Squarespace is good. Here is what it costs you.

Dr. Okafor called me on a Tuesday in March. Her nephew built her dental practice's website on Squarespace in 2021, then left for college. No password, no notes, nothing. She asked me, "Do I need to pay you to rebuild the whole thing?"

She didn't. I drove over, took twenty minutes to reset her login, and looked around her dashboard. Her site was fine. Honestly it looked better than half the WordPress sites I build myself.

So here's the thing. Squarespace does one job and does it well. It makes a small website look like somebody got paid to design it. The trade is control, and part of the trade shows up in dollars. I pay for one Squarespace site myself, my sister-in-law's cake business, so I know this bill by heart.

What it costs

Four plans, and every one of them can sell stuff. Basic runs $25 a month, or $19 if you pay for the year. Core is $39 monthly, $29 annually. Plus is $65, or $49 on the year. Advanced is $139 monthly, $99 annually.

There is no free plan. You get a 14-day trial, no card required. The free custom domain comes only with annual billing, one year, then you pay renewal like anywhere else.

Two details matter more than the sticker. Basic takes a 2% cut of every online sale. Core and up take nothing. If you sell anything, price Core against that fee before you pick Basic. Card processing still runs about 2.9% plus 30 cents on every plan, same as Stripe or Square.

My sister-in-law is on Core at $29 a month billed yearly. That's $348 out of my account every December. Email campaigns cost extra if she ever wants them, starting around $5 a month to send. Booking runs on Acuity, which is another add-on starting around $16 a month. I skipped both. She takes orders by phone like it's 1998.

What you get, what you don't

What real users like: the templates look finished out of the box. The editor is simple enough that Dr. Okafor edits her own hours. Every plan allows unlimited products. Wix caps you. Squarespace doesn't.

Now the complaints, and I've lived most of them. There is no autosave. I closed a browser tab mid-edit in 2023 and lost a whole afternoon on a pricing page. Saved nothing. I hit save now like a man who once dropped a hundred-dollar part off a ladder.

The grid snaps everything into rows. Move something two inches off the grid and it fights you. Once your site is built on a template, switching means rebuilding by hand. A commenter named Jess on a review site said she got stuck with her 2019 design. I believe her completely.

Support is email around the clock and live chat on weekdays. No phone number to call. Third-party integrations are limited to about 50 extensions in their little catalog. And independent speed tests have put Squarespace pages slower than Wix and GoDaddy builds. Not unusable. Slower.

The rooftop unit version

I spent twelve years in HVAC, so here's my comparison. Squarespace is a packaged rooftop unit. Compressor, fan, controls, all in one box from the factory. Set it, wire it, and it runs for years without you thinking about it.

WordPress is assembling your own system from parts in the field. More control. More ways to screw it up. Most buildings want the box on the roof. Most small businesses want Squarespace.

The tax prep office I keep on WordPress needs custom forms and odd payment routing. Dr. Okafor needs a phone number and a new-patient form. Different machines. Both fine.

If you're moving to it

1. Start the 14-day trial and pick a template the way you'd pick paint. Just pick one. They all look decent.
2. Build the homepage and the contact page first. Those two pages win or lose the customer.
3. Use real photos off your phone if that's what you have. Real beats polished every time.
4. Before you publish, open the whole site on your phone. Half your customers only ever see that version.
5. Pay annually if you're keeping it. That's about a third off, plus the domain free for a year.

The cake site took me about six hours over a weekend, start to finish. Call it four years of $348 since, and it has never been down once.

What to do Monday

If you already run a Squarespace site, confirm right now that you know your own login. If you don't, reset it tonight and write the password on paper. Not in a notes app only your phone can see.

If you're still choosing, set a timer for twenty minutes and get halfway through the trial homepage. If it feels like pulling teeth, that's your answer.