Blog / Ecommerce platform guide / Weebly vs. Squarespace 2024: Which Website Builder Is Best?
Blog / Ecommerce platform guide / Weebly vs. Squarespace 2024: Which Website Builder Is Best?
In the market for the best website builder for your online store? You’ve come to the right place. Starting an ecommerce business is a lucrative endeavor that can have you earning over $60K in just three months. But, for your online business to succeed, you need a fabulous website to sell your products or services.
Weebly and Squarespace are both user-friendly website builders that’ll help you publish a website without the help of a developer or designer. So, which website builder is best? Weebly or Squarespace? Like all things in life, the choice ultimately depends on what you’re looking for.
In this Weebly vs. Squarespace comparison, we’ll delve into each website builder’s key features and differences so that you can decide which one suits your business needs. Let’s get right to it!
Weebly is great for beginners and those who value simplicity without sacrificing functionality, making it ideal for users on a tight budget who need an online presence. Squarespace is a comprehensive platform that offers a complete solution with no compromises on design, features, or ecommerce capabilities.
Source: Getapp
Weebly is known for its user-friendly interface and simplicity. It’s ideal for beginners and small businesses who need an online presence for a low price. Weebly offers a free plan, and its paid plans start at $14/month.
Weebly is great for ecommerce sites thanks to its extensive list of available add-ons and integrated tools. This website builder has solid ecommerce capabilities, reliable performance, and comprehensive mobile management features. Weebly offers 300+ integrations, including Salesforce, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Zendesk, ClickFunnels, QuickBooks, Insightly, Slack, and Trello.
Weebly offers email and live chat support, and its top-tier plans offer phone support as well.
Source: GetApp
Squarespace is ideal for those who wish to showcase their brand and make a strong impression with their website. Its polished and sleek themes trump any other website builder’s aesthetics. Plus, Squarespace is constantly improving its UX (user experience), now tying with or even surpassing Wix. Squarespace doesn’t offer free plans, and paid plans start at $16/month.
While Weebly was acquired by Square in 2018, Squarespace remains under the ownership of its founder, Anthony Casalena. With the founder still running the company, Squarespace works hard to consistently improve its services. The all-in-one solution offers advanced marketing features like social media integration, SEO, and email marketing for creating campaigns that drive traffic to your website.
Squarespace only has 30+ integrations, including Mailchimp, Zapier, Dropbox, PayPal, Stripe, Square, Hotjar, and Zendesk. However, they offer extensive native solutions, focusing more on the quality of features. For example, if you plan on hosting podcasts, Squarespace makes it easy with its built-in RSS feed.
Squarespace offers support through live chat, email, and Facebook Messenger.
When comparing Weebly and Squarespace in terms of popularity, Squarespace blows Weebly out of the water. Statistics for websites using Hosted Solution technologies (i.e., website builders) show that Squarespace comes in third after Wix and Shopify, while Weebly websites account for a mere 5% of the market share.
Read also: Weebly vs. Shopify—Which Is Best for Your Online Store?
Source: Tooltester
Nonetheless, there are reasons why some people choose the underdog. Let’s take a closer look at Squarespace vs. Weebly regarding ease of use, costs, design features, integrations, and much more.
Weebly is known for its easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface. You can build a website by simply dragging elements like text boxes, images, and forms onto your pages.
Squarespace’s editor includes a grid system with more options for arranging blocks, setting backgrounds, and customizing content. That makes creating a website faster, easier, and more flexible.
Ultimately, both Weebly and Squarespace do their job well—even without knowing any code, building a website is a piece of cake.
Another helpful feature the Weebly and Squarespace editors have is the ability to preview your site as you build it, providing immediate visual feedback. But, sadly, Weebly doesn’t allow previewing on mobile—only on desktop. Disappointing, especially considering it’s 2024. Squarespace also makes it easier to apply your brand colors consistently and customize themes.
Both Squarespace and Weebly provide native apps where you can analyze, update, and manage your site on the go. Learn more about the Weebly app or how to use the Squarespace app.
Weebly’s templates are decent and easier to set up, but they are by no means cutting-edge. Squarespace, on the other hand, provides users with sophisticated (slightly more complex) design-centric tools to create visually stunning websites. Consider Squarespace’s slightly steeper learning curve as an investment in creating a more visually appealing and professionally designed site.
