Last Updated on
Ante Rados
Not everyone can afford a professional to build their website: Even among those who can, some want to do the job themselves. For people who don’t know how to code, that would be an impossible task if there were no website builders. That being said, choosing the right sitebuilder can be a challenging task by itself.
Together we will take a look at two website builders that are among the best ones out there. In this article I will pit Squarespace vs Wix.
I will give you information about how easy they are to use, what SEO and eCommerce functionality you can expect, how much bandwidth and storage they offer, what kind of customer service they offer, and finally how much you will pay for a plan that will get you all of that.
Let’s go find out, is Squarespace or Wix best for you?
Table of Contents
So which is better, Wix or Squarespace?
Wix is better for beginners because it is a pure drag & drop sitebuilder with an intuitive editor. However, Squarespace has better features, designs and functionality, especially for restaurants and non-profits so it wins this Wix versus Squarespace battle.
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Wix or Squarespace ease of use
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
Both Wix and Squarespace are drag & drop, website builders. Wix is a pure drag & drop builder, this means that you start with a blank canvas and you can drag anything wherever you want it.
If you don’t know where to start, there is Wix's ADI to help you. ADI stands for artificial design intelligence, but it feels more like a virtual assistant. It asks you questions, you answer them and it creates a website for you. The good thing about Wix ADI is that you can switch back to the regular editor and add the fine touch once you get inspiration from the website it creates for you.
Both website builders are quite easy to use, but Wix's site history gives Wix website builder edge in ease of use. It lets you restore to any of the previous versions of the website if you mess something up. This way you are free to learn through trial and error.
In addition changes to your website won’t be published unless you click the publish now button, so you can experiment while visitors enjoy already functioning versions of your website. In contrast, with Squarespace all changes are published live, so you have to be more careful when trying out new things on your website.
Wix vs Squarespace website builder
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
Wix drag & drop editor lets you drag anything you want, wherever you want it, so there isn’t much to elaborate on with this sitebuilder here.
You start with the choice of a template. After that, all you have to do is choose elements you want to use, drag them to the template, and resize them to fit the place where you placed them.
One additional thing worth mentioning about the Wix editor is that there is in-editor help that has answers to common problems users may face while building out their designs.
Wix and Squarespace templates, themes, and customizability
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
There is an abundance of templates to choose from Wix’s collection. With over 500 (most of which are responsive) mobile responsive templates from various industries, it is unlikely you won’t find a dozen that suit your taste.
The best thing about Wix is that a pure drag & drop editor lets you move around things freely and place them in the exact place you want them. You can also do that from wherever you want because Wix has a mobile editor that lets you work from your phone or tablet.
With over 500 Wix templates you will probably want to try out a few of them before picking the one that you like the most. That is where you will find Wix lacking. If you decide to switch to a different template you will have to rebuild your whole website, not just that page.
Both website site builders come with all the industry-standard customizability and let you freely change fonts, backgrounds, and colors. They also share the same weakness; neither of them is suitable for creating larger websites.
Squarespace or Wix eCommerce features
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
Wix supports 24 different payment gateways. They will automatically connect you to the most suitable payment provider available based on your preferences and location. You can manually switch to a different provider if you want.
There is a beta version of automated tax software. Currently, it is available to most users. Exceptions are users living in Brazil and India.
Wix eCommerce features include support for 6 different product options and 30 option choices. To elaborate on what that means let’s pretend that you are going to sell boots in your online store. Some of the options you could set could be material or color. If one option was color, you would be able to add up to 30 different colors for one product. The total number of variants you can manage in the Wix store is 300.
Once someone orders your product it is important what shipping features you can use to help you deal with that. With Wix, there are lots of options for handling shipping rates. You can set them by weight and order price.
You can also choose a flat rate, free shipping, or store pickup. Another great thing is that you can set a different shipping service your customers can choose from such as standard shipping, fast delivery, overnight shipping, etc. You can set different shipping rules from the list above in different geographical regions.
One of the drawbacks of Squarespace is the lack of abandoned shopping cart recovery, but you can add that through a third-party app. The other big drawback isn’t fixable. With Wix, you can’t sell services, so if that was your plan you should pick Squarespace.
Wix vs Squarespace SEO
Both Squarespace and Wix sitebuilders have built-in SEO support tools with optimized headings. Those are the basic SEO functions so that is expected in any plan on any commerce plan.
Let’s see how Squarespace & Wix do with other SEO options.
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
A big plus on the beginners side is Wix SEO Wiz. It is a feature that creates a personalized step-by-step SEO plan for your site. After you add keywords, name, and purpose of your website, SEO Wiz will handle the rest of the job for you.
Many owners of small businesses don’t know how to handle the SEO on the pages of their site themselves and don’t have enough money to hire someone who does, so yes, this option in itself could be a smart reason to pick one of Wix's plans.
You can also connect your Wix website to Google Analytics and Google Search Console, which are both important tools for SEO.
Some other SEO features you can expect with Wix are meta title, meta description, custom URLs, and canonical tags. All this makes Wix a great website builder for beginners, but Wix does lack some features necessary for advanced SEO.
Those experienced in SEO might find that what is available doesn't offer the best tools for their business designs in comparison to using Squarespace services.
Squarespace is not as beginner-friendly as Wix. For start, it doesn’t have a personalized SEO feature similar to Wix SEO Wiz.
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Compare Squarespace vs Wix storage space and bandwidth limits
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 3/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
Wix storage and bandwidth limits depend on the plan you choose.
