Squarespace 101: The Ultimate Guide For Beginners, Creators & Side-Hustlers

Squarespace is not free. It offers a 14-day free trial that lets you explore features and build your website.

Once the trial ends, you must choose a paid plan to publish your site and keep it live.

There is no 100% free version of Squarespace, but the 14-day trial is more than enough to road-test pretty much everything it has to offer. .

Once your trial ends, though, you will have to pay a monthly fee to keep your site.

Still, even on the larger plans it still works out cheaper, in some instances, than a self-hosted WordPress or Shopify site, once you factor in things like themes and plugins / apps.

Squarespace is an all-in-one website builder. It gives you the tools to create a professional-looking website without needing to hire a developer.

The platform includes templates, hosting, content management, and e-commerce tools.

Squarespace is often used by creators who want to sell digital products, promote services, launch a personal brand, or showcase creative work.

You can also blog, run email campaigns, and connect social accounts—all from one dashboard.

Expect to pay between $16 and $49 per month if you’re building a creator website with Squarespace.

This range covers most use cases including portfolios, personal brands, and online shops.

A custom domain name is included free for the first year.

You may pay more if you add extra tools like Google Workspace or email marketing.

Squarespace is very easy to use, so much so that you don’t need any website building experience to set up a site on the platform.

I tested this with my mum too; I downloaded a free trial, gave her the login, and said: try and build a site, see what you can do.

Two hours later, she had a decent-looking website. And if you do get stuck, Squarespace has awesome resources for its users anyway where you’ll find answers to even the most specific questions.

If you can read and use a mouse, you can set up and design a Squarespace website. All you have to do to get started is choose a template, customize the layout, and add your content.

The editor is drag-and-drop and works on both desktop and mobile which means you can update your site anytime without hiring outside help. Most creators can build and publish a full site within a day.

Creators use Squarespace to build a professional web presence. Some use it as a portfolio or digital resume. Others launch digital storefronts to sell templates, courses, or coaching.

Many use it as a blog or a central hub that links to social channels. Squarespace can also be used for podcasts, event bookings, and service-based businesses.

Why use it instead of WordPress? Squarespace is A LOT simpler to use. Anyone can build a site with Squarespace. No experience or prior knowledge required.

With WordPress, you get way more flexibility and scope but it is a lot more complicated and it’ll take you months of focused work to get familiar with its functions and capabilities.

Squarespace is known for high uptime and stable performance.

I’ve worked with plenty of creators and influencers over the past 48 months, helping them get set up with Squarespace or planning out content strategy, and in that time I don’t recall the platform ever being down.

If you think there’s an issue with your site, Squarespace has a handy status page where you can check if its servers are working.

Squarespace was founded by Anthony Casalena in 2003. The company went public in 2021 and was acquired by private equity firm Permira in 2024.

Anthony Casalena remains the CEO.

Squarespace is a private company as of 2025 and continues to focus on creators and small business owners.

You can change your website’s template at any time with zero SEO implications. All your content and URLs remain the same, so your site’s performance is not affected in any way.

Go to the Design section in your dashboard, choose a new template, and preview the layout before switching. Once you have a new template chosen, it’s just a case of applying it and you’re done.

This allows you to refresh your brand without rebuilding your site from scratch and it is so incredibly simple to do, especially when compared to WordPress or Shopify builds.

Squarespace offers one of the most intuitive interfaces for building websites.

The dashboard is clean, the tools are easy to use, and features like blogging, basic e-commerce, and design customization are simple to set up.

Wix does provide more design flexibility and creative freedom. It also has more apps available for the platform too. But this can be an issue as more choice and options isn’t always a good thing.

Not when you want to keep things tight and focused.

One key technical advantage Wix has over Squarespace is support for the modern WebP image format, which Squarespace currently lacks.

The best way to choose between them is to try both platforms during their free trial periods and see which one fits your workflow and goals better.

Personally, I do prefer Squarespace for how it looks when finished, its UX (I find it simpler, more intuitive), and its workflow for building templates and pages.