Squarespace.com is just another website building tool so what is so special and unique about this platform? We have tested and gone through several website builders and hardly can find any other platforms that can do well with near flawlessness. Almost everything we discovered is new, energized, almost great and perfect. So lets us find out in this Squarespace review.
Squarespace has grown out of several versions, currently at the time of creating this review, version 7 is the latest update. It rolled out with a few new features such as ‘Cover Page Builder’, ‘G suite’ and ‘Getty Images’. However the most crucial point is the editor usability. Now it has the feature that you can edit on the live mode without having to switch between editor and preview mode. We flavor text, image and video based editing as well as inline as it makes things more simple and won’t feel stuck with the error display of content.
Squarespace Review
Squarespace is an excellent blogging platform and good support system compared with other site building tools. Their library has a numerous of over a hundred flexibility templates and has been made for mobile devices as well. Learning to use the platform may take a while to master the navigation and see how things work.
Squarespace has staked itself as a website building platform for blogs, portfolio sites and eCommerce stores. This review will take you through every detail you need to know about this company.
Based on our personal opinion we still think Wix is the best website building tool we have ever tested. You can read our Wix review here.
| Plans | Price (monthly) | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | $12 | A good solution if you want to create a simple personal blog or portfolio. |
| Business | $16 | A Simple online store with a transaction fee of 3% |
| Online Store (Basic) | $26 | Sell online without transaction fees. |
| Online Store (Advance) | $40 | Use advanced eCommerce features |
Squarespace Pros & Cons
Pros
Numerous Templates with many designs selection
There are around over a hundred templates for you to pick. The designer seems to aim on making every detail so perfect such as fonts, sizes, layout and even image saturation. If you are a perfectionist, you won’t have a problem looking for the best theme you like. By the way, we still think that Wix has the best design templates over Squarespace.
Unlike Weebly.com, Square gives flexibility to customize the template in any way you want under ‘Site Style Menu’. Beware that the theme is heavily deco with images, if you change the template, the entire website will look different.
Features of Blogging
If you want to build a main blog, squarespace may be a good choice. They are packed with great features for blogging such as rich-commenting, multi-author functionality, post-publishing schedule, AMP support, and much more. Best thing if you have a podcast, you can even host it on squarespace.
Support
Support is immediately taken care of by one of the team members who is professional in dealing in several of our issues that accidentally occurs like editor doesn’t save or load, unavailable elements and image corrupted. How they solve our issues are by instant record of step-by-step screenshots and we do it just by following the instructions which make it easier for us.
Mobile-App
Squarespace mobile app is the most popular one available on the app store, however it is only available for iOS for now.
Cons
No auto-save and undo button
This is a huge disappointment that a world-class website building platform doesn’t include these basic functions. Every task we accomplish has to be saved manually, what if sometimes we forget to push the save button and our browser has a sudden crash? At worst, we will have to work all over again. Furthermore, every time we save our works it gets published immediately, if you use wordpress you will know what I mean here. It is quite inconvenient with the saving function. We still prefer WordPress for content creation. You can check out GoDaddy that they have recently launch a new website building tool.
Not for large websites
Squarespace allows one sub-page that means you won’t be able to create multilingual or multi product pages under one menu. Weebly does allow multiple sub-menus and deep pages, their platform is suitable for big sites.
Poor Speed
As we have measured the speed of the website that was created and hosted on Squarespace with ‘Google’s Page Speed Tool’, the average speed load is quite disappointing as it may hurt your SEO ranking. If your traffic stream is based on google.com it may not be suitable to build a website with Squarespace.
Summary
Squarespace used to have a very complicated editor interface with complicated navigation and now they have improved it in the latest version 7. The upgrade doesn’t make it a perfect website building tool, it is better now with it real time point and interaction with the editor. The new upgrade can speed up the editing process which makes it more convenient in creating content. If editor interface with auto-saving function is a big deal for you, then you should stick to WordPress.com or there is alternative with a slightly better functionality at Wix.com.
Between the learning curve, you may experience a lot of trial and error before you can really understand how the editor works. We came from WordPress which makes Squarespace an austere place to work. Some elements are identified by its icon but don’t describe its purpose. Fortunately, the tutorial section does save the hindrance experience.
The price isn’t cheap as the yearly plan with a domain name comes at $12 a month with unlimited storage and bandwidth. To run a business, you will have a premium plan at $18 per month.
Overall, we enjoy Squarespace as a website building platform, however there are rooms for improvement like the speed, which is still not good for SEO. Squarespace isn’t a perfect tool but it has its unique features with an attractive design template and flexibility. Not made for a large website with multiple sub-menus. Now you can try Squarespace Free for 14 days!