Battle of the Website Builders: Squarespace vs Shopify vs Wix
Building a website for your business has never been easier, thanks to web platforms like Wix, Shopify and Squarespace.
But with new website platforms emerging all the time, how do you know which one is right for your business?
The last thing you want to experience is the hassle of switching platforms each year. Ideally, you want to launch on the right platform to prevent the wastage of time and resources. To help you choose a platform that works for your business, we have created a detailed comparison of my three favourite website building platforms: Wix vs Shopify vs Squarespace. Three wonderful alternatives to Wordpress.
Wix
Wix has been one of the most popular and leading web creators since 2006. The web platform enables users to create, develop and customize a high-quality beautifully designed website exactly as you imagined from either:
a blank canvas (which is what we love to do);
or a free or premium template.
Wix was initially introduced as a solution for users wishing to build brochure sites, blogs, photography portfolios, news sites and other websites where conveying information or showcasing content was the key priority. Wix now also provides features to help you create an online store and run marketing campaigns. They also have a customer care support system available 24/7 to help if you run into any problems. Beach Hut Hire Holland-on-Sea has a website is powered by Wix and designed by Shannon at High Flying Design.
Shopify
As the name suggests, Shopify is a leading platform with all the e-commerce and point of sale features business owners need to start, run and grow their business. Since it’s launch in 2016, the Canadian platform has powered over 1,700,000 businesses in 175 countries around the world who have made over $200 billion USD in sales.
Once you’ve created your business, go to Shopify to create and develop an ecommerce website starting from a free or premium website theme, and then market your businesses through search engine optimisation and/or paid advertisements. Where Shopify excels is with the huge quantity of integrations that are available — which work to automate, outsource and optimize while you do what you do best. ATO life. and Naomi Sade are just a few businesses whose website is powered by Shopify.
Squarespace
Squarespace is an American website building and hosting company based in New York City. Squarespace is a modern platform founded in 2013 to help people with creative ideas (aka small business owners and ‘solopreneurs’) stand out and succeed online with a brochure-style website starting from a flexible website template. Squarespace now also offers built-in ecommerce and marketing features to 3,790,000 businesses — including my own!
Comparing Wix vs. Shopify vs. Squarespace
While I’m a pretty big fan of all three, we are very much aware that you only need one web platform for your site to live on. And while you might already have your heart set on one of the platforms listed above, it is essential for you to gain an understanding of how each of the three website platforms varies from one another so that you can make an educated decision based on what best suits your business needs and goals.
So without further ado, let’s get into the comparison of Wix with Shopify and Squarespace based on the following:
Pricing — the cost of hosting your website on Wix, Shopify and Squarespace.
Ecommerce — the functionality available to electronically buy or sell products and services through your website.
Inventory and Shipping
Customer Support — will help be available when you need it?
Pricing
Wix
Wix offers an unlimited free plan or trial, which you can choose to upgrade to a premium plan according to your needs. Here is a brief outline of the pricing plans available at Wix.com:
Connect Domain plan for £3.50/month. You’ll be able to connect your own domain ‘www.yourbrand.com’ but Wix Ads will remain on your site and you won’t receive much bandwidth and storage space. We rarely recommend this plan.
Combo plan for £6.50/month.
Unlimited plan for £9.50/month.
VIP plan for £19/month.
Business Basic for £13/month.
Business Unlimited for £17/month.
Business VIP plan for £22/month.
We recommend plans 1 - 4 to businesses who require a brochure website with or without the addition of a blog, and all three of Wix’s Business plans (5 - 7) to businesses accepting online payments.
Please note that in your first year with Wix, you’ll likely receive up to 50% off the prices listed above.
Shopify
Like Wix, Shopify also offers a free trial to its users. After a 14 day trial, users will have to purchase one of the following packages according to their budget and needs:
Basic Shopify: If you require a basic plan to build a website, Basic Shopify is available at $29 (equivalent to approximately £21.40). With this plan, the user will receive limited Shipping, Shopify payments, and POS features. However, this package charges the highest amount of transaction fee.
Shopify: Priced at $79 (equivalent to approximately £58.31), users will receive full access to Shopify POS, more advanced features, shipping discount and, reasonable transaction fees.
Advanced Shopify: Priced at $299 (equivalent to approximately £220.69), Shopify offers its users all its advanced features to create amazing websites using advanced unique tools. Moreover, for this package, Shopify charges a very low transaction fee.
Squarespace
Like Shopify, Squarespace offers its users a two-week free trial. After the free trial, users will have to purchase one of the following packages according to their budget and needs:
Personal Plan: An ideal plan for small businesses or freelancers. Priced at £10/month, the plan offers a mobile-friendly, simple custom domain with essential features and strong customer support.
Business Plan: Priced at £15/month, Squarespace offers its users all the features (basic and advanced). From eCommerce tools to purchasing G Suit profiles, the plan provides its users with a lot!
Basic Commerce Plan: A plan priced at £20/month. The plan offers its users simple tools and analytics which allow website creation without complexities.
Advanced Commerce Plan: Priced at £30/month, a user can enjoy all Squarespace's features (gift cards, cart recovery, subscription tools etc.) that are not available in the basic plan.
All prices are valid as of January 2022.
