GoDaddy vs Squarespace: In Need Of Speed Or Design?
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Comments: Comparison winner
GoDaddy and Squarespace are both popular website builders, but they are designed for very different people. GoDaddy is a great choice for small businesses with its user-friendly design assistant, whereas Squarespace’s stunning templates are perfect for building a strong online presence.
Using GoDaddy is the fastest way to build a website. It’s easy to use, and cheap, too – prices start at just $9.99 per month. Squarespace is a little more time-consuming, and costs a tiny bit more – the cheapest Squarespace plan is $16 per month.
You get what you pay for, however – Squarespace’s designs are the best on the market. GoDaddy’s templates can’t help but look a bit ‘Plain Jane’ in comparison. Our users were pretty much equally likely to recommend both GoDaddy and Squarespace, but for different reasons: there’s a clear tradeoff between speed/cost, and design.
Squarespace is better for you if...
…You’re more creative and don’t have an issue with spending time creating your ultimate website. If you’re in need of more aesthetic templates that help your website stand out from the rest, Squarespace can guarantee this. Although you don’t necessarily need any coding skills when using the platform, it’ll help you tweak your site even further.GoDaddy is better for you if...
…You want to get a website live quickly. With GoDaddy’s ADI setup, it’s really easy to create a site in little to no time. Although, this will mean sacrificing on elements such as sleek design and creative control. But it’s a great choice if time is of the essence and you want to keep costs low.Here at Website Builder Expert, it’s our job to test products and tell you just how good they are. Below, you’ll find out which of these platforms is the better all-around website builder, what everyday people think of GoDaddy and Squarespace, and which one is the best fit for you.
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Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Quick Comparison
If you’re looking for a quick roundup of both platforms – here’s a side-by-side comparison table to help you decide whether GoDaddy or Squarespace is perfect for you.
| GoDaddy vs Squarespace | GoDaddy | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | A really simple and fast approach to web design thanks to ADI. | Small learning curve, but easy enough once you understand the editor. |
| Design | Limited theme selection and creative control due to ADI. | Gorgeous themes and a great level of customization. |
| Features | A good amount of features and tools on offer, but a few lack real quality. | High-end features of real quality that are perfect for online stores and blogs. |
| SEO | Great level of control over things that impact SEO, plus a brilliant sitemap option. | Access to all the basic SEO functions and tools. |
| Help and Support | 24/7 phone support and a live chat option. Slightly outdated and ill-informed help center. | 24/7 email support and a live chat option. Really clean and clear help center. |
| Value for Money | Cheap pricing plans and the option to build an online store. | Relatively expensive pricing plans, but you get a lot of quality for your money – both in the design and features. |
2 GoDaddy vs Squarespace: Pros and Cons
GoDaddy Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Builds sites with ADI, providing a speedy solution to website creation • Switch themes any time and your site will automatically reformat your content | • Some features lack depth • Restrictions on creative freedom |
Squarespace Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Real quality features to help bring your website to life • Breathtaking themes with loads of customization | • Relatively expensive pricing plans • Doesn't include an artificial design option |
Ease of Use
Which is More Beginner Friendly?
Which is More Beginner Friendly?
The Winner
GoDaddy is easier to use than Squarespace
When most websites tell you a platform is easy to use, it’s often a throwaway comment. They’ll try it for a few minutes, then give it the thumbs up or down. We do things differently.
Since we’re used to spending our days conducting research, what’s easy for us may not be so easy for you. So, we met with some everyday people and got them to test GoDaddy and Squarespace too. We asked them to build their own website and score how easy they found different tasks.
After that, we sat down with them for a quick interview, where we really got to know their thoughts on the website builders. Here are a few things people had to say:
“I think GoDaddy would work well for a coffee shop or small independent business. It has all the necessary pages that you could want, but it’s not so jam packed that it’ll overwhelm you.”
“I enjoyed Squarespace’s wealth of white space and simple, minimalistic layout. Aesthetically, I feel Squarespace offers a bit more than Wix here.”
