Wix vs Squarespace 2021 | 9 Differences You Should Know

In a rush? Looking for quick answers? We get it – here’s a quick side-by-side comparison table to help you weigh up whether Wix or Squarespace is better for your needs.

Read on for our detailed comparison to find out exactly why Squarespace’s designs are better, why we recommend Wix for beginners, and which has better marketing tools.

Drag-and-Drop Editor: No Need for Code

Both Wix and Squarespace are drag-and-drop website builders.

Wix is a “pure” drag-and-drop builder, meaning you really can drop whatever you want, wherever you want it. Squarespace isn’t exactly the same – you can’t drag elements around as freely like you can with Wix. This means it takes a little longer to get used to.

In our testing, Wix scored 4.3 out of 5 stars for ease of use, because of its smooth drag-and-drop editor. Squarespace’s section-based design is more challenging, meaning it only scored 3.3 out of 5 stars. Both have an Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) option which will generate a website for you based on your answers to a few simple questions.

Wix has an impressive range of templates, most of which are attractive and provide a foundation for a professional looking website. They’re all mobile responsive, and come with a mobile editor so you can customize both your desktop and your mobile view.

You’ll notice we said most of Wix’s templates are attractive. When you have over 500 designs, it’s unsurprising that not every template hits the mark. This one, for example, was frankly uncomfortable to look at for too long:

When choosing a template, you want peace of mind that whichever design you pick, your website will look its best. While most of Wix’s templates are modern and professional, poor examples like these drag the standard down. 

Squarespace, on the other hand, provides beautiful template designs right across the board. Every single template is modern, professional, and carefully tailored to different industries:

When it comes to templates, Squarespace is the unbeaten champion of stunning and modern design. This is a classic case of quality over quantity; Squarespace may have a smaller range than Wix, but each and every template has been created by professional designers. And, of course, they’re all mobile responsive.

This area of testing was pretty close between the two builders, but the sheer number and quality of Wix’s features eventually beat Squarespace’s smaller range of carefully curated tools. Let’s take a closer look at their key features:

We discuss blogging, marketing, SEO, and ecommerce further down this page – use these links to skip straight to the features you want to know most about:

• • Take me to Wix vs Squarespace: Ecommerce
  • Take me to Wix vs Squarespace: Blogging
  • Take me to Wix vs Squarespace: Marketing
  • Take me to Wix vs Squarespace: SEO

From comparing Wix’s and Squarespace’s features, it’s clear their job isn’t only to help you build your website, but to help you run it and create a successful online presence, too.

On the whole, both Wix and Squarespace are pretty evenly matched. Wix has more features than Squarespace, although Squarespace ensures quality by building all its features in-house.

That said, Squarespace relies a lot on integrations with third parties for any features it doesn’t have in-house. For example, it relies on EventBrite for any ticket bookings. Its Squarespace Extensions store lets you choose from various third-party integratinos to expand your site’s functionality.

In contrast, Wix has a lot more features built into its platform. For example, to sell tickets, you just need the Wix Events app, which can make life easier than integrating with a third party. You can easily add more features to your site via Wix’s App Market, but more on that in a moment…

Both Wix and Squarespace are pretty evenly matched when it comes to features. But if you want to go one step further, you can add apps.

Wix has its own dedicated App Market, providing apps made by Wix as well as third party ones. There are 47 “Made by Wix” apps, such as Wix Bookings or Wix Events, as well as tons of third party apps such as Printful and Instagram.

There’s also a mix of free and paid apps – over 200 in total! This gives you the freedom to choose the features which work best for your website as it grows.

The majority of Squarespace’s features are designed in-house, and already built into the editor for you. This means everything you need to build, grow, and manage your website is right there at your fingertips – you don’t have to go looking for extra functions.

For features that Squarespace doesn’t have in-house, it relies on third party integrations. For example, you need to use OpenTable for online reservations.

Squarespace’s app store is called Squarespace Extensions, and features a small selection of 23 third-party integrations covering four main categories:

• Shipping and Fulfillment
• Finance
• Inventory and Products
• Sales and Marketing

Examples of Squarespace’s apps include Printful, ShipStation, Quickbooks, and TaxJar. These extensions are designed to help you grow, optimize, and manage your website and are especially useful for growing businesses.

It’s worth mentioning that both builders have a mobile app which lets you manage your site on the go from your phone. You can’t actually build your site on your phone, but it’s a useful app to have – especially if you’re running a side hustle and aren’t tied to a desk all day!

• Inventory management
• Payment gateways
• Donations
• Discounts
• Shipping tools
• Sell an unlimited number of products

You’ll find these features on both Wix and Squarespace’s cheapest ecommerce plans. For Wix, that’s the $23 per month Business Basic plan, while for Squarespace it’s the $18 per month Business plan.

Wix charges no transaction fees on any of its ecommerce plans, while Squarespace charges a 3% transaction fee on its cheapest $18 per month Business plan. Once you upgrade to Squarespace’s $26 per month plan, you’ll enjoy 0% transaction fees.

Although Squarespace has a cheaper starting price than Wix, it also reserves certain features for its top-level plans. For example, you have to be on its $40 per month Advanced Commerce plan to unlock abandoned cart recovery and subscriptions.

In comparison, Wix is much more generous with its sales tools – you get abandoned cart recovery on its $23 per month Business Basic plan, and subscriptions on its $27 per month plan.

