Shopify vs Squarespace – which is better for selling online?

Shopify vs Squarespace is a common decision for anyone weighing up where to sell online – and if you’ve narrowed your search down to these two, you’re in good company. They’re two of the most popular platforms for people who want to sell online; they’re polished and well-supported, and genuinely capable of powering a successful online business.

But they’re designed for very different kinds of sellers – and choosing the wrong one will cost you either money, time, or both.

This guide will tell you honestly which platform is better for selling, who each one is right for, and how to make the decision confidently without spending weeks going back and forth – with US and UK pricing shown side by side throughout.

The short answer

Choose Shopify if selling is your primary purpose. If you’re building an online shop – one whose whole reason for existing is to sell products – Shopify is the better platform for the job. It’s purpose-built for ecommerce, handles everything from payments to inventory to shipping out of the box, and scales without hitting walls as your shop grows.

Choose Squarespace if selling is one part of a broader site. If you’re a photographer who also sells prints, a consultant who also sells courses, a maker who wants a portfolio and a shop on the same site – Squarespace handles the combination more elegantly. The design quality is higher and the overall site experience is more cohesive.

Now let’s look at why.

What each platform is designed for

Understanding what each platform was built to do helps explain why they make the choices they do.

Shopify was created specifically for ecommerce. Every feature, every dashboard, every default setting is oriented around selling. Payments, inventory management, shipping rates, tax calculation, discount codes, abandoned cart recovery – all built in and refined over years of serving millions of online stores.

Squarespace was created for design-led websites. It became a portfolio and small business platform, then expanded into ecommerce as those customers started wanting to sell alongside their existing sites. The ecommerce functionality is capable, but it grew alongside the platform rather than being its core purpose.

This difference in origin shapes both platforms in ways that matter in practice.

Ease of setting up a shop

Shopify

Shopify’s onboarding is purpose-built for getting a shop live quickly. From the moment you sign up, everything is oriented around your products. The dashboard is clear, the steps are logical, and the path from “I have things to sell” to “my shop is live” is shorter and smoother than any alternative.

Adding products is intuitive – title, description, images, price, inventory, variants. Payment processing is set up in minutes. Shipping zones and rates are handled through a dedicated shipping section. Tax settings have sensible defaults.

For someone who has never built an online shop before, Shopify is the most beginner-friendly serious ecommerce platform available.

Squarespace

Setting up a shop on Squarespace is also straightforward – arguably easier than Shopify in terms of getting the first product page live. The Commerce section is well-organised and the product editor is clean.

Where Squarespace shows its origins is in the depth of ecommerce configuration. Shipping rules are less flexible. Tax settings are less granular. Variant management for complex products with many options is more limited. For a shop with a handful of straightforward products, none of this matters. For a shop with complex inventory needs, it starts to bite.

Winner: Shopify – more comprehensive ecommerce setup, better for complex shops. Squarespace is easier to get started for simple product ranges.

Product presentation and design

Shopify

Shopify has around 100 themes – a smaller selection than Squarespace, split between free options (around 12) and paid themes costing $100–$350 (roughly £75–£265). The free themes are clean and functional but not exceptional. The paid themes are where the real quality lives.

Squarespace’s design quality is a noticeable step above Shopify’s free themes. If you’re comparing a free Squarespace template against a free Shopify theme, Squarespace typically produces a more polished result.

Product pages in Shopify are well-structured and conversion-optimised – clear product images, clean variant selectors, prominent add-to-cart buttons. The focus is on selling, and the design reflects that.

Squarespace

Squarespace product pages are beautiful. The platform’s design strengths carry through to ecommerce – generous whitespace, sophisticated typography, excellent image handling. For products where visual presentation is central to the buying decision – handmade goods, art prints, clothing, photography – Squarespace’s product pages make a meaningful impression.

The trade-off is that Squarespace’s design focus occasionally comes at the expense of conversion optimisation. A page that looks stunning isn’t always the page that sells the most, and Shopify’s more functional approach has been refined by analysing conversion data from millions of stores.

Winner: Squarespace for design quality. Shopify for conversion-optimised product pages. The right choice depends on what matters more for your products.

Payment processing and transaction fees

Shopify

Shopify supports over 100 payment gateways. Its own payment processor – Shopify Payments – is available in the US, UK, and most major markets, and using it avoids Shopify’s additional transaction fees.

