Choosing the Right Squarespace Plan in 2023 - Pricing & Features
So you’ve designed you site on Squarespace and you’re ready to launch! Before you can go live, you’ll need to pay for a website plan and below are our tips for choosing the right one.
First, it’s important to clarify that when you buy a Squarespace plan, the plan is for one specific Squarespace website. If your Squarespace account has two websites, you will need to buy two separate plans to get them both live.
Items included in All Squarespace plans include:
Continual Access to Squarespace Resources - Even after your website is launched, you will have access to all of Squarespace’s features, which include editing tools, templates, layouts, and customizations as long as your plan hasn’t expired.
Secure Website Hosting - Once you’ve bought a plan, Squarespace deals with the logistics for hosting your website on the Internet. They store the files for your site on a web server and also provide the security, support, and bandwidth to keep your site operational.
A Custom Domain for 1 year - The domain is essentially the “address” of your website and needs to be bought and renewed every year. While Squarespace does include a free custom domain with the purchase of any of their plans we recommend purchasing an additional domain as the complimentary domain includes .squarespace in the url.
Which Squarespace plan is right for you?
As far as options go, you can choose between the Personal, Business, Basic Commerce, or Advanced Commerce plan. Depending on how you plan to use your website one option may be better than another. The image below illustrates the four types of plans as well their monthly or annual cost (shown as a discounted monthly rate). To make your website live you must choose one of these plans and then select either the monthly or yearly payment option.
*Pricing accurate as of August 2023.
Now that you are aware of the four options let’s take a look at what is included in each and which is best for you!
Personal - $16/month
The personal plan is best for casual users who have no need to sell products or receive donations as it doesn’t have commerce features. The personal plan does not include Squarespace’s premium features either. The premium features include an announcement bar (a bar across the top of the website that can be hidden or shown and have some text and/or a link), promotional pop-ups (newsletter sign up or other pop-up boxes), code blocks or code injection to be able to fully customize your website with additional code, and integrations with third party services such as Zapier, Mailchimp, or Chownow.
If these features aren’t necessary for your website then the personal plan may be the best choice for you. If, on the other hand, you want more design freedom or the ability to sell products one of the more advanced plans may be a better fit. Keep in mind that you can upgrade your payment plan at any point and pay a prorated amount for the month or year.
Business - $23/month
The business plan is the most popular option and works well for many users. It offers complete customizability of your website as well as commerce features to begin selling products or accept donations. You can use all premium blocks and integrations for businesses on this plan.
Unless commerce is a key component of your business then the business plan may be best for you. The business plan has a 3% transaction fee, so if you sell over $3,200 USD per year of products, it is worth moving up to the Basic Commerce plan as the 3% fee would end up costing you more than the difference in plans.
Basic Commerce - $27/month
Basic Commerce is Squarespace’s introductory commerce option. Even if you are selling less than $3600 of product in a year the basic commerce plan may still be the best option as you get some additional features not offered by the business plan. These features include:
Customer Accounts so users can save their email and payment information to check out quicker and build a relationship with you.
More powerful sales analytics to track sales data.
The ability to integrate products with Instagram and/or Facebook.
On the regular business plan it’s important to note you can’t sell subscriptions or have carrier calculated shipping rates (have Squarespace automatically calculate rates based on USPS, Fedex, or UPS).
Advanced Commerce - $49/month
The Advanced Commerce plan is the most comprehensive e-commerce solution offered by Squarespace and in many cases worth it for the awesome features that come along with it. You’ll have access to everything in the lower plans, plus:
Abandoned cart emails sent to those who don’t complete checkout
Subscription products
Carrier Calculated Shipping Rates - Squarespace can generate a shipping rate based on your product weight, dimensions, shipping zip code and the customer’s shipping zip code from USPS, UPS, and FedEx
Automatic discounts (like free shipping over $100 without having to use a coupon code)
Other questions to ask when considering commerce plans:
Do you sell course that use a Learning Management System like Teachable or Kajabi?
Would you like to use one system to manage order fulfillment or inventory across multiple platforms like Etsy and Ebay?
If you answered yes to either of these questions then you will need the advanced commerce plan offered by Squarespace which allows you to create commerce API’s.
Prices and features can be updated so it’s important to check the most up to date information here before selecting your final plan.
Want 10% off your Squarespace plan? Use code BRENTJO at checkout, or book a custom project with us to receive 20% off!
