I Compare BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Which Should You Use in 2026?

Squarespace’s pricing is much more affordable than BigCommerce’s – Squarespace offers four ecommerce plans: Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced, priced at $16, $23, $39, and $99 per month respectively, when billed annually.

BigCommerce’s price range is considerably higher. It has three core plans – Standard, Plus, and Pro – ranging from $29 to $299 per month when billed annually, as well as a custom priced Enterprise plan geared towards huge stores that earn at least one million dollars yearly.

Will I Be Charged Transaction Fees?

BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees on any of its plans, but Squarespace only offers this benefit on its Core, Plus, and Advanced plans. On Squarespace’s Basic plan, you’ll pay 2% per sale.

Which Is Better Value for Money?

When you compare the features each builder provides for its intended audience, Squarespace offers better value for money, and is a great option for smaller ecommerce ventures.

However, BigCommerce’s price difference is largely because it’s geared towards larger stores doing a higher volume of selling. If this sounds like you, its powerful features will put you in a better position for serious growth and sales.

BigCommerce and Squarespace both come with generous free trials that let you test out their full capabilities before committing. For context, Shopify only offers three days for free.

With Squarespace, you’ll also get a free domain name for the first year of your plan. When using BigCommerce, you should expect extra domain name costs of between $10 and $20 annually.

The Winner

Squarespace Has the Best Value For Money

Both builders offer reasonably priced ecommerce plans, but Squarespace gives you more all-in-one convenience for the cost.

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This one is a clear win for Squarespace, which is the easiest website builder we tested in 2025. 

Getting Started

Squarespace’s setup was simple. I was asked three questions about the site I wanted to make, and then given a choice between setting up with its AI builder – Squarespace Blueprint – or a template.

BigCommerce doesn’t have an AI website builder, which complicates the setup process, especially for beginners who lack confidence in designing websites.

Setup Guidance

Both builders present you with an easy setup checklist to complete your store. Unsurprisingly, Squarespace’s guide initially focuses on design and readability, whereas BigCommerce recommended setting up products and shipping first.

Both are necessary for a successful ecommerce site, but customers won’t buy from a site that isn’t functional and visually appealing, which Squarespace understands.

Using The Editor

In its editor, Squarespace provides a helpful walkthrough to make the process smoother. On the other hand, feedback from our 2025 user test corroborated my experience with BigCommerce, which lacked guidance and felt difficult to get to grips with.

While both editors are section-based, meaning you can add and reorder different blocks of content and media within a page layout, BigCommerce gives you less control over the formatting within each block.

The Winner

Squarespace’s Setup is Fast and Packed With Helpful Guidance

When it comes to designing your online store, Squarespace is much more beginner-friendly.

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BigCommerce’s powerful sales features, which came a close second to Shopify in our testing, are designed for large, growing stores.

That’s not to say that Squarespace’s sales tools aren’t strong. We’re highly impressed by what both offer for their respective target audiences.

Below, I’ll explain why BigCommerce is so impressive in this area:

💰 Payment Methods

BigCommerce supports over 65 payment gateways with no transaction fees, meaning you’ll have room to shop around for the most suitable platform for you.

On the other hand, Squarespace only lets you choose between five providers:

1. Stripe
2. PayPal
3. Square
4. Afterpay
5. Squarespace Payments (its in-house payment gateway)

You can benefit from no transaction fees on the Core, Plus, and Advanced plan, otherwise you’ll be charged 2% on the Basic plan.

While Squarespace offers less choice in providers, its native payment gateway – Squarespace Payments – provides a streamlined way to accept and manage payments from one dashboard.

Squarespace Payments charges a processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, which is on par with most third-party providers.

🛒 Inventory Management

BigCommerce really excels in inventory management. You can sell physical, digital, and service-based products on BigCommerce and Squarespace, but BigCommerce is better equipped to handle large inventories.

If you’re selling variations of the same product – like different sizes and colors – BigCommerce and Squarespace can automatically generate “stock-keeping units” (SKUs) to help you identify and organize each variant.

However, BigCommerce goes the extra mile by allowing you to sell on multiple channels, including ad platforms, social media, and marketplaces. You’ll be able to keep track of these sales from one dashboard that’s updated in real-time, meaning you’ll always have ample notice before you run out of stock!

🔒 Security

It’s important that your store is secure – especially when you’re taking transactions. Both Squarespace and BigCommerce include free SSL certificates on all of their plans, which will keep your payment information and other data secure.

