Having an online presence is essential for any modern business, from photography and online coaching to blogs and online stores.
Whilst a lot of people prefer to use WordPress for their website, others like to use website builders like Squarespace.
Is Squarespace worth the money it costs? In this article, we'll look at Squarespace's pricing and features.
What Does Squarespace Cost?
Squarespace offers four different plans:
- Personal
- Business
- Basic Commerce
- Advanced Commerce
If you're building a simple website or a blog will need either a Personal or Business plan.
If you're building an eCommerce website, you should choose either Basic Commerce or Advanced Commerce.
If you want to save money, choose an annual pricing plan which will give you a lower total cost.
As you can see in the image above, Squarespace costs $16 – $46 per month with a monthly billing cycle.
When you choose an annual billing cycle, Squarespace’s cost per month is $12 – $40. Choosing an annual plan saves you up to 30% on your total costs.
What Is The Difference Between The Personal And Business Plans?
The Personal plan is Squarespace’s cheapest plan, and it will be suitable enough for most website's needs.
The Business plan is more expensive but comes with additional features.
Below are three main benefits that the Business plan has over the Personal plan:
1. E-commerce
Squarespace's Business plan lets you sell products and accept donations on your website. However, there is a 3% transaction fee.
You can also use promotional tools like pop-ups and announcement bars for your site.
If you want to try selling through Squarespace, this plan is a good starting point.
On the other hand, if you're serious about creating an online store, or you have a high number of sales, you’ll want to upgrade to one of Squarespace’s eCommerce plans which have no transaction fees.
2. Premium Integrations
The Business plan enables you to integrate 3rd party tools into your website, including Gmail, Mailchimp, OpenTable, and ChowNow.
3. Advanced Website Analytics
The Business plan includes additional sales and conversion analytics so you can see how visitors contact you, book your services, join your mailing list, or RSVP to an event.
Which Squarespace Plan is Best for Ecommerce?
If you are starting an online store, Squarespace has three plans you can choose from
So which plan is best for you?
1. Business Plan
Squarespace's cheapest plan with eCommerce functionality. The Business plan includes a 3% transaction fee on purchases.
This plan is suitable for testing out eCommerce features or selling one or two products on a small blog.
For a dedicated eCommerce store, you'll be better off with the Basic Commerce or Advanced Commerce plan.
2. Basic Commerce
This plan includes all of the features from the Business plus additional features including:
- Customer account creation
- Custom domain name for checkout
- Ecommerce analytics
- Ability to sell your products through Instagram
- Point of sale and Square integration
In addition to these features, there are no transaction fees on the Basic Commerce plan. This is the ideal starter plan for anyone who is creating an online store with Squarespace.
3. Advanced Commerce
This eCommerce plan comes with all the features from the Business and Basic Commerce plans, but with some powerful extras:
- Sell subscription products
- Create a membership site
- Abandoned cart auto-recovery
- Show real-time shipping rate
- Offer discounts that auto-apply on checkout
- Integrate with 3rd party systems such as third party fulfillment (3PL) and more
This plan is best for growing online stores or stores with huge potential upon launch.
Business Email with Squarespace Pricing
If you want to set up a business email with Squarespace, you can use their Google G Suite integration to do so.
You'll need either a Business, Basic Commerce, or Advanced Commerce plan to do this.
If you're not familiar with G Suite, it's a business version of Google's Gmail, allowing you to use your own domain name on your email address instead of @gmail.com
G Suite costs $50-$66 annually and $5-$7 for the monthly plan.
Squarespace Domain Name Pricing
When you sign up for the annual plan, you get your domain name free for the first year. Otherwise, a .com domain costs $20 per year with Squarespace.
Domains on Squarespace come with free whois privacy, which means your personal details cannot be seen when someone searches your domain name on the whois database.
You can find lower prices for domain names on Namecheap (from $6) and link your domain to your Squarespace account.
Conclusion
If you're not familiar with WordPress, Squarespace is a great alternative for building your own website.
Ready to build your website? Squarespace has a 14-day free trial, and prices start from $12 per month.