There’s an ongoing Wix Vs SquareSpace comparison for ages now. Both are one of the top-ranking website builders each with its own set of pros and cons.
SquareSpace is a modern site builder that emphasizes design while Wix is purely easy-to-use site builder that promises creative freedom and gets your website live right away. Wix and SquareSpace review tends to give users the right motivation to select the best.
Comparing the two popular website builders is easy if you segregate the various aspects such as design, ease of use, marketing and SEO, tools and features, support, and pricing. Here are the distinct characteristics that these two competitors offer on-board.
Who offers the best pricing plans?
Wix has 7 plans in total consisting of both website and e-commerce plans while SquareSpace offers 4 plans that are both cheaper and transparent compared to Wix.
How to transfer a domain from Wiz to SquareSpace?
If you are transferring your domain from Wiz to SquareSpace, the procedure is briefly explained on the latter’s Help Center.
The procedure is lengthy and users are required to abide by the requirements and terms stated by the latter.
Firstly you need to unlock the domain, get an authorization code from the provider, and start the transfer on SquareSpace.
Reviewing DNS and registration details and confirming it along with terms and billing is the next step. The process could take a few days and the same is for vice versa.
How many templates do Wix and SquareSpace offer?
On one hand, SquareSpace has over 60 high-quality templates to choose from that can be further customized, Wix has more than 510 templates to choose from and all are professional looking and easy to customize.
Does Wix vs SquareSpace have app stores?
Wix has an in-house app market storing more than 200 apps that can be integrated on the website while Squarespace
doesn’t have its app store since most of the featSquarespaceilt-in.
SquareSpace vs Wix 2021
To be honest, I would go for SquareSpace without giving any second thought but it is subjective and this section will help you gauge if SquareSpace has an upper hand in ease of use or Wix.
Wix
Talking about Wix, it is an intuitive website builder that works on WYSIWYG Editor or “What You See Is What You Get” Editor.
There’s no rocket science involved here. Wix offers an intuitive editor that lets you drag and drop objects such as text boxes, images, and others right where you need it and that’s all without any coding skills.
There are 500 designer-made templates available on Wix that users can select and customize it from bottom up. No doubt Wix has been considered as one of the best beginner-friendly website builders.
Wix offers a feature called Wix ADI or Artificial Design Intelligence which is its some sort of virtual assistant. It asks questions and based on it, users get a pre-design template for their website which is again easily customizable using HTML.
Apart from that, Wix is entirely hosted and allows users to select either a Wix.com domain or go with a custom domain. But there’s a flip side too.
Wix is a robust site builder that offers tonnes of customizations that often ends up looking complicated and you cannot simply switch between templates or themes of your website as easily as you would on WordPress or SquareSpace.
SquareSpace
If you are asking if Wix is better than SquareSpace when it comes to ease of use, I wouldn’t agree but wouldn’t deny as well. SquareSpace is a posh and modern website builder that emphasizes its high-class design elements.
Although it does have a drag and drop editor as Wix, designing a website on SquareSpace does take some time.
Unlike simply dragging objects on a website page, you have to learn about the grid layout and place the object in the proper section to design it.
But once you design a website on SquareSpace, you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Users search for Wix vs SquareSpace for photographers or artists and the answer is, SquareSpace.
As summed up by a popular comparison website, SquareSpace requires a few extra clicks to get things done when compared to Wix.
But where there are pros, there are cons too. There’s no backup and restore function on SquareSpace so if the system goes down when you are designing or editing a website, it is gone and you will have to start from square one.
There’s also an impending complication with maintaining the hierarchy in the navigation system. Overall, SquareSpace requires a learning curve whereas you can simply start working on Wix right away.
Wix vs SquareSpace: Design & Customizations
Talking about the number of templates, Wix has more than 510 templates that users can choose and customize according to their needs. All these templates are professional looking and offer the drag and drop editor on the go along with a mobile editor to excel its mobile responsiveness.