Bottom line: If you want a functional website without spending too much time on design intricacies, go for Weebly. If you value design aesthetics and are willing to invest a bit more time in mastering tools for a visually sophisticated website, choose Squarespace.
While Weebly may offer a free plan, it implies having a big Weebly ad at the bottom of your site—not a very professional look. When you subscribe to a Squarespace plan, you can create and customize your website without any visible Squarespace branding. Let’s take a closer look at each website builder’s price tiers.
Weebly pricing
Source: Weebly
Weebly currently has three available plans: Free, Professional, and Performance.
Weebly’s free plan includes SSL security, basic ecommerce features like a shopping basket, unlimited product listings, inventory management, and marketing tools like basic SEO, lead capturing, and integration with your Instagram feed.
What you don’t get on Weebly’s free plan is unlimited storage, bandwidth, a custom domain name, and your own branding. The free plan gets you a website on Weebly’s subdomain where there are Weebly ads displayed, and you get a mere 500 MB of storage. Also, customers can only add up to 5 products to their shopping cart.
Weebly’s Professional plan costs $16/month or $14/month when billed annually. It offers all that’s included in the Free plan, plus unlimited storage, no Weebly ads, and extra site-building features like memberships, site search, and HD video. You’ll also be able to use ecommerce features, but there is a 3% transaction fee.
This option may sound decent, but it’s not ideal for running online stores. The platform’s 3% transaction fee can eat up a significant portion of your earnings without providing additional benefits. That means that for every $100 you make, you’re giving Weebly $3—an extra cost that can add up over time.
The Performance plan costs $26/month (when billed annually). It has better ecommerce functionality, including coupon codes, item options, reviews, and gift cards. But the main benefit is that you don’t have to pay any fees for ecommerce transactions. Plus, you’ll have access to more ecommerce stats and useful features like abandoned cart emails.
Squarespace pricing
Squarespace doesn’t have a free version, but they offer a 14-day free trial you can access without providing any credit card information. Once your free trial ends, you can choose from their four plans: Personal, Business, Commerce Basic, and Commerce Advanced.
Source: Squarespace
As you can see, Squarespace is transparent about its pricing, allowing you to easily switch from monthly to annual payment options. Let’s break down each plan’s core features.
The Personal plan is, indeed, ideal for personal websites. It costs $16/month, the same price as Weebly Pro. This plan includes essential features such as unlimited storage and bandwidth, full website creation and editing capabilities, and no Squarespace ads on the site. But it doesn’t come with ecommerce features.
The Squarespace Business plan costs $23/month (if paid annually) or $33/month when billed monthly. It includes more advanced features like website analytics and a free custom domain for the first year. You’ll also access basic ecommerce features, but there’s that sneaky 3% transaction fee—not the best plan for an ecommerce store.
For an optimal ecommerce site, you’ll want to consider Squarespace Commerce Basic. This plan is slightly more expensive than the Business plan, costing $26/month when billed annually or $36 as a monthly subscription. Most importantly, there are no transaction fees. Plus, you can access powerful merchandising tools to help you increase sales.
If you want to expand your ecommerce functionality, Squarespace offers an Advanced Commerce plan for $49 or $65 a month, when billed annually or monthly, respectively. This plan features advanced shipping tools, discounting, and the ability to sell subscriptions.
Now, let’s take a closer look at Squarespace vs. Weebly in terms of site design features.
Squarespace has a greater advantage over Weebly in terms of design options. Squarespace offers 100+ stylish templates covering 15 business categories. Weebly, on the other hand, offers 40+ templates that are attractive and simple but not exactly state-of-the-art.
Source: Squarespace
In terms of design customization, the Weebly editor has more limitations. So, make sure you choose a template that best reflects how you want your site to look from the get-go. Weebly’s templates cover seven popular niches, including shops, portfolios, restaurants, blogs, and more. The drag-and-drop editor allows for easy element movement, but the platform falls short due to limited options.
Source: Weebly
Squarespace has two page-layout editors: Fluid Engine and the classic editor. They both use drag-and-drop technology. The difference is that Fluid Engine uses a flexible grid system with more block arrangement, background setup, and content customization options.
All in all, Squarespace offers more design features than Weebly, making it possible to create the website of your dreams. You can learn more about Squarespace’s editors here. If you’re interested in coding or want to learn, Squarespace makes it easy, provided you have a Business plan or another paid plan.