In Wix's cheapest plan, there is a 2GB bandwidth limit for those who are getting started, while other plans have unlimited bandwidth.
Wix's storage limits range from 3 GB in their cheapest plans to 50 GB in their most expensive plans.
Square space vs Wix apps & add-ons
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
Wix app store has over 200 apps on offer. Finding an app you want in such a huge market would be hard if it weren't for great browsing options Wix has. You can browse by category or just search for a function you need.
Squarespace vs Wix customer support
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
Wix has phone support that is limited to business hours. If you run into problems while phone support isn’t working you can browse forums that have answers to the most common problems Wix users face.
It is good to know that you probably won’t even reach the Wix forum because most of the answers are already integrated inside the Wix editor.
Squarespace has a reliable uptime. Their server response time isn’t the best, but it is acceptable.Wix vs Squarespace pricing
Wix
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
Squarespace
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
Wix has four pricing plans for websites, and three eCommerce plans. Store features are same in each eCommerce plan, so let’s take a look at Wix site pricing:
Combo: $13 per month
- 2 GB bandwidth
- 3 GB storage
- 30 video minutes
- Free domain for 1 year
Unlimited: $17 per month
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 10 GB storage
- 1 video hour
- Free domain for 1 year
- $300 ad vouchers
- Site booster app
- Visitor Analytics app
Pro: $22 per month
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 20 GB website storage
- 2 video hours
- Free domain for 1 year
- $300 ad vouchers
- Site booster app
- Visitor Analytics app
- Events calendar
- Professional logo
- Social media logo files
VIP: $39 per month
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 20 GB storage
- 2 video hours
- Free domain for 1 year
- $300 ad vouchers
Site booster app - Visitor Analytics app
- Events calendar
- Professional logo
- Social media logo files
- Priority response
- VIP support
Business Basic: $23 per month
- Accept online payments
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 20 GB disk space
5 video hours - Free domain for 1 year
- Google analytics
- $300 ad vouchers
- Site booster app
- Visitor Analytics app
Business Unlimited: $27 per month
- Accept online payments
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 35 GB disk space
10 video hours - Free domain for 1 year
- Google analytics
- $300 ad vouchers
- Site booster app
- Visitor Analytics app
- Professional logo
- Social media logo files
Business VIP: $49 per month
- Accept online payments
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 50 GB disk space
- Unlimited video hours
- Free domain for 1 year
- Google analytics
- $300 ad vouchers
- Site booster app
- Visitor Analytics app
- Professional logo
- Social media logo files
- Priority response
- VIP support
It is important to note that the video hours limit you get with Wix is just a limit for upload, you can still use as many embedded videos as you want.
There is also a $500 Enterprise plan for eCommerce. With that plan, you get to consult industry experts and the Wix team to help you launch your project and deal with any challenges you might face.
For advanced eCommerce features you will have to get one of Wix Ascend Plans. Here are the most important features you get with Ascend plans:
Ascend Basic: $10/month
- 50 lead capture forms
- 10 Customizable Forms
- Payment Forms
- 5 email marketing campaigns/month (disappointing part is that this plan doesn’t allow linking the email campaign’s URL to your domain)
9500 emails / month - 5 automaton rules
- 5 social post campaigns/month
Ascend Professional: $24/month
- 5 contributors
- 150 lead capture forms
- 20 Customizable Forms
- Payment Forms
- 20 email marketing campaigns/month (disappointing part is that this plan doesn’t allow linking the email campaign’s URL to your domain)
- 50,000 emails / month
- 20 automaton rules
- Chat automatons
- 20 social post campaigns/month
Ascend Unlimited: $49/month
- Unlimited contributors
- Unlimited lead capture forms
- Customizable Forms
- Payment Forms
- Unlimited email marketing campaigns/month (disappointing part is that this plan doesn’t allow linking the email campaign’s URL to your domain)
- 1,000,000 emails / month
- Unlimited automaton rules
- Chat automatons
- Unlimited social post campaigns/month
- VIP support
Wix vs Squarespace conclusion
Drumroll please while I decide whether Squarespace or Wix deserves the win…
The winner is Squarespace!
After completing my side by side analysis of each plan from Squarespace and Wix, and the functionality they include, I can tell you that both website builders are excellent options to go to. Wix does a great job of keeping it simple for beginners, but Squarespace comes with more features and better structure.
You will be satisfied with either Wix or Squarespace’s website builders, but you will get better value for your money however if you go with Squarespace and their pricing.
Wix versus Squarespace final score
Wix vs Squarespace FAQs
Is Squarespace or Wix better?
Squarespace and Wix are both excellent website builders. The choice of a better one depends on preference. Wix uses pure drag & drop builder which means that you can place anything anywhere.
Squarespace uses a grid system and has better structure. So if you prefer better structure you should pick Squarespace, and choose Wix if you want more freedom.
Is Squarespace faster than Wix?
According to Pingdom Squarespace has an average 580 ms response time during March 2020. Wix has 395 ms average in March 2020 which means that Wix wins this Wix & Squarespace speed battle.
Is Squarespace cheaper than Wix?
Squarespace and Wix have similar prices. Wix prices range between $13/month and $49/month. Squarespace prices range from $12/month to $40/month.
When we take features they offer in consideration Squarespace is better value for money.
Does Squarespace or Wix have a better template choice?
Is Squarespace a drag & drop builder?
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