Wix vs Squarespace: Comparing the Top Website Builders
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Wix and Squarespace are both highly-rated website builders in our 2024 rankings. But who comes out on top when you compare these two side by side? After 200+ hours of testing, Wix is the best website builder overall. Wix offers an easy drag-and-drop editor, powerful features to help you promote your website, and ecommerce capabilities for businesses looking to sell online.
It’s a tight call, though – Squarespace is another high-quality website builder. It has brilliant scheduling tools, stylish templates, and a beginner-friendly interface to navigate. We’re here to help break down these two builders so you can find the right fit for your business.
Wix is best for… |
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Small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to build their brand online, boost visibility, and engage with their audience. |
Squarespace is best for… |
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Creatives and designers looking to build a visual or content-heavy site. |
Quick Comparison: Wix vs Squarespace
Get a quick summary of the two website builders from the table below. We’ll go into more detail about key areas, such as pricing, ease of use, and support, in the dedicated sections.
Wix | Squarespace |
Overall Rating 4.9 | Overall Rating 4.8 |
Starting from | Starting from |
Free plan or free trial Free plan | Free plan or free trial 14-day free trial |
Number of templates 900+ | Number of templates 150+ |
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Best for Pricing: Squarespace
Want to get the best deal for your money? Squarespace is better value for money than Wix. Squarespace’s pricing ranges from $16 to $49 per month (billed annually), divided between four premium plans:
- Personal – $16 per month
- Business – $23 per month
- Commerce Basic – $27 per month
- Commerce Advanced – $49 per month
For 10% off your Squarespace plan, use our exclusive code “WBE10”.
Squarespace’s Personal plan is a great place to start for anyone looking to build a simple website, without the need for ecommerce tools or advanced functionality, like promotional pop-ups or subscriptions. You’ll need to opt for at least the $23 per month Business plan if you’re looking to sell online.
And, as you can see, there’s a steady increase between Squarespace’s plans, meaning you won’t face a huge jump in price if you choose to upgrade.
Wix’s pricing ranges from $16 to $159 per month (billed annually). You can also choose between four premium plans:
- Light – $16 per month
- Core – $27 per month
- Business – $32 per month
- Business Elite – $159 per month
Get 10% off your Wix plan with the code “TAKE10”.
To accept payments and sell products, you’ll need Wix’s Core plan – an option that’s slightly more expensive than Squarespace’s cheapest ecommerce plan. And, unlike Squarespace, Wix’s plans increase dramatically once you reach the higher tiers.
![Wix free plan ads Wix free plan preview showing banner encouraging users to upgrade their plan](png/wix-free-plan-ads-2.png)
Wix has a free plan that you can stay on for as long as you’d like, but it comes with ads and limited features, such as 500MB of storage and a Wix domain name, such as www.accountname.wixsite.com/siteaddress. We recommend upgrading as soon as possible to remove ads and unlock additional features to help your site grow – not only will this make your site appear professional but you’ll have better tools, such as a full marketing suite, to manage and promote your business.
In comparison, Squarespace has a 14-day free trial to test out the builder. Despite not having a free plan, the trial still gives you plenty of time to see if Squarespace is a good fit for your website. You only need an email address to sign up, too – there’s no need to enter payment details.
![squarespace logo](https://images.websitebuilderexpert.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/11094811/squarespace-logo-165.webp?width=20&height=20&fit=crop)
The Winner
Squarespace is better value for money
Best for Setting Up Your Website: Wix
The onboarding process is the first experience you’ll have with your chosen website builder and it can really set the tone. We carried out hands-on testing for both Wix and Squarespace to see what it’s like for users when signing up.
Our Experience With Wix
With Wix, you have two paths to set up your website. Wix’s recommended route, the AI chatbot, is a recent addition to the website builder. It engages you in conversation and asks a few questions to create a custom site based on your responses.
During our tests, we were impressed by how personalized the questions became following our answers. For example, I set out to create a website for a bookstore, and Wix’s AI chatbot asked: “Do you have any additional goals for your website, like gathering newsletter subscribers or promoting book events?”.
