Wix and Squarespace rank among today’s top website builders, serving startups, growing brands, and creatives wanting a straightforward website solution. Wix shines with its highly flexible editor and app market, suitable for users looking for maximum creative control and customization. On the other hand, Squarespace offers sleek, ready-made designs and integrated marketing tools better suited for users who focus on ease of use and cohesive brand image.
While both platforms support e-commerce, content creation, and mobile optimization, they differ in pricing structures, approaches to editing, and overall user experience.
Wix vs Squarespace: Comparison table
Wix and Squarespace are both prominent website builders, each offering valuable tools to craft a sophisticated website. The table below presents a clear, side-by-side comparison of their key features to help you choose the best fit.
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Wix vs. Squarespace: Pricing
Wix pricing
Wix provides a range of pricing plans, including monthly, yearly, and multi-year options. Each plan includes 24/7 customer support, site analytics, dedicated storage, and a free domain for the first year. While Wix promotes its yearly and multi-year plans as offering better value, it does not specify the exact discount amounts. All plans come with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
- Free trial available
- Lite: $17 per month
- Core: $29 per month
- Business: $36 per month
- Business Elite: $159 per month
Wix has four pricing plans, starting at $17 per month. More expensive plans offer more features for business, e-commerce, and advanced customization.
Squarespace pricing
Squarespace simplifies pricing with clear monthly and annual pricing plans, with annual plans providing a discount for long-term use. Some benefits, like a free custom domain for the first year, are only available with an annual subscription. Every plan includes professionally designed templates, fully managed cloud hosting, and built-in SEO tools, ensuring a seamless website-building experience. It’s worth noting that Squarespace’s money-back guarantee only applies to annual plans.
- Free trial available
- Basic: $25 per month
- Core: $36 per month
- Plus: $56 per month
- Advanced: $139 per month
Squarespace pricing starts at $25 per month, with annual plans available at a discounted rate.
Wix is the winner in terms of pricing, thanks to its flexible plans and a risk-free trial. While the Squarespace cost structure might appear cheaper at first glance, Wix offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, even on its monthly plans, making it a less risky starting point. Plus, Wix has a free tier, so you can explore the platform without spending any money upfront.
Wix vs. Squarespace: Feature comparison
Uptime
Wix offers a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, but recent data from December 2024 to February 2025 tells a different story. During this period, Wix experienced multiple incidents, including a major outage in January and a partial outage in February. While these disruptions were temporary, they implicated site availability for users.
Like Wix, Squarespace promises 99.9 percent uptime. However, historical uptime data from December 2024 to February 2025 shows the website builder outperformed that guarantee. Throughout this period, Squarespace maintained a perfect 100 percent uptime with no reported outages.
For uptime, Squarespace wins with its consistency. While Wix had incidents that disrupted availability, Squarespace maintained flawless performance. If reliability is a top priority, Squarespace is the stronger choice.
Design Flexibility
Wix delivers a high level of design flexibility with over 800 templates and a drag-and-drop editor that lets you tweak almost every element of your site. You can change colors, fonts, layouts, and customize buttons and menus to match your brand. Its versatility is great for creative freedom, but it can feel overwhelming, especially for beginners. Overall, Wix is an excellent choice if you want full control over your site’s design and don’t mind spending time fine-tuning.
Squarespace brings design flexibility within a more structured framework compared to Wix. Its selection of over 180 templates is mobile-responsive but less customizable, as it uses a grid-based editor that can be restrictive. Customization options in Squarespace are simpler but allow you to adjust fonts, colors, and layouts while maintaining a professional look. Its editor is less flexible than Wix’s but more user-friendly, making it ideal if you want a guided experience. If you value simplicity over endless customization, Squarespace is what you need.
Wix dominates in design flexibility with its unrestricted editor that gives complete creative control, letting you customize virtually every site element, even without coding knowledge. Unlike Squarespace’s more systematic approach, Wix empowers you to develop truly unique websites by adjusting even the smallest details to match your vision.
E-commerce Tools
Wix provides a wide range of e-commerce features, including a custom online store where you can upload up to 50,000 products. It also introduces a mobile-optimized storefront and Wix Multilingual for translating site content and expanding global reach. Its support for more than 80 payment gateways enhances payment flexibility, while its abandoned cart recovery and automated email campaigns drive sales. Additionally, Wix’s multichannel selling feature allows you to sell on various platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, and eBay.
Similarly, Squarespace has robust e-commerce functionalities, including marketing tools to boost sales and shipping rules so you can tailor how your products are fulfilled. It also enhances reach through multichannel selling, syncing catalogs across Instagram, Facebook, Google Search, and YouTube from one dashboard. That said, Squarespace has a limit of 10,000 products per site and supports fewer payment options compared to Wix. It also charges transaction fees on some plans, which can impact profitability as sales volume grows.
