Squarespace Pricing: How Much Does It Cost?

Squarespace’s cheapest plan costs $16 per month, and its most expensive plan costs $99 per month, offering four pricing plans in total.

It’s not the cheapest website builder out there – Hostinger costs less, for instance – but our research found Squarespace to be one of the best website builders for US businesses. If you’re looking to create an attractive and modern website but don’t want it to take forever, Squarespace would be our top recommendation.

Squarespace is also one of the best value options for small online sellers. It offers ecommerce features from its $16 per month starting plan, less than you’d pay with rivals Wix or Shopify.

Stay tuned for a full breakdown of Squarespace’s pricing and hidden fees, as well as who each Squarespace plan is designed for so you can find the best fit for your business.

How Much Does Each Squarespace Pricing Plan Cost?

Squarespace has four pricing plans that cost from $16 to $99 per month with standard annual billing. Here’s a quick look at what you’ll pay for each plan:

Overall, Squarespace offers good value for money for business owners and professionals, despite not being the cheapest option out there. It combines great website design with solid marketing tools and multichannel integration.

Even on its cheapest plan, you get unlimited storage and free invoicing, and get to see unlimited products and services. By contrast, rival Wix only offers unlimited storage on its most expensive plan, at $159 per month, and only lets you sell products on its $29 per month Core plan, compared to Squarespace’s $16. That’s part of what makes Squarespace one of the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses.

Squarespace Basic: $16-$25 per month

• How much does it cost? $16 per month paying annually, $25 per month paying monthly
• What’s it best for? Showcasing portfolios, running a blog, and taking the occasional payment.

Squarespace Basic is a great option for freelancers or professionals looking to create their first website. The platform’s cheapest tier offers a somewhat limited range of services when compared to other plans, but if your goal is to showcase your work or products and publicize your contacts, it does the job.

Key features the plan comes with include:

• Unlimited bandwidth and storage
• Sell unlimited products and services
• SEO tips
• Mobile optimization
• A free custom domain (for the first year)
• Basic website health analysis
• Free invoice sends

You’ll also get access to an array of gorgeous templates to choose from, and Squarespace drag-and-drop editor, which makes it easy to edit and customize your website’s design. Squarespace’s editor used to be a little tricky to use, but over the years it’s become much more user-friendly and is on par with Wix’s.

Who is Squarespace Basic best for?

Squarespace Basic is a great option for blogs, portfolios, showreels, and very small or new online businesses. We especially recommend it to professionals looking to create an aesthetically pleasing and modern-looking website, since Squarespace’s design is far above the competition.

However, if you’re just looking for a basic website and don’t care too much about how it looks, there are cheaper and easier options than Squarespace. Hostinger and GoDaddy are our top picks for speed and simplicity. Check out our Hostinger review and GoDaddy review to find out more.

We also don’t recommend Squarespace Basic to more established online sellers, since it doesn’t come with ecommerce analytics, and it comes with a 2% online transaction fee, charged on top of any other card processing fees. You’ll need to upgrade to at least the Core plan to get fully-integrated ecommerce without extra transaction fees.

Squarespace Core: $23-$36 per month

• How much does it cost? $23 per month paying annually, $36 per month paying monthly.
• What’s it for? Best for creating a small business’s website.

Squarespace’s Core plan provides great value for money, allowing you to start selling online for a much lower rate than traditional ecommerce platforms.

Along with all the features of the Basic plan, Squarespace’s Core plan also includes:

• A free Gmail and Google Workspace account (for the first year)
• Complete customization with CSS and JavaScript (in English: you can add elements to make your website look super slick)
• Ecommerce analytics
• No additional online transaction fees
• Shipping and tax services

You can accept payments by using Squarespace Payments or by integrating a third-party payment processor. Squarespace works with PayPal, Square, Stripe, as well as pay-later schemes and digital wallets.

On the Squarespace Core plan, you also won’t pay the 2% transaction fee charged on the Basic plan. However, if you’re using Squarespace payments, card processing fees are the same as on the Basic plan, at 2.9% + 30¢, which is quite high. If your sales are or will be occasional, that won’t pose a problem, but if you deal (or plan on dealing) with a high volume of sales, we recommend using a third-party payment provider or upgrading to a higher-tier Squarespace plan.

Who is Squarespace Core best for?

Squarespace Core is a great option for small businesses looking to start their first online store. It’s still relatively cheap for ecommerce, at $23 per month, while providing vital sales analytics missing from Squarespace’s Basic plan.

We don’t recommend staying on this plan long-term if your sales increase, since the 2.9% + 30¢ card processing fee will eat into your profits. You’ll get better value by switching to a higher-tier Squarespace plan with lower card processing fees.

Squarespace Plus: $39-$56 per month

• How much does it cost? $39 per month paying annually, $56 per month paying monthly.
• What’s it for? Best for running a growing online store.

Squarespace Plus is geared towards businesses running a more serious online store and includes more sales features than the Core plan.

For starters, with Squarespace Plus, you’ll pay lower card processing fees of 2.7% + 30¢ when using Squarespace Payments. This makes Plus a better option than Core for regular online sellers.

