Shopify vs. Square: Which Is Better for Your Business?
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Choosing between Shopify vs Squarespace for your e-commerce business is a crucial decision that can significantly impact your online success. Both platforms are giants in their own right, but they cater to different needs, budgets, and business models. In this article, NextSky breaks down 15 key factors to help you make an informed choice.
Shopify vs. Squarespace: Quick overview
Shopify
Shopify is the leading e-commerce platform, powering over 5.2 million websites and supporting businesses that sell both online and in physical stores. With a comprehensive ecosystem from analytics and dropshipping to point-of-sale (POS). It's ideal for companies focused on streamlining operations and scaling globally.
Squarespace
Squarespace is the go-to website builder for stunning aesthetics, trusted by over 4.8 million businesses, creators, and small shops. Its intuitive drag-and-drop editor and elegant, free templates make it perfect for photographers, artists, and bloggers who prioritize minimalist design and a luxurious feel over complex sales features.
1. Pricing
Price is often the first thing businesses consider. Both platforms offer tiered pricing plans, but the value they provide differs.
Shopify
Shopify currently offers four main plans:
- Basic: $29/month (paid annually) or $39/month (paid monthly)
- Grow: $79/month (paid annually) or $105/month (paid monthly)
- Advanced: $299/month (paid annually) or $399/month (paid monthly)
- Shopify Plus: from $2,300/month (depending on business size)
Transaction fees when not using Shopify Payments:
- Basic: 2%
- Grow: 1%
- Advanced: 0.6%
- Plus: 0.2%
All plans include unlimited products, 24/7 support, and global selling. However, if you don't use Shopify Payments, you'll incur transaction fees, and advanced tools are only available on the premium plans.
Squarespace
Squarespace's pricing plans are more affordable at the entry level:
- Personal: $16/month (paid annually), no ecommerce features.
- Business: $23/month, basic ecommerce with a 3% transaction fee.
- Commerce Basic: $28/month, no transaction fees, advanced marketing.
- Commerce Advanced: $52/month, includes abandoned cart recovery and advanced shipping.
- Transaction fees: Squarespace doesn't charge transaction fees on its Commerce plans; however, Business plan users pay a 3% fee. Credit card fees are similar to Shopify's, around 2.9% + $0.30.
Verdict: Squarespace is more affordable for small businesses and beginners, while Shopify is more expensive but offers powerful e-commerce features.
2. Ease of use
Both platforms are geared towards user-friendliness, but their approaches are different.
Shopify
With just a few basic steps like Free Trial, you have a complete store. Thanks to the intuitive dashboard with left-side menu, all the operations of managing orders, customers, products are optimized. In addition, you can also easily personalize by
- Choosing a theme from the Shopify Theme Store
- Setting up currency and time zone
- Naming your store
Squarespace
Squarespace's drag-and-drop editor has provided a visually intuitive interface, making the process of building a website a seamless and intuitive experience without barriers. Therefore, users can quickly choose a template, integrate products, and personalize the design. Thanks to the high attention to aesthetics, you can create a perfect website from the first time.
Verdict: Squarespace wins for simplicity and visual editing, making it ideal for beginners or anyone who prioritizes ease above all else.
3. Themes and templates
The look of your store is just as important as your products or services. So let's explore how Shopify and Squarespace bring your ideas to life!
Shopify
Shopify boasts an impressive 982 themes, including 958 paid themes ranging from $100 - $500 and 24 free themes. Smart filters make it easy to find the right template:
- Industry: 20 fields from arts, crafts, clothing, pet supplies…
- Category sizes: 1–9, 10–199 to 200+ products.
- Features: 16 options, from Age Verification, Back to Top Button to Infinite Scroll.
The drag-and-drop editor provides a friendly and visual interface, making the website-building process intuitive and seamless. Users can choose templates, integrate products, and personalize them to create a perfect website from the start.
Squarespace
Squarespace offers 194 free templates, spanning 19 categories, including Food, Travel, Art, Photography, Podcast, and 8 main types, such as Portfolio, Online Store, CV, and Courses. Although there are no advanced filters like Shopify, Squarespace scores with flexible customization. With just one click on "Start with this design", you can edit immediately. In addition, the platform also supports CSS, HTML and Markdown to help you unleash your creativity without limits.
Verdict: Shopify remains the giant with a strong ecosystem, but Squarespace excels in offering beautiful, diverse, and free interfaces, enabling you to easily bring any design idea to life with just a few clicks.
4. Apps and extensions
Shopify
- Boasts over 8,000 apps covering every need from sales and marketing to shipping and customer support.
- Standout choices like Spocket, DSers, or Booster (around $20/month) help you optimize performance fast.
- The "Popular with merchants" and "Trending" categories let you find the right tool in just seconds.
Squarespace
- Offers 44 extensions, including well-known ones like Printful and Syncee.
- Many are free or very affordable, but the selection is still quite limited and lacks variety.
- Thanks to the smaller, more manageable number, browsing and installing them is quick and straightforward.
Verdict: When it comes to variety and scalability, Shopify completely dominates with its massive app ecosystem.
