Wix and Squarespace are two of the top website-building tools to get your content and products in front of an audience. But which one is better?
It’s 2024, and whether you have a business or are trying to grow your brand, the first step is to have a stunning website. In 2023, it was reported that 71%t of businesses had a website — so if you have yet to build one, you’re missing out on many new business opportunities. The problem is that many people don’t know how to build a website or don’t have the funds to pay a web developer. Fortunately, there are some great solutions.
Wix and Squarespace are two of the most popular tools for building websites to help you grow your business. They’re both simple to use, but which is better when comparing Wix vs. Squarespace?
We have a full comparison of Wix and Squarespace that covers pricing, functionality, and ease of use. We also discuss how well they integrate blogging features and e-commerce content if you have products or services. With this information, you’ll better understand which website-building service is right for you.
Wix vs. Squarespace: A Quick Look
When choosing whether to use Wix or Squarespace, the good news is that both are daily friendly for beginners. This means that even if you’ve never built a website, both have hundreds of pre-designed templates that can help get your website off the ground.
Depending on your needs, they both offer additional SEO tools, add-ons, and the ability to add more users with a range of pricing plans.
Wix | Squarespace | |
---|---|---|
Price range: | $16 – $159 per month | $23 – $65 per month |
Templates: | Over 800 templates | Over 160 templates |
SEO tools: | Customizable URLs and meta descriptions. Google Analytics with upgraded plans. | Google Search Console and meta descriptions. Customizable URLs with some upgraded plans. |
Add-ons: | 300 apps | 40 extensions |
E-commerce: | Digital and physical products as well as services | Digital and physical products as well as service |
Storage: | 2GB to unlimited storage | Unlimited storage |
Wix vs. Squarespace Pricing
Wix and Squarespace offer multiple pricing tiers that will scale with your personal needs. Wix has more of a variety when it comes to pricing plans, and it also has a cheaper bottom-tier option. With Squarespace pricing, you can also choose to pay annually, which saves you anywhere from 24%-30% compared to the monthly billing price.
Wix plans start at $16 per month and go up to $159 per month. As you go higher in tiers with Wix, you can add more collaborators, with 15 being the max at their highest tier. Although Wix doesn’t have an annual option with a discount like Squarespace, it’s helpful to note that they charge for a full year upfront.
One advantage Wix has over Squarespace is that it also offers a free plan. The free plane is pretty bare bones, but it’s enough to get you started.
Wix
Plan | Key Features: |
---|---|
Light: $16/mo | 2 collaborators and 2GB storage. |
Core: $27/mo | 50GB storage and site analytics. |
Business: $32/mo | 100GB storage and standard e-commerce. |
Business Elite: $159/mo | Unlimited storage, 15 collaborators, and advanced marketing suite. |
Squarespace
Plan | Key Features: |
---|---|
Personal: $23/mo | Unlimited storage and basic marketing tools. |
Business: $33/mo | Additional marketing tools and e-commerce capabilities. |
Commerce Basic: $36/mo | Merchandising and 0% transaction fees. |
Commerce Advanced: $65/mo | Advanced shipping, discounting, and ability to sell subscriptions. |
Wix vs. Squarespace Features
Depending on the person, the needs of the website builder can be different. Knowing the difference between the features of Wix and Squarespace can help you decide. It’s helpful to remember how much experience you have with website building and how tech-savvy you are, even though both are fairly simple to use.
Wix and Squarespace both offer customer support, but there are some differences. Both builders offer live chat and social media, but Squarespace isn’t available via phone, and Wix doesn’t have a customer support option for email. You may want to consider this, depending on your preferred communication channel.
Ease of Use
If you’re busy or unfamiliar with building websites, how easy it is to use these platforms may be a top priority. Both Wix and Squarespace have made it fairly simple for people to hop in and intuitively understand how to lay out their websites.
Wix
Wix provides a variety of categories for you to choose from. Whether you’re in the business of health and wellness, real estate, or are a restaurant owner, Wix has pre-made templates to choose from. They also have a wide range of additional design features that you can tweak to make the site unique.
Squarespace
Similar to Wix, Squarespace also provides a range of categories and templates. What separates Squarespace in this category is that they help lead you toward templates that best fit your individual needs and goals. They do this by having you fill out a questionnaire before you build a website, then provide you with a curated list.
