Editor’s Note: This blog has been updated with new information about Squarespace’s pricing for digital products as of May 2024.

Client invoicing is one of the newest tools to reach Squarespace, and its come alongside some other helpful project management resources as well. With their most recent update, Squarespace hopes to make life easier on business owners by letting them design and send out custom invoices and track all their clients’ information with a new CRM and project dashboard.

We could all use a helping hand, but is Squarespace’s update as beneficial as it wants to be? Overall, we can't recommend Squarespace's invoice tool unless you need something super simple and don't want to deal with learning a new website. To show you why we’re unimpressed with the invoicing update in its current state, let’s look at some of the features and limitations of their newest tools and let you know what we think.

Invoices 

Invoicing is the essential function of this Squarespace add-on. With it, you can request payments from your customers directly from your website to help you get paid on time. After sending out an invoice, you can still edit the details, re-send the entire form, or cancel it altogether. You can also issue refunds from the platform after the client has paid.

As of 2024, Squarespace has altered its pricing for add-ons like Member Areas, Courses, and similar tools, and is now selling them as part of an all-inclusive subscription which covers "digital products.” Read here to learn more about how Digital Products on Squarespace work.

Intake Forms (Form Blocks)

Intake forms collect information from potential customers that quickly allows you to familiarize yourself with your leads and get in touch with the most promising ones. Most intake forms let clients write in their name, contact information, and most importantly, their reason for contacting you.

On Squarespace, you would design an intake form through the form block tool. All you have to do to set it up is place a form block on your website, build the form in the content tab, and select a storage option. You can also require a Google CAPTCHA test for added security, but your intake form will be ready after that additional step.

Project Dashboard & Client CRM

The Client CRM is where you’ll view all your intake form submissions and the relevant data from your existing customers. CRMs put all that information in one spot so that it's easy to market to all your active clients. A good CRM is valuable for every business, but they’re particularly helpful for growing businesses with more customers than they can keep track of.

The project dashboard is similar to Squarespace’s CRM but focuses more on helping users track their current jobs instead of their current customers. You can view all your active and accepted invoices, jot down any notes on your open projects, and track where you’re at with all in-progress work.

Customizable Templates

The Acuity tool on Squarespace gives you an invoice template so that you don’t have to build your form from scratch. Acuity gives you a great, eye-catching starting point to build brand-friendly invoices. And, of course, the template is customizable so that you can fine-tune the specifics match your business’s aesthetic better. Or you can just build your invoice layout from scratch.

A well-designed invoice form might seem like a minor detail, but some businesses neglect their invoices and simply send out unremarkable electronic forms to their clients. An invoice template that looks sharp can give you a leg up on the competition, even if it is small.

Limitations of Squarespace’s Invoice Tool

Squarespace’s invoicing and CRM tools have their advantages and the unique perk of being built directly into all Squarespace websites on a business or commerce plan. But overall, it’s all pretty limited relative to other programs and not worth saving the extra step of signing up with a third-party platform.

The most impactful limit of Squarespace’s invoicing platform is how you have to integrate a third-party payment processor to receive compensation for digital sales. Squarespace allows you to connect to either Stripe or PayPal, which are great platforms, but they charge additional fees on top of what you owe Squarespace with each transaction. And since Stripe has its own invoice tool, we recommend just using their platform for invoicing for now. 

You also have to deal with the limitations of Squarespace’s invoicing at an unfortunately high cost. Squarespace charges a 2.9% processing fee + 30 cents for every transaction on a Squarespace Business or Commerce plan. And if you don’t have Squarespace Commerce, you’ll have to pay an additional 3% commerce transaction fee.  

Squarespace has always been good about evolving with its user’s needs, so its invoice tool will likely improve with time, especially considering how new it is. But for right now, it's hard to recommend the feature that needs anything more than a super simple invoice tool.