Squarespace Vs WIX: What’s The Key Differences

No matter what kind of business you run, having a professional-looking website is crucial for success. Customers expect your online space to be informative and attractive. That’s why it’s important to choose a website builder that lets you easily create and customize your site. Website builders such as Wix and Squarespace both offer great features.

Let’s compare Wix and Squarespace

Wix: Wix is a user-friendly website builder offering a drag-and-drop interface, ideal for beginners and small businesses. It provides numerous customizable templates, an extensive app market, and SEO tools. Wix supports e-commerce, blogging, and multimedia content, making it versatile for various website needs. According to W3 techs Among the websites we know using content management systems, Wix represents 4.0%. Overall, this represents 2.8%. 

Squarespace: Squarespace is a polished website builder known for its sleek, modern templates and robust design options. It caters to creatives, entrepreneurs, and businesses seeking visually appealing sites. Squarespace includes built-in SEO, e-commerce capabilities, and comprehensive blogging tools, offering an all-in-one platform for high-quality, professional websites. 

According to W3 techs Among all websites whose content management system we know, 3.0% use Squarespace. 2.1% of all websites fall into this category. 

Overall, having a well-made website can really help your business grow, and tools like Wix and Squarespace make it easier than ever to get started. 

Pros of Using Squarespace

• Aesthetic Design Templates: Squarespace is renowned for its visually stunning templates that are ideal for creatives and professionals who prioritize design aesthetics.
• Built-in Functionality: The platform includes built-in features such as analytics, ecommerce, and SEO tools that are seamlessly integrated and easy to use.
• Responsive Customer Support: Users often praise Squarespace for its responsive and helpful customer support team, which enhances the user experience significantly.

Pros of Using Wix

• Intuitive Drag-and-Drop Interface: Wix shines with its highly intuitive and user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, making it ideal for beginners.
• Extensive App Market: Users are able to integrate a variety of third-party applications to enhance the functionality of their websites through Wix’s robust app market. There are 800+ apps are there on Wix app market.
• Flexibility in Design: Unlike Squarespace, Wix offers more flexibility in design, allowing for more customization and control over the website’s appearance.

Cons of Using Wix

• Overwhelming Choice: The sheer number of options and features in Wix can be overwhelming for new users or those looking for simplicity.
• Slower Load Times: Websites built with Wix can sometimes experience slower load times, which may affect user experience and SEO performance.

Cons of Using Squarespace

• Limited Customization Options: While elegant, Squarespace’s templates offer limited customization, which can be restrictive for those needing specific design features.
• Learning Curve: New users might find the platform has a steeper learning curve compared to other website builders like Wix.

Features Comparison of Squarespace vs WIX Website Builder

Features	Squarespace	WIX
Starting Price	From $16 per month	From $17 per month
SEO Tools	Meta descriptions and custom URLs for all pages. Google Analytics is available for all plans. SEO Space SEO plugin now available.	It is only available on paid plans where Google Analytics is available.
Blogging	Built-in blogging tools: categories, comment moderation, tags, and post scheduling	Free blogging tools: post scheduling, categories, tags, and comment moderation
Customer Support	24/7 support via email, social media, or live chat. No phone support.	Live chat, email, social media, and phone support
E-Commerce	Supports physical and digital products	Supports physical and digital products
Backup and Storage	Unlimited storage, manual backup required	Automatic backup available

Template and Design

Squarespace is renowned for its elegant, award-winning design templates that resonate well with creative industries such as photography, art, and design. These templates are aesthetically pleasing and designed to showcase visual content effectively.

On the other hand, Wix provides a broader spectrum of design flexibility, appealing to those who prefer a hands-on approach to web design. However, achieving a polished look on Wix may require more effort and time compared to Squarespace’s ready-to-use, professional-grade templates.

Ease of Use

Wix stands out for its user-friendly interface, characterized by its intuitive drag-and-drop functionality. This makes it an ideal choice for beginners or those who wish to quickly construct a site without delving into the nuances of web design.

Squarespace, while straightforward, tends to require a slightly higher level of technical acumen, owing to its more structured editor which limits on-the-fly design changes that can be performed without some understanding of design principles.

E-Commerce

E-commerce functionality is a critical aspect for many users. Squarespace offers a robust set of integrated e-commerce tools that make setting up an online store straightforward and efficient. These tools are part of the core platform, ensuring seamless integration.

Wix, while also supporting e-commerce, tends to rely more on third-party applications to enhance its store capabilities, which might introduce complexity and potentially increase costs.

Security

There are robust security measures available on both Squarespace and Wix, including SSL certificates and DDoS attack protections. These features help safeguard your website and its visitors.

Free Domain

Each platform offers a free domain for the first year. After that, Squarespace charges $20 per year for renewal, while Wix’s renewal fees start at $14.95 per year, depending on the domain type.

Email Marketing

Both Wix and Squarespace include email marketing tools, enabling you to create customized emails to reach out to your contacts and customers, promoting your business and services effectively.