If you use a third-party payment processor instead of Shopify Payments, additional transaction fees apply:

• Basic plan: 2% per transaction
• Shopify plan: 1% per transaction
• Advanced plan: 0.5% per transaction

For most sellers using Shopify Payments, these additional fees don’t apply – you just pay the standard card processing rate (typically 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction in the USA, or 1.5–2% + a fixed fee in the UK).

Squarespace

Squarespace processes payments through Stripe and PayPal. There are no additional Squarespace transaction fees on Commerce plans (Basic and Advanced). On the Business plan, a 3% Squarespace transaction fee applies on top of payment processing fees.

The practical implication: if you’re on Squarespace’s Business plan and selling meaningful volume, the 3% transaction fee adds up quickly and makes upgrading to Commerce Basic worthwhile.

Winner: Draw for most sellers – both platforms have reasonable payment processing once you’re on the right plan. Watch the Business plan transaction fee on Squarespace and the third-party processor fees on Shopify.

Inventory management

Shopify

Shopify’s inventory management is one of its genuine strengths. Track stock levels across multiple locations. Set up low-stock alerts. Manage product variants – size, colour, material – with up to three options and 100 variants per product. Bulk edit products. Import and export via CSV.

For a shop with a growing product catalogue, Shopify’s inventory tools scale cleanly. They’re not enterprise-level supply chain management, but they’re more than adequate for the vast majority of independent sellers.

Squarespace

Squarespace handles basic inventory management – stock tracking, low-stock notifications, and variant management. For straightforward products, it works perfectly well.

The limitations are evident in complex variant structures. Squarespace’s variant management is less flexible than Shopify’s – fewer options, more constraints on how variants are displayed and managed. For a clothing shop with multiple sizes, colours, and lengths, for example, Shopify handles the complexity more gracefully.

Winner: Shopify – meaningfully more capable inventory management for complex product catalogues.

Shipping

Shopify

Shipping is one of Shopify’s strongest features. Set up shipping zones, rates by weight or price, flat-rate shipping, free-shipping thresholds, and carrier-calculated rates. On higher plans, Shopify offers discounted rates through major carriers. Print shipping labels directly from the dashboard.

The shipping configuration in Shopify can handle almost any shipping scenario that a small- to medium-sized independent seller is likely to encounter.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s shipping is functional but less sophisticated. You can set up flat rate shipping, weight-based rates, and free shipping – and carrier-calculated rates are available on Commerce Advanced. Printing labels is supported through integrations.

For a shop with straightforward shipping needs – a single rate or a handful of zones – Squarespace is perfectly adequate. For complex shipping requirements, Shopify handles the nuance better.

Winner: Shopify – more comprehensive and flexible shipping options.

Apps and integrations

Shopify

The Shopify App Store has over 8,000 apps covering virtually every ecommerce need imaginable – email marketing integrations, print on demand, dropshipping, subscriptions, loyalty programmes, reviews, upselling, analytics, and more. If you need a feature that isn’t built into Shopify, there’s almost certainly an app for it.

Many of these apps are paid – some with monthly fees that add meaningfully to your total monthly cost. But the ecosystem’s depth means Shopify can be extended to handle almost anything.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s extensions marketplace is growing but significantly smaller than Shopify’s. The existing integrations are well implemented, but their range is limited compared to Shopify’s ecosystem.

For most small shops, the integrations Squarespace offers cover the basics. For more specialist needs – specific shipping carriers, niche marketing integrations, industry-specific tools – Shopify’s ecosystem is more likely to have what you need.

Winner: Shopify – significantly larger and deeper app ecosystem.

Blogging and content

Shopify

Shopify has a blog function, but it’s limited. The editor is basic, SEO options are restricted, and the overall content publishing experience feels secondary – because it is. If content marketing is a significant part of your strategy for driving traffic to your shop, Shopify’s blogging will frustrate you.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s blogging is significantly better than Shopify’s. The editor is more capable, the content management tools are more sophisticated, and the blog output is more polished. For a seller who wants to drive traffic through content marketing, recipe posts, tutorials, or editorial content alongside their shop, Squarespace handles the combination much better.

Winner: Squarespace – considerably better content and blogging tools.

