Squarespace vs Wix – what’s the difference?

Two of the most popular website builders in the world: Squarespace and Wix. Both beginner-friendly. Both are all-in-one hosted platforms. Both genuinely capable of producing a professional-looking website.

So what’s the difference – and how do you choose between them?

That’s exactly what this Squarespace vs Wix comparison will answer. Not with a list of feature comparisons that means nothing to someone who’s never built a website before, but with honest, practical context about what it actually feels like to use each platform and which situations each one is genuinely better for.

Let’s start with the most important thing.

The fundamental difference between Squarespace and Wix

If you take nothing else from this guide, take this:

Squarespace is built for design. The whole platform is designed to make your website look beautiful with as little effort as possible. The templates are stunning, the editor is polished, and the default output is impressive even if you have no design instincts whatsoever.

Wix is built for flexibility and speed. The drag-and-drop editor gives you more freedom to place elements exactly where you want them, there’s a free plan to get started, and the sheer number of templates and apps means you can build almost any kind of basic website quickly.

Neither of these is better in an absolute sense. They’re just optimised for different things – which is why choosing between them comes down to understanding what you’re actually trying to do.

Ease of use

Wix

Wix wins on ease of use for most beginners, and the gap is wider than most reviews suggest.

The Wix editor is a true drag-and-drop experience – you can click on any element and move it anywhere on the page. There’s no grid system or section structure you have to work within. It’s as close to “draw your website” as any mainstream platform gets.

The onboarding is friendly and well-designed, the learning curve is gentle, and for someone who has never built a website before, Wix is probably the fastest path from “I have an idea” to “I have a live website.”

Wix also offers an AI-powered setup tool (Wix ADI) that asks you a few questions about your site and provides a starting point. It’s not magic, but it’s a useful way to get past the blank page.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s editor is more constrained than Wix’s. Rather than free-form drag-and-drop, you’re working within a structured, section-based layout. Elements snap to a grid rather than floating freely.

For most people, this is actually a feature rather than a limitation – it’s harder to accidentally create something that looks chaotic or unprofessional. The structure guides you towards layouts that work. But if you want to place an image in an unusual position or break from the template’s assumptions, you’ll find Squarespace less accommodating than Wix.

The overall editing experience is clean and polished, but there’s a slightly steeper initial learning curve as you get used to the section-based approach.

Winner: Wix – slightly more intuitive for complete beginners, especially in the first session.

Design and templates

Squarespace

This is Squarespace’s undisputed stronghold. The template library is smaller than Wix’s – around 140 templates compared to Wix’s 900+ – but the quality is consistently higher. Squarespace templates look like they were designed by professionals, because they were. The typography choices are sophisticated, the whitespace is generous, and the overall aesthetic is one notch above what most people manage to produce on other platforms.

If you care about your site looking genuinely beautiful rather than just professional, Squarespace is the better starting point. For photographers, designers, artists, and any business where visual presentation is central to credibility, Squarespace’s design quality is a meaningful competitive advantage.

It’s also worth knowing that Squarespace templates are fully responsive – they automatically adapt to look great on mobile, tablet, and desktop without you having to do anything extra.

Wix

Wix has over 900 templates covering almost every imaginable type of website. The sheer volume means you’ll almost certainly find something close to what you want. The quality varies considerably, though – the best Wix templates are attractive, but the average is less consistently polished than Squarespace.

Wix templates are also harder to switch once you’ve built your site. Unlike Squarespace, where changing templates is relatively painless, switching Wix templates after you’ve started building essentially means rebuilding your site from scratch.

Winner: Squarespace – fewer templates, but consistently higher quality. The better choice if design matters to you.

Pricing

Pricing is quoted separately for the US and UK sites for both platforms, so here’s each one side by side rather than picking a single “main” figure.

Squarespace

Squarespace offers four paid plans – there’s no free tier, but a 14-day free trial lets you build and explore before committing.

	USA	UK
Personal	~$16/month (paid annually)	~£11/month (paid annually)
Business	~$23/month (paid annually)	~£16/month (paid annually)
Commerce Basic	~$39/month (paid annually)	~£23/month (paid annually)
Commerce Advanced	~$99/month (paid annually)	~£35/month (paid annually)

All plans include a free custom domain for the first year, unlimited bandwidth, and SSL. The Business plan and above allow you to sell products, though a 3% transaction fee applies on the Business plan – Commerce plans remove this. Squarespace has renamed some of these plans on its US site (Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced), so it’s worth checking the live pricing page for the current names and figures before you buy.

Wix

Wix has a genuine free plan – you can build and publish a real website without paying anything, in both the US and the UK. The limitations are a Wix-branded subdomain (yoursitename.wixsite.com), Wix ads on your pages, and no custom domain.

Paid plans:

	USA	UK
Light	~$17/month (paid annually)	~£9/month (paid annually)
Core	~$29/month (paid annually)	~£14/month (paid annually)
Business	~$39/month (paid annually)	~£18/month (paid annually)
Business Elite	~$159/month (paid annually)	~£117/month (paid annually)

The Light plan removes Wix branding and allows a custom domain. The Core plan and above include ecommerce functionality.

Winner: Wix – the free plan is a genuine advantage for anyone who wants to try before committing, and the entry-level paid plans are cheaper than Squarespace.

Ecommerce

Squarespace

Squarespace has built a genuinely capable ecommerce offering. Product pages look beautiful – consistent with the rest of the platform’s design quality. Inventory management, discount codes, digital downloads, and subscription products are all supported. On Commerce plans, there are no transaction fees beyond what your payment processor charges.

