There are many online platforms available that make website creation easy. There are many options available to you, whether it is to show your creativity, business, online shop, personal blog or other purposes.
But ease of use may not be your top priority, especially if it comes at the cost of design capabilities.
It sounds like you would be more comfortable with a website builder that specializes in beautiful designs and flexibility. We’re comparing Squarespace to Webflow, two web builders that are well-known for their innovative designs and customizability.
These platforms have a lot to offer, so let’s get into the meat of this blog post.
Squarespace vs. Webflow: Who is Squarespace?
Squarespace was launched in 2003 and is one of the most popular website builders. Squarespace is often compared to WordPress and Wix because it offers a complete solution that includes a wide variety of features. Squarespace, however, is focused on providing a wider toolkit than its competitors and not making big deals about third-party apps or extensions.
It shines when it is about beautifully designed templates, customization tools, and other features. Squarespace gives you everything you need for creating stunning websites, online shops, portfolios and websites.
It is a great choice for creatives and designers who want to showcase their work in the best light. Squarespace is a great choice for eCommerce businesses of all sizes, from small to medium.
Webflow vs Squarespace: Who is Webflow?
Webflow is a newer kid on the block, compared to Squarespace. Webflow was founded in 2012 but has only recently made a name for itself on a larger scale.
Webflow is a unique website builder. Webflow offers the same intuitive interface, drag-and-drop tools and blogging functionality as its competitors. The platform is built with traditional web design principles in mind. It also uses industry jargon, which most people would not be familiar with.
Webflow offers similar control over many aspects of your web design, as well as mocking up web designs with tools like InDesign or Photoshop. You can also be sure that your website’s codes are flawless. You can also access the code and make any changes you want.
It’s possible to make it seem complicated. Webflow is a website builder that requires a steeper learning curve. However, if you are determined to bring your vision to life, Webflow has the tools and resources to help you.
Their Pros and Con
A pro-cons list is the best way to make a thorough evaluation more transparent and easy. We did it. This will allow you to quickly determine which provider is most likely to capture your attention.
Let’s get started with Squarespace
Squarespace’s Pros:
- Squarespace includes an easy-to-use editor.
- The editor has powerful image editing tools that will benefit you.
- Squarespace comes with robust features right out of the box. You won’t need to rely on third-party extensions.
- Squarespace has affordable pricing
- It is a powerful eCommerce engine that can be used by small and medium-sized businesses.
- Your website design is flexible.
- Online member areas can be created.
- Squarespace recently launched new SEO tools.
- A mobile app allows you to manage and edit your website from anywhere you are.
Squarespace’s Cons:
- You can’t change templates with Squarespace’s newest version 7.1. This means you won’t be able to save your content.
- You can only try the product once you have signed up.
- You can’t drag-and-drop elements in the editor, which can make it less intuitive for new web designers.
- Only one sub-navigation can be created, so it is difficult to create more complicated websites.
- Squarespace’s page speed isn’t as fast as Webflow’s.
Webflow’s Pros:
- Unmatched design customization and design freedom are yours.
- Webflow’s capabilities may be a refreshing option for creatives who are familiar with Adobe software and professional design work.
- Flexible pricing plans are available for businesses of all sizes and requirements. Agencies can also use Webflow to communicate with clients.
- Access to an extensive range of eCommerce features is available for small and medium-sized businesses.
- Website speeds are a benefit to users.
- Webflow’s customer support is reliable.
- You can get advice and network with other peers in the active peer group
- You can test Webflow’s capabilities with a free plan.
Webflow’s Cons:
- Webflow has a steeper learning curve than other website builders.
- Squarespace is generally more expensive than Webflow, especially if you want to run multiple online stores.
- Webflow’s eCommerce functionality remains relatively new and many features are still missing. These capabilities are constantly evolving, so keep an eye out for updates!
- Site plans limit the number of website visitors you can handle per day, so you will need to upgrade sooner rather than later if your business wants to grow.
Squarespace’s main features
Webflow and Squarespace both offer a wide range of useful features and well-designed website editors. Let’s compare their core features, starting with Squarespace.
The Squarespace Editor
Squarespace’s website editor is powerful, as we have already mentioned. (Read our Squarespace review). You can change the fonts, colors and page layouts of your website from this section. There are many professionally designed Squarespace templates that you can choose from.
Squarespace does not offer a drag-and-drop editor. You can’t drag and drop elements wherever you like. You can instead edit content areas with block types and the associated options. You can also access your website’s CSS code and make changes.