Ecommerce
Wix
If you choose to power your website through Wix, you’ll gain access to functionality that will enable you to sell both physical and digital products on your website. And if you don’t already use an external booking system like Appointy*, you’ll be able to sell your services through Wix’s online booking system. To help you maximise sales and grow your business, you will be able to set up and manage offers for your shop, integrate your store with your social media profiles and send a limited number of automated and scheduled marketing emails each month which can help you keep your customers up to date and/or reduce abandoned carts.
Perfect for: Small-to-Medium Sized Businesses, Creatives and Beginners
Shopify
You cannot deny that Shopify is far by the most powerful and popular eCommerce platform today. Anyone who has a look at Shopify's App Store has to agree that it can cater to the needs of absolutely any business. You name the feature; Shopify has it! Tools for SEO, tracking, inventory management, marketing, analytics, reviews and gifting are readily available on the platform. Moreover, the platform has its own payment method known as 'Shopify Payments', allowing its users to work without a third party processor. Shopify has to stand out when it comes to eCommerce platforms and that it does.
Perfect for: Online Retail Businesses
Squarespace
Squarespace isn't the best e-commerce platform out there, but it's a top choice for small or growing stores that want a truly on-brand storefront. The platform provides advanced features within both of their ecommerce plans including inventory management, digital products, taxes, subscriptions, shipping, abandoned cart recovery and customized notifications.
Perfect for: Small Businesses, Service Providers and Bloggers
Inventory and Shipping
Wix
Wix has a unique inventory management system. It allows its users to be informed about stock, shipping rules, trackers and offers reliable solutions. The inventory quantity is updated after every sale. Wix offers domestic and international regions both with free delivery.
Shopify
Shopify offers an advanced shipping system. Dropshipping enables users to send products to customers directly through suppliers. Moreover, NHL integrations, dropshipping features, printable labels and, automatic UPS are some of the few features Shopify offers.
Squarespace
Squarespace is far by the most versatile platform for shipping and inventory. It offers its users the option of customizing the shipping fee according to weight and the receiver's destination. When it comes to inventory management, Squarespace is far more advanced than most web platforms available.
Customer Support
All three of the web platforms offer reliable and 24/7 customer support. From emails to online chatting and support tickets, Wix, Shopify and, Squarespace offer online support centres to cater for any troubleshooting issues. Although Shopify's customer support is immensely praised, there is no apparent reason to claim its support system to be better than Wix and Squarespace.
The Pros & Cons of Wix, Shopify and Squarespace
The PROS of Wix
You can create a beautiful website without coding by using their drag and drop interface to customise a template with ease. Alternatively, you can start from a blank canvas (like we do) and create a masterpiece from scratch.
Offers a fantastic selection of Ecommerce & Marketing tools (including automated cart recovery) to help you grow your business.
The CONS of Wix
Has a limited amount of ecommerce integrations available (for example, Wix doesn’t integrate with Klana — but it does offer an alternative called clearpay).
If you decide to DIY your website with one of the templates available at Wix.com but one day realise you want to swap it to another, you will find that you can’t. Not without manually shift over all the content you’ve created on your original template anyway.
The PROS of Shopify
Shopify really is the best at what it does. Its extensive and efficient ecommerce functionality/tools is the reason why Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform today.
Has a huge selection of integrations and apps available to help you customise your store to your needs.
The CONS of Shopify
Only offers very basic content marketing tools.
You might struggle to create a design that sets your business apart without coding or hiring a Shopify expert.
Additional tools and features may increase your monthly cost quite dramatically depending on your needs.
The PROS of Squarespace
You can create a beautiful website by customising one of Squarespace’s pre-made templates with ease using their drag and drop interface.
Offers a fantastic selection of content marketing and data analysis tools. I’d say it’s the best out of the three for blogging.
G Suite integration.
The CONS of Squarespace
If you don’t have any knowledge of css/html you may find the design a little limiting, although this is slowly improving at the time of writing this so we don’t see it as a major set back. Shopify is by far the worst for lack of flexibility in design.
Not the best for ecommerce businesses due to the lack of functionality. We recently had a client switch to Shopify from Squarespace because Squarespace couldn’t cater to their needs of:
a) needing customers to select an available delivery date before purchasing;
b) needing the website to automatically generate a shipping price based on a delivery radius.It will, however, work fine for small stores.
Squarespace does not have an external marketplace or app store.
For those who are looking to push the boundaries of what Squarespace can do and need specialized customizations, find freelance Squarespace developers on Toptal who can help bring your unique vision to life. Toptal is renowned for connecting businesses with the top 3% of freelance talent from around the world, ensuring high-quality and reliable development support for your Squarespace projects.
The Bottom Line
Choosing the best website building platform with relevant eCommerce tools is quite a tough job. However, we have highlighted all the unique and attractive features of Wix vs Shopify vs Squarespace so that you can find what's best for your business and needs. Keeping your budget, needs and the kind of services required, you can undoubtedly create the best website or online store using any three website building platforms. Happy web creating!
Please note: There are Shopify and Squarespace affiliate links featured within this post. If you decide to get started with Shopify or Squarespace, High Flying Design could receive a small commission for the referral (this will not affect the price of your service).
More on High Flying Design
Browse our affordable Premium Squarespace Templates designed especially for Female High-Flyers
Looking for an amazing Shopify deal? Use this affiliate link to enjoy a 3 day trial of Shopify. Then start selling for $1/mo for your first 3 months.
Are you a fellow website designer or digital marketing manager? Here’s a comprehensive guide to creating your website design RFP