5. E-commerce features
Import/Export Content
- Shopify: Allows unlimited product data import and export via CSV, optimized for all product types.
- Squarespace: Supports CSV import (Business/Commerce plans) and export to WordPress, but limited to 10,000 products and a maximum of 3 variants per product.
Inventory Management
- Shopify: Comprehensive inventory system with real-time tracking of stock levels, shipping, and orders.
- Squarespace: Unlimited product listings with low-stock alerts and basic tracking; advanced inventory features require third-party tools.
Product Types
- Shopify: Highly diverse, supports physical products, digital products, and services, with file uploads up to 5GB.
- Squarespace: Handles physical products, digital products, and subscriptions, but file uploads are capped at 300MB.
Product Images
- Shopify: Images may appear inconsistent across devices unless you use apps to adjust and optimize them.
- Squarespace: Automatically crops and aligns images to standard ratios, with focal point control for a clean, consistent, and professional look.
Payment Options
- Shopify: Over 100 payment gateways (PayPal, credit cards, crypto, etc.) and 0% transaction fees when using Shopify Payments.
- Squarespace: Limited to Stripe, PayPal, and Square only.
Shipping
- Shopify: Direct integrations with USPS, UPS, DHL; built-in label printing and discounted shipping rates.
- Squarespace: Supports USPS and UPS; advanced shipping options require extensions.
Verdict: Shopify's full-featured, robust e-commerce tools make it the clear top choice for serious online sellers.
6. Marketing and SEO features
Marketing and SEO are the foundation for growing your business's reach. Both Shopify and Squarespace perform well in this area, but the level of optimization and power differs significantly.
SEO
- Shopify: Automatically generates title tags, meta descriptions, sitemaps, and 301 redirects. A huge ecosystem of specialized SEO apps provides complete technical and on-page optimization.
- Squarespace: Supports title tags, meta descriptions, and sitemaps, but 301 redirects must be set up manually – less flexible overall.
Social Media Integration
- Shopify: Native selling on 10+ platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.), dramatically expanding customer reach.
- Squarespace: Direct selling only on Instagram; other platforms are mainly for content sharing.
Email Marketing
- Shopify: Built-in Shopify Email with 10,000 free emails per month and beautifully branded templates.
- Squarespace: Paid email campaigns tool only ($5–$48/month), with sending limits from 500 to 250,000 emails depending on the plan.
Blogging
- Shopify: Basic blogging system with limited customization and analytics.
- Squarespace: Industry-leading blogging platform with robust categorization, commenting, and social sharing features.
Analytics & Reporting
- Shopify: Up to 14 in-depth reports covering sales, customer behavior, marketing performance, and channel effectiveness.
- Squarespace: Basic built-in analytics focused on traffic and e-commerce metrics only.
Abandoned Cart Recovery
- Shopify: Built-in on every plan, fully customizable automated email sequences.
- Squarespace: Available only on the Commerce Advanced plan ($52/month).
Verdict: With its powerful, comprehensive marketing and SEO toolkit, Shopify has a clear advantage in driving traffic and maximizing conversions. It's the ideal choice for businesses that want to grow quickly, efficiently, and sustainably.
7. Page load speed
Shopify
Shopify stores load almost instantly, with an average load time of just 0.701 seconds. Thanks to its highly optimized infrastructure and built-in acceleration apps like Booster, Shopify delivers consistently fast performance across all devices and customizations.
Squarespace
Squarespace's load times vary significantly from as fast as 0.7 seconds to as slow as 9 seconds, depending on the template and version (for example, Squarespace 7.1 is noticeably faster). While third-party plugins can help improve speed, they aren't natively integrated.
Verdict: In e-commerce, where every second counts, Shopify's consistently fast and stable load times give it a clear advantage, making it the top choice for stores that want to deliver the best possible customer experience.
8. AI tools
AI is transforming e-commerce, and both Shopify and Squarespace are leveraging it, but in very different ways.
Shopify
Shopify harnesses the full power of AI to optimize every aspect of your business, including automated content creation, smart customer analytics, spending predictions, professional image editing, and more. Its AI Sidekick assistant makes managing your store easier than ever. Plus, with thousands of top-tier AI apps available in the Shopify App Store, the possibilities for automation and maximizing business performance are virtually limitless.
Squarespace
Squarespace shines with tools like Design Intelligence and Blueprint AI, which excel at generating content, designing websites, and optimizing SEO to create visually stunning and engaging sites. However, the platform doesn't yet offer the same depth of e-commerce-specific AI solutions that Shopify provides.
Verdict: With far more comprehensive and powerful AI capabilities tailored to online selling, Shopify stands out clearly as the number one choice for businesses seeking rapid growth and a fully optimized customer experience.
9. Dropshipping
In today's e-commerce era, dropshipping has become one of the most popular business models. However, the platform's level of support is the decisive factor that determines whether a business can run smoothly and achieve real success.
Shopify
Shopify boasts a massive app store packed with top-tier dropshipping solutions like Spocket, DSers, and Modalyst. These make it incredibly easy to connect with global suppliers and integrate print-on-demand services.