Squarespace has changed the way it treats templates with its 7.1 update. The templates used to include a store layout or blog layout. You could only change the entire template. You can now add layout sections to your template. This gives you more control over the site’s setup.
This comes at a price. The update allows you to make more significant edits to your website, but you cannot switch templates without losing all of your content.
Squarespace’s Image editor
Squarespace’s image editor is a popular feature. To upload images, you can drag them from your desktop to the editor.
The image loader responds immediately and resizes the image accordingly to different devices. This is a time-saver.
You can also edit the photos directly from there: you can crop, rotate, resize and adjust the brightness or contrast of each uploaded picture.
Ecommerce
Squarespace offers a great eCommerce solution for small and medium-sized businesses. There are many eCommerce templates to choose from and you can benefit from the following features:
- Quick product views
- To create urgency around your product sales, you can use limited availability labels
- Image zoom
- Embeds
- Site-wide announcements, promotional pop-ups
- Coupons and discounts are a powerful marketing tool
- Variations and descriptions of products
Customers can also create their own accounts and sell unlimited digital and physical products. This is a great way to build email lists and encourage repeat purchases.
Squarespace’s base plan has a 3% transaction charge, but this fee is waived with the more ecommerce-oriented plans.
Squarespace Blogging
Squarespace is a powerful and intuitive blogging platform that’s different from many others. You can modify the layout of your blog posts just like you would a regular website. This gives you great flexibility to make a blog that fits your brand.
You can also:
- Blog posts can be organized using tags and categories
- Scheduled posts will go live at pre-determined times
- You can mark posts for review as either published, drafted, or scheduled.
- Copy and save source URLs
You can also modify the URL of your blog post and enable social sharing.
Squarespace SEO
Squarespace has built-in SEO tools so there’s no need to download a third-party plugin. You can modify the titles and meta descriptions of your website pages.
You can also hide pages from search engines and automatically submit sitemaps.
This platform comes with mobile optimization built-in and clean code markup to make it easier for search engines to index your pages.
The Core Features of Webflow
Let’s now see what Webflow can offer…
The Webflow Editor
You have nearly 200 high-quality templates available. The templates are not nearly as powerful as the editor’s abilities. You can edit every aspect of your website by accessing the HTML or CSS templates.
Webflow’s editor, unlike Squarespace, is completely visual and drag-and-drop. Webflow’s editor is visual and drag-and-drop. This allows you to place elements wherever you like, while optimizing your site for mobile.
Adobe software is the design tool. This means that you will have options to modify the:
- Combining elements with images
- Add borders
- Add shadows
- Get glowing
- Modify the site-relative position of items
- Modify your typography
This allows you to alter the spacing and height of your text. You can also create complicated gradient backgrounds and effects, and overlay them with images.
Webflow also offers advanced site-editing capabilities.
What if you work with a developer? Webflow allows you to export your code to be sent elsewhere. Handy, right?
Webflow Ecommerce
Webflow has only recently introduced eCommerce. It’s still capable of creating an eCommerce store for small and medium-sized businesses. You can offer digital and physical products, and you can add custom fields to provide additional information.
You can add product variants to your order and customize the checkout experience for different shipping methods. Webflow offers basic inventory management. You can track orders and keep customer accounts. You can also review each account’s order history.
The platform also calculates sales tax, VAT, and gives basic statistics about eCommerce performance.
You can create special offers or discounts in Squarespace’s store editor.
Webflow blogging
Webflow’s blog engine splits opinions.
It boasts a powerful CMS, which is similar to WordPress in certain ways. You can have full control over the layouts and SEO parameters of your blog. It can be difficult to set up.
Webflow’s content management software allows you to organize your posts into collections, assign them tags and categories, and even create new ones. Other details can be modified, including the URL of your post.
It’s not as simple as clicking “write a post” and then publishing it. We recommend to get started blogging on Webflow.
Webflow SEO
Webflow gives you complete control over your SEO markup. This extends beyond Squarespace and other competitors. You can also create sitemaps, indexing rules, redirects and many other features.
You can also edit schema markup so search engines understand it, edit meta descriptions and images, and other things.
Webflow websites have impressive load times thanks to over 100+ data centres worldwide. They also feature clean, semantic code. This is all great news for SEO.
Squarespace vs Webflow: Pricing Plans
Squarespace and Webflow, like most website builders are SaaS’. This means that you will pay a monthly or an annual fee to use their platform.