SquareSpace, on the other hand, is the undisputed contender when it comes to the templates. It does have 100+ super polished templates that may look a lot less than Wix’s but once you get it, you would know how brilliantly designed they are.
All the templates are highly professional and high-quality offering users a one-tap switch without compromising on any data.
Wix lets users tweak the theme and the whole website as per their preference using the drag and drop editor which is simply tapping and dragging on elements you want and place it where you want.
There’s not much you can do with HTML and CSS here on Wix. If you wish to change the template or theme, you cannot be sure that no data will be lost.
On the flip side, SquareSpace is highly customizable and lets users play with the template of their website as much as they want although you need to follow its grid layout and other design rules and regulations. SquareSpace 8 is the latest edition and it brings a lot of new customization features and whatnot.
No doubt SquareSpace is a sureshot winner here as Wix cannot beat it in terms of design and customizations.
Wix vs SquareSpace: Features & Tools
Features and Tools on the website builder platform act as a cog to the engine providing users with an immense capability to boost their websites.
It could be anything from pumping a website with e-commerce tools or using powerful analytics apps or any other tools.
Talking about Wix, it has its App Market that has over 200 apps in total such as Site Booster, Wix Stores, Wix Forums, and so on.
Users can install these apps to boost the performance of their website or do something that otherwise wouldn’t be possible without any integration. Moreover, the App Market is a collection of both developed by Wix and third-party apps and tools to integrate.
SquareSpace, on the other hand, doesn’t have a built-in app store to cherish. But hey, it is still a powerhouse of features as most of the features are built-in and available on its editor. These are well-designed, optimized and high-quality tools that offer SquareSpace websites an unprecedented upper hand than any other website builder in some cases.
Wix has its email marketing client that has both a free and premium version while SquareSpace has a premium email marketing client with 3 campaign trials.
Next up, social media integration is crucial to thriving in this fast-paced world and both Wix and SquareSpace won’t disappoint you.
Talking specifically about Wix, it offers 25 different social accounts while Wix lets you add social media tools for comments, feeds, and more.
Blogging is another set of tools that both the website builder offers in varying capacity. SquareSpace is a superior choice when it comes to blogging especially for portfolios, creative blogs, and others.
It has multiple blogging features like multiple author support, social sharing, customizable URLs, scheduled sharing to name a few.
On the other hand, Wix has a bunch of blogging tools to use while a separate app called Wix Blog app does wonder by adding a plethora of features for blogging purposes.
Wix Vs SquareSpace: SEO & Marketing
Marketing is crucial for any website or business as it keeps the visitors coming and helps convert them into revenue. When compared to marketing on Wix, you get a wholesome free to use the Wix Email Marketing feature.
You can send out up to 5,000 emails every month and it resets each month. You can easily customize styles, use contact integration, track stats, and add social media icons to get more responses to your email marketing campaign.
If the free plan doesn’t suit you, there’s a Wix Ascend plan that will give you social, email, and video marketing support.
SquareSpace, on the other hand, doesn’t have any free plan and instead, it offers a free trial allowing users to send up to 3 email marketing campaigns with up to 50,000 emails in each one of them.
Also, it has a fully streaming email campaign, having a free trial, and then to subscribe to the premium plan does bug users. But there are several features on its premium email marketing plan, you get automated emails, 30 starter layouts, tracking and analytics, and others.
If we are talking about search engine optimization (SEO) which is a set of procedures that help in ranking higher on search engines like Google.
There’s a lot of moving parts in the complete SEO. Both SquareSpace and Wix offer competent built-in SEO tools including mobile-optimized pages, metadata and alt image editor, etc.
Wix’s SEO tools help in gaining a higher position on search engine results and with an extensive SEO Guide, you would find everything and anything on the website’s knowledge base related to SEO.
Moreover, it’s Wix SEO Wiz runs through the website offering a step-by-step plan of action to gain in terms of SEO. There are add-ons like Site Booster and Visitor Analytics that can be used to perfect SEO of any website.