Design Styles
When deciding which is better, Wix or Squarespace, knowing whether you want a more structured or unstructured experience is helpful.
Wix
Wix gives you more freedom with its unstructured approach, which means more options for content design. With Wix, once you choose a layout, their drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to customize the site to your liking. Then, using their additional design features, you can easily tweak colors and move things around.
Squarespace
Squarespace may be a little easier to use, but they have a much more structured setup. Once you pick out a template, while you can customize it slightly, it doesn’t have as many options as Wix.
SEO Tools
Once your website is up and running, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be top of mind. Utilizing different SEO tips and strategies helps your website reach the front page of Google, which can generate more traffic and, hopefully, more sales.
Wix
Wix has a large library of SEO tools you can use for your website. Some of their services may seem a little overwhelming if you’re not familiar with SEO practices. However, if you have a web developer helping you, Wix may be the right option. If you’re working independently, it may be a little more than what you need.
Squarespace
Squarespace keeps it a little simpler with their SEO tools while also providing users with more advanced options. Within your website, you can easily go to the analytics page to see how your website is performing monthly or annually. They have simple boxes where you can tweak your SEO settings, and they even have SEO features for e-commerce.
Blogging Features
Good blog posts are a great way to stay in touch with your customers and followers, and they can also help you with SEO. Both Wix and Squarespace have similar features when starting and maintaining a blog.
Wix
Wix has a variety of free apps and integrations that you can use for your blog, and some help you promote your blog to social media as well.
Squarespace
Squarespace has quite a few easy-to-use features as well. Once you get started with Squarespace, you can easily schedule blogs, moderate comments, and put them into categories. It also allows you to create separate authors so multiple people can post.
Options for E-commerce
E-commerce is becoming more popular, and it’s a must-have feature if you sell products or services. Squarespace and Wix both have basic e-commerce features that come with the platform. They also have different integrations to help you promote your products and make sales.
Wix
Wix allows users to host up to 50,000 products and provides ways to manage pricing options as well as shipping. Depending on the tier, you can get additional features like managing multiple currencies or recovery for abandoned carts. If you’re a smaller or mid-sized business, Wix’s features should be able to handle your needs.
Squarespace
Squarespace has many more options for e-commerce and the ability to scale for growing and larger businesses. With Squarespace, you have access to hosting an unlimited amount of products, and it also has accounting tools.
Add-ons
Both site builders come with different add-ons and integrations, which may be the deciding factor for different people choosing between Wix and Squarespace. These are additional features that are specific to your needs. Some of the add-ons are for customizable features, and others make managing your site a bit more streamlined.
Wix
Wix offers over 300 apps for marketing, e-commerce, and design. When you sign up for Wix, you get access to their add-on marketplace, where you’ll find both free and paid add-ons. Some paid add-ons have free trials, so you can test them out if you don’t want to commit.
Squarespace
Squarespace offers fewer options when it comes to add-ons, but these add-ons are fairly powerful tools for using this site builder. Each one is easy to use, but you may not find what you need due to the limited integration choices. With Squarespace, installing the add-ons is free, but some of the services and tools have an additional cost when using them.
Is Wix or Squarespace Right For You?
As you can see, both Wix and Squarespace are fairly simple tools you can use to build your website and optimize your content. If you’re still struggling to decide which one’s the right fit for you, it’s helpful to take a step back and look at your needs and current knowledge of building websites.
Wix has a lot more options than Squarespace. You may want to go with Wix if you’re an intermediate to advanced website builder. It has a less structured format regarding the layout and design of your website, and it also has more options for add-ons and tools to help optimize your site.
If you’re looking for a website builder that’s great for beginners and has tools to help you achieve your goals, Squarespace may be the better option. Squarespace keeps it simple from the beginning of the process, making it the easy choice for beginners who just want to have a web presence.
How To Get Your Wix or Squarespace Website in Front of the Right Audience
Whether you choose Wix or Squarespace, it’s always beneficial to ensure you’re doing everything you can to optimize your site for success. After you put all of that hard work into building your website, you don’t want it to go to waste, and that’s where Siege Media can help.
Here at Siege Media, we have experience helping our clients get to the front page of Google with our content marketing and link building services. Not only do we have a team of writers who write SEO-friendly content, but we also have designers, editors, in-house developers, and an SEO team to help our clients get traffic and conversions.
To learn more about how Siege can help you with your website, contact us today.