There are many pricing options that allow you to unlock different features. Let’s look at what’s available:
Squarespace
Squarespace does not offer a free plan. However, there is a 14-day free trial. There are 4 pricing tiers that you can choose from. Each of these options offer the option of annual or monthly billing. You can save as much as 30% if you choose to pay annually
Let’s have a closer look at these pricing plans.
The Personal Plan
The Personal plan is priced at $16 per Month ($12 per month if paid annually). It includes:
- A SSL security certificate
- SEO features
- There are many beautiful templates to choose from
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- 24/7 customer support
- Squarespace Extensions Access
- Up to two people can be invited to contribute to your site.
The Business Plan
The Business plan adds $26 per month (or $18 per month if paid annually)
- You can add as many website contributors you like
- You can customize the CSS and JavaScript in full, i.e. you can modify the source code as you wish!
- Advanced website analytics
- Pop-up banners can be used to promote your products.
- Integrated eCommerce: Customer payments are subject to a 3% transaction charge.
- Gift cards can be created and managed by you
- You can list unlimited products and make sales of them
- Donations can be accepted on your website
- Get $100 in Google Adwords credits
The Basic Commerce Plan
The Basic Commerce Plan unlocks the following:
- There are no transaction fees
- Customers can open accounts
- Access to point-of-sale functionality
- Get more eCommerce analytics
- You can display ‘related products.’
- Customers can sign up for ‘product waitlists.
- You can sync inventory with your Instagram Product Catalog and Facebook, which allows you to sell through social media.
- Excel spreadsheets allow you to edit bulk products.
Advanced Commerce
The Advanced Commerce plan, which costs $49 per month (or $40 per month if you pay annually), gives you access:
- Emails for cart recovery
- Subscriptions can be sold
- Access to advanced shipping options (automatically calculated shipping prices)
- Commerce API allows you to create your own plugins for order fulfillment and inventory management.
- Discounts with advanced features
- To create urgency, you can use “limited availability labels”
Squarespace Select is available in addition to these pricing tiers. Squarespace Select is an enterprise pricing option that can be customized for each business. Squarespace’s sales team will provide a custom quote if this interest you.
Webflow
Webflow offers a free plan, unlike Squarespace. This is the ideal place to try out Webflow’s design capabilities before you launch your website. There’s a catch: although you can create up to two projects free of charge, they can’t be hosted online.
When you are ready to launch your Webflow account or site plan, you will need to decide which plan you prefer. Site plans can be purchased per site. Account plans are per user and are better suited for agencies and small businesses.
There are many ways to make it through this, so let’s have a look.
Let’s begin with the site plans:
Basic
This plan unlocks for $15 per month or $12 per year
- Free custom domain
- You can make up to 100 pages
- Support up to 25,000 visits per month
- Support for up 100 submissions
- 50GB bandwidth
CMS
The plan is $20 per month or $16 annually. There are additional costs:
- Support up to 100,000 monthly visitors
- Support for up to 2000 collection items (this limit is what you can have in the CMS database). An item in your portfolio or blog post could be considered a record.
- Support for up to 1000 form submissions per Month
- 200GB bandwidth
- 60 API requests per minute
- Three content editors can be registered.
- Site search
Business
Additional features include:
- Support up to 500,000 visits per month
- Support up to 10,000 items
- Support up to 2,000 submissions per month
- Allow visitors to upload files to your forms and save them on Webflow
- 400GB bandwidth
- Register up to 10 content editors
- 120 API requests per minute
- Access to the global CDN
An Enterprise plan offers unlimited form submissions as well as custom monthly visits.
The next step is eCommerce plans. These plans can also be applied to specific sites.
Standard
You get all the benefits of the CMS plan plus $42 per monthly (or $29 if you pay annually).
- Support for up 500 items (this includes eCommerce products variants, categories and CMS items).
- You have access to eCommerce design options that allow you to create custom checkouts, shopping bags, and product fields.
- Email marketing customization
- A CMS integrated for blogging
- A 2% transaction fee allows you to make sales
- Integrations with Analytics and social media platforms
- Manual shipping rules can be set up
- Maximum annual sales volume: $50k
Plus
The Plus plan, which costs $84 per month or $74 per year if you pay annually, includes everything in the Business plan plus:
- Support up to 1000 items
- Removal of Webflow branding from transactional email
- There is no transaction fee
- Maximum annual sales volume: $200K
Advanced
The Advanced plan is $235 per month, or $212 per monthly if you pay annually
- Support for up to 3000 items
- Up to 15 employees can be registered
- Unlimitable annual sales volume
Agency or freelancers looking for account plans will find a further distinction between individual and group plans. It all depends on how many people your company works with. This review is targeted at small businesses building their own websites. We’ll not list pricing here.
