So I Tried Squarespace. Here's How it Went.

If you’ve been anywhere on the internet. You know you have to type something in the address bar to get where you want to. But we also all know that each website looks completely different from one another and each one can serve completely different purposes. I’ll be building a squarespace website from scratch then I’m going to give you my thoughts and experiences on Squarespace and then we’re going to decide whether it’s worth using or not. Let’s get started with a little review.

Amazon Affiliate Links to Gear I use:

The Websites I Built:

0:00 Intro
1:40 What Is Squarespace
2:40 Starting The Make a Website
5:39 Pricing and Some Less Known Details
8:40 Personal Experience
9:29 Squarespace Alternatives: Wix and Wordpress
13:16 Conclusion

Basically to have a website on the internet you need 3 things. A domain name. That’s what you type in the address bar to get to your website, then you need the website itself. Then you need a webhost, which is basically, the place in charge of sharing your website with the world. Now, Squarespace is a site that lets you purchase a domain name, create a website using their templates, use Squarespace as your web host, and integrate an online store onto your Squarespace site.

Squarespace asks you all these questions about what you’re trying to accomplish with your site such as the topic and your goals for the website. From there Squarespace has a bunch of templates laid out that you can interact with and preview to get an idea of the general vibe that you want to go for. Once you select a template, you’ll need to sign up with Squarespace to start customizing that template. During this, they give you a 15 day free trial without needing to provide them any credit card information. From there you’re able to customize the template however you want. You can add new web pages up top, have your logo displayed on the site, link your social media accounts for easy access, and replace, add and delete images, text and sections for web pages. You can select the page you want to edit, then, within each page are different “sections” which are just different parts of that page that display different information or serve different purposes. You can then click on what you want to edit, and you’re provided with all the available options that you can change for that particular field. So, for text fields you can edit text and add links, for images you can replace the image or remove them all together. And if a section isn’t meeting your needs you can delete that section or add a new one. When you add a new one, you can choose between a bunch of different templates to meet your needs.

Squarespace has 4 different subscription tiers. Personal, Business, Commerce Basic and Commerce Advanced. Each one increases in price from $144 a year to $480 a year. However, I want to point some things out about the business and personal plan. If you read the fine print, Squarespace provides you a free business email, on the business plan, and a free domain name under the business and personal plan. These items are only free if you buy the annual plan and only for the first year. Which means, after your first year, if you stick with squarespace you’ll be paying more money on these plans. My suggestion would be to transfer a domain you purchased from Google domains into Squarespace, get that extra year of rights to that domain, then when that’s about to expire, move it back to Google Domains and renew it or just get it from Google Domains and you’ll be saving money in the long term.

So, now that I’ve paid for Squarespace and have my website up and running. How was the entire experience? I think Squarespace makes it really easy to start setting up a website. The site was intuitive and the learning curve wasn’t too steep. Their templates all looked really good, and it was really hard to decide what specific template I wanted for my own site because I really liked a lot of them. So basically to describe SquareSpace in a sentence. It’s easy to use, and it looks pretty.

Should you use Squarespace? I think it all depends on what your goal is. If you’re promoting yourself, want something professional looking fast? That’s when I’d start looking at Squarespace. It definitely has the best looking templates by far.

[dianagoenaga]

See, this is the type of video YouTube should have. It gets a little tiring when people only talk about the good in something, these sort of balanced analysis is way more helpful.

[billyrhyze]

Dude....
This is the most useful information at a time when I needed it most.
Just saved me so much time not having to fumble through the nonsense per each providers terms and conditions. Rock and Roll, Jimmy!

And, thanks!!!

-Billy Rhyze, Dallas.

[SharonMarta]

Yes!! My client's really love Squarespace. I'll help them customize the site, give them a quick tutorial and they are able to manage it on their own. When I used WordPress, my clients would get frustrated and often need to come back to me for "updates" and help managing it. I know this is a fancy word, but SEO is great on Squarespace as well when you know how to implement it.

[orimengu]

I used Wix for a final project in school a couple of years ago, and it truly was super easy, even for a 16 year old. I built it in a couple of days (working on it only 2 hours a day). It was very intuitive and didn't feel any different to making a powerpoint.

[catkay]

They all looked great. However, I had to go with Squarespace. The design was clean, neat, and not overloaded with images. I need my website to look something like this. Thanks for sharing.

[awsomebuddyful]

Your video is very comprehensive. I like the fact that you compared three platforms and shared pro's and con's you experienced with each one. It's saves me time as a beginner on researching and exploring options.

[JeskidoYT]

Now this is the type of content I really really really want to see more! Finally after so many years, a video about squarespace vs wix!

[roykropp]

Watched this in Feb 2024. It does indeed provide one with some very useful ideas to think about. Thanks!

[markhorwitz]

Initial time I saw your channel and am still evaluating, as a Speech Language Pathologist, kudos to your nonregional accent, clear speech, good (rate) speed of information, hints at humor, and a overall good info for me to process

[David-fbwt]

Love the video and your studio setup! After looking at the three sample sites I'll be honest... The WordPress site actually made me say "wow, I hate this!" I liked elements from both the Squarespace and Wix. Personally, I'm leaning towards the convenience of Squarespace.

[theatrepixy]

About to embark on using squarespace to make my coaching site. Feeling old and out of touch, so thank you for your breakdown!

[Kameratzas]

I just noticed that Wix now have 18 pages of templates!

Thank you for your insight and pros/cons of each site, I‘m building mine soon and this video has been extremely helpful, thank you Jimmy!

[itsiraa]

I was only curious cause of the ads but damn am I happy about how you make videos informative and to the point. Amazing work! I’m a new fan and subscriber!

[thisisme]

Thanks for this video….I did watch it after investing myself in creating one on square space. I felt a bit overwhelmed with WIX and frankly, just found SS much more aesthetically pleasing. I am an artist and coach/consultant, so beauty was a deciding factor for me in presenting my studio online. It was my first time making a website (super late to the game). The work is cumbersome…yet, another factor with SS is that the template forces one to think more clearly and methodically about one's business. So its not just a data input process - but a creative process when building one. This I appreciated very much. Thank you for your video…at this point feels like I made the right choice…we'll find out more later...

[gonzalohernandez]

Dude this is one of the best and most helpful youtube reviews out there, great job! I like the energy too. Keep it up

[mikecampbell]

Excellent content Jimmy, I just subscribed. I took the poll and agree with the poll results. Squarespace has design perfected, wix as well as weebly aren’t even in the same class. Wordpress wouldn’t even load lol. But considering there are 1.5 billion websites on the internet the sad truth is your site is likely to never get viewed let alone significantly noticed. I’m not being a downer here, I had a successful site with excellent page ranking but find that’s rarely the case with many folks who can pay a lot of money to be unnoticed and disappointed. So Wordpress with its $45.00 a year personal plan is about what a site is worth in my humble opinion; a cheap hobby. Thanks for the great advice looking forward to more.

[AerielFerguson]

I really loved this depth explanation for those of us looking to save but don't know the hidden details. Thank you so much for your suggestions Jimmy!

[VijayThapa]

With some experience, Wordpress could be the best among others in terms of budget, flexibility and customization.
And there's tons of themes available for Wordpress as well.

[MelinkoPayne]

I recently have gone into the realms of starting my own business. And your video was very informative and helpful in helping me understand things. Like things I didn't even realize I needed to know. Thank you so much!

[dripxstreetwear]

Just what I was looking for. I've subscribed to your channel and am quite excited to watch the rest of your content. Having a comparison done by someone that isn't a web builder brings confidence in what your saying. Won a loyal fan here.