Of course, the AI tool isn’t without error – I named my bookshop “Bookmark”, and the chatbot focused heavily on that word when building the site profile, resulting in “bookmarking needs” as a goal.
![Wix AI chatbot Wix AI chatbot asking questions to create custom website](png/wix-ai-chatbot-2.png)
If you want a more direct approach, Wix’s stripped-back onboarding process (without AI) takes under 60 seconds to complete. Wix asked us three questions:
- What kind of website are you creating?
- What would you like to call your website?
- What would you like to add to your website?
The final question comes with a variety of suggestions and recommendations based on your needs. For example, a blog section or events page for our bookstore website. Once we answered the basic questions, Wix directed us to choose a template or let Wix’s AI builder create a custom site for us – like the AI chatbot, but based solely on our answers to the three previous questions.
We’d recommend using the AI chatbot to get started since it sets you up with a personalized website in a minute or so. Using the chatbot, as opposed to Wix’s general AI website builder, gives the user more control over the outcome.
Our Experience With Squarespace
When testing Squarespace, we were presented with two set-up options: choose a template or build with Squarespace Blueprint, a guided web design solution.
To compare with Wix’s AI chatbot, we tried Squarespace Blueprint to help build our bookstore. It first asked us for the website’s name – a standard starting point when building with AI. We could then choose from a list of sections and layouts to add to the homepage, such as the “Products section” or “Social section”.
![Squarespace Blueprint Build your homepage section of Squarespace Blueprint](png/squarespace-blueprint.png)
While this makes it easy to pull a website together quickly, you get a greater variety of sections and elements if you choose to edit a pre-designed Squarespace template in the editor, instead of using Squarespace Blueprint.
To complete the custom build, Squarespace Blueprint finally asked us to add pages from a preset list, before choosing colors and font type. A five-step process in all, but it takes a little longer than Wix’s AI chatbot since you have to browse and select the design options yourself.
![wix logo](png/wix-logo-1000e9b.png)
The Winner
Wix has the best onboarding process
Best for Templates: Wix
Building a unique and eye-catching online presence often comes down to the website’s design. Despite Squarespace being a design powerhouse, Wix offers a wider range of templates.
With over 800 Wix templates available, the catalog covers a broad spectrum of industries and business needs, from “Real Estate” to “Vlog”.
In comparison, there are around 150+ Squarespace templates to choose between. Now, these are all high-quality and professionally designed as well, but they can’t match the sheer scale of Wix’s template library. To give you context, Wix has 17 templates for non-profit organizations, whereas Squarespace only offers eight.
![Wix non-profit templates Non-profit Wix templates in template library](png/wix-non-profit-templates.png)
Unfortunately, you can’t swap your template once live with either Wix or Squarespace (if you’re using Squarespace’s most recent 7.1 editor). This means that any intense design updates can be time-consuming since you need to tweak everything from scratch.
![wix logo](png/wix-logo-1000e9b.png)
The Winner
Wix offers a better template variety
Best for Editing: Squarespace
From our testing, Squarespace is the easiest website builder to use. It creates a user-friendly experience, offering stylish designs, intuitive features, and structured editing support when building a site.
We used Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor to design our test website – the grid overlay, which adds some guided structure, felt helpful instead of restrictive. While we couldn’t drop a section or element anywhere we liked, the grid lines kept the site looking clean.
With Squarespace, it was just a matter of changing the actual content rather than the sections, so that made things easier.
![lucy carney](jpg/lucy-carney-bio-59ab.jpg)
Because of this, we recommend Squarespace for beginners since it’ll be a challenge to create a bad-looking site with the editor. That being said, we also feel that more experienced builders would also enjoy Squarespace thanks to its sleek UX and library of design elements.
![Squarespace editor (3) Squarespace editor showing drag and drop function](png/squarespace-editor-3.png)
Wix also uses a drag-and-drop editor but Wix gives users total creative freedom. You can drop items anywhere on the screen, without any grid-style structure. However, this can quickly result in messy or cluttered pages!
