Shopify vs Squarespace

Shopify vs. Squarespace: Choosing the Best Platform (2024)

Shopify is often considered for its flexibility, built to keep up with your business no matter how big it grows or how you choose to grow it.

Try Shopify free for 3 days, no credit card required. By entering your email, you agree to receive marketing emails from Shopify.

Shopify vs Squarespace

Key features
Drag-and-drop store builderSquarespace
Shopify
Sales reportingSquarespace
Shopify
International payment methodsSquarespace
Shopify
Blog CMS capabilitiesSquarespace
Shopify
Built-in SEO toolsSquarespace
Shopify
Fully-featured mobile appSquarespace
Shopify
Sell subscriptionsSquarespace
Shopify
with Shopify apps
Fraud analysisSquarespace
Shopify
Transaction feesSquarespace
0% on Commerce Plan
Shopify
0% with Shopify Payments
App storeSquarespace
over 20 Extensions
Shopify
over 6,000 apps
Responsive website themesSquarespace
over 100 free templates
Shopify
Over 70 free and paid themes
Custom online storeSquarespace
Shopify
Reliable hostingSquarespace
Shopify
Custom domain nameSquarespace
Shopify
Sales channelsSquarespace
Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, and YouTube.
Shopify
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google, Amazon, and more
Accelerated checkoutSquarespace
Apple Pay
Shopify
Apple Pay, Google Pay,
Point-of-sale solutionSquarespace
with Square (US Only)
Shopify
with Shopify POS
Business loansSquarespace
Shopify
with Shopify Capital
Secure payment gatewaysSquarespace
3
Shopify
over 100
Edit theme codeSquarespace
CSS
Shopify
HTML, CSS
Product limitsSquarespace
Unlimited
Shopify
Unlimited
Storage limitSquarespace
Unlimited
Shopify
Unlimited
PricingSquarespace
$12 to $40
Shopify
<span>$29.00 USD</span>/month to kr 3,588.00 USD/month when paying yearly

Start selling with Shopify today

Try Shopify for free, and explore all the tools and services you need to start, run, and grow your business.

Try Shopify free for 3 days, no credit card required. By entering your email, you agree to receive marketing emails from Shopify.

10 Things Shopify Can Do vs Squarespace

Grow your way

Shopify and Squarespace are easy-to-use for beginners. However, Shopify is more customizable on the front-end and the back-end. With over 6,000 Shopify Apps, you can tailor Shopify to suit your needs, from converting more traffic into sales to streamlining shipping and fulfillment.

More ways to sell

Shopify and Squarespace both let you sell on Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, and YouTube. But with Shopify you can also sell on Amazon, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Walmart, and in person with a first-party POS solution.

Templates made for selling

Squarespace and Shopify both offer over 70 website templates. All of Squarespace's templates are free to use and cover a broad range of website types, from online portfolios to blogs. Shopify has both paid and free themes that offer specialized designs and feature sets built for selling. There are ready-to-go website themes for crowdfunded businesses, restaurants, large catalogues, and services, all designed to help you sell more.

Full access to edit code

With Squarespace you can edit the CSS for your website theme to customize the design, but you’ll need to enable Developer mode and use a third-party software like Git to access the raw HTML. With Shopify, on the other hand, you have direct access to your theme’s code, with the ability to edit your HTML and CSS, whether you want to work with a developer or do it yourself.

Intuitive store editor

With Squarespace’s website editor, you can drag and drop components to customize the look and feel of your website to build gorgeous static web pages. But online stores require a solution that allows you to make changes quickly and easily, to accommodate seasonal sales, updates to your product catalog, featured collections, and more. Shopify’s sections-based editor makes this easy by allowing you to show, hide, and rearrange specific sections of your homepage in seconds.

Speed is a priority

A fast-loading website is a must for today’s shoppers. It not only increases your chances of showing up first in Google search results, but visitors will leave if your store doesn’t load in seconds. Shopify websites are built for speed because they compress all your images to the smaller WebP format and provide a store speed report to uncover opportunities to further optimize your load times.

