Squarespace vs Showit (2021): An Unbiased Comparison

Squarespace and Showit are two website builders that seem to be particularly popular among creatives, especially among photographers and female entrepreneurs. You’ll see a lot of online coaches, course creators, virtual assistants, and graphic designers who host their websites on either Squarespace or Showit.

One of the major reasons people choose these two platforms is their ease of use and efficiency. They both let you create and publish your website fast, but what are the advantages and disadvantages of using one over the other? We discuss them below in this unbiased review of these website building platforms.

Squarespace vs Showit Comparison Chart

Model	Squarespace	Showit
Price	Check Price on Squarespace	Check Price on Showit
Standout Feature	Professionally-designed templates, All-in-one platform	Drag-and-drop builder that offers creative freedom for designers
Ease of Use	Moderate	Complex
Free Trial	14 Days	14 Days
Monthly Cost	From $12 to $40/month	From $19 to $39/month (a custom plan is available for enterprises)
Hosting	Yes, Unlimited	Yes, Limited storage
CMS	Built-In	Through WordPress
SSL Certificate	Yes	Yes
Templates	60+ templates	30+ templates
E-Commerce Features	Yes on select plans	Needs a third-party tool
SEO	Built-in	Through WordPress
Domain Name	Free for one year	N/A
Customer Support	24/7 email support and live chat, help center, community answers	Chat (8 to 5 MST), help center, resource center

Website Builder & Interface

Squarespace is more beginner-friendly, while Showit offers more creative freedom

While both website builders are great for users without coding knowledge, they differ in what they can offer in terms of design and flexibility. Squarespace highlights its award-winning templates that you can customize with your own website copy and images. However, if you want certain functionalities or features that are not built-in in the templates (accordion FAQs, for one), you’ll need to add a code to be able to achieve them. You also can’t easily control how your website looks on mobile, which can sometimes look wonky.

Meanwhile, Showit offers more customization control both on desktop and mobile view through its drag-and-drop builder. You can literally drag an element and drop it where you want it on the screen. If you notice in the photo above, Showit also shows you how your website will look like on a mobile device. However, what you don’t have control over is how it’ll look like on a tablet. Another downside to Showit is you’ll have to recreate the mobile version, which can be time-consuming.

Templates

Squarespace offers more free template options than Showit

Squarespace has a lot of free templates you can choose from, including templates for photographers, nonprofits, wedding planners, and the like. They also have templates that are designed with e-commerce stores in mind. Something to point out about Squarespace templates is most of them have clearly visible call to action buttons, something that’s not as common on free Showit templates.

Showit may have limited ready-made template options, but if you’re a designer, you probably won’t even need one. If you, however, are willing to pay for paid Showit themes, there are premium ones you can buy on Showit.

E-Commerce, Blogging & SEO

Squarespace has built-in e-commerce tools while Showit requires the use of a third-party e-commerce platform

As an all-in-one platform, Squarespace provides e-commerce and blogging tools within its platform. Its CMS is available even for its lowest-tier plan, while its Business Plan lets you start selling products easily (more on the pricing and cost later). The good thing about this you don’t need another third-party tool that you would need to learn to be able to publish blog posts or sell online. One of the major issues on Squarespace back in the days is it’s not SEO-friendly. Squarespace has addressed this and now provides built-in SEO tools to optimize your website for ranking.

Meanwhile, one of Showit’s strengths lies in SEO. It loads fast, which is a major ranking factor, and its blog is hosted on WordPress. The downside to this is you need to learn how to navigate WordPress to write your posts. You design your blog post template layout within Showit and write your blog posts within WordPress. If you want to start selling, you’ll need another third-party tool, such as Shopify Lite or WooCommerce with WordPress (if you don’t want to pay Shopify’s monthly fees).

Reddit Reviews

Reddit users recommend Showit for more customization control

Reddit user morenocollective prefers Showit to Squarespace in terms of customizability, something that’s very limited on Squarespace unless you know a lot of CSS and HTML. A lot of serious web designers stay away from Squarespace for this reason.

The lack of customization is a common complaint about Squarespace. However, if you’re happy with its templates and just want a simple website, Squarespace might just be what you need.

Third-Party Integrations

Both Squarespace and Showit let you embed code, but the former offers more extensions in its library

Meanwhile, Squarespace has a suite of extensions you’ll find helpful if you want to build an e-commerce store or sell memberships. Extensions such as TaxJar, ShipStation, Printful, and Quickbooks are among the popular ones you can easily integrate with Squarespace. You can also use its HTML code block to add the HTML code that your third-party software will generate for you.

Showit doesn’t offer built-in plugins or extensions at all. You can still use an HTML block to embed third-party codes, though. Also, it’s worth noting that if you want to use plugins for your WordPress blog, you’ll need to subscribe to Showit’s highest-tier plan.

Monthly Cost & Pricing

Squarespace plans are more affordable than Showit’s

If you’re on a budget, Squarespace is the better option. It offers lower monthly plans and its pricing is friendly for smaller businesses, even if you want an e-commerce store. With Squarespace’s plans, you get unlimited bandwidth and blogs and basic e-commerce tools are already included.

With Showit, the bandwidth and number of blog posts are limited. If your website has more than 50 blog posts, you’ll need to subscribe to their highest-tier plan. To add, if you want to start selling memberships or e-commerce products, you’ll need a third-party tool like Shopify, which incurs an additional cost.

Verdict

Squarespace offers better value for money, while Showit offers better creative freedom

Squarespace

Best for non-technical users on a budget

Showit

Best drag-and-drop interface

Choose Squarespace if you want an all-in-one platform that you can easily manage within one account. Squarespace is also the better option if you want to build an e-commerce store on a budget as its plans include tools you can use to start selling fast.

However, if you want more control over your website’s design and prefer to run your blog on WordPress for easier search engine optimization, then Showit better suits your needs. The downside to Showit, however, is you’ll need to use a lot of third-party tools, especially if you want to sell memberships or physical products.

FAQs