Wix or Squarespace? We Evaluated Each Web Builder Based on 14 Key Aspects.
Let us start this by saying we are a Squarespace affiliate and Circle Member, that has also designed or worked on a decent amount of Wix websites. We’re going to walk you through what we find to be the pros and cons of each web builder. In the end, as a business owner, it’s up to you to decide which one is the best option for your business, your brand, and your goals. Switching from one web builder to another can be a daunting process but sometimes it is necessary to save time, money, and resources. We took feedback from our clients and peers to compare Wix and Squarespace. With the results, we compiled what we believe to be the most unbiased review of the two platforms that we could make.
Ease of Use
Ease of Use Of Use: Wix vs Squarespace
Both Wix and Squarespace excel in providing user-friendly interfaces and drag-and-drop editors.
Squarespace recently released their Fluid Engine option which is an extremely user-friendly, drag-and-drop website builder. You can build a fully functional, mobile optimized website without knowing how to code or hiring any help. A good majority of users find that Squarespace does offer a more polished and streamlined experience.
Wix has a larger library of templates than Squarespace to fit a solid variety of industries. Even though many are less “award winning design layouts” like you can find within Squarespace there is something for nearly every vertical.
Design Options
Design Options: Wix vs Squarespace
Both Wix and Squarespace offer the flexibility for limitless creativity to ensures that your website can stand a part from your competitors. If you were to hire a professional who knew css, html or javascript it could increase your customization options.
Squarespace offers a collection of beautifully designed templates that are elegant, modern, and visually appealing. Their templates are carefully curated and provide a cohesive and professional look to your website. Squarespace's design options focus on simplicity and minimalism, creating a clean and sophisticated aesthetic
Wix has a large selection of templates, some may find that these templates, despite being customizable, have certain structural limitations. Altering the fundamental layout or structure of a template might require advanced design skills or coding knowledge. Also, customizing for mobile in a Wix template can prove to be a wee bit more frustrating than in Squarespace.
Pricing & Value
Pricing & Value for Your Money: Wix vs Squarespace
Both Wix and Squarespace offer 4 tiered plans starting at $16 per month and have a 14-day free trial to get you started.
Squarespace does provide an option when you purchase a website template from any Squarespace designer and get a 6 month free trial to build your website. The average business needs the $23 a month plan to truly take advantage of the benefits of Squarespace. The average cost of annual hosting with Squarespace $220.80.
Wix does recommend their $32 per month plan to truly be able to optimize your Wix website and use all of their tools and services which comes out to $384 per year making it slightly more than Squarespace.
SEO
SEO: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace does have SEO features already built-in to the platform. You can begin optimizing from the moment you select and start a new template with Squarespace. The extra nice thing for true beginners is that Squarespace does have some automatic-SEO features. This is great for someone who may be new and not ready to dive into website optimization, but would still like a quality website for search. However, if you are looking to go for the gold and optimize your website to perfectly fit googles standards and recommendations, you can do all of that within Squarespace with no additional SEO tools.
Wix’s major limitation for SEO is that Wix will automatically generate a URL structure for your pages based on the title of the page, which may not always result in the most optimized urls or sitemap. The lack of site map control can negatively impact your overall SEO strategy. Wix only provides basic on-page SEO settings, such as meta titles and descriptions, some users may find the SEO customization options to be more limited compared to other platforms. This can restrict advanced SEO techniques, such as adding custom code or implementing advanced schema markup.
Features
Features: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace has an impressive range of built-in features covering a variety of areas from design to marketing. New features are regularly added and updated and the majority of Squarespace plugins and add-ons are one times fees.
Wix basic design features are user-friendly, more advanced design elements or customizations might have a steeper learning curve. Users seeking intricate design modifications might need to invest more time in learning these advanced features.
Security
Security: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace and Wix both have a closed network system with valuable security features making it much more secure and safe than a Wordpress website. When choosing between Wix and Squarespace, it's important to consider other factors such as design flexibility, ease of use, and additional features that align with your website goals because both are fairly equal and secure.
Mobile Editor
Mobile Editing Options: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace mobile editing options are built-in to the platform. You get different optimization options from standard, to drag and drop, to coding items to fit. You can tailor the experience to suit your site’s needs. The fluid engine editor allows you to simply drag and drop and move items as you see fit on mobile. It may take some finagling but you have got this!
Wix offers mobile-responsive templates, achieving perfect mobile optimization might require additional tweaking. Some design elements that look great on desktop might not translate as well to mobile devices, potentially affecting user experience.