For a small shop where aesthetics matter – handmade products, independent fashion, art prints, photography downloads – Squarespace ecommerce is excellent. For a large catalogue or a shop where conversion rate optimisation is critical, you’ll start to feel the limitations.

Wix

Wix ecommerce is functional and improving. Product management, inventory, coupons, and payment processing are all included. The Wix App Market has extensions for most ecommerce needs.

The design quality of Wix product pages is a step below Squarespace, and the overall ecommerce experience lacks some of the polish of dedicated platforms.

Neither Squarespace nor Wix ecommerce is a serious rival to Shopify for anyone whose primary focus is selling products. For a small shop that’s one part of a broader site, both are perfectly adequate.

Winner: Squarespace – better design quality for product presentation and a cleaner ecommerce experience.

SEO

Wix

Wix’s SEO reputation has improved considerably since the days when it was considered nearly useless for search. You can now customise title tags, meta descriptions, URLs, and alt text. There’s a built-in SEO setup checklist and a Semrush integration for keyword research.

It’s still not as powerful as WordPress, but for a small business or portfolio site, it’s more than adequate.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s SEO is broadly comparable to Wix – solid fundamentals with some limitations compared to WordPress. Clean URL structures, customisable metadata, and automatic sitemap generation are all included.

One advantage Squarespace has is that its templates are generally better optimised for performance out of the box – which matters for Google’s page speed ranking signals.

Both platforms have similar SEO ceilings. For a site where organic search traffic is the primary growth strategy, WordPress remains the better long-term choice. For a portfolio or small-business site where you’re driving traffic mainly through word of mouth and social media, both Squarespace and Wix are more than capable.

Winner: Draw – comparable SEO capability for most use cases at this level.

Monetisation with display ads

This is a question that doesn’t come up in most Squarespace vs Wix comparisons – but it should.

If you’re planning to earn money from your website through display advertising – either Google AdSense to start or premium networks like Mediavine or Raptive once you have sufficient traffic – neither Squarespace nor Wix is ideal.

Wix allows Google AdSense on paid plans, but restricts where ads can appear and offers limited control over ad placement.

Squarespace has historically been more restrictive with third-party advertising, though this has improved in recent years.

Neither platform offers the level of ad control that self-hosted WordPress does. If display advertising is a significant part of your monetisation plan, WordPress is worth the extra setup effort.

Important: if you’re building a site you intend to monetise primarily through ads, take our hosting quiz before choosing a platform – it factors in monetisation goals and will point you in the right direction.

Take the WordPress hosting quiz →

Support

Squarespace

Squarespace offers 24/7 email support and live chat (Monday to Friday). The help documentation is thorough and well-organised. Community forums are active and useful for common questions.

Response times on live chat are generally fast, and the support quality is consistently good.

Wix

Wix offers 24/7 support via live chat and a callback service for phone support. The help centre is extensive. As with most hosted platforms, support quality varies – the documentation is good but direct support can be hit and miss.

Winner: Draw – both offer adequate support for beginners. Squarespace’s documentation is slightly better organised.

Portability – can you move later?

This is worth knowing before you commit.

Squarespace – migrating away from Squarespace is manageable. You can export your blog posts in XML format and your products in CSV format. Moving to WordPress is the most common migration path, and there are decent tools for it.

Wix – this is Wix’s most significant weakness, and it’s important enough to mention clearly. Wix has very limited export functionality. If you decide to move your site to a different platform, you’ll largely have to rebuild from scratch rather than migrate your content. This is a meaningful lock-in that most Wix reviews don’t flag clearly enough.

If there’s any possibility you’ll want to change platforms in the future, factor this in. Building on Wix is a longer-term commitment than it might appear.

Winner: Squarespace – more portable than Wix, though neither matches WordPress for migration flexibility.

Squarespace vs Wix – which should you choose?

Choose Squarespace if:

• Design quality is your priority
• You’re a creative – photographer, artist, designer, maker
• You want a polished, professional result with minimal effort
• You’re running a small shop where aesthetics matter
• You’re happy paying a monthly fee from the start

Choose Wix if:

• You want to get live as quickly as possible
• Starting with a free plan is important to you
• You want maximum flexibility in layout and design
• You’re building a local business or service site
• You’re less concerned about long-term portability

Choose neither if:

• Blogging, SEO, or content marketing is central to your plan – WordPress is a better fit
• Selling products is your primary goal – Shopify is a better fit
• Display ad monetisation is important – self-hosted WordPress is the only platform that gives you full ad flexibility

Not sure which is right for your specific situation? Our quiz takes about two minutes and gives you a personalised recommendation.

Frequently asked questions

Is Squarespace or Wix better for beginners? Both are designed for beginners – Wix is marginally easier to get started with thanks to its free plan and intuitive drag-and-drop editor. Squarespace has a slightly higher initial learning curve but produces more consistently beautiful results.

Can I switch from Wix to Squarespace later? Technically, yes, but neither platform makes it easy. Wix, in particular, has limited export options, which means you may need to rebuild significant portions of your site. If there’s any chance you’ll want to switch, factor that in before committing.

Which is better for a small business? For a local or service business where you mainly want a professional online presence, either works well. Wix is faster to go live and offers a free starter plan. Squarespace produces a more polished result. For a business where design and brand presentation matter, Squarespace is the stronger choice.

Which is better for SEO? Both have improved significantly in recent years. For most small businesses and portfolio sites, either is adequate. If SEO-driven growth is your primary strategy, self-hosted WordPress gives you more tools and flexibility than either platform.