Wix and Squarespace both offer good e-commerce features, but Wix’s capabilities are superior, especially regarding product limits and payment options. The platform gives merchants more flexibility than Squarespace due to its wider range of payment gateways and higher product limit. In addition, Wix doesn’t charge transaction fees on any of its plans, unlike Squarespace, which charges a fee unless you upgrade to higher tiers. Together, these factors make Wix a more cost-effective choice for e-commerce businesses.
Security
Wix’s enterprise-grade security is fully managed by experts and includes automatic SSL encryption, secure payments, and DDoS protection. It employs SOC and SIEM for real-time threat monitoring and runs a bug bounty program to identify vulnerabilities. These measures ensure reliable cybersecurity for businesses handling sensitive information. Compliance with industry standards further bolsters its security framework.
Squarespace provides SSL, DDoS protection, password-protected pages, and PCI-compliant payment security. It also includes continuous security monitoring and enforces data privacy measures. However, it lacks the advanced security tools Wix has, like SIEM and bug bounty programs, making threat detection less proactive. While suitable for standard organizations, Squarespace’s security capabilities are limited in comparison to Wix. Also, you must rely on Squarespace’s internal monitoring without external ethical hacking incentives.
Both these top web builders encrypt data and protect against attacks, but Wix delivers deeper threat intelligence. Wix offers comprehensive security with proactive threat management, making it fitting for businesses requiring a high-level of protection. Squarespace covers fundamental security needs but lacks advanced safeguards. For high-traffic or data-sensitive sites, Wix is the more reliable choice.
Integrations
Wix delivers an expansive app market, allowing for a wider array of third-party integrations. This offers greater flexibility in adding functionalities, such as advanced marketing tools, specialized forms, and popular retail POS systems. This enables you to customize your website and expand functionality beyond Wix’s built-in features.
In contrast, Squarespace concentrates on a more curated set of integrations, valuing quality and seamless connection with its core platform. It integrates with fewer third-party tools than Wix, including social marketing, payment solutions, and basic business tools.
Wix surpasses Squarespace in the sheer quantity of available integrations, bringing a solution for almost every need. It enables businesses to adapt and grow without platform limitations.
Wix pros and cons
Wix pros
- Highly flexible drag-and-drop editor, allowing pixel-perfect customization without a rigid grid system.
- Massive template library with over 800 options.
- AI-powered website builder (Wix ADI) for quick site creation.
- Comprehensive app marketplace with third-party integrations and plugins.
- Robust e-commerce options, supporting dropshipping and print-on-demand.
- Has a free plan.
Wix cons
- Extensive customization options can be overwhelming to new users.
- Requires starting from scratch when switching templates due to template lock-in.
- Can have page speed issues due to unoptimized code.
- Limited blogging features.
Squarespace pros and cons
Squarespace pros
- Over 180 elegant, designer-quality templates for visually appealing websites.
- Structured design approach for easier website creation.
- Can handle heavy traffic.
- Built-in marketing tools such as email campaigns, SEO tools, and analytics.
- Mobile-optimized websites.
- Integrated e-commerce tools.
Squarespace cons
- Limited customizability with a less flexible design editor.
- Charges e-commerce transaction fees for lower-tier plans.
- No money-back guarantee for monthly plans.
- Lacks a free tier.
Should your organization use Wix or Squarespace?
Wix is best for developers and organizations needing full control over their website’s design, functionality, and scalability. Its flexible design tools and extensive app marketplace allow for highly tailored websites. Wix also has advanced security and enterprise-level functionality, making it a wise choice for handling sensitive data. While it has a learning curve, it delivers unmatched control over site design and features.
Businesses and users who want a simple, visually polished website without technical complexity should use Squarespace. This website builder effectively streamlines the website development process. Its structured templates and high uptime ensure reliability, so it’s perfect for personal sites, portfolios, and small businesses with basic needs. Squarespace features are ideal for those who prioritize ease of use and a professional look over advanced functionality.
Review methodology
Our review paired hands-on testing and in-depth analysis to assess real-world platform performance. We examined key factors like pricing, reliability, customization, e-commerce capabilities, and security. We also assessed integrations and support.
Beyond counting the features, we focused on how easy these top web builders are to use and how it feels to build a site with them. This helped us figure out which platform works better for different needs. Our approach gave us a clear picture of what Squarespace and Wix really offer.
FAQs
What is the difference between Wix and Squarespace?
Wix is a highly customizable website builder with a wide-ranging app market, while Squarespace centers on simplicity with structured templates and built-in design selections.
Which is better for SEO: Wix or Squarespace?
Both Squarespace and Wix include important SEO tools, like customizable meta tags and sitemaps. However, Wix gives more control over SEO settings, including advanced URL customization, schema markup, and integrations with more third-party SEO tools. Squarespace automates many SEO features but has limited customization options.
Is Squarespace easier to use than Wix?
Yes. Squarespace is easier to use than Wix due to its structured templates and guided editing process. It’s one of the best Wix alternatives if you want to set up your site much faster.
Can I switch from Wix to Squarespace?
Yes, but there’s no direct migration tool. You must manually rebuild your site, transfer content, and set up design and integrations again. Domain transfers are possible but expect some downtime.