This means that for online stores, Wix offers better value for money than Squarespace, making it a better choice for budget-conscious businesses.

Wix’s features and blogging templates simply can’t compete – if you want a blog, try Squarespace first!

Wix comes with a few basic blogging features built-in, but in reality you’ll need to add the free Wix Blog app to your site to launch a proper blog. Squarespace, on the other hand, comes with its blogging tools built-in and ready to go.

Squarespace takes its blogging experience to the next level, making it better for small, growing, or even professional blogs. Expect comment moderation, multiple author management, and individual permissions so that different people can work on different parts of your blog.

Squarespace’s blogging tools come ready to support teams and multi-author collaboration. There’s even a workflow feature to help you and your team stay on schedule, which lets you flag drafts as Needs Review to keep everyone in the loop.

While the Wix Blog app comes with a solid range of features, from scheduling posts to member profiles, it fails to deliver the same experience as Squarespace.

Create, customize, and run email campaigns, then share them on your social networks, send out newsletters, track your stats, and more with Wix’s Email Marketing tools. If that’s not enough, you can add apps such as the Facebook Like Popup to engage a wider audience.

Ascend by Wix is Wix’s most powerful marketing suite, which includes:

• Customizable email editor
• Automations
• Advanced analytics
• SEO tools
• Social integration
• Video maker
• Live chat
• Forms
• Invoices

This is Wix’s all-in-one marketing suite for businesses, so the list of features goes on and on. There’s a limited free version, then three paid plans ranging from $9 to $45 per month.

One of the things we like most about Wix’s marketing tools is how customizable they are. For example, one of Wix’s main marketing features is Wix Email Marketing, which lets you run email campaigns to promote your website, blog, or business. This includes features such as:

• Customizable styles – change your font, background, and more
• Contact integration – add and store your contacts’ details
• Stats tracker – see how many people open, view, and click your emails
• Social media tools – share campaigns across social platforms

Squarespace’s Marketing Tools

Meanwhile, Squarespace helps you stand out from the crowd with its highly customized, stunning email campaigns. Combine these with integration across social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and guage their impact using built-in analytics.

Squarespace has an all-in-one platform called Squarespace Email Campaigns. This integrates fully with your website, providing a streamlined service across your brand.

Unlike Wix’s email campaign add-on, Squarespace Email Campaigns doesn’t have a free version. Instead, you get a trial period that lets you send out three campaigns in total, with 50,000 sends per campaign.

The trial has no time limit, but once you’ve sent your three campaigns, you’ll need to upgrade to send any more. Squarespace Email Campaigns has four price plans, ranging from $5 to $48 per month when billed annually.

Is Squarespace’s email marketing platform worth the cost? Here are a few things you can do with it:

• Import content from your website to draft emails
• Send automated emails to subscribers
• Choose from over 30 starter layouts
• Manage your marketing on the go with mobile editing
• Track your campaigns’ success with integrated analytics

There’s no denying you get a stellar service from Squarespace’s email marketing. However, if Squarespace’s service doesn’t tick your boxes, it has five sales and marketing apps in its Extensions Store that you can choose from – or you can integrate with MailChimp instead!

Both Wix and Squarespace have built-in SEO tools to help you boost your website’s ranking. These include mobile responsive pages, optimized headings, and alt text for images. Compare their key SEO features in the table below:

While Squarespace is nearly on par with Wix thanks to its sophisticated SEO tools, where it really falls down is making SEO beginner-friendly. While Wix makes it easy to get to grips with your site’s SEO – with helpful prompts and a personalized SEO Wizard – Squarespace is much more hands-off.

Wix provides support through email, forums, social media, a dedicated Support Center, and a 24/7 callback service for phone support.  There are currently no live chat functions available.

Squarespace, in addition to providing a forum and a Knowledge Center, also has a live chat function (from 3am to 8pm EST, Monday through Friday) and a 24/7 email response team. There’s currently no phone support available, but if you need a speedy reply you’re in luck – it’s Squarespace’s policy to respond to all emails within 1 hour – impressive stuff!

One of the best features of Wix’s support is its on-page help while you edit. If you get stuck, or don’t know what something is, all you have to do is click on one of the little question marks on your screen.

Squarespace gives its users more onboarding than it used to, and now offers on-page support while you build – but it hasn’t quite caught up to Wix’s level of helpful prompts.

Is Wix or Squarespace Cheaper?

Squarespace’s starting plan is cheapest at $12 per month (billed annually). This is compared to Wix’s starter plan, which costs $14 per month (billed annually). However, Wix also comes with a free plan, while Squarespace doesn’t.

Overall, Wix offers better value for money thanks to its generous free plan and huge range of price plans, providing both choice and scalability for users of all budgets.

Squarespace Pricing vs Wix Pricing

There’s only a small difference between Wix and Squarespace’s cheapest plans, but you get a lot more for your money on Squarespace’s low-tier plans than you do with Wix.

For example, Squarespace gives you unlimited bandwidth and storage straight away on its $12 per month Personal plan, whereas Wix only unlocks unlimited bandwidth on its $18 per month Unlimited plan. You won’t find unlimited storage on any of Wix’s plans.

If you want to build a site for free, however, then Wix is the obvious choice. Its free plan is great for getting started – we just don’t recommend staying on it long-term.