Squarespace
Squarespace currently integrates with only a handful of dropshipping extensions (fewer than 10), such as Printful and Syncee. While the existing partners are reliable, users face very limited choices and a complicated manual setup process for shipping rates.
Conclusion: With its vast and flexible dropshipping ecosystem, Shopify is clearly the superior choice.
10. Point-of-sale (POS) system
Shopify
Shopify POS offers maximum flexibility, running smoothly on both iOS and Android, with unlimited staff logins and seamless hardware integration. Priced from just $5–$89/month depending on the plan, it's a powerful tool that optimizes performance for both in-store and mobile sales.
Squarespace
Squarespace's POS system is designed exclusively for iOS and is only available on its Commerce plans. Although it integrates smoothly with Square for payments, its flexibility remains significantly limited compared to competitors.
Verdict: With a more comprehensive and versatile system, Shopify POS is clearly the best option for businesses that sell in person.
11. Internationalization
To succeed in global e-commerce, a platform needs robust support for taxes, currencies, and languages. Here's a detailed comparison:
Taxes
- Shopify: Automatically calculates and updates global tax rates in real time, with detailed manual customization options to match any business need.
- Squarespace: Relies solely on TaxJar integration, which is mostly limited to U.S. transactions and markets.
Currencies
- Shopify: Supports multiple currencies through Shopify Payments, allowing customers to pay in their local currency with market-specific pricing already optimized.
- Squarespace: Permits only one currency, tied directly to the seller's bank account.
Languages
- Shopify: Built-in multi-language support from the core, generating separate SEO-friendly URLs for each language — making international expansion seamless.
- Squarespace: Requires third-party apps like Weglot for translations, increasing both cost and management complexity.
Conclusion: Shopify's superior global capabilities make it the best choice for international expansion.
12. Customer support
Reliable customer support is a make-or-break factor that ensures your online business runs smoothly and resolves issues quickly.
Shopify
Shopify offers 24/7 support through multiple channels, including live chat, email, and phone (with phone support included with Shopify Plus). On top of that, you'll find fast answers in their comprehensive Help Center and vibrant community forums.
Squarespace
Squarespace offers support via email and live chat, but only from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. Their Help Center is helpful for quick answers, but please note that phone support is not available.
Verdict: Shopify stands far ahead with true 24/7 multi-channel support, allowing sellers to receive help at any time. Squarespace's limited live chat hours and lack of phone support can be a significant drawback when urgent issues arise.
13. Security
Security is a non-negotiable factor and the top priority for any e-commerce platform. Evaluating the security track record will form the basis for conclusions about the reliability of Shopify and Squarespace.
Shopify
Technically, Shopify is equipped with a robust security foundation, including free 256-bit SSL certificates, as well as layers of protection such as password locking and two-factor authentication. However, a string of unfortunate incidents, including two data leaks just in 2024, has raised major questions among users about the platform's actual safety.
Squarespace
Squarespace ensures data safety through SSL certificates and two-factor authentication. Notably, the platform has never been involved in any major data leak incidents, which has earned it significantly higher trust levels from users.
Verdict: Squarespace's cleaner security track record gives it the win.
14. Members only content
Members-only content is a powerful strategy for boosting engagement and building loyal communities. However, implementing this feature varies significantly in complexity across platforms.
Shopify
To create a members-only area on Shopify, you'll need to dive into code (Liquid) or integrate third-party apps. This process can be pretty complex and poses a significant challenge for beginners.
Squarespace
With Squarespace Member Sites, monetizing exclusive content becomes incredibly simple and effective. It's a built-in solution that allows you to set up membership portals without needing complicated plugins.
Verdict: Squarespace's simplicity makes it the clear winner for members-only content.
15. Backups and storage
Backing up your store is crucial for ensuring data safety and facilitating a swift business recovery in the event of an incident.
Shopify
Shopify's backup process involves exporting CSV files for products, customers, and inventory, then combining them with theme duplicates. Some elements, like orders and discount codes, can't be backed up directly and require third-party apps or Shopify partners.
Squarespace
Squarespace simplifies backups: Go to the dashboard, select your site, and click "Duplicate site." This creates an instant copy without extra steps. However, sites with over 100 pages or using the Developer platform can't be duplicated.
Verdict: Squarespace's one-click backup process is more user-friendly, giving it the edge.
Shopify vs. Squarespace: Which one should you choose?
Choosing between Shopify and Squarespace ultimately depends on your core business strategy, technical management skills, and the budget you're willing to invest in your e-commerce platform.
Choose Shopify if:
- You're building a dedicated e-commerce store with expansion plans in mind.
- You need advanced features like dropshipping, POS, or global selling.
- You want access to thousands of apps and AI tools.
- Budget isn't a significant barrier, and you prioritize functionality over design.
Choose Squarespace if:
- You're a small business, creator, or blogger who prioritizes aesthetics.
- You want an affordable, easy-to-use platform with free templates.
- Your e-commerce needs are basic (e.g., digital products, small catalogues).
- You value simplicity and built-in features over extensive integrations.
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