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Both Wix and Squarespace have great ease of use (with Wix needing less clicks to build a functional site). But SS has some advantages like the ability to connect a third-party host.
See Weebly versus Wix if curious. Wix came up trumps, though we often recommend WordPress as the best website building tool, overall (without a doubt, WP is the most powerful of all 3).
Over a third of all websites use WP as the CMS tool. To name but three:
Sony- Microsoft
- Disney
SonyWhere Squarespace and Wix stand out is in offering great simplicity with exceptional power to front your online business idea in its full glory.
Want a website, but without knowing coding or technical stuff? Then, both are great brews.
Squarespace/Wix Vs. WordPress 
As both are so close, let’s look at what WP has over Wix and Squarespace. Mostly, it’s extreme customizability and functionality:
- High-level companies use WP
- Down to podcasts & blogs.
Using the massive theme Marketplace, you can grab SEO-optimized templates - which will shoot you higher in Google’s search rankings.
WordPress has a 60% market-share. Squarespace and Wix are much less. But, both are capable of reliably crafting beautiful designs, while keeping things real simple.
Take only a portion of the time to convert a typical WordPress theme properly. And get mobile optimizations, for SEO ranking and user satisfaction.
Table of Contents:
Wix vs. Squarespace Review
Squarespace beats most other options out there. Its UI looks pretty, just like its selection of templates. Overall, they offer a superb user experience. You’ll find lots of impressive features - with the latest version 7 update offering more:
- Cover Page Builder & G Suite
- Getty Images
However, Wix’s drag-and-drop system saves lots of clicks and time. It’s more intuitive. SS also has the inability to install third-party apps e.g. Yoast - which would be handy for quick effective SEO.
SS’ Version 7 has become a tad more efficient, with “point-and-click” interactions … but this doesn’t quite match the freedom of drag-and-drop 
. So, as you can see, the two companies are close in value-for-money.
Related Read: SITE123 Review
Wix vs. Squarespace: Pricing
Our Wix vs Squarespace review team ranks SS over Wix in some dimension, but definitely not in pricing, which SS has very recently increased.
Also, SS can integrate with a third-party hosting provider. If you want a boost in speed - or are currently on a hosting plan - this is top-flight. Meanwhile, Wix doesn’t let you use a third-party host:
Both let you migrate pre-existing domains to them. But, Wix doesn’t allow the reverse after 60 days
Squarespace Available Plans 📅
As we’ve said before, it’s annoying that Squarespace does not give you menu-searchable breakdowns for different tiers. Our Squarespace vs. Wix review team proudly presents a shortcut to having to go through the signing-up process before seeing the tiers.
No more headaches. Rather than making an account - without knowing what it costs - you can also see the score here. In each plan, we also highlight star features.
There are four tiers:
Personal 😏
- Free SSL Badge
- Free domain
- No-Bars Bandwidth
- Extensions Features
- Customer Support 365
- SEO Systems
- 2 Contributors
- Mobile-Ready Settings
£12.85/month or £9.64/month
Plan for Businesses 💼
- 0% Transaction Fees
- Unlimited Contributors
- MARKETING
- CSS/JavaScript
- Full COMMERCE
- Sell Unlimited Products
- Analytics
- Accept Donations
£20.89/month or £14.46/month
Basic eCom 📲
- Point of Sale
- Accounts for Customers Tool
- Cart/Checkout
- eCommerce Analytics
- Merchandising Tools
- Instagram Shopping Feature
£24.10/month or £20.89/month
Advanced Commerce 🏦
- Subscriptions Tool
- Automated “Abandoned Carts” Tool
- Gifting Cards
- API Tools
- Shipping* Discounting Tools
- Limited availability labels
£36.96/month or £32.14/month
Wix vs Squarespace Top Tip
Want simple website-making capabilities with increased speed - without increased budgets?
