Wix vs. Squarespace - Which Platform Do We Recommend?
Editor’s Note: This blog has been updated with new information about Squarespace’s pricing for digital products as of May 2024.
We recently ran a series diving deep into Squarespace, WordPress, and Shopify, three web-building platforms filling three distinct needs. However, during that comparison, we never discussed Wix, which is more of a direct competitor to Squarespace than either Shopify or WordPress.
Squarespace and Wix are similar in that they’re user-friendly, cheaper than their competitors, and prioritize visuals over giving designers many advanced tools to work into their pages. People who need an advanced e-commerce platform go to Shopify. People who need a website with tons of bells and whistles go to WordPress. And people who need something simple but comprehensive and looks beautiful go to Squarespace or Wix.
But if you’re one of those people who needs a straightforward but great-looking website, how are you supposed to decide between Wix and Squarespace? We hope to help you answer that question by looking at the similarities and differences between the platforms and ultimately recommending a platform depending on your preferences. Let’s get to it.
Ease of Use
Squarespace and Wix were designed to be user-friendly website builders, and both succeeded in many ways. However, Wix is unique in that it’s more user-friendly than Squarespace in a few ways and less user-friendly in many others, with the most significant differences coming down to the page editor on the two platforms.
Wix has what’s called an “unstructured editor,” meaning there are very few guardrails in place for where you can and can’t place elements on your web pages. Meanwhile, Squarespace has a “structured editor,” meaning you can only place page elements within the spaces of the editor grid Squarespace designates for blocks and features, and those elements snap into place in columns and rows. In other words, Wix lets you put the pieces of your website exactly where you want without limits, while Squarespace guides your hand a bit more.
In simple terms, the most notable advantage of Squarespace’s editor is that it will ensure that the elements of your website go perfectly into place, while the most significant perk of Wix’s editor is that it grants designers a bit more freedom.
The unstructured editor has its share of pros and cons, the biggest downside being that it can be much harder to use than Squarespace’s drag-and-drop grid-based editor. There are a few elements on Wix that make editing on your own easier, including rulers at the top of the page and guidelines to let you know when you’ve centered your text, pictures, and videos on the page. But still, those can’t match the ease of use of Squarespace’s editor.
Of course, this also means you have more control over your pages and which elements go where. You’re not beholden to a rigid editor and can place blocks and text wherever you want to the pixel. To be clear, while Squarespace’s editor is slightly restrictive, it still gives you plenty of freedom for what goes where. Additionally, Squarespace’s editor isn’t just in place to make designing pages easy. Instead, it ensures you’ve adequately aligned the elements on those pages to look good with one another. Still, even if Squarespace isn’t as restrictive as it might sound, it’s not as flexible as Wix.
There’s an undeniable learning curve to Wix’s editor that will turn many people off, particularly because Wix markets itself as one of the more user-friendly website builders. If you can conquer that learning curve, you might enjoy Wix’s editor more than Squarespace’s. However, you can also work around the barrier to entry entirely by either working directly from one of Wix’s templates or using their Artificial Design Intelligence.
Wix ADI
If you’re looking to make the design process as simple and streamlined as possible, it doesn’t get much easier than Wix’s Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI), the platform’s AI website builder. The Wix ADI works by asking users a few questions about what they want their website to look like and how they want it structured before generating a website in just a few seconds.
If that sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is. Wix’s ADI doesn’t ask you specific enough questions about your business to generate a website that’s immediately ready to launch, but it can provide a great jumping-off point if you’re struggling to start.
Think about it more as an advanced template generator that gets you closer to what you want your live website to look like than any of Wix’s (or Squarespace’s) pre-built templates. It can give you a color scheme, all the pages you want and need, and load all your pre-selected images into recommended spots, but you will still need to get into the editor and change around the specifics.
Templates
Wix and Squarespace both also have an impressive selection of templates, but Wix has Squarespace outnumbered. While Squarespace has 166 website templates as of writing this, Wix offers over 800. However, more doesn’t necessarily mean better in this scenario.
It’s clear that visuals are Squarespace’s top priority, and their template library matches that billing. All of them look sleek and professional, each with their distinct look. But on Wix, not all of the templates are winners, and even though they have plenty of good ones available, you might have to dig for a while to find one you love.
One thing we do love about Wix’s templates is that they often have curated options for specific business types that you can search for directly. For example, if you’re making a website for a boutique coffee shop, you can search for “coffee shop” or “cafe” in the template library, and it will show you some results they built for coffee shops.
Wix’s template search functions, plus their ADI tool, make finding functional templates in their vast library easier, but we still prefer Squarespace’s selection.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Wix and Squarespace are similar in how they let you improve your favorability with search engines and how much you can boost your search engine optimization (SEO). Both platforms allow you to write meta descriptions for your web pages, customize your URLs, and integrate your website with Google Search Console, which monitors your site’s performance and recommends edits based on elements that aren’t working. Those shared techniques are easy to do and profoundly impactful for your website’s SEO.
