Squarespace. This is used to create a basic framework of site features to first from.
Cute template designs
Squarespace offers a choice of around 120 designs (themes). This is a much more limited choice than offered by competitor Wix, which has closer to 1,000, but the quality of Squarespace's themes can't exist disputed.
Squarespace designs are typically minimalist or photo-heavy. Earlier you choose one of the designs that feature images prominently, remember that you'll need high-quality images of your own. Replacing the cute stock imagery of the Squarespace templates with sub-par images will quickly diminish your site'south wow factor.
All of Squarespace'due south designs look great on mobile devices, too. Squarespace'southward responsive pattern tool keeps you from making desperate changes to your site's design that would go far work poorly on phones and tablets.
Since version seven.1 of Squarespace, you tin can't easily switch templates after y'all've built your website similar yous tin can on HostGator'southward Gator Builder or WordPress. Granted, most of the fourth dimension y'all merely want to modify the website template completely when beginning choosing the overall wait of a site, but nosotros still hope this feature can be brought back in the futurity.
The Squarespace website editor
Like everything else near Squarespace, the website editor is slick and elegant. Browse through your website as usual until yous discover a page you want to alter, and hit the "Edit" push. This brings upwardly a total-folio editor, and using this, y'all can click on whatsoever element on the folio to edit it.
Each element has a different context carte. For example, clicking on a text box volition offering you the pick to modify text styles, whereas clicking on the site header gets you a carte du jour where you tin can add a site logo, or cull whether social media sharing buttons appear. This contextual menu system keeps the interface minimalist and uncluttered at all times, as you never see options that don't use to what you're doing right at present.
A carte du jour on the left offers the option to add pages to your site. You tin first with a blank page, or choose a prefab designer-created page layout. At that place are also special pages y'all can add, such as a web log, store, portfolio, or events page. These look not bad, and always fit the overall theme of your site perfectly.
Website design on rail
At some betoken, you'll desire to make changes to your site that break out of the template'due south mold. You tin add sections to any part of the template filigree by clicking on a '+' sign. Here you're offered a long listing of prefab sections from images, videos, and text to contact forms, calendars, and FAQs.
Building a website from these prefabricated structures is a double-edged sword. It makes sure your site remains consistent throughout, with a unified design. Only if yous demand to do something out of the ordinary, you may find yourself fighting the Squarespace editor to do it.
For example, perhaps you want to modify the colour of one discussion on a page. Squarespace makes this difficult, equally you're restricted to a palette of just half-dozen colors across your website. Similarly, you tin't just drag-and-drib elements to a location of your choosing. Instead, you must place elements inside the Squarespace template grid.
Ecommerce and marketing features
Squarespace has support for selling physical goods, digital downloads, and services. Apart from the usual ecommerce features, it supports monthly and almanac subscriptions, gift cards, and customer account pages, though some of these features crave the well-nigh expensive plan.
An interesting addition in the US is signal of sale back up, enabling yous to sell products through the Foursquare app on your phone or tablet device.
You take two options for payment processing—Stripe and PayPal. With Stripe, you can have Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and Apple Pay. Customers can also pay for products in installments with zippo percentage interest using Afterpay, a service from Stripe.
Email marketing is an extra paid feature on Squarespace. A Starter plan costs $5 a month, and allows for upward to three email campaigns a calendar month and 500 emails. At that place are three more plans to choose from, all the style up to the $48 a calendar month Max program, which allows for unlimited campaigns per calendar month and upwardly to 250,000 emails.
Squarespace also integrates well with Facebook and Instagram. You lot can sync your Squarespace pages with your Facebook page and tag Instagram posts automatically, directing users to your store pages.
Website analytics
Every Squarespace account gets access to an analytics section, where you can view detailed information on traffic, folio views, search keywords used, and user action. In that location's splendid integration with Google, with a keywords tool that shows you where your site ranks for important key phrases and the click-through rates you're getting.
For ecommerce sites, you go breakdowns on sales past product, and how far users make it through your sales funnel, making it easier to recognize which pages on your site require comeback.
Customer back up
Customer support at Squarespace is good but not great. In that location are a range of user guides, videos, webinars, and FAQs for using the service, in addition to a decorated Squarespace community forum.
You get 24/7 electronic mail support and live chat text support Monday to Friday during business hours, but there's no phone support. This is in contrast to Squarespace'due south directly competitor, Wix, which provides phone support for all users, even those on free accounts.
We found that getting replies to tickets could take some time—around six hours on average in our testing. Live chat fared better when information technology was available, with prompt, useful answers from knowledgeable customer service agents.
Alternatives to Squarespace
Our website builder comparisons
Squarespace has a lot of competitors. 1 of our favorites is Wix, which offers a more than versatile website editor. Where Squarespace locks you lot into a certain expect and feel, Wix gives you the freedom to build your website the way you lot desire.
If you're planning on edifice an online shop, another all-in-one website builder we like is Shopify. It offers the same simplicity every bit Squarespace, but its ecommerce features are more refined, with support for multi-currency selling and automated taxation calculations, a cheaper abandoned cart saver, and ameliorate search engine optimization features.
Squarespace: Final verdict
Squarespace is a cracking mode for both individuals and SMEs to create their websites. Its designs are modern, functional, and highly attractive.
However, if yous want your website to intermission out of the Squarespace mold and practice something different, you accept a struggle on your easily. Squarespace's tools always endeavour to keep yous "on rails" then that your site remains cohesive and follows the all-time design practices, but this tin can frustrate at times.
However, for many users, the restrictions Squarespace places on blueprint choices ultimately help them create better website designs and avoid common pitfalls.
Squarespace excels as an all-in-one solution for websites, with its unlimited bandwidth and webspace, plus its analytics, ecommerce, and marketing tools all made available through a single administration panel. If you like the look of Squarespace designs and don't meet a demand to deviate much from them, information technology could be the all-time selection for your website.
Farther reading on website builders and web hosting
For more than on Squarespace, make certain to read our stride-by-step guide on how to build a website with Squarespace. Also make sure to cheque out our buying guides outlining the best ecommerce website builders and the best small business website builders. Finally, if you've got advanced spider web experience or want to use WordPress, make sure you look into the all-time web hosting services.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/squarespace-review
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