Social Media Integration

You can integrate your social media accounts with both Wix and Squarespace. This integration allows for better communication and engagement with your audience through social media platforms.

Analytics

Each platform comes with analytics tools to monitor your website’s performance. You can track visitor numbers, sales, and other key metrics to understand how your site is doing.

SEO Comparison Of WIX and Squarespace

Both Wix and Squarespace offer robust SEO tools to enhance your website’s visibility in search results. They both allow customization of URLs, meta tags, and other crucial SEO elements.

SEO Tools Of WIX

Wix provides several notable SEO features to help your website stand out:

• Custom Meta Tags: Add SEO-friendly meta tags, descriptions, and graph tags.
• Meta Titles and Descriptions: Create custom meta titles and descriptions to improve search rankings.
• URL Customization: Edit URL slugs and structures for better search optimization.
• Google Search Integration: Create Google Search Console pages from the Wix dashboard without manual verification, perform keyword research, and gain insights into your website’s visitors.
• Image Optimization: Automatically optimize images for quality, searchability, and faster downloads.
• Site Inspection Tools: Integrated with Google Search Console, this tool helps check and troubleshoot pages to resolve issues affecting search rankings.

SEO Tools Of Squarespace

Squarespace offers a comprehensive set of built-in SEO tools:

• Squarespace Analytics: Monitor site performance in search results and discover keywords users use to find your site.
• Meta Titles and Descriptions: Add meta titles and descriptions to improve search rankings and provide clear site information to users.
• Custom URLs: Customize URLs to accurately reflect your content.
• Image Alt Text: Add alt text to images for Google to read their relevance, even if they don’t load.
• Canonical Tags: Help search engines identify the main page, especially useful for multiple versions of the same page.

Both platforms provide essential SEO tools to boost your site’s visibility, tailored to different user preferences and needs.

Customer Support

Both Wix and Squarespace provide a range of customer support options to assist their users:

Wix offers live chat, a callback phone line, ticket submission, and access to a help center. Squarespace provides support through email, live chat, Twitter, and Facebook Messenger.

Squarespace primarily focuses on written support, which can be highly effective in many scenarios. In contrast, Wix emphasizes more direct support methods, such as phone and live chat, catering to those who prefer real-time assistance.

Blogging

For bloggers, Squarespace offers superior blogging tools that enhance the user experience. Its blogging platform is more refined, featuring beautiful layout options and a solid content management system that makes it easy to manage posts, engage with audiences, and even optimize content for SEO.

Wix also supports blogging but with a less sophisticated approach, which might not cater as effectively to those who prioritize blogging as a primary function of their site.

Pricing of Squarespace and WIX

When comparing Squarespace and Wix, you’ll find that Squarespace’s plans are more straightforward. Squarespace offers only four plans, with no free option just a 14-day free trial. Like Wix, Squarespace provides a free custom domain for the first year, unlimited bandwidth, 24/7 support, and basic SEO and marketing tools.

Squarespace Plans

A significant advantage of Squarespace over Wix is that its plans come with unlimited storage. For example, the personal plan ($16.00/month), comparable to Wix Light, stands out because of this feature.

For detailed information on Squarespace pricing, check out our comprehensive guide.

Plans	Features
Personal ($16.00/month	Unlimited storage, 2 collaborators, audience management feature, free invoices )
Business ($23.00/month)	Unlimited storage, unlimited collaborators, full marketing suite integration, and fully integrated eCommerce.
Commerce Basic ($28.00/month)	Unlimited storage, unlimited collaborators, full marketing suite integration, and Basic eCommerce package.
Commerce Advanced ($52.00/month)	Unlimited storage, unlimited collaborators, full marketing suite integration, and Advanced eCommerce package

WIX Plans

Wix offers five plans, including a free option. All paid plans come with a free custom domain for the first year, unlimited bandwidth, 24/7 customer support, and automated marketing tools like automated emails and tasks.

However, Wix’s storage limits are more restrictive. More storage and features come with higher-tier plans. The free plan is useful for testing Wix’s functionalities, but for more storage or to sell online, consider the higher-tier plans.

For detailed information on Wix pricing, check out our comprehensive guide.

Pricing	Features
Light ($17/month)	2 collaborators, 2GB of storage, Light marketing suite.
Core ($29.00/month)	5 collaborators, 50GB of storage, Basic marketing suite, Basic site analytics, Basic eCommerce.
Business ($36/Month)	10 collaborators, 100GB of storage, Standard marketing suite, Standard site analytics, Standard eCommerce.
Business Elite ($159/month)	15 collaborators, unlimited storage, Advanced marketing suite, Advanced site analytics, Advanced eCommerce, and Advanced developer platform.

Get Started with Your Ideal Website Builder!

Choosing between Squarespace and Wix depends on your specific needs, aesthetic sensibilities, and technical requirements. If you require a sophisticated, visually compelling website with robust features and stellar support, consider our Squarespace development services. We are here to assist you in crafting a site that not only meets but exceeds your expectations. For more information, reach out to us today!