Similarly, SquareSpace has SEO tools too that help in strengthening the SEO game of a website. It further has an SEO Checklist which is a step-by-step on how to optimize the website for better results. Here, Wix does have an upper hand as all the resources are fairly beginners while SquareSpace’s SEO isn’t as beginner-friendly.
Wix Vs SquareSpace Help & Support
When it comes to Help & Support, the answer to what’s better Wix or SquareSpace is subjective. Wix has a robust support system via forums, social media, a dedicated support centre, via email, or via phone available between am to 5 pm PST.
Wix has upped its game when it comes to the material you would need whilst working on the platform covering over 200,000 topics in its knowledge base. Wix also has an average wait time of fewer than 3 minutes on a phone via callback which is lightning-fast.
Plus, Wix offers on-page support that lets users tap on the ‘question mark’ icon on any feature, tool, or editor functions to get the exact idea of what it does.
On the other hand, SquareSpace has its arsenal of pros and cons when it comes to helping and customer support. First up, it has a huge Knowledge Center that contains everything you need to know or troubleshoot on SquareSpace.
There are hours of videos posted on SquareSpace with updates coming in almost every day to increase user’s knowledge about any features, functions, issues, and so on.
There’s no live phone call but it is switched with live chat available between 3 am to 8 pm EST from Monday through Friday.
Plus, the email feature is available 24/7 and with SquareSpace’s policy on emails, you will get a response on your queries within an hour. But there’s no live phone function so you can’t talk to the support team to reserve the issues.
Wix Vs SquareSpace: Pricing
When it comes to pricing, both these website builders have distinct pricing tiers that unlock way more features as you go upwards. Here’s one of the most crucial key differences between the two bigwigs.
Starting with Wix, the pricing plans are pretty confusing as there are many to check out.
Website Plans
- Combo ($13/mo)
- Unlimited ($17)
- Pro ($22/mo)
- VIP ($39/mo)
Ecommerce Plans
- Business Basic ($23/mo)
- Business Unlimited ($27/mo)
- Business VIP ($49/mo)
- Enterprise $500/mo
Wix offers a wide range of pricing options to choose from starting with as low as $13/mo going all the way to $49/mo for its Business VIP plan.
With its Combo offer, you get a series of features including 2GB of bandwidth which is pretty tight since you must be looking at higher traffic than the estimated 50 visitors per day traffic limitation put by the Combo plan.
Moving up to its Premium plans, the $17 Unlimited plan offers everything freelancers would need including 10GB storage and unlimited bandwidth with a few other apps integrated.
The higher $22 Pro plan is the most popular with loads of features including professional logo apps along with increased storage and unlimited bandwidth and finally, the $39 VIP plan encashes priority support on top.
Moving on to its Ecommerce plans, these are high-octane feature-rich plans starting $23/mo and upwards of $500/mo where the latter unlocks professional services, scaling, security, and more. It brings all features from previous plans and adds more to it.
SquareSpace, on the other hand, has a straightforward pricing plan offering 4 plans at the user’s disposal.
Website Plans
- Personal $12/mo [Yearly] & 16/mo [Monthly]
- Personal $18/mo [Yearly] & 26/mo [Monthly]
E-commerce Plans
- Basic eCommerce $26/mo [Yearly] & 30/mo [Monthly]
- Advanced eCommerce $40/mo [Yearly] & 46/mo [Monthly]
Unlike Wix, SquareSpace offers a robust pricing plan with a tonne of features. All the plans have offered free SSL Security, Free Custom Domain (yearly plan), SEO Features, Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth, Templates, Mobile-responsive websites, and 24/7 customer support for all plans.
As you go upwards with Business and eCommerce plans, the list of features doubles literally. The most expensive Advanced eCommerce plan brings all features from the previous plans and adds subscriptions, abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping, and others.
There you have it. Almost everything you need to know about Wix vs SquareSpace and the 6 key differences that sets it apart.
Clearly, SquareSpace is better in terms of functionalities, looks, design, customizations, and pricing while Wix has an upper hand in terms of themes, support, features and tools and so on but choosing the one is based on one’s use case.
