Squarespace or WordPress?[ 6 min read ]

Should you choose Squarespace or WordPress for your next website? Here are the pros and cons of a Squarespace website

Here at The Smart Bear, we’re experts in WordPress websites – but that doesn’t mean we don’t use any other platform. We can, and we do, frequently! One of our favourite alternative website platforms is Squarespace, and it’s one we genuinely enjoy working with for the right kind of project.

Why, what’s good about Squarespace?

Squarespace is super easy to set up and comes with a great deal of community support – a bit like WordPress in that respect. It has a solid selection of pre-built themes that you can use straight out of the box, modify to suit your brand, or you can start from scratch using their simple drag and drop builder. The whole experience is visually appealing and intuitive, making it really easy to see exactly how your website will look at every stage – and the best part? You don’t need any coding ability whatsoever to create something that looks polished and professional.

There are also a number of handy add-ons to choose from, including appointment scheduling and e-commerce functionality, which can be really useful depending on the nature of your business. It’s worth noting that some of these extras do come at an additional cost, or may require you to move up to a higher Squarespace package – so it’s always worth checking what’s included at each tier before you commit.

One of the biggest time-savers with Squarespace is that hosting, speed management, and general maintenance are all included in your subscription fee. There’s no need to keep on top of plugin updates or worry about the technical side of keeping your site running, which is an absolute bonus for those running busy businesses with little time to spare. The Squarespace subscription can be paid monthly if you prefer flexibility, or yearly if you’d like to benefit from a small discount. There are a range of packages available to suit different needs and budgets – you can take a look at the full breakdown here: https://www.squarespace.com/pricing – and for small brochure websites, we’d generally recommend sticking with one of the first two packages.

So, is Squarespace better than WordPress*?

In some respects, yes – but in others, not quite. It really does depend on what you need your website to do, both now and in the future. For example, Squarespace does place some limitations on what you can do with your site. You don’t have the same level of access to modify or develop things further as you would with a self-hosted WordPress site, and that can become a real sticking point as your business grows and your needs evolve.

There are ways to expand what Squarespace can do, but these often come with additional fees for extra features or add-ons. And, at the moment, the add-ons range itself is fairly limited compared to the vast library of plugins and integrations available through WordPress – so there’s simply not as much scope to develop and customise your site over time.

The free themes, while clean and modern-looking, can also be quite basic in terms of functionality. That said, the drag and drop builder does allow for a fair amount of customisation, so you can still make them feel unique to your brand. If you want something truly bespoke, there are developers out there who have access to Squarespace’s development tools and can build you a custom theme – though of course, that comes with additional cost.

However, perhaps the biggest consideration of all – and the one we always make sure to highlight to our clients – is that unlike WordPress*, Squarespace is essentially a rental service. What that means in practice is that if you ever decide you no longer want to use Squarespace, whether because it no longer does what you need, or you simply don’t want to keep paying the subscription fees, the site pretty much has to be abandoned. While some content can be partially exported , you’ll largely be starting from scratch if you ever decide to move to a different platform. It’s a significant factor that’s well worth thinking about carefully before you commit.

(*WordPress hosted on your own server, as opposed to wordpress.com )

What type of website is Squarespace best for?

We only recommend Squarespace to our clients when we genuinely believe it’s the right fit for their business – in other words, when the positives clearly outweigh the negatives in their particular situation. In our experience, Squarespace tends to work best for businesses that are time-short or not office-based, and where the website will essentially serve as a long-term brochure site. If you’re unlikely to want to develop or expand the site significantly in the future, then Squarespace could be a really great option for you.

The good news is that Squarespace offers a free trial, so you can always take it for a spin and get a proper feel for it before committing to a subscription – which we always think is a sensible idea. And, of course, if you’re still not sure which platform is right for you, feel free to book in with us for a free consultation. We’re always happy to talk things through and help you make the best decision for your business.

Squarespace VS WordPress Frequently Asked Questions