You can also hire a Squarespace expert to help you design a flawless website. Costs and fees depend on the expert and your requirements. If you need a simple website with a minimal look and ecommerce tools to start selling online, Weebly is more than capable of meeting your needs.
Your choice between these two website builders may depend on the apps and integrations they offer. Weebly and Squarespace both provide essential ecommerce features like a fully integrated shopping cart and secure checkout system. Plus, you can track your inventory and sell digital goods, physical products, services, and more.
If you want to open an online store to sell products, consider starting a dropshipping business. In this case, you’ll need a reliable product supplier. Both Weebly and Squarespace integrate with dropshipping suppliers like the print-on-demand service provider Printful.
What is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a business model in which a third-party supplier is responsible for manufacturing, packing, and delivering orders on behalf of other businesses.
Source: Printful
The primary benefit of dropshipping is that it allows businesses to offer a vast array of products without the typical overhead costs associated with traditional retail, like warehousing and large inventory investments.
Dropshipping allows online businesses to fulfill orders as they come in while paying for products only when they are sold. With a reliable partner, ecommerce stores can sell their products worldwide with low start-up costs. Make sure you choose dropshipping products with a high-profit margin to make bank.
What is print-on-demand dropshipping?
Print-on-demand (POD) dropshipping is a low-cost ecommerce business model that allows you to place your own designs on hundreds of customizable products like custom t-shirts, hoodies, and drinkware. Your POD partner will handle order fulfillment, inventory management, and provide free product mockups. The best part is that you only pay for the product when a customer places an order.
Source: Printful
By offering original designs, you can distinguish your dropshipping business from others that offer products with designs created by the manufacturer.
Wondering what to sell? Check out our list of trending products to sell in 2024, or explore our list of best-selling print-on-demand products to get started.
Once you’ve chosen a supplier, it’s time to start selling! To reach potential customers, you’ll want your website to rank at the top of search engines. That’s where SEO comes in. Let’s look at what Weebly vs. Squarespace provides regarding SEO tools.
SEO (search engine optimization) tools
SEO, or search engine optimization, involves strategies to improve a website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results like Google or Bing. The goal is to increase organic traffic to a website. Naturally, any professional website builder should include basic SEO features.
Weebly’s SEO tools
Basic on-page SEO options: Includes tools for tracking your Weebly site performance and improving your marketing campaigns.
Mobile-responsive templates: While Weebly templates are mobile-responsive, they can’t be previewed on mobile before publishing.
Built-in blogging platform: Weebly’s website editor includes basic blog features like adding a site description and meta keywords, but it doesn’t allow you to add headings to texts (not good for SEO).
Integration with keyword research tools: Weebly integrates with Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz. These services incur extra costs.
Weebly has a useful SEO checklist to help you along the way, but it’s not as comprehensive as Squarespace’s resources.
Squarespace’s SEO tools
Extensive on-page SEO capabilities: Squarespace allows users to optimize their website’s on-page SEO with custom titles, meta descriptions, and URLs for each page. Plus, users can optimize images by editing filenames and adding alt text. Unlike Weebly, you don’t need third-party extensions like Semrush or Marketgoo.
Automatic 301 redirects: Squarespace can automatically create 301 redirects for page URL changes, preserving SEO authority.
Mobile-responsive templates: Unlike Weebly, Squarespace allows for easy mobile preview during editing.
Built-in blogging platform: Squarespace’s blogging platform supports features like customizable URLs, categories, tags, and RSS feeds for better SEO.
Squarespace also provides a useful SEO checklist to help you optimize your website creation process. They have extensive resources and website-building tools to help you every step of the way, including a webinar, “SEO with your Squarespace Site.”
Both Squarespace and Weebly integrate with SEO analytics tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Moreover, all Weebly and Squarespace websites include built-in SSL certificates (digital certificates that authenticate a website’s identity and enable an encrypted connection). SSL certificates positively impact search engine rankings.
Both website builders include sitemaps that make it easier for search engines to crawl and index the site. These maps are downloadable but not customizable.
Marketing tools
Squarespace offers advanced marketing tools like Amazon Block for affiliate tracking, Facebook Pixel for visitor analysis and targeted ads, Instagram Shopping for product tagging on Instagram, and Share buttons for social media sharing.