Picking the right theme with Squarespace is important. They all look incredible, but finding one that has the features you need already built-in will make it easier for you in the long-run.
We also asked people how likely they’d be to recommend GoDaddy or Squarespace to a friend. GoDaddy came out with an 8% higher recommendation than Squarespace. This came down to how simple it was to put a GoDaddy website together from scratch.
4 Design Flexibility
Who Offers More Creative Control?
Who Offers More Creative Control?
The Winner
Squarespace has better designs than GoDaddy
Design comes down to two things: appearance and control. Ultimately, you want your website to look good, but you also want to be able to put your own stamp on it. To do that, you need to have a good level of customization.
Both GoDaddy and Squarespace’s themes are mobile responsive.
GoDaddy works with ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) to help design your website for you. By asking you a series of questions, like what you want a website for (e.g. blogging, business), it can create a design based on your answers.
After that, you have a certain level of creative control. You can change the theme, edit text size/font, insert buttons, and so on. However, because GoDaddy takes charge when designing your website, you do lose some creative control yourself.
Squarespace, on the other hand, puts you in the driving seat. We’ve seen huge improvements in the platform’s design functionality and user experience!
You start off by selecting from a range of themes that have been expertly put together. You can then populate the theme with your own content, make adjustments, and drag in any extra features you want.
Not only do Squarespace’s themes look as good as a professional web developer’s (in fact, they’re all created by designers!), they’re also really flexible in terms of what you can edit. Squarespace offers a level of customization that few other website builders can match.
Even if you feel overwhelmed with the choice of creative templates, you have the handy ‘Design Hero’ to help keep your site on track – it will pick out the perfect attributes to compliment your brand.
Features and Tools
What Will Your Site Be Able to Do?
What Will Your Site Be Able to Do?
The Winner
Squarespace has better features than GoDaddy
It’s always good to look at what features a website builder has. After all, this determines what you can or can’t do on the platform.
It’s especially important in the case of GoDaddy, as it doesn’t have its own app market, which is why it only scored a 3.3 out of 5 rating in our most recent research. The only features on offer are the ones that are built in – there’s no way of adding in extras. You get all the relevant pages that you need for a website with GoDaddy, but integrations are limited.
In contrast, Squarespace lets you add third-party apps to your site from its Squarespace Extensions store, which is a great way of expanding or managing your site without upgrading to a new plan.
Squarespace’s Extensions Store is just one reason why it scored so well in our research – in fact, Squarespace has the second highest features score of any website builder we’ve tested! With that being said, let’s have a look at what they can both do in certain areas.
Ecommerce
There are a few key differences here, but we’ll start by going through the features both platforms have in common:
- SSL Security – protecting customer payments and transactions securely
- Support for PayPal, Stripe and Square as payment processors
- Abandoned cart recovery – send customers an email that reminds them to check out if they leave your site before paying
- Ability to create promotion and discount codes
- Ability to sync your store with Instagram
Squarespace now offers a Square integration, meaning you can sell products offline, take card payments, and keep everything synced with your online inventory – all you need is the Squarespace Commerce app, and a Square card reader ($49). This isn’t something GoDaddy currently offers, so is a huge plus for Squarespace.
Squarespace wins on a couple of things itself. For one, you can sell digital products as well as physical ones, meaning it’s great for things like online courses and software downloads where no stock management is required. On GoDaddy, it’s just physical products.
What’s pretty snazzy with Squarespace is that you can create your own promotional pop-ups, which is a great way to let your customers know if you’re having a flash sale or running any special discounts!
It’s good to note at this point that Squarespace’s ecommerce templates are a little limited compared to its general website ones. They’re still just as beautiful, but you’d have to be happy with a more minimalistic look when it comes to this platform.
Want to compare them to other ecommerce platforms?
Blogging
This is an area GoDaddy falls down in. You can separate your blog posts into categories, embed an RSS feed, and track your blog’s performance through analytics, but that’s as far as it goes.