More ways to checkout

With more payment gateways and more ways for customers to pay—from Google Pay to Bitcoin—Shopify stores are convenient to shop so more visitors convert into customers. Choose from over 100 payment gateways to sell locally or globally, including Shopify Payments.

Convert more with Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments (available in 22 countries around the world) is Shopify’s own payment gateway that supports most major payment options with 0% transaction fees. With it, you can enable Shop Pay: Shopify’s accelerated checkout option, which allows customers to opt in to have their information prefilled at checkout and is proven to make online checkout 4x faster.

Tools for every entrepreneur

Shopify isn’t just a website builder. It’s a platform for entrepreneurs to build their businesses on. Whether you’re looking for small business loans through Shopify Capital, a free logo maker, a built-in QR Code generator, or a Shopify app to add specific features to your store, Shopify has you covered.

Secure for businesses and customers

Both Shopify and Squarespace stores come with SSL certificates, which are a signal of trust that customers look for when shopping online. Shopify also provides greater security for you as a business owner with built-in fraud analysis to help protect you from fraudulent orders.

Why Merchants Prefer Shopify to Squarespace

Trusted by millions of merchants

Shopify is one of the most popular commerce platforms around for good reason. Whether you’re starting a business with zero experience or growing a multi-million dollar brand, Shopify has the tools you need.

Built-in SEO functionality

You can easily edit alt tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and more on Shopify. Shopify’s blogging CMS allows you to create content to increase website traffic with ease.

Exclusive apps

In the Shopify App Store, you’ll find a variety of free Shopify apps, including many exclusive to Shopify, such as Shop for product discovery and order tracking, and ShopCodes for creating QR codes for your products.

Sell internationally

As Shopify expands its footprint around the world, it’s also expanding its options for global commerce and selling into specific markets with multiple currencies and various Shopify Apps to sell like a local on channels like WhatsApp and WeChat.

24/7 customer support

Shopify support is available 24/7, no matter which plan you’re on. You’ll also have access to help docs, webinars, blog posts, and online courses to guide you along the way.

Helpful community

The Shopify ecosystem includes forums, experts, resources, tools, partners, third-party groups, and more that are dedicated to helping you launch your new business and succeed on Shopify.

Marketing tools that make money

A blogging CMS, sales channels, automatic discounts, gift cards, Shopify Email—Shopify offers a wealth of marketing tools that help merchants deliver an exceptional shopping experience to their customers.

We’ve been able to build something in 3 years that a lot of brands haven’t actually gotten to in 10 years.

  • Cee Cee’s Closet NYC
  • Chioma

Learn More About Shopify

Compare Shopify

See how Shopify compares to other platforms

Shopify Community

Learn from business owners on the Shopify forums

Shopify Help Center

Find answers to all your Shopify questions fast

Start selling with Shopify today

Try Shopify for free, and explore all the tools and services you need to start, run, and grow your business.

Try Shopify free for 3 days, no credit card required. By entering your email, you agree to receive marketing emails from Shopify.

FAQs

Is Shopify better than Squarespace?

Each platform has its strengths and ideal use cases. Squarespace is particularly good for selling services or creating a business or portfolio website. Shopify specializes in selling online and offline, with a flexible solution that fits a broader range of businesses due to its ecosystem of apps and integrations.

Can you use Shopify with Squarespace?

Yes you can. WIth the Shopify Buy Button, you can generate a snippet of code to embed on another website, such as Squarespace, to incorporate Shopify’s online shopping cart and checkout. Customers can checkout on your Squarespace site without ever leaving it, and you can manage your sales in Shopify. For example, you can embed a Buy Button within your Squarespace blog to allow readers to make a purchase on the spot.

What’s the biggest difference between Squarespace and Shopify?

The biggest difference between Shopify and Squarespace is the potential for customization. If you want a gorgeous website to promote your business using its broad range of out-of-the-box tools, Squarespace can do that. But with thousands of Shopify apps and a mission of enabling independent businesses to sell anywhere, Shopify empowers you to run your business your way.

Page last updated: November 24, 2023

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