The Plus’s additional sales features will help turn your website into a more complete online store. Additional features include:

• Indicate stock availability for products
• Display related products to customers
• Offer signups to product waitlists
• Display customer reviews

On that note, on this plan, Squarespace gives you several tools through which you can monitor your best-selling items and sales trends, and bulk-manage inventory. You also get to check your visit-to-sale conversion rate and, through an in-built Facebook link, you’re able to sell your products directly on Instagram as well.

Who is Squarespace Plus best for?

Considering the number of features on this plan, it’s a great option for small ecommerce businesses that are experiencing increasing sales. If your business ticks any of those boxes, just head to Squarespace and get started.

We don’t recommend Squarespace Plus to businesses looking to sell courses or digital content subscriptions, since these are subject to a 1% transaction fee, charged on top of card processing fees. The $99 Advanced plan is the only plan where these fees are waived.

The Plus plan is also not the best platform for businesses looking to accept bookings and take payments for them. For that, you’d need to pay an extra $16-$49 per month for Squarespace’s Scheduling add-on. Rivals Wix and GoDaddy don’t charge extra for this feature, and you can start taking bookings for $29 per month on Wix and $14.99 on GoDaddy.

Squarespace Advanced: $99-$139 per month

• How much does it cost? $99 per month paying annually, $139 per month paying monthly
• What’s it for? Best for running an established online store

Squarespace Advanced is the platform’s top-tier ecommerce platform and comes with all the perks mentioned so far, plus some extras to turn your business into a fully operational ecommerce store.

Among the specialized tools at your disposal, this plan allows you to:

• Sell subscription products for 0% transaction fees
• Get card processing fees of 2.5% + 30¢ with Squarespace Payments
• Set up abandoned cart email reminders for customers
• Automate discount offers at checkout
• Set dynamic shipping for customers depending on their address
• Offer free shipping to qualifying orders

At $99 per month paying annually, Squarespace’s most expensive ecommerce plan is much cheaper than Wix’s ($159 per month) or Shopify’s ($399 per month). That said, paying more to rivals isn’t always a bad thing.

While Squarespace Advanced is by no means a bad ecommerce platform, rival Shopify offers more advanced features. For example, Shopify’s cheapest plan, Basic for $29 per month, comes with all of Squarespace Advanced’s features and more, like support for international selling and loyalty program creation.

In our Shopify review, we explain why it’s a better option than Squarespace for ambitious sellers looking to manage a complex inventory setup.

Who is Squarespace Advanced best for?

Squarespace Advanced is a good choice for established online stores looking to up their sales.

However, it’s not an option we’d recommend for larger ecommerce projects since it just doesn’t have the sales features for the job. If you’re an ambitious ecommerce business, we recommend Shopify instead.

But, if you’re keeping your operation small and local, and website aesthetics are important to you, by all means, visit Squarespace and sign up. It remains the best option for creating a truly stunning website, and it can handle a moderate amount of sales.

Does Squarespace Have a Free Plan?

Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan, but it does offer a 14-day free trial for all of its plans. After that time expires, you can even request a one-time seven-day extension if you contact Squarespace’s customer service team.

The trial is a good opportunity for you to try the plan that looks like the best fit for your business, and then grow or scale down accordingly when it comes to actually buying. Because of this, and the fact that it allows you to sample most of Squarespace’s features without having to commit, we recommend doing a trial.

How Do Squarespace’s Billing Cycles Work?

Squarespace offers two types of billing cycles: paying for the year upfront (annual/yearly billing) or paying month to month (monthly billing).

Paying in advance for a whole year gets you a 28% to 36% depending on your selected plan. It’s a good way to save money, but it does mean you have to commit to using Squarespace from the get-go.

Your subscription will renew automatically, whether you pay by year or by month, so pay attention to upcoming renewal dates if you want to cancel. That’s because if you cancel your subscription after the first 14 days of an annual billing cycle, you’ll receive a partial refund.

You can also upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time, but changes will only take effect at the end of your billing cycle.

What Are Squarespace’s Transaction and Payment Processing Fees?

Squarespace offers a payment processing service called Squarespace Payments, with card processing fees varying from 2.9% + 30¢ to 2.5% + 30¢.

It also charges what it calls “transaction fees” on certain plans, which are extra fees charged on top of regular card processing fees. These apply whether you use Squarespace Payments or a third-party payment processing provider.

Here’s a summary:

• Transaction fees for products and services: 2% transaction fee for products and services on the Basic plan, and 0% on all other plans. These apply whether you use Squarespace as your payment processor or not. Be warned, you still have to pay payment processing fees.
• Transaction fees for courses/memberships: 7% on the Basic plan, 5% on the Core plan, 1% on the Plus plan, and 0% on the Advanced plan. Once again, this is on top of card processing fees.
• Squarespace Payments card processing fees: 2.9% + 30¢ on the Basic and Core plans for most cards, including debit and credit, and international. These are reduced to 2.7% + 30¢ on the Plus plan, and 2.5% + 30¢ on the Advanced plan.
• Squarespace Payments AHC payments fees: 1%
• Klarna fees (with Squarespace payments): 5.49% + $0.30
• Afterpay fees (with Squarespace payments): 6% + $0.30

If you don’t want to use Squarespace Payments as your payment processor, you can integrate a third-party processor. Squarespace works with PayPal, Square, or Stripe. All have slightly cheaper fees, for the most part, than Squarespace payments, so it’s worth checking them out.