With the advanced control, Wix can be daunting for some beginners due to the sheer number of editing tools available – you’ll lose a lot of time exploring the editor and deciding what to include. If you’re confident with designing a website, you’ll likely favor the creative independence granted by Wix, but Squarespace is the easier option for anyone less tech-savvy.
It would take me a long time to get my Wix site to a point where I’m happy to publish it, especially for a business. You want it to look sleek and professional.
![headshot of Sam Jagger](png/sam59ab.png)
![Wix editor Wix editor showing text settings](png/wix-editor-3.png)
![squarespace logo](https://images.websitebuilderexpert.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/11094811/squarespace-logo-165.webp?width=20&height=20&fit=crop)
The Winner
Squarespace is the easiest website builder to use
Best for Selling Online: Wix
If you’re looking for an ecommerce website builder to build an online store, then Wix is the stronger choice. You’ll gain access to powerful sales features with its ecommerce plans, such as:
- A robust backend for managing your store and inventory – sell a variety of physical and digital products
- Seamless integration between in-store and online sales thanks to Wix’s POS products
- Advanced shipping options, including free shipping and local delivery – customize your settings to suit your business needs
- Unlimited storage space on the Business Elite plan – you’re restricted on cheaper Wix plans which offer between 2GB and 100GB of storage
- Multichannel selling to help your business target customers across social media and marketplaces, such as Amazon and Facebook
And this is just scratching the surface of Wix’s sales features – you can read more about Wix Ecommerce in our dedicated review.
![Wix product management Wix product backend dashboard](png/wix-product-management.png)
Squarespace is also a capable website builder for selling online, especially if you’re looking to offer services, such as appointments or classes. Squarespace’s Acuity Scheduling tool is a great built-in feature, letting you create appointments and set availability from a dedicated dashboard.
However, you’ll need to pay extra to use the scheduling platform in addition to your regular Squarespace plan – Acuity Scheduling plans start from $16 per month (billed annually).
![Squarespace Acuity Scheduling (1) Squarespace Acuity Scheduling homepage showing form to add new appointment type](png/squarespace-acuity-scheduling-1.png)
With Squarespace, you get unlimited storage from its cheapest plan – something only available on Wix’s most expensive plan. Plus, you can sell unlimited products across all plans which is capped at 50,000 products on Wix plans.
That said, Wix remains the better ecommerce website builder of the two, providing room for growth and a suite of built-in sales features, as well as access to a large app market of third-party integrations. However, we still wouldn’t recommend either Wix or Squarespace for a large online store since both builders lack the ecommerce capabilities and power of Shopify, our top-rated ecommerce website builder.
![wix logo](png/wix-logo-1000e9b.png)
The Winner
Wix provides great sales features and scalability
Best for Marketing Your Website: Wix
A key factor for any website is marketing – you must promote your website to your target audience. To do this, you need the right website features at your fingertips, and Wix has the best tools for promoting a website.
Marketing & SEO
Wix and Squarespace are evenly matched when it comes to email marketing – both offer built-in tools as well as third-party integrations, such as Mailchimp. This means website owners can easily grow subscribers, send out newsletters or website updates, and organize automations such as welcome emails.
When it comes to SEO, Wix comes out on top with a perfect score of 5 out of 5. Both website builders include standard free SEO tools, such as mobile optimization and 301 redirects, but Wix goes the extra mile. When testing Wix’s SEO, we were impressed by the personalized SEO checklist it created for our website – this is especially useful for beginners.
Wix also helps you generate and analyze keywords with its Semrush integration, ensuring your content is optimized fully. And, at the end of 2023, Wix rolled out the AI Meta Tag Creator – this deploys AI to support your SEO efforts by automatically generating optimized title tags and meta descriptions for you.
For additional support, you can also tap into Wix’s vast SEO Learning Hub to broaden your SEO knowledge. We found that the video library is a great resource to strengthen those foundational SEO skills.
