056: Squarespace Pricing Comparison: Which plan is right for your business?
Hopefully, you are convinced that Squarespace is the right platform for you and now you want to figure out which plan is right for you. Or may be you are still undecided and understanding the Squarespace pricing plans is the last bit you need to make an informed decision. In either case, this blog article is exactly what you need as I walk you through the different plans and show you how they differ from each other.
Note: This info is subject to change - so get the latest info on Squarespace pricing from their website.
Squarespace Pricing Plans
Here’s a run down of the 4 pricing plans and tips on how to decide if it’s right for you.
1| 4 Pricing Tiers
As of Feb 6th, 2018, Squarespace has 4 pricing tiers ordered within two categories: Websites and Online Stores.
Under Websites, there are two tiers:
Personal
Business
Under Online Stores, there are two tiers:
Basic
Advanced
It can be confusing how these 4 tiers are classified. So read the points carefully below and you will be able to choose the right one for your business in no time.
2| Each plan builds upon the former.
As you go up in the pricing tier, you get all the features that a lower priced tier includes. It is not always this logical in all business offers where sometimes a higher tier may omit something from a lower one and have something of greater value instead. That’s why it’s worth a mention here.
There’s a pricing hierarchy and so a plan always includes everything from the plan right below it. Personal plan is the lowest priced tier and it goes up all the way to Advanced. This visual makes it easy to see that:
3| Here’s what’s included in each plan
On the Squarespace Pricing page, you will see these 4 plans laid out in detail. I’ve made an at-a-glance visual that shows you all the features
For a larger view of this graphic, click on the image to see the details better.
4| Which plan to choose?
As you go about choosing your plan, the decision on which of the two categories to choose will depend on whether you plan to sell (receive money) on your site. If so, how much do you expect to sell in the first stages of your business. This will directly influence the category and the tier you choose.
Tier 1: Personal Plan (Website)
This is ideal for a solopreneur, artist or a small business or essentially anyone who wants to build a smaller site. This one is also good for those who simply want a online business card, meaning the most important info about their business is presented online without much changing content (although you can make updates anytime). It limits contributor access to 2 people only. (Contributors are anyone who would be accessing the back end of your site).
You can display a photo gallery, set up a blog page and have as many as 1000 pages that are mobile optimized. So for most use cases of a small business, this plan works well. But as soon as you want to sell an item (physical or digital), grow your portfolio of things to sell or collect payment for services rendered, you will need to move up to the next level.
Note: Some bloggers still have posts that say you can sell products on the Personal plan. This is now only possible on what is called a Legacy Personal Plan - the plan you had before Squarespace updated its pricing offers. What you see in this post is up-to-date info as of Feb 6th, 2019 but keep in mind this info can change as Squarespace may change their pricing at anytime. Whenever I make updates on the pricing, I will make a note using an *asterisk.
Pros of the Personal Plan
+ unlimited pages (1000 max)
+ free custom domain 1st year w/annual purchase
+ SSL Security
+ website analytics
+ 2 contributors
+ mobile optimized website
Cons of the Personal Plan:
- cannot sell products/services
- cannot add more than 2 admin contributors
- limited website analytics
Personal Plan Price:
If you purchase it month to month: $16/month
If you purchase an annual plan: $12/month
Total Annual cost: $144 to $192 per year
*Squarespace Authorized Trainers can pass on a 20% discount code to their clients. (I am one of them and my clients and workshop participants benefit from that discount). Plus, remember that you get a free custom domain for the 1st year when you purchase the annual plan - saving you around $20.
Tip: The Personal Website plan of Squarespace is great for small businesses, artists, individuals who want an online presence to showcase their skills, portfolio, writings and service descriptions. Those who want to receive payment for the goods and services online will need to skip this tier and look at the remaining three tiers.
Tier 2: Business Plan (Website)
The Business plan has a bit more of the bells and whistles that will take your business website a long way. You get everything in the Personal Plan and can start selling products, have an integrated business email (GSuite $50/yr), have an announcement bar on top of your site to draw attention to new happenings on your site, and can do third party integrations.
However, you do have a 3% transaction fee for each product/service sold. This is fine if you are only selling a few products a month. But as soon as you are selling boatloads, you will need to consider the next two tiers (e-commerce tiers of Basic and Advanced). On the Basic and Advanced, you will pay a higher monthly amount but will skip the per product transaction fees which is great.
Pros of the Business Plan
+ unlimited pages (1000 max)
+ free custom domain 1st year
+ SSL Security
+ advanced website analytics
+ unlimited contributors
+ mobile optimized website
+ professional email from Google
+ $100 Google Ads Credit
+ promotional pop-ups
+ fully integrated pop-ups
+ unlimited products & accept donations
+ mobile information bar
+ announcement bar
+ premium blocks and integrations
+ CSS and Javascript customization
Cons of the Business Plan
- 3% transaction fee per sale (Not really a ‘con” because this allows you to pay a lower monthly plan fee. Makes sense if the sales start off slow in the first few months. You can upgrade to the next tier anytime).