Individual plans include:
- The Free Starter Plan: This plan allows you to set up two projects as described above.
- Lite starting at $24 per Month, or $16 per Month if you bill annually
- Pro starting at $42 per Month, or $35 per Month if you bill annually
The Team Plan is $42 per month for each person or $35 if it’s billed annually. It requires at least two team members. All features of the Pro account plans are included in this plan.
Webflow’s pricing options are flexible and offer many options. However, it can be difficult to understand. To help you understand which plan may suit you, you can view the complete feature comparison .
It’s easy to use
A completely new tool can be daunting for beginners when building a website. Webflow and Squarespace are not the best builders available. Which is the easiest to use?
Squarespace
Squarespace can be more difficult to learn than the average website designer. It doesn’t use a drag-and-drop interface. You edit sections in a sidebar. This makes it more difficult to place elements exactly where they are needed.
Once you get used to it, however, you will find the interface relatively simple and offers you plenty of customization options.
There are a variety of templates to choose from that will make it easy to create your website. Squarespace’s latest update allows you to add layout sections that are already designed so that you can mix and match things.
Webflow
Webflow, however, offers a drag-and drop interface that allows you to place your elements on a grid. Webflow’s problem lies in its overwhelming amount of design options and terminology that you can modify and optimize.
There are many customization tools that can be used to customize your software, just like professional software. But, let’s say you don’t have a lot of knowledge about Photoshop, Indesign and the coding process. To fully understand the process, you might need to spend some time at their online help center.
For professionals who have some experience in traditional design, this may be a great option.
Squarespace vs. Webflow: Ease to Use – Squarespace is the winner
Squarespace is more user-friendly overall. Although Squarespace doesn’t have the easiest editing interface, it is easy to get used to the way things work. Once you master this, you will be able customize your website with ease.
Customer Service
These popular website builders are easy to use, so it is unlikely that you will ever encounter an issue. However, it is important to know who you can contact if you do. You can contact their customer service teams to quickly resolve any queries and get back on your way to improving your website.
Nevertheless, Squarespace’s customer service is superior to Webflow’s:
Squarespace
Squarespace provides live chat support from Monday through Friday, between 3 AM and 8 PM EST. This is in addition to the active user forum and online self help documentation. You can find videos tutorials and workshops on its Help Center. Squarespace also offers email support, which is available 24 hours a day and promises to respond within an hour.
Webflow
Support at Webflow can also be reached via email and live chat. They are available Monday to Friday from 6 AM to 6 PM PT.
A community of web designers is also available that beginners can learn from. There’s also a blog and detailed self-help documentation for all features. The Webflow University also includes a variety of video resources that explain the platform’s features.
Squarespace is the winner in Customer Support
Online resources are important, but we believe that the most important aspect of customer service should be getting in touch with the team to get a prompt reply. Squarespace is the best with its 24/7 email support and extended live chat hours.
Webflow vs Squarespace: Which website builder is best for you?
This concludes our squarespace vs. Webflow comparison! Both Squarespace and Webflow offer great website builders that will help you create your website.
Webflow is the most advanced website builder and it’s harder to learn for beginners. Webflow is geared toward web designers and agencies. Webflow can deliver truly exceptional results while still offering all the standard features that web designers need. Webflow offers a unique value proposition with its SEO functionality, strong eCommerce features and collaborative tools that allow you to work with programmers.
Webflow is also more expensive because of this. Webflow offers many features, and it doesn’t limit them. However, you will need to upgrade to higher plans in order to gain more bandwidth and sell more products.
Squarespace, on the other hand, is a better choice for anyone who wants to take on a challenge but doesn’t want too much time learning. You can use it quickly, and you have a lot of customization options. Squarespace offers robust eCommerce features as well as a more intuitive blogging engine. It also recently added membership options to the mix making it an ideal platform for many businesses.
Squarespace is the best all-around solution. Webflow is a better option if you have a particular vision or need a platform that matches your professional website design standards.
Are you still on the fence? Give both platforms a shot. Squarespace offers a free trial and Webflow offers a free project plan. Let us know your thoughts about Squarespace’s editors by leaving comments below. Are you looking at Shopify or Squarespace?