Go grab a top host - free, or for cheap - elsewhere. Or, design beautiful sites without coding - and electrify it via a great dedicated hosting plan. Brew something fantastic for your high traffic... Squarespace’s hosting options are more flexible - in this sense - for all levels of business.
Wix’s Available Plans
Wix uses a more convoluted system to arrange its plans, but at least the tiers are openly visible on the home page. Select between two groupings: A non-eCommerce website or a business/eCommerce one.
There is a free plan with very limited features, then there are the Non-eCommerce sites which have four tiers, while eCommerce sites have three. You may find that - for some tiers - there is negligible difference between the plans (especially Biz/eCommerce - but, also keep in mind ... the prices also have little variations, for those cases).
OK - for category 1.
Regular Website Plans
In each case, the next-up tier contains every feature from the one before, with expanded options:
Business & eCommerce 📲
For online shop we have only noted what has been added for that pricing level.
Business Basic 👔
- UNLIMITED Bandwidth
- 20GB Storage
- 5 Video Hours
- Google Analytics
- Site Booster App - £60 Value
- Visitor Analytics App - £60 Value
£13.66 /month
Business Unlimited 🏦
- Everything you get with Business Basic Plan, and:
- 35GB Storage
- 10 Video Hours
- Professional Logo - £50 Value
- Social Media Logo files
£20.09 /month
Business VIP 🧧
- Everything you get with Business Unlimited, and more:
- 50GB Storage
- Unlimited Video Hours
- Priority Response
- VIP Support
£28.12 /month
Wix vs Squarespace Top Tip⭐
Wix’s advertisements are … let’s say, a hassle - if you get the free plan. Best to avoid them. Grab the first paid tier, or higher. Additionally, performance-wise - other than for those on a crazy budget - the Free Plan isn’t so recommended by the Squarespace vs Wix team.
Keep in mind that you’ll have a 500 MB limit!
Wix vs. Squarespace: SEO
What exactly is SEO?
SEO is short-speak for search engine optimization. It interprets your site's utility - in the eyes of search engines. Users type in keywords and sites pop up according to that ranking.
End-and-be-all: It doesn’t matter how cute your site is, it needs relevancy in a search engine’s digital eyes.
Will you rank best with Wix or Squarespace?
WordPress has the best SEO capabilities - no surprise there. This might lead you to think it’s silly to use another website builder. Just get a great WordPress host, and you’re good, right?
As a rule of thumb.
You can get quality SEO if you use your website builder well. You just need to spend a bit of time getting basic know-how on proper integration of SEO into your content.
SS: Use Configuration Boxes
Squarespace is so stunning as it has great, neat organization. For every post/page, there are configuration boxes. Insert meta titles and descriptions, which are all crucial SEO elements.
You don’t need to know coding.
SS: Social media Integrations
Another beautiful setup - loved by the Squarespace vs Wix geek crew - that you can find on each page. Get this right, and you will give an impressive boost to your pages SEO. Search engines love to see diverse user engagements.
How Does WIX Fair?
While it's not the best-ever builder for mobile optimization, there are plenty of well-designed Wix templates that you can customize.
Is Wix Good Enough
Loads of Wix sites have no issue getting to the apex of high-traffic search results. We’ve already made it clear that WordPress has more greatly advanced features for SEO-climbing.
For common and competitive needs - for, say smaller business or blogs - Wix should be able to deliver the goods. The Squarespace vs Wix team LOVES that it can instantly link up to Google Analytics & Google Search Consoles. Do clinical SEO tests as you grow in the SEO search standings.
Don’t Deal With Fiddly SEO Plugins !
Another reason Wix is great for small businesses & blogger websites. Just be a tad careful - if you intend to become a juggernaut in the future - there are some limits.
Don’t Code!
Where drag-and-drop websites steal the show.
Wix uses intuitive SEO that eliminates the need to download plug-ins & widgets.
The Wix dashboard contains everything you need for optimizing your materials e.g. technical things like 301 redirects.