![Wix SEO checklist (1) Personalized Wix SEO setup checklist](png/wix-seo-checklist-1.png)
Blogging
Like email marketing, Wix and Squarespace remain fairly level when it comes to blogging. Both have dedicated blog sections to make it easy for you to add content to your website. You can set up blog-specific SEO, schedule posts, search blog content, create categories, and even set up comments or ways to share posts across socials.
However, Squarespace is a little let down by its lack of blog-specific analytics and archive functionality – both are features offered by Wix. Additionally, Wix lets you monetize your blog content with online ads or premium content, whereas Squarespace doesn’t provide this opportunity. That’s why Wix beats Squarespace in our list of the best blogging platforms.
![Wix blog post New blog post in Wix's website builder](png/wix-blog-post.png)
Internationalization
Thinking about expanding your audience globally? Want to reach new markets? Wix offers far superior internationalization tools than Squarespace. For example, Wix supports 180 languages if you’re looking to adapt your site for other regions, whereas Squarespace only supports 11.
Wix will automatically translate content for your website visitors, but it’s a trickier process with Squarespace. If you’re using Squarespace 7.1, you can use the Weglot integration to build a multilingual site (with limited language options). If you’re using the older 7.0 editor, then you’ll need to manually translate your site.
Wix also recently announced a partnership with Global-e which will help Wix merchants sell products around the world thanks to improved ecommerce features, such as localized checkouts and multiple currencies.
![wix logo](png/wix-logo-1000e9b.png)
The Winner
Wix’s marketing tools will help boost your site’s visibility
Best for Support: Wix
Everyone needs a helping hand now and again, and Wix has the best help and support out of all the website builders we’ve tested. You can find expert guidance and resources from these channels:
- 24/7 phone support
- Social media
- Live chat, available Monday to Friday between 2AM and 6PM EST
- Support within the editor, such as video guides and a tour of the editor’s features, if you need help designing your website
- Knowledge center full of guides and tutorials
- SEO Learning Hub for specialized support to help optimize your content
- Community forum so you can hear from real Wix users
Apart from phone support and the dedicated SEO resource, these are all available with Squarespace, too. Like Wix, Squarespace performs well in this research area, providing users with 24/7 live chat and email support.
Despite slight differences in contact methods, where Wix and Squarespace really differ is in their response times. When testing the live chat functionality, Wix’s AI live chat gave us a response in under 10 seconds, whereas Squarespace’s human live chat response took over eight minutes. So, if you’re after immediate support, Wix is the clear winner.
![wix logo](png/wix-logo-1000e9b.png)
The Winner
Wix offers 24/7 support to website owners
How We Test Website Builders
When comparing two of the top website builders, like Wix and Squarespace, we carry out regular testing to guarantee that our recommendations and judgments are accurate and up to date.
Our research process focuses on six key areas, made up of 398 sub-categories, that we know are important to website owners:
- Website Features
- Design Functionality
- User Experience
- Help and Support
- Value for Money
- Customer Score
Following over 200 hours of data analysis and hands-on testing, both Wix and Squarespace have been awarded a star rating out of five for each core category. When combined, this creates their overall rating – and, as a result, we can fairly compare the two website builders.
Wix vs Squarespace: Our Recommendation
It’s a close race between our two top-rated website builders, but Wix just takes the lead. Wix is the best website builder overall, offering strong features to support selling, promoting your site, and optimizing your pages.
We recommend Wix for small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to promote their brand or start selling online. That said, Wix is a great option for a variety of needs and industries due to its broad range of templates and features.
Squarespace is a close second, providing a beginner-friendly editing experience and plans that are great value for money. Because of this, Squarespace is better suited for creatives and visually-heavy websites. And, if you’re looking for an easy or budget-friendly builder to get to grips with, you can’t beat Squarespace.
For more information on Wix and Squarespace, see how they compare with other leading website builders in our full list of the Best Website Builders. Or, take a deeper look at both platforms in their dedicated reviews where we discuss pricing, features, and more:
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