- doesn’t have the pros of the Basic and Advanced Plans (see below)
Business Plan Price:
If you purchase it month to month: $26/month
If you purchase an annual plan: $18/month
Total Annual cost: $216 to $312 per year*
*Squarespace Authorized Trainers can pass on a 20% discount code to their clients. (I am one of them and my clients benefit from that discount). Plus, remember that you get a free custom domain for the 1st year when you purchase the annual plan - saving you around $20.
3| Tier 3: Basic (Online Store)
This is the tier where no transaction fees comes in. For a few more bucks per month than the Business plan, the Basic plan lets you sell unlimited products/services without a transaction fees added on top of the fees from the payment processor such as Stripe or Paypal. You also get powerful commerce metrics to track your sales and inventory. And other e-commerce related features such as label printing, track inventory, add tax and coupons and sell products on Instagram.
This is a good online store tier for the perfect Goldilocks situation. Not as small as the Business Plan and not as big as the Advanced Plan. Just right! ;)
Pros of the Basic Plan
+ everything from the Business Plan
+ no transaction fees
+ unlimited products
+ mobile optimized website and checkout
+ powerful commerce metrics
+ inventory, orders, tax, coupons
+ label printing via ShipStation
+ integrated accounting via Xero
+ Checkout on your domain
+ customer accounts
+ products on Instagram
Cons of the Basic Plan
- doesn’t have the pros of the Advanced Plan (therefore it is a bit lower in the price).
Basic Plan Price:
If you purchase it month to month: $30/month
If you purchase an annual plan: $26/month
Total Annual cost: $312 to $360 per year*
*Squarespace Authorized Trainers can pass on a 20% discount code to their clients. (I am one of them and my clients benefit from that discount). Plus, remember that you get a free custom domain for the 1st year when you purchase the annual plan - saving you around $20.
4| Tier 4: Advanced (Online Store)
This is a full-fledged online store feature all the bells and whistles that Squarespace has to offer. You have more backend commerce features that make sense when you have a large shop selling a lot of items. You can also add gift cards and offer flexible discounts. And of course, no transaction fees - this really adds up with a large ecommerce shop.
Pros of the Advanced Plan
+ everything from the Basic plan
+ no transaction fees (like in the Basic plan)
+ abandoned cart auto-recovery
+ advanced shipping
+ flexible discounts
+ gift cards
+ orders API
Cons of the Advanced Plan
- a higher pricing tier than Basic (but no transaction fees and more advanced ecommerce management backend.
Advanced Plan Price:
If you purchase it month to month: $46/month
If you purchase an annual plan: $40/month
Total Annual cost: $480 to $552 per year*
*Squarespace Authorized Trainers can pass on a 20% discount code to their clients. (I am one of them and my clients benefit from that discount). Plus, remember that you get a free custom domain for the 1st year when you purchase the annual plan - saving you around $20.
5| Is hosting extra or included?
Website hosting is included with all Squarespace plans. This is great because you save time. You don’t have to shop around for the best hosting offers. And you don’t have to invest time in setting that aspect of your site nor will you have to invest money in a website designer to get that taken care for you.
This saves you anywhere between $5 to $30 or more per month depending on the needs of your business, the bandwith used and offers from the hosting companies. That’s between $60-$360 you save by going with Squarespace because they include hosting in their pricing already. Plus, no extra technical set up is needed.
6| Is a domain name included or extra?
I am super excited about the fact that you can purchase a domain name (your website url eg: sophiaojha.com) directly from inside the Squarespace dashboard. No more domain registration, IP address or nameserver updating! It really is just one click.
That will cost $20 per year for the domain and you can set it on auto-renew that way no need to worry about your domain name expiring and someone grabbing it. (This actually happened to a business owner friend of mine and so this is a real problem. He forgot to renew his domain name by just a day and already someone had purchased it and wanted to sell it back to him for a hefty amount).
+ Plus, you save around $20 for your domain in the first year because when you purchase an annual plan. So your domain name for the first year is free!
+ Also, you don’t have to worry about your domain name expiring because you can have Squarespace auto renew your domain each year automatically. You will just need to set the auto-renewal in the backend correctly (it is just a checkbox).
Tip: If you want multiple domains to point to the same site, for example: you want both sophiaojha.com and Highcountrywebsites.com to go to the same website, then you can do that too with great ease. All you have to do is to select which domain will be primary one.
So there you have it - all the details around the pricing plan on Squarespace. Remember you can always switch from one plan to another at anytime. You will find that a plan above Personal is most suitable for a business that sells products or gets paid for their services online. If you want a digital portfolio or an online resume (with no selling involved) and if you will not be collecting any emails, than a Personal Plan will be perfect for you.
Are you getting excited to get your own website? I love designing websites for fabulous people like yourself, so take action to get your website design process started —> Start the Conversation by sharing some ideas about your site with me.
Questions about Squarespace’s Pricing Tiers? You can always jump over to Squarespace and their excellent customer service team to clarify any of your questions. Plus, you can drop them in the comments below!
~Peace,
Sophia