To reiterate, Squarespace is still a great platform to sell on, and its sales features are by no means inadequate – in fact, they’re perfect for small ecommerce businesses. Some of its standouts include:

• Related products and add-ons that give customers personalized recommendations
• Product reviews displayed on your website
• Waitlists that notify customers directly when an unavailable product is restocked
• Abandoned cart recovery to remind customers to complete their orders
• Subscriptions

The Winner

BigCommerce Has Better Ecommerce Features

BigCommerce is built for large-volume sellers, so its sales features are more complex and scalable than Squarespace’s.

Squarespace’s marketing tools are outstanding, but when looking at other growth aspects like international selling, BigCommerce’s arsenal is more powerful. Plus, BigCommerce’s app store gives you a greater level of control over the functionality of your store.

📢 Marketing Tools

Squarespace includes a powerful set of marketing tools on all of its plans, so you won’t have to shop around – or even leave the editor – in order to add new features to your site. Plus, its email marketing and blogging templates have more variety and unique designs.

Meanwhile, BigCommerce relies on third party apps for some of the most basic functionalities that Squarespace offers, such as AI text generation. While some are free, apps like FavSEO can cost up to $19 per month. On top of your monthly subscription, the extra fees can quickly add up.

🔎 SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to gaining your site visibility and finding customers. BigCommerce has some powerful native SEO tools, which will let you edit:

• Meta descriptions
• Page titles
• Headers
• URLs
• Optimize for mobile

However, Squarespace scored top marks in our SEO test. On top of BigCommerce’s SEO features, Squarespace also provided multilingual support and the option to add hreflang tags – both of which will help boost your site’s visibility internationally.

🛍️ App Marketplace

Still, if you’re after some serious growth and can accept the additional fees, the BigCommerce Marketplace is home to its most scalable features – with almost 1,200 apps covering everything from tax assistance to scheduling discounts in advance.

In comparison, Squarespace’s alternative – Squarespace Extensions – has 45 apps, but this is because it has extensive growth features built in, which makes it the perfect platform for beginners.

🌍 International Transactions

With any BigCommerce plan you can accept over 100 currencies and allow your international customers to browse your products in their local currency. Transparent prices from the get-go means users will have a more familiar and seamless site experience.

In contrast, you can only use one currency at a time with Squarespace, which means your customers will see their currencies converted at the checkout stage. This disruption could deter them from continuing with their purchase.

The Winner

BigCommerce Has The Best Growth Features

While it requires time, effort, and potential extra fees, BigCommerce will give you the opportunity to customize your store with powerful tools to achieve your individual goals – even as your business grows into international markets.

Squarespace’s templates gave me more variety and design choice than BigCommerce’s. At the time of writing, Squarespace has 180 templates, all of which are free to use on any plan. I found them to be stylish and professional, and they come with plenty of useful features built in.

In Comparison, only 12 of BigCommerce’s themes are free. If you’re willing to pay, there are 193 premium designs that cost between $199 and $400 upfront, on top of your subscription price.

BigCommerce themes come with plenty of helpful sales features, from product slideshows to customizable checkout pages. But from a design perspective, they lack the uniqueness and personality of Squarespace’s.

The Winner

Squarespace Has Better Template Designs

BigCommerce’s templates cover the basics, but Squarespace has the most stylish, professional designs that I’ve seen.

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As you can see above, BigCommerce and Squarespace both have a great amount of support available to use, each providing 24/7 support via email and AI chat bots.

The main difference is that BigCommerce offers phone support 24/7, whereas Squarespace doesn’t, which can be a dealbreaker for those who value a verbal conversation. That said, Squarespace’s customer service provides around the clock social media support as an alternative contact method.

The Winner

BigCommerce Has the Best Support Services

Both builders offer 24/7 help services, yet BigCommerce wins because it offers phone support.

The comparisons in this article aren’t based on hunches. In fact, our team of research experts test the top ecommerce website builders annually, and in 2025 we spent over 300 hours collecting data on 12 ecommerce platforms.

Our research methodology is split into seven categories that are important to small businesses. Each of these categories has a unique weighting based on priority:

1. Sales features: 30%
2. Website functionality: 15%
3. Design features: 15%
4. Help and support: 15%
5. Pricing: 10%
6. User experience: 10%
7. Reputation: 5%

I’ve also had extensive first-hand experience testing each ecommerce platform, which helps me to provide honest recommendations, and handy screenshots of BigCommerce and Squarespace’s interfaces.

Between the two builders, I’d recommend Squarespace for most small ecommerce businesses. It’s extremely easy to use, and provides great modern templates and strong marketing features – all for a fair price.

It might beat BigCommerce in these aspects, but if you’re looking to scale your business and sell internationally, BigCommerce’s sales functions and inventory size are unrivaled.