Editor's opinion
Sean Thompson
I am a full-time web developer & IT professional with more than 18 years experience. I have been working with numerous hosting companies over the years.
First impression
Squarespace is a popular website building and hosting platform that was founded by Anthony Casalena in 2004 in New York City, New York, USA. This American website building and hosting giant enables individuals and businesses alike to create and manage their websites with ease.
It offers a user-friendly interface, a variety of customizable templates, and a range of features for designing and maintaining websites, including e-commerce capabilities, blogging tools, and integrated analytics.
Squarespace is known for its user-friendly design, making it accessible to both beginners and more experienced web developers, while being supported by a team of roughly 1800+ highly capable and well-trained professionals.
Trial Period
They provide a 14-day complimentary website trial, allowing you to experience Squarespace and explore its features thoroughly prior to making a subscription commitment. No credit card information is necessary to initiate your trial.
Billing Cycle
New Squarespace clients qualify for a 10% discount on their first purchase by using the code GIMME10 (these codes and promotions can change at any time and are not permanent) at check out and can choose between signing up on either a monthly or annual basis.
They currently accept American Express, Diners Club, Discover (US Dollars only), Japan Credit Bureau (JCB), MasterCard, SEPA direct debit (Euros only), and Visa cards as valid payment methods.
One should note though that although they accept Verified by Visa, Visa Electron, MasterCard SecureCode, and Maestro cards, charges to these cards may fail due to banking regulations. If the charge fails, one should try a different payment method without 3D Secure features.
Control Panel
Squarespace included its own, custom-built dashboard on all plans. It allows users to manage their sites, domains, and other subscriptions all in one convenient location.
Limits
Squarespace offers four distinct plans: Personal, Business, Commerce Basic, and Commerce Advanced. All of these plans include essential features such as SEO tools for optimizing site visibility, unlimited bandwidth, video hosting, access to the Fluid Engine website builder, 2048 Bit SSL / SHA-2 SSL Certificates for enhanced security, and the Squarespace AI - a content-generating Artificial Intelligence capable of assisting you in generating drafts of text content for your website based on prompts or existing text.
The Personal Plan is primarily designed for personal blogs or websites and accommodates up to 2 contributors. In contrast, the other plans provide unlimited flexibility and the ability to customize with CSS and Javascript.
The primary differentiator among these plans lies in the array of commerce features available for online stores. For instance, the Personal Plan offers limited to no selling tools, while the Commerce Plan is equipped with a comprehensive suite of selling tools. This includes Point of Sale capabilities, Domain Checkout functionality, and the ability to sell products on popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Website Builder
The Fluid Engine is the new upgraded version of the Squarespace classic editor. While both the Fluid Engine and their classic editor employ drag-and-drop technology, the Fluid Engine stands out by incorporating a grid system that offers a wider array of block arrangement possibilities, enhanced background setup features, and expanded content customization options. As a result, creating a website becomes a swifter, more straightforward, and exceptionally flexible endeavor.
Users can easily customize one of over 100, mobile-responsive, professional templates provided (with new ones continuously added), all without requiring any knowledge whatsoever of HTML, JavaScript, or CSS. Perfect whether you're building a blog, portfolio, e-commerce site, or a combination thereof.
Security
Squarespace takes its security seriously and has implemented a variety of measures to protect both user data and the websites hosted on its platform, and even has a dedicated Security Operations Center (SOC), that monitors for threats and vulnerabilities 24/7, to ensure your website (and their platform) is always protected.
All websites come standard with a free SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption to secure data transmission between websites and visitors, as well as Content Security Policies (CSP) to control and mitigate the risk of cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
Their data centers are equipped with physical security measures, including access controls, surveillance cameras, and restricted access to authorized personnel only, and their platform employs firewalls to monitor and filter incoming traffic, alongside DDoS Mitigation (Distributed Denial of Service), to detect and mitigate large-scale traffic surges that could disrupt websites.
Squarespace also encourages users to create strong and unique passwords for their accounts, as well as to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) that is available for enhanced login security.
Besides these measures, they do regular data backups, that are automatically performed, to ensure that website content can be restored in the event of data loss or a security incident.
OS
Their servers run on the Linux OS (Operating System).
Support
Squarespace customers can reach their support agents 24/7 on email support or Live Chat which is available from Monday to Friday 4 am to 8 pm EST time. Response times are impressively swift; in my experience (having tested their services multiple times), they typically replied to emails in less than 30 minutes and responded almost instantly on Live Chat. You can expect quick response times, on email they replied in less than 30 minutes in my case (I tried them out multiple times), and near-instant replies on Live Chat. Every single agent I had the pleasure of dealing with, was professional and knowledgeable, leaving me with the impression that their support service surpasses the standard offered by most businesses.
There is also the Squarespace Help Center, packed with access tutorials, guides, videos, webinars, and a community forum.
It is important to note that no Phone support is available, which can be problematic for some.
Conclusion
Pros |
Cons |
- 14-Day money-back guarantee;
- Excellent server uptime;
- Unlimited Disc Space and Bandwidth.
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- Limited to No selling tools on the Personal Plan;
- No Phone Support.
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Squarespace offers a comprehensive website builder renowned for its visually striking designs. Their platform simplifies the process of creating an online presence, overseeing website management, and launching an e-commerce store quickly and easily. An excellent choice for individuals seeking attractive, budget-friendly, and feature-rich website-building solutions.