E-Commerce
E-Commerce: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace offers a more integrated approach to e-commerce, providing a seamless design and shopping experience. Its features are designed to work harmoniously within the platform.
Wix design and flexibility options for e-commerce may not be superior to Squarespace but their ability to integrates a slew of third-party apps may be a make or break for you when choosing between the two platforms. That being said, most pos and software does have a method to also integrate with your Squarespace, the third-party app might just make it a bit more seamless for in-store operations.
Blogging
Blogging: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace has an adequate amount of blogging templates and tools to get you off the ground. There are lots of design choices and layout options for displaying and sorting your blogs. Using both the blogging design options and the summary block design options, you can accomplish quite a bit with your Squarespace blogging journey.
Wix only provides limited SEO features currently for your blogging needs. However, they are constantly looking for ways to improve that. Both platforms have a good deal of flexibility when it comes to designing your blog but if having built-in SEO features for your blog is a priority, you may want to go with Squarespace.
Ongoing Maintence
Ongoing Maintenance: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace and Wix both have very minimal maintenance due to being a “closed” environment, meaning they control all aspects of the platform while managing all the basic site updates and maintenance work for you. Both platforms make it feasible for users without advanced technical skills to manage their websites effectively. Your choice between the two platforms might depend on additional features, design preferences, and the level of customization you require beyond maintenance.
Apps & Plugins
Apps and Plugins: Wix vs Squarespace
Both Wix and Squarespace offer a decent amount of important functionality needed to build a website on their platform. Squarespace focuses more on integrated, streamlined, cohesive experiences and Wix looks for more ways to stretch your options.
Squarespace there are an adequate amount of high-quality Squarespace apps and plugins you can add to your site. The nicest aspect is that the majority of these add-ons come with one-time fees vs reoccurring.
Wix has literally thousands of plugins to choose from to install on your Wix site. These apps can help customize user experience, optimize for e-commerce, or improve user engagement and the fees vary depending on the app.
Content
Content Ownership: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace and Wix both place a strong emphasis on content ownership, affirming that the content you generate on their platform belongs to you. Your website, blog articles, product listings, and other content remain under your control. They simply facilitate content export, enabling you to transfer your content to other platforms if you decide to migrate. Importantly, neither platform asserts any ownership rights over your intellectual property, respecting your creative work. Both Wix and Squarespace, users can confidently create, curate, and manage their digital content, knowing that they retain ownership and autonomy over their online presence.
Site Migration
Site Migration: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace offers resources to aid in site migration, guiding users through the process of moving their websites to Squarespace. The platform's clean and standardized design templates can make the migration relatively straightforward, but like any migration, it may involve adjustments to ensure your content fits within the new design parameters. Squarespace's import and export tools allow you to transfer content from various platforms, and their support team is available to address migration-related inquiries
Wix allows you to migrate your site if you want to. However, it’s possible you will be having to recreate some design elements and functionalities from your previous site as they may not import and export as an exact copy. Wix's support team is available to assist with the migration process, ensuring a smooth transfer of your content, but it's important to allocate time for adjustments to match the new platform's capabilities.
Help & Support
Help and Support: Wix vs Squarespace
Squarespace provides a dedicated support team with organized tutorials. You can also get help through live chat or email. They are available 24/7 to help you troubleshoot via email. Squarespace really does go above and beyond to help guide and answer any technical or design questions at any time of the day.
Wix has a huge and thriving community with resources and tutorials, but it is not well organized and a lot of the top ranking information is outdated so it can be difficult to navigate their help and support pages at times. They do offer chat support and allow you to create tech-support tickets but honestly, you might not always get the top-notch customer service that Squarespace users have come to expect.
The decision between Wix and Squarespace hinges on various factors, and both platforms offer unique strengths to consider. Squarespace undoubtedly excels in mobile friendliness, boasting elegant designs, a user-friendly interface, and unparalleled mobile optimization. For those who prioritize a seamless browsing experience across all devices, Squarespace stands as the prime choice.
Wix shines brightly in the realm of e-commerce. Its extensive template library, flexibility, and integration with third-party apps make it an excellent option for those looking to establish a thriving online store. While Squarespace presents a refined design approach, Wix can at times provide more third party integrations and solutions for businesses to harness their preferred workflow for e-commerce sales.
Ultimately, your decision between the two platforms should be driven by your specific needs and goals. We tend to emphasize the fact that over half of your traffic will come from a mobile device. It is crucial to be optimized for mobile. If you are on the fence about whether or not Squarespace is the right option for you, schedule your free consultation with us! We’d be more than happy to spend that time diving into your website’s functionality and upgrading your Wix site to a Squarespace site.