Wix App Market vs. Squarespace Add-Ons
If you’re going to use Wix, you should know that most of the tools you’ll need to get the most out of your website are available on the Wix App Market, the platform’s in-house shop for free and paid plug-ins. Here, you’ll find features to set up unique pages like a blog or online shop, analytics tools to monitor your website’s performance, and plenty of other things you’ll need to get your website up and running. Without them, most of your pages will be pretty bland.
However, it’s also important to know that while the Wix App Market has many more available downloads than Squarespace has available plug-ins, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your Wix website can do more than your Squarespace site.
Squarespace has most of the plug-ins that Wix has on their App Market available as add-ons. While you’ll need to subscribe to those features to access them, you won’t have to download them like you would with plug-ins. When comparing Wix to Squarespace, you might see some lists claiming Wix is compatible with more plug-ins than Squarespace. While that’s true by technicality, it doesn’t really mean that Wix has more features than Squarespace - it just means Squarespace labels its tools differently than Wix.
Pricing
Both Wix and Squarespace have four standard monthly subscription plans, and since both platforms are similar and close competitors, most of their prices are also similar. However, Wix trends slightly more expensive, with their priciest package spiking in cost relative to Squarespace’s biggest bundle.
Wix Light: $16/month
Wix Core: $27/month
Wix Business: $32/month
Wix Business Elite: $159/month
Squarespace Personal: $16/month
Squarespace Business: $23/month
Squarespace Basic Commerce: $27/month
Squarespace Advanced Commerce: $49/month
You can read more about the included features in Squarespace and Wix’s monthly plans on their websites.
As of 2024, Squarespace has altered its for selling Member Areas, Courses, and similar add-ons and is now selling them as part of an all-inclusive subscription which covers "digital products.” The three price tiers cost an extra $12, $37, and $111 for these add-ons. Read here to learn more about how Digital Products on Squarespace work.
Squarespace & Wix Enterprise
Squarespace and Wix provide more advanced capabilities and increased access through their Enterprise plans, with prices fluctuating depending on your specific needs rather than offering services at a fixed price. You can contact Squarespace’s and Wix’s teams to discuss pricing for your team.
Understanding Wix Studio
Wix Studio is a newer invention from Wix. It launched less than a year ago as we write this, in August 2023. It's an AI-powered design suite with advanced features and functions that, while not as beginner-friendly as Wix’s base editor, is the perfect way for professional designers to create more powerful websites.
Since Wix developed Wix Studio with design agencies and freelancers in mind, it includes a more advanced, feature-dense editor that might confuse DIYers but gives professionals many more tools to build better websites.
Some of those features include:
Animations: With Wix Studio, you can animate any element of your website and make the pages more dynamic.
Language Translation: Wix Studio can automatically translate your written content into 180 languages to help you reach members of your audience from across the globe.
SEO Assistant: Wix Studio has an AI tool that analyses the content on the front end of your website and suggests edits for better search engine optimization.
Concurrent Editing: Again, Wix Studio is designed for designers. So, if you work for an agency and want multiple people working on the same project at the same time,
AI Code Assistant: The Wix Studio AI code assistant can produce examples of code or help you troubleshoot your own code to help you overcome your programming problems and create unique features for your website.
Enhanced E-Commerce Functionality: Wix in its base format already has e-commerce features and plug-ins available, but Wix Studio has advanced e-commerce capabilities to help designers create a truly well-functioning online store.
Joining Wix Studio
If you’re interested in joining Wix Studio, you can sign up either directly through your personal account or by joining an agency already partnered with Wix Studio. If you want to sign up through your own Wix account, you can do so through either the Sites page, your account dashboard, or the templates page.
Even if you are an experienced designer, Wix Studio might initially feel a bit overwhelming since it's a new software with several unique features. But you can access several educational resources from the Wix Discover page that can walk you through everything you need to get started, regardless of your experience level.
Which Is Better?
The people who use Wix and Squarespace gravitate there because of their ease of use and affordability. And if those are your two primary criteria, we recommend Squarespace over Wix. Squarespace’s structured editor might be slightly more restrictive, but the grid-based setup makes it easier to build professional-looking websites quickly. Plus, though the pricing differences are small, Squarespace is cheaper as you upgrade to their higher-functionality subscriptions.
We don’t mean to say that Wix isn’t a great website builder. It is. And it’s even a slightly more popular web builder than Squarespace in overall user count. In our opinion, Squarespace is better than Wix because it’s a bit more user-friendly, a bit more pleasant on the eye, and a slight bit more forgiving on the wallet than Wix. But our decision comes down more to a matter of taste than an objective matter of better or worse.
You might prefer Wix’s editor if you want complete control over your pages and their elements down to the pixel. You also might prefer Wix if you like the collaborative features and AI tools included in Wix Studio. Still, we find that the disadvantages often outweigh the advantages of this extra flexibility. Most people inexperienced with design will find themselves fighting to get the exact dimensions more often than not, and that discomfort is bound to be a major issue if you’re approaching web design as an inexperienced DIYer. But the race between these two is so close that we recommend trying them both for yourself.
Wix and Squarespace have free trials as well, so the best way to find out which platform is the best fit would be to try both at no cost.
Want professional help building your Squarespace website? Book a consultation call today and learn more about how we can help.