Squarespace vs Wix Review Top Tips
SS = Better than Wix in terms of Customizability
Squarespace sets itself apart from Wix, because it allows you to customize code more. For example - say you hire a professional coder or SEO expert - they can insert unique SEO solutions.
SS Has No Yoast/3rd-Party Apps
Contrastingly, SS does not allow you to install third-party plugins like Yoast, which are handy for quick-fire SEO.
Wix vs. Squarespace: eCommerce
WIX + SS: Custom Domains
Good idea for online businesses is to get a custom domain. Grab one from domain registrars online. Also, both platforms allow a customized Wix/Squarespace domain. If you would rather grab a free URL, then Wix/SS offer free subdomains.
A free URL subdomain looks like this: yoursitename.squarespace.com. Note: The best free website builders always include a free domain. Wix vs. SquareSpace ecommerce battle - round 1 - goes to Wix. What do you have SS…?
SQUARESPACE: Products on Instagram
Squarespace comes with fully-integrative tools for Instagram shopping.
Utilize attention on one of the most popular social media platforms. Tag any product you want - from your posts and stories. Once tagged, Instagram reveals this in the detail section. With it comes a “Shop Now” option that users can click.
This lets them directly purchase the products on your site, without requiring them to ever leave the Instagram platform/app. This is enormously powerful, to say the least.
IG remains one of the most popular social media apps in 2023 - so this is salivating stuff, for product marketing. .
WIX: 30 Video Minutes Free
Videos remain a hard-hitting, high-conversion method for grabbing attention.
Our team has said before that video content-marketing is so effective that 99% of marketers who implemented it in 2017, continued to do so in 2018.
In fact, about half of consumers search for videos - on products they are thinking about buying - before purchase.
Memory-retention is also greater for videos, rather than graphics or text. More about your product will be recalled. Wix’s Combo Plan offers 30 minutes of video for free, that you can insert into your site.
This grows to 1 hour in the tier up, then 2 - and so on.
Wix vs. Squarespace: Features
There’s a lot we could get into here. There’s little need to get into the micro, as both Wix and SS offer a good range of features.
Have a look at the Pricing section again, where you can see specific features. Overall, both platforms underperform compared to WordPress’ goliath diversity of themes - with its enormous range of capabilities.
Our Squarespace vs Wix review team think both may leave you with a somewhat generic look. Again: Smaller businesses and personal-blogger types should be happy with these two, pro-level website builders.
Tip: Have a look at pre-existing sites out there that use either platform, to generate some cool, off-the-wall design ideas.
Wix vs. Squarespace: Speed
Three seconds.
That’s all you need to lose a sale. Best avoided.
The name for this intensely real relationship involving conversions, traffic figures, and loading times - is the “bounce rate.” If you’ve read our other reviews, it’ll be no surprise to hear we take speed very seriously.
Today’s Squarespace vs Wix review is no different!
Optimal Speeds
Slow speeds is a common reason for small businesses losing conversions in the current world of extreme online competition.
For mega-companies - and tiny entrepreneurs alike - every sale counts, as they eventually add up! No one can afford to lose out on new and existing customers, some of whom took forever to get. It’s easy to avoid speed problems.
Just keep in mind that customers want websites to load in less than a second, these days! If the page-load times take longer, you’ll see your bounce rate climb by a staggering 32% … and this gets worse, once wait times go over 5 seconds.
Squarespace Underperforms Here
The Wix vs Squarespace team are aware that SS may not have the best page speeds.
Fortunately, you can pay for or get a free host - then connect it to your SS domain. Unlike Wix, SS lets you be domain-hosted with a third-party, such as Siteground or GoDaddy. Then again, it is slower.
Rely on SS as your CMS. No coding skills… And shore up performance, with a top web host.
Wix vs. Squarespace: Free
Only Wix has totally free options.
Another win for Wix.
Yes, it’s really totally free, if you choose to live within the limits of the free plan. If you grab the Free Plan, you can get a free subdomain and free website - as well as lots of free templates.