As a blogger, you’ll want features that really let your content stand out, as well as SEO tools to get it seen by everyone. Some added functionalities to consider would include enabling comments and social sharing.
With Squarespace, you can do all that and more. It’s blogging features are pretty darn good. You can archive old posts, social bookmark, and add a search feature so people can find what they’re looking for quickly. This is why Squarespace scored an awe-inspiring 5 out of 5 for blog features in our user testing.
Email Marketing
Both allow you to get your own custom email addresses through G Suite, although GoDaddy does also have a built-in email service at an extra cost.
GoDaddy and Squarespace also let you run email marketing campaigns. GoDaddy’s is hosted onsite, while Squarespace’s is also hosted internally using Squarespace Email Campaigns. You can pick from a handful of email templates, then add your own content and fire them out to your users.
Alternatively, you can integrate with MailChimp or choose one of the marketing apps from the Squarespace Extensions store. The Delighted app, for example, automates post-purchase customer feedback surveys via email or text.
Check out our helpful guide if you want to know more about the best email marketing softwares to integrate with.
Social Media Integration
GoDaddy and Squarespace weigh up the same when it comes to social integrations. Both platforms let you link to your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages, and people can click through on them to see your work and follow you.
GoDaddy takes it a step further and enables a live feed section and a post creator. There’s even a YouTube livestream option to let you share what you’re doing with visitors on your website, which is a great way to engage more people and boost site traffic.
Squarespace enables ‘social shares’, so users can post your content on their own social media with a few clicks – whereas GoDaddy is only just beginning to roll out this feature. Embedding a social feed on a Squarespace site is easy too, and it’s a great way to show users your most recent posts, tweets and pictures.
With Squarespace, you can also integrate an app called Unfold, which is found in Squarespace’s app market. Unfold helps you create stylized social posts that match your brand image. The app comes with ready-made templates, similar to those you can find on Squarespace itself.
SEO
Which Will Rank Better?
Which Will Rank Better?
The Winner
Squarespace is better for SEO than GoDaddy
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of helping your website rank highly on the likes of Google. The higher up the search results you come, the more likely people are to see your site, then click on it. There are loads of ways to improve your site’s SEO, and website builders do a great job in providing certain tools to help.
GoDaddy and Squarespace are almost identical in terms of their SEO support. On either, you can:
- Edit meta titles/descriptions – the text that appears in a Google search
- Change URL slugs – the text between the forward slashes, ‘/’, after your domain
- Add image alt text – write something about your pictures so Google understands what they display
- Receive keyword support – so you know which words or phrases to include in your copy
- Use mobile responsive themes – meaning your site will automatically adjust to different screen sizes (something search engines look out for)
However, Squarespace pips GoDaddy through its site mapping functionality and automatic updates.
Want to know more about site mapping? Check out this article to see how to create a sitemap for your website. GoDaddy offers its own SEO Wiz which optimizes various elements of your site for you – an awesome addition if you’re not quite confident in the world of SEO.
Help and Support
Who Offer More of a Helping Hand?
Who Offer More of a Helping Hand?
The Winner
Squarespace is better for help and support
The level of help you receive is vital to the success of your website. Alongside the quality of support, it’s also nice to get help in a variety of ways.
With GoDaddy, you receive 24/7 phone support and have a live chat option which is open until 6pm. Unfortunately, this platform dropped down the rankings in our help and support user testing, scoring a 3.8 out of 5 due to its lack of email support.
With Squarespace, you get 24/7 email support and also have a live chat option from Monday to Friday, 4am-8pm EST. It doesn’t have phone support, though.
Once again, the pair are hard to separate, but there is a deal-breaker – their help centers. A help center is an inbuilt resource where you can find handy guides on how to do certain things. You simply type in your question, hit search, and find the relevant guide.
We found GoDaddy’s help center to be a little cluttered. GoDaddy changed its platform at the start of the year to use ADI, but not all of the guides have been updated.
