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With more and more entrepreneurs seeking to create their own website content, start a blog and retain control over design features, both Squarespace and WordPress remain popular options.
The two platforms are both beginner-friendly, but have different strengths and weaknesses depending on your goals.
Featured Partners
Starting price
$2.90 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
No
Starting price
$1.95 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
Yes
Starting price
$6.99 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
Yes
Starting Price
$19 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
Yes
Starting Price
Free; $14 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
Yes
Squarespace vs. WordPress: At a Glance
Squarespace is a software as a service (SaaS), all-in-one beginner website builder. It is designed for users who want to pay one flat fee to access everything. Squarespace monthly subscriptions include templates, site management and plugins. It’s very user friendly, with hosting included and no coding involved.
WordPress is another hosted SaaS platform designed for beginners, offering customizable features for building and maintaining smaller websites and blogs. In addition to a free option, it also offers paid plans with more features and add-on choices.
Note that we are referring to WordPress.com, which is different from the self-hosted WordPress.org.
Both Squarespace and WordPress allow users to create websites using provided tools and templates, and require no coding knowledge, but the site-building experiences are different. Choosing the right platform for your business or brand will come down to what exactly you need your site to do, and how many options you are looking for.
How the Platforms Stack Up
No Design Knowledge Needed
Neither Squarespace or WordPress allow for unlimited design freedom, which is often ideal for beginners. Both platforms offer structured templates and a limited number of themes, along with basic editing tools.
The higher-priced plans on each platform do open up more premium design options.
SEO Tools
By using optimized keywords, SEO (search engine optimization) has the potential to push your website to the top of Google searches, allowing a larger audience to discover your content.
For the casual blogger who is simply looking to document and share with a small group of viewers, ranking higher may not be important.
On the other hand, if you are hoping to monetize a blog and use it to generate income, having fully maximized SEO is essential to achieving higher search engine rankings and reaching more people.
Squarespace users are able to configure meta titles, descriptions and custom URLs. Google Analytics is available with all plans, and the platform allows for easy social media integration. Users may not install any third-party SEO apps, such as Yoast, and instead must rely on the provided built-in options.
WordPress users do not have as many configuration options, but the platform offers auto-generated XML sitemaps, which are designed to provide better visibility with search engines. Only those paying for the Business tier are able to install third-party plugins and utilize Google Analytics, which may make it difficult to maximize SEO options.
E-commerce Options
Squarespace Business, Basic Commerce and Advanced Commerce plans all offer users fully integrated e-commerce solutions, with the ability to sell unlimited products. WordPress offers an eCommerce tier for online stores, which includes premium design options, integrations with shipping carriers and acceptance of payments from over 60 countries.
Storage and Backup
Squarespace offers unlimited storage capacity, which is ideal for anyone hoping to pursue a large online business presence or e-commerce site. WordPress has a limit of 3 GB for free plans, which is plenty if you only need to host a simple website or blog. The storage capacities increase from 6 GB to 200 GB with the paid plans.
Squarespace users must take the extra step of backing up their content manually.
WordPress offers automatic updates and backups, so users have that task taken off of their plate.
Featured Partners
Starting price
$2.90 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
No
Starting price
$1.95 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
Yes
Starting price
$6.99 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
Yes
Starting Price
$19 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
Yes
Starting Price
Free; $14 per month
E-commerce (low-priced plan)
Yes
Bottom Line
Both Squarespace and WordPress allow users to build a beginner website and offer a straightforward blogging interface, with no coding knowledge needed. Which platform is the best choice depends on your current needs, along with what you hope to accomplish.
If you will be blogging frequently, hoping to reach a large audience and ultimately seeking to create an income-generating stream, Squarespace will be the better choice to help you achieve your goals.
If you are seeking to create a free, simple website and starter blog for a smaller group of viewers, WordPress is a great option.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Squarespace as good as WordPress for SEO?
Squarespace has come a long way in terms of search engine optimization tools, though WordPress still offers more SEO tools.
Is WordPress cheaper than Squarespace?
WordPress is a free open-source platform where you only have to pay for web hosting. Though, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s cheaper to build and manage a site with WordPress. This is because unlike Squarespace which includes everything for one flat monthly fee, with WordPress there are additional costs involved, such as a domain name and an SSL certificate, as well as optional extras such as premium theme and/or premium plugins.