Source: LinkedIn
You can also dive into email marketing thanks to Squarespace’s integration—Mailchimp. This service incurs additional costs, but it allows you to build a subscriber list through form blocks, newsletter blocks, and RSS-to-Email campaigns (the process of sending updates to email subscribers when new content is published on your company’s website).
Weebly’s primary focus is on email marketing. However, the free plan only allows users to set up two marketing campaigns and send out a maximum of 500 emails monthly. To increase the limit, users need to subscribe to a premium email marketing plan, which costs anywhere from $8 to $75 per month.
Both website builders include basic ecommerce marketing tools like automated abandoned cart emails, coupon codes, and a seamless checkout process.
Both Squarespace and Weebly (owned by Square) support Stripe, PayPal, Afterpay, and Square payments. Squarespace additionally supports Clearpay. Plus, they offer their own solution—Squarespace payments. These payment gateways allow users to pay by credit or debit card, even directly through Apple Pay or Google Pay. With Weebly, you can also set up Square Gift Cards.
Source: Squarespace
What fees do these payment gateways charge? Both Stripe and Square charge 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, while PayPal charges 3.49% plus 49 cents per transaction. As for Apple Pay, it depends on the credit card provider’s transaction fees. Both Clearpay’s and Afterpay’s processing fees are 6% of the order total, plus $0.30.
Is there a way to avoid transaction fees? Yes! You can avoid Squarespace’s Commerce transaction fees by upgrading to a Commerce billing plan. To avoid Digital Product transaction fees, upgrade to the Pro Digital Products plan. Learn more about Squarespace’s transaction fees here.
As for Weebly, you can avoid transaction fees when subscribing to the Performance plan.
Weebly provides daily live phone and chat support from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT. Customers with Performance plan accounts receive priority support, and phone support is only available for those with top-tier plan accounts. In addition, Weebly offers online support through its knowledge base and community forum.
Source: Weebly Seller Community
Squarespace provides 24/7 support via email, social media, or live chat but doesn’t offer a phone option. The platform also offers various resources, including a Help Center, blog, forum, webinars, and Squarespace Circle—a partner program that lets professionals earn commissions, access exclusive discounts, and more. The Forum is a place to interact with other Squarespace website owners and find solutions to common issues.
Did you know Squarespace started as a blogging platform? Known for its aesthetically pleasing themes, Squarespace applies high standards to its blog layouts as well. Its content management system is intuitive and user-friendly, providing an easy way to organize content.
Although Weebly offers basic features such as post-editing and scheduling, it doesn’t support collaboration with multiple authors like Squarespace. Also, Squarespace’s blog is equipped with robust SEO tools that allow you to optimize your content. Weebly’s blog editor provides basic SEO tools, but you can’t add headings to your texts, which is a drawback.
Both Squarespace and Weebly support multimedia content seamlessly, allowing you to embed videos, audio, and other media directly into your blog posts.
Source: Weebly
All Squarespace and Weebly templates are mobile-responsive, ensuring that your blog looks great on different devices. Squarespace allows you to integrate your social media accounts, simplifying the process of sharing blog content. Weebly, on the other hand, relies on third-party apps like Share Buttons (incurring additional costs).
Ultimately, Squarespace’s blogging tools are more advanced, making it easier to optimize your website without being an SEO expert. Weebly’s editor requires more upfront knowledge to get the most out of it.
While the Squarespace site builder is more sophisticated and offers all the essential tools and features for running online stores, Weebly wins in terms of price and simplicity, even offering a free plan. Of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch—you get what you pay for.
Remember, you can take advantage of Squarespace’s 14-day free trial and see if it fits your business! There’s no need to enter any credit card information—you can make a decision after your trial ends.
If you want to get your online store up and running without spending too much time creating a flawless website, Weebly can do the job. If you don’t mind spending a little more time designing the perfect website, nothing beats Squarespace’s themes and their endless customization options.
Ultimately, the choice between Squarespace and Weebly depends on your specific needs, preferences, budget, and level of expertise. Just don’t put off your decision too long—ecommerce is more in demand than ever!
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Zoe Amora Iranzo-Lauriņa
Guest author
Zoe is a creative writer, multilingual translator, and certified yoga instructor with a passion for learning, traveling, and global cuisine. When she's not typing away at her PC, you can find her teaching yoga in the park, reading on the couch with her cat, or plunging in the Mediterranean.
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