Squarespace’s help center, on the other hand, is clean and clear. It’s easy to navigate and find exactly what you’re looking for.
Pricing and Value for Money
Which Has Better Value?
Which Has Better Value?
The Winner
GoDaddy has the better value for money
If you’re not a tech whiz, knowing what is and isn’t value for money with website builders can be hard. Luckily, we’ve had a thorough look through both GoDaddy and Squarespace’s pricing plans to see which gives you the better deal.
GoDaddy has four pricing plans, ranging from $9.99/month to $16.99/month. As website builders come, GoDaddy’s plans are very cheap, but what are you getting for your money?
Well, you can use the same editor, have the same themes, and get the same support on all four plans. If you’re a business, though, you should be looking at the $14.99/month Premium plan.
Here, you get extra social sharing options, SEO tools and guidance, and the option to accept online payments for services and bookings. With the Ecommerce plan – yep, you guessed it – you can sell products online. This opens up all the ecommerce features we spoke about in the features section, and gives you a nice little dashboard to work from.
Squarespace also has four pricing plans, ranging from $16/month to $49/month. The two cheaper plans are for individuals or businesses who don’t need to sell online. You get access to almost everything, and unlike GoDaddy, SSL security is included on all plans.
The upper-tiered pricing gives you ecommerce functionality. You can turn any Squarespace theme into a beautiful storefront and integrate your website with Instagram shopping.
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9 GoDaddy vs Squarespace: Conclusion
By now, you should have a clear idea of which website builder is better in each of the areas we’ve looked at. Here’s a quick recap:
| GoDaddy vs Squarespace | GoDaddy | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | A really simple and fast approach to web design thanks to ADI. | Small learning curve, but easy enough once you understand the editor. |
| Design | Limited theme selection and creative control due to ADI. | Gorgeous themes and a great level of customization. |
| Features | A good amount of features and tools on offer, but a few lack real quality. | High-end features of real quality that are perfect for online stores and blogs. |
| SEO | Great level of control over things that impact SEO, plus a brilliant sitemap option. | Access to all the basic SEO functions and tools. |
| Help and Support | 24/7 phone support and a live chat option. Slightly outdated and ill-informed help center. | 24/7 email support and a live chat option. Really clean and clear help center. |
| Value for Money | Cheap pricing plans and the option to build an online store. | Relatively expensive pricing plans, but you get a lot of quality for your money – both in the design and features. |
Now we’ve compared GoDaddy and Squarespace in more detail, you can see there’s a lot more to set them apart than just speed and design. GoDaddy’s cheapest plan is a couple of dollars cheaper than Squarespace’s – but Squarespace’s plentiful and well-built features mean you get as much bang for your buck.
Squarespace is better for you if...
…You’re looking to sell online and create a stunning brand presence, because of its better quality templates.GoDaddy is better for you if...
…You’d like a cheap and cheerful site that covers the basics and gets your website off the ground without anything too fancy.Looking deeper still, GoDaddy has better SEO capabilities than Squarespace, if this is something that’s important to you. However Squarespace’s help and support is noticeably stronger and its stunning templates can’t be beaten. All in all, Squarespace is our winner – unless time is truly of the essence.
10 GoDaddy vs Squarespace: FAQs
There are plenty of other website builders out there, but two which stand out are Wix and Weebly. Wix is a website builder that offers both ADI and a drag-and-drop editor. To read more about Wix and Weebly, check out Wix review, and our Weebly review.
It’s not just the price that puts people off developers – it’s the ongoing maintenance. The world of web design is changing all the time, and websites become outdated quickly. It’s easier to be on a platform that reinvents itself and updates features for you to use as times change, rather than having to contact your developer every year or two to make changes.
If the sole purpose of your website is ecommerce, you’ll want a more powerful solution. GoDaddy and Squarespace are fine for selling the odd product here and there, but online store builders like Shopify and BigCommerce help merchants take their stores to the next level. You can read our review of Shopify, and BigCommerce review.
Found our comparison helpful?
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