Does Squarespace Have Any Hidden Costs?

Squarespace has a few hidden costs that most new users don’t consider when signing up:

• Domain names: Squarespace offers a free domain for your first year, but after that, you’ll pay $10-$20 per year to keep it
• Professional Gmail and Business Google Workspace: You’ll get a free Gmail and Google Workspace account in your first year, but after that, you’ll pay between $72 and $259.20 per year, depending on your Google Business plan
• Apps and extensions: If you choose to integrate third-party apps and extensions into your Squarespace website or online store, you might have to pay fees to use them. Depending on the software, it can be free or come with monthly or annual costs.

How Much Does Squarespace POS Cost?

Squarespace has a free POS app, only available in the US, which can be used for selling in person. The app is only available on iOS, and so requires an iPhone or iPad, which need to be purchased separately if you don’t already own one.

The POS app is now available for users on all Squarespace plans, not just its two most expensive ones.

To sell in-person with Squarespace, you also need to have a Square account, since the Squarespace POS app can only be paired with the $69 Square card reader.

As a reminder, Square and Squarespace are two separate companies. If you want to sell in person with Squarespace, you’ll need to use Square as your payment processor for both in-person and online sales. This means processing fees will be different from what they are with Squarespace Payments. With Square, processing fees are:

• In-person: 2.6% + 10¢
• Online: 2.9% + 30¢

Who is Squarespace POS for?

Squarespace POS is only designed for online sellers that occasionally sell in-person, at markets or pop-ups, for example. The advantage of using it over a separate system is that your in-person sales data will be integrated with your online sales data, making reporting easier.

However, if you do an even mix of online and in-person selling, or primarily sell in-person, we don’t recommend Squarespace POS, since it’s not a fully-fledged POS system, and doesn’t work with any hardware besides Square’s small card reader.

For businesses that want a complete kit for both online and in-person selling, we recommend Square or Shopify. Both providers have online store builders and a suite of POS hardware. Square is the cheaper option, and comes with a free online store builder and POS app, while Shopify is more expensive, with its POS system starting at $89 per month. It’s a good option for ambitious online businesses that want to open up a physical store.

For more POS recommendations, check out our picks for the best POS systems for retail.

How Much Does Squarespace Acuity Scheduling Cost?

Squarespace Acuity Scheduling costs between $16 and $49 per month on standard annual billing.

It’s an extra service that’s tailor-made for businesses that work with appointments. Clinical consultations, space rental, classes of any kind – it doesn’t matter: if a date and time need to be booked, Squarespace Scheduling does the trick.

Here’s a summary of costs:

The thing to pay attention to is that this handy tool doesn’t come within Squarespace’s main pricing plans, so you would have to shell out a bit more to get it. Rivals Wix and GoDaddy include scheduling and appointment booking as part of their standard offer on most plans, charging extra for it, so we’d recommend them over Squarespace if you need this feature.

With Squarespace Acuity Scheduling, you do get a discount (albeit not as big) if you bite the bullet and go with a yearly plan. You can choose between three tiers:

• Starter ($16-$20/month): Perfect for very small businesses with a single calendar and a small team. It allows calendar syncing with selected email providers, has ecommerce integration, and automates email reminders.
• Standard ($27-$34/month): Geared towards businesses with more employees and a few locations. You can create and sync six calendars, handle bundled and recurring bookings, and send reminders via SMS as well as email.
• Premium ($49-$61/month): For growing businesses with a substantial staff that needs to manage several calendars. You can create up to 36 calendars and sync them, plus, you have more room to personalise the scheduler with custom CSS.

As far as value for money goes, Standard is the best plan. You get access to almost all of the tool’s features for about half the price of the costliest version. Oremium only makes sense if your business is a multi-location megachain, with all your locations taking appointments.

How Does Squarespace’s Pricing Compare to Competitors?

If you want to build a visually pleasing and modern-looking website, or run a small online store, then Squarespace is a good option. It’s an especially cheap way to start selling online, with its ecommerce plans costing less on average than rivals Wix or Shopify, while still offering great functionality. Wix’s pricing, for example, starts at $17 per month, as opposed to Squarespace’s $16.

Of course, you can start selling for free with Square Online (an unrivaled offer), but your website won’t look as great. Square’s free plan has limited template designs and requires you to upload all your own imagery (no stock images available).

However, if you just need a simple yet functional informational website without the need for it to look fresh off the runway, competitor GoDaddy, which starts at $9.99 per month, is a better option. It’s the easiest and fastest way to build a website, based on our testing, allowing you to get online without spending as much.

If you’re planning on growing an online business and expanding internationally, we recommend Shopify, as its most expensive plans are designed to support larger retailers. But of course, since it’s very advanced, Shopify costs much more than Squarespace.

Overall, our research shows that Squarespace is one of the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses, but you could outgrow it easily.