Have you ever tried building a website from scratch? Sheesh, it’s tricky, all that HTML, CSS and JavaScript can be a headache.
Website builders are faster, easier (and often cheaper if you factor in labor hours) than coding your own. They’re a godsend for non-technical folk, and marketers like me who would rather focus on what we do best.
A responsive website is essential for businesses of any size. They showcase your product, service or passion. In the digital age a business without a website will get left behind.
So, if you’re reading this, you’re probably looking for a website builder. And you’re in the right place.
Two of the most popular options on the market at the moment are Wix and Squarespace. In this post we’ll compare the two, looking at some of their features, the ease of use and cost.
Let’s get ready to rumble!
Firstly, why use a website builder?
Wix and Squarespace are ideal options for those building their first website, or for people that don’t need large amounts of customization on their site. They are quick, simple and come with a lot of templates to get you started off on the right foot.
What’s important to note is that these are proprietary platforms, if you’re looking for a more open-source CMS, or need advanced customization, something like WordPress might be a better bet.
One cool feature is that both Wix and Squarespace are self-hosted. That means you don’t need to purchase additional hosting services for your website – handy!
Which is better for landing pages?
Landing pages are essential tools for marketers to convert more traffic into leads and paying customers. If you’re running a paid search campaign but you’re not using a landing page – you’re doing it wrong.
Wix is a great tool for quickly spinning up a landing page. Wix have actually written a guide on how to do this, and have some pre-built landing page templates to get you up and running quickly.
Squarespace calls landing pages ‘cover pages’ and also has a helpful guide for building them. With some of the most attractive templates on the web, Squarespace can be a good solution, but it lacks the flexibility of Wix.
Also, Wix’s app market is packed full of tools that marketers can use to generate more leads from their landing pages.
Which has the best templates?
One of the advantages of using these platforms is that they come with a bunch of pre-built design templates that you can plug in, add your branding and have a website ready to go.
Wix templates
Wix comes with over 500 free templates as standard. That’s a whole lot of templates! Wix templates boast a lot of modern, attractive designs, but Squarespace has a slight edge, with best-in-class templates of any website builder we’ve seen.
Squarespace templates
Squarespace has slightly less templates, with a little over 90 available for free as standard. However, there are some really attractive options in there. If you’re looking to host a photography portfolio or something visual, Squarespace can be a really good option.
Which is easier to use?
Both of these platforms use drag-and-drop builders, meaning you can select elements you want to add to a page, such as a form, text or image block, and drop them where you want them. How you arrange the elements is exactly how your site will appear once it’s live.
This workflow is very intuitive on both platforms. For a slightly simpler experience, Wix might be the better option, as drag and drop behaves exactly as expected, whereas with Squarespace you can’t just drag things anywhere, as it uses a section-based model.
Wix also has an Artificial Design Intelligence tool (Wix ADI), that actually builds your site for you! ADI is a pretty cool tool that looks at different combos of layouts, images, text, contact forms & other elements to create a unique site to fit your needs.
Squarespace is slightly more technical, but comes with a bunch of beautiful templates that can be edited to get a great site up in no time.
Wix vs Squarespace SEO
Your website is only good if it can be seen! For that, you’ll need to ensure that it’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is up to scratch.
Both platforms come with out-of-the-box tools to get your site ranking high with Google, Wix even has an SEO guide and a dedicated tool called Wix SEO Wiz that helps with keyword planning and builds a custom plan for improving SEO results.
Squarespace has an SEO checklist, but doesn’t boast the same easy-to-follow SEO features of Wix.
Wix vs Squarespace pricing
Wix and Squarespace are both subscription-based platforms, with charges on a monthly or annual basis. There are often discounts for annual subscriptions.
Squarespace pricing
Squarespace has 4 pricing tiers – Personal, Business and 2 tiers of Commerce (Basic and Advanced).
Bear in mind that the above prices are for monthly subscriptions. Squarespace offers a 30% discount on these if you pay annually.
It’s a bang-for-buck situation here, the more you pay the more features you get. Personal plans are ideal for simple personal websites, while a business account is a great choice for small businesses or solopreneurs.
Squarespace business plans offer a free year of professional Gmail and a G Suite account. It also allows for unlimited contributors, while the personal plan is only limited to 2 users.
The Basic and Advanced Commerce plans offer a suite of tools for ecommerce such as 0% transaction fees, ecommerce analytics, gift cards and advanced discounts. Ecommerce is one area where Squarespace really shines – it’s a robust all-in-one option for businesses to quickly start selling their products online.
Wix pricing
Wix offers 8 pricing plans – 4 for websites and 4 for business and ecommerce.
Website plans
The Unlimited plans and upwards are great choices – all come with $300 dollars of ad credit (Google/Bing/Local listings), that can be put towards promoting your new website.
The VIP plan offers the highest level of customer support, with quicker response times from reps and on-demand phone support. But from our experience standard Wix support is pretty fantastic anyway, so it’s your call (excuse the pun) whether you will need the extra attention.
Business & eCommerce
Any of the Wix eCommerce plans are ideal fit for both early stage and growing businesses. Those who choose the most expensive Enterprise tier receive white-glove service in setting up their site, but the price tag is pretty hefty. For the majority of eCommerce businesses, any cheaper plan should suffice for your needs.
Wix vs Squarespace for eCommerce
Both Wix and Squarespace started as purely website builders, but have grown into powerful platforms for ecommerce businesses. Which is better? Get the scoop below.
Squarespace for eCommerce
Squarespace is a particularly powerful ecommerce platform. It offers everything that a business needs to both list and sell physical goods, digital products and services online.
One drawback is that it only accepts Stripe and Paypal for payments. However, seeing as these are two of the most popular solutions for online payments, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue for most businesses.
A cool feature of Squarespace ecommerce is that it supports live carrier cost calculations for Fedex, USPS and UPS. Meaning potential buyers can see live calculations for how much delivery of products will cost prior to purchasing.
Wix for eCommerce
Wix has steadily been building features to make it an ecommerce powerhouse. And it comes at a slightly cheaper price tag than Squarespace.
Wix accepts a lot of different payment gateways, including Square, Paypal, Stripe and many more. It also has a pretty cool POS integration via Square.
However, Wix doesn’t have as much delivery estimate coverage as Squarespace. It only supports estimates from USPS and Correios (a Brazilian postal service)
For businesses selling services online, they must use the additional Wix bookings app, which allows customers to schedule appointments and bookings directly from your website.
Overall Wix’s flexibility and add-on options make it a more versatile choice. But ultimately the better ecommerce tool will depend on your specific business needs.
Conclusion
Wix and Squarespace are both ideal choices for dipping your toes into web development, and getting your business online, fast. The better choice for your needs will depend on your business requirements, but both do a pretty good job. Meaning it may come down to the slight differences in price or ease of use.
For many businesses (such as restaurants or cafes) they offer everything you need. If further customization is needed, platforms like Webflow, WordPress and even fully custom sites may be better suited to your needs. But they come at a higher price tag.