The limits you’ll need to live inside:
- 500MB storage
- No eCommerce/Google Analytics
- Non-premium Customer Support
- Wix ads on every page + & favicons in the URL
A longer URL is not optimal for most businesses.
There are also design restrictions - many, actually. Your “Elements” section will list very few tools (they’ll have a lightning bolt sign, showing that they are available for use for site-creation).
You also cannot insert videos into your site. Lastly, eCommerce elements - such as shopping carts - won't be for use.
Wix vs. Squarespace: For Designers
Surprisingly Equal
Squarespace is known for beauty, alongside some genericism in the look of the final product.
So, it was surprising to discover just how good Wix is - if you use it correctly.
Have a look at the Design section of our Wix review, for examples. Whether for blogging or product-marketing, both platforms are well-designed, with great templates:
Both are great for someone with with an eye for design - with none for coding and both allow live-editing of content - a BIG time-saver that removes the need to swap between preview mode and site manager modes.
Great No-Coding Creation Speeds
Again, no coding skills needed. In both cases, don’t even bother to find a web host.
A user can simply jump into either platform. Minutes later, you’ll be adjusting a fully-functioning site that looks lovely. Our Wix vs Squarespace review team initially thought SS templates would be the best-looking. Here is a typical example of what they can do.
Squarespace Example: Shhhowercap.com 
This lovely product is a fashionable way to wash without getting your hair in the mix, everyday. The Squarespace vs Wix squad are considering a few purchases.
Hop into the shower, with this cool beanie on... The website uses awesome high-quality product images - and … er, good-looking models. If interested, this site is based on the Pacific Family templates family.
Wix Example: MonicaPackPilates.com 
This cover page looks like something out of a magazine.
Overall, Wix probably leans towards more personalized-style sites. But, this fitness and exercise website is an example of great product-advertisement. You can’t see if from here, but there’s a parallax effect, used to show lots of information in a tight space.
Wix vs. Squarespace: Storage
500MB Limit For Free Wix Plan - Not a great deal to say here.
You can’t find a free plan with Squarespace. And paid plans tend to include unlimited storage. So, we’ll focus on Wix. If you grab that plan, you get 500MB tops. That’s about industry-standard for free plans, with some exceptions.
Wix vs. Squarespace FAQs
Is Wix or Squarespace Easier to Use?
Squarespace has improved in Version 7 but just doesn’t keep up with the speed and intuition of drag-and-drop website builder, Wix.
Both Weebly and Wix need less clicks, aka less time, and less wrist pain. It’s worth saying that SS still allows for simple end-products. Just, you’ll need to adjust to the higher learning-curve, initially. That said, there are lots of online tutorials on their website or YouTube.
If you’re a designer by trade, try both.
Is Squarespace That Much Harder?
Nope.
Don’t worry about being stuck in No-Man’s Land. You don’t need to be a designer, to use SS.
That’s the whole point. SS has used designer theory - to pre-populate their system with working templates. Slide things around… Squarespace is essentially a design-focused organization.
Find lovely color-scheme theories that designers use, and layouts. SS has designed things so that making something spectacular isn't difficult.
Is Wix Better Than Squarespace?
Yes - Just About
Our Wix vs Squarespace review is done, and our team ranks Wix over SS, for several reasons. First, there’s a better price-point, with a free option. You can also use drag-and-drop - which is miles faster for site creation. Wix wins in the Wix vs Squarespace pricing game.
How about advanced SEO tools?
This is one area that Squarespace may have the edge, as covered in our Squarespace review. SS lets you so advanced manipulations regarding base codes.
This Wix vs Squarespace review is more focused on simplicity. So, while you can hire an editor to address CSS, HTML & JavaScript, small businesses don’t necessarily need this.
Of all the drag-and-droppers, Wix is the biggest 
- with automated ease at every level. Wix sorts security updates, hosting, and gives many customizable design options. Finally, it’s faster right out of the gate...
Let us know your thoughts!
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