Pricing

Shopify

• Basic: USA ~$25/month, UK ~£19/month (paid annually)
• Shopify: USA ~$64/month, UK ~£49/month (paid annually)
• Advanced: USA ~$336/month, UK ~£259/month (paid annually)

Plus apps, plus domain name (not included), plus payment processing fees. Total monthly cost for a basic Shopify store with a couple of useful apps typically lands at $33–$52/month (USA) or £25–£40/month (UK).

Squarespace

• Business: USA ~$21/month, UK ~£16/month (paid annually) – includes 3% transaction fee
• Commerce Basic: USA ~$30/month, UK ~£23/month (paid annually) – no transaction fee
• Commerce Advanced: USA ~$46/month, UK ~£35/month (paid annually)

Domain name for year one included. For a shop, Commerce Basic is effectively the starting point once you’re selling any volume – the 3% fee on the Business plan erodes margins quickly.

Winner: Squarespace – lower entry price, in both markets, though the gap narrows once you add necessary Shopify apps.

SEO for your shop

Shopify

Shopify’s SEO has improved, but it still has structural limitations. The URL structure for products and collections is less flexible than that of WordPress or even Squarespace. The blogging limitations mentioned above mean content-driven SEO is harder. Speed can be affected by app overload.

For a shop where SEO is the primary traffic strategy – driving people to product and category pages through Google search – Shopify works but requires more effort to get right.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s SEO is broadly comparable to Shopify for ecommerce pages. Customisable metadata, clean URLs, automatic sitemap, good page speed out of the box.

The content advantage carries through here, too – Squarespace’s better blogging tools make it easier to build a content-driven SEO strategy alongside your shop.

Winner: Squarespace – slightly better SEO foundations and meaningfully better content tools for content-driven traffic.

Who should choose Shopify?

Choose Shopify if:

• Selling products is the primary purpose of your website
• You have a large or complex product catalogue
• You need sophisticated inventory and shipping management
• Scaling your shop aggressively is the plan
• You need access to a deep ecosystem of apps and integrations
• You’re selling across multiple channels – website, social media, in person

Who should choose Squarespace?

Choose Squarespace if:

• Selling is one part of a broader site – portfolio plus shop, blog plus shop
• Design quality and brand presentation are central to how your products sell
• Your product range is relatively focused and straightforward
• Content marketing is part of your traffic strategy
• You want a more affordable all-in-one platform

What about WooCommerce?

It’s worth mentioning a third option that often gets overlooked in this comparison.

WooCommerce – the free ecommerce plugin for WordPress – is worth serious consideration for anyone who wants the depth of Shopify’s ecommerce functionality with the content and SEO strengths of WordPress, at a lower long-term cost.

It has a steeper setup curve than either Shopify or Squarespace, but for a content-led ecommerce site where both SEO and selling matter, WooCommerce on WordPress is arguably the best combination of both worlds.

Read our full Shopify vs WordPress comparison →

Frequently asked questions

Shopify vs Squarespace – which is better for selling online? For selling as the primary purpose of a site, Shopify – its ecommerce tools, inventory management, and shipping options are more comprehensive. For selling alongside a design-led portfolio, blog, or brand site, Squarespace’s more cohesive overall experience and superior content tools often make it the better fit. See the head-to-head breakdown above for the full reasoning.

Is Shopify or Squarespace better for a small shop? For a small shop with a focused product range, either works well. Squarespace is a better value and produces more beautiful product pages. Shopify is better if you plan to grow the shop significantly or need more sophisticated inventory and shipping tools.

Can Squarespace handle a large product catalogue? Squarespace handles modest product catalogues well. For large catalogues with complex variants, Shopify’s inventory tools are more capable.

Does Squarespace charge transaction fees? On the Business plan, yes – 3% per transaction. On Commerce Basic and above, Squarespace charges no additional transaction fees beyond payment processing costs.

Is Shopify good for SEO? Shopify has adequate SEO for most shops, but has some structural limitations compared to WordPress. For a shop where organic search is the primary traffic source, WordPress with WooCommerce gives you more control.

Which is cheaper – Shopify or Squarespace? Squarespace’s entry-level commerce plan (Commerce Basic at ~$30/month USA or ~£23/month UK) is cheaper than Shopify Basic (~$25/£19 a month, plus apps, with no free domain). Over time, the costs are comparable for most sellers.