Wix vs Squarespace: Which is best for consumers and business?
We compare Wix and Squarespace to discover their appeal for both regular and business sites
If you want a website for yourself, or your business, in double-quick time then Wix and Squarespace can help. Both are leading website builders that have grown over the years into impressive, feature-laden tools capable of helping you to produce slick sites and online stores, whether or not you’re a design expert. Want quick, easy and smart site building? Wix and Squarspace pride themselves on making the site-building process intuitive and fun, achieving a stunning end product.
But which of the two is the best option for your next online venture? Below, we take a closer look at both tools, comparing prices and plans, their features, and how easy each is to use, to determine which we believe is best in each department.
However, with both tools being so closely matched, you might want even more insight and information to help you make that final decision. In that case, check out our full-length Wix and Squarespace for all the answers you need.
Wix vs Squarespace: Pricing
The basic Wix packages are hard to beat. A Wix domain-led option is available for free, while the next step up is the Connect Domain plan, which is described as the most basic. For £4/mth you get 500MB of storage, monthly bandwidth of 1GB, and the option to connect your own domain name. To be free of the Wix branding, you have the £7.50/mth Combo plan, which is ideal for a basic site with 2GB of storage, 3GB of bandwidth and a free domain name. For more storage, unlimited bandwidth and a few other extras, Wix offers the £11/mth Unlimited plan or the VIP plan for £21/mth.
For ecommerce options, you can opt for one of three Business and eCommerce plans. For £15/mth, there’s the entry-level Business Basics plan, which includes a custom domain name, 20GB of storage, and it accepts online payments. Next up is Business Unlimited, which for £20/mth offers 35GB of storage and 10 hours of video play. Top of the tree is the Business VIP plan, for which you get unlimited video streaming hours, 50GB of storage, along with customised reports and priority support – costing £27/mth.
READ MORE: Wix pricing
Squarespace plans aren’t quite so cheap, with the entry-level Personal plan costing £12/mth if paid upfront for a year, or £16 if on a rolling monthly contract. Nevertheless, it’s the perfect plan for a basic website and does come with a custom domain. Like Wix, Squarespace offers ecommerce solutions, with the entry-level option the Business plan for store creation at £17/mth, or £24 on a rolling contract. Note that transaction fees aren’t included here, with a 3% fee per sale. However, upgrade to the Commerce (Basic) package for £23/mth, or £28/mth on a rolling contract, or the Commerce (Advanced) package for £35/mth, or £43/mth on a rolling contract, and fees are removed while more advanced shopping analytics are thrown in.
Winner: Wix
Simply because Wix has a wider range of options and its prices for a basic site range from free to around half the price of the Squarespace entry plan. For ecommerce features, prices are almost on a par – but, again, Wix manages to undercut Squarespace.
Wix vs Squarespace: Features
Wix’s main appeal is its ease of use. Its site builder is a key player, and beyond this it has some neat features that complement its drag-and-drop system.
Adding a domain can be confusing for newcomers, but not through Wix. It guides users through the process and helps pick a name. 
On the design front, Wix offers an impressive collection of themes for all types of content. One feature in this regard that we found useful is the Help Me Choose button, which is like a virtual assistant that offers guidance to ensure you pick the right theme for you. There’s also a decent clip art and photography stock library, plus a basic built-in image-editing tool.
For those who want to move beyond the basic features, adding an online store to their site, perhaps, can do so through the Wix Store app and a range of third-party extensions. You can choose to set up your own store, or work through stores such as Amazon, eBay and Etsy.
Squarespace’s site builder is a key feature and, similar to Wix, has everything you need to add regular posts or make static text look good. In addition, it features useful options for adding charts, accordions, image galleries and audio and video content. Generally, everything is intuitive; but if you do become stuck, help is at hand via easy-to-find links. We appreciated the ability to schedule posts; simple, but very useful. Squarespace also works with Unsplash to provide a wide-ranging library of images in just a couple of clicks. 
Ecommerce is also a key part of Squarespace, and it’s easy to add a catalogue of products, track stock and adjust prices. In addition, the tool helps you grow your audience through offering some smart marketing features, a handy SEO optimisation checklist, and access to analytics via Google.
Squarespace is also packed with useful integrations including Etsy, and you can sync your store with Facebook and Instagram for shopping, if you’re on the right plan.
READ NEXT: Squarespace vs Shopify
Winner: Draw
If you’re looking for a simple path to site building, Wix is the frontrunner. It includes all the features you could need and they’re typically easy to use. However, Wix isn’t quite as sophisticated as Squarespace. The latter’s themes are more stylish and it edges in front for its ecommerce offering.
Wix vs Squarespace: How easy is it to use?
Wix has grown into a very capable website builder over the years, but at its core it remains incredibly simple to get up and running. A wizard-based approach means that even the least tech-savvy consumer will still be able to create a website in minutes.
Wix can help you connect your site to an existing domain, or assist with choosing a new one. And once you’ve worked your way through the initial process and chosen one of the many ready-made themes, you can get to work with the site builder tool to finesse your design. 
For those with a little more know-how, there’s the option to choose a template and handle the basic construction and editing from scratch. But whichever path you take, there’s nothing too taxing to get a basic site up and ready to go.
From there, it’s super easy to make global changes to fonts and colours, for example, to help keep your design uniform. And adding sections or pages, galleries, social feeds, interactive features and more is intuitive. A decent selection of media management tools means that uploading and managing images, audio and video, is a piece of cake, too. Finally, if you can’t find a feature you want, then there’s an extensive app store to explore.
Squarespace is no slouch when it comes to ease of use, either. While it doesn’t quite match Wix here, you certainly don’t need to be a designer or CSS guru to create a site. While it occupies a similar space, it tips more towards small-business users and sole traders who want a presence online. 
Thanks to its Fluid Engine, Squarespace hits a good balance between drag-and-drop flexibility and control, and it has a consistent UI that doesn’t take long at all to get to grips with. The modular system Squarespace adopts allows you to add a new component to a page – or move it – with ease, while a grid helps keep everything aligned. It isn’t perfect, but works well enough to tweak page designs to achieve what you want.
Global changes are easy to implement through the Site Styles sidebar, which is always to hand. There are settings for adjusting layouts, formatting, fonts and colour palettes, and the option to animate elements with just a few clicks.
READ NEXT: Wix vs Shopify
Winner: Wix
It’s a close call between Wix and Squarespace, but Wix makes the site building process intuitive and almost foolproof from beginning to end. Squarespace isn’t difficult to use; it just isn’t as easy as Wix.
Wix vs Squarespace: Verdict
Both Wix and Squarespace have plenty to offer. Both make the site-building process easy and intuitive, both offer an impressive array of ready-made themes and templates, and both present decent ecommerce features. The key difference is that Wix is aimed at the everyday consumer with a few skills who wants to get online quickly. It offers more plans and is cheaper than Squarespace. However, if you’re a small business or budding entrepreneur, Squarespace is likely more suitable for your needs.