Choosing between Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress for your website’s platform can be tricky. Each website builder has its own advantages and disadvantages and one may suit your needs, skills, and resources more than the other. We compare the three popular website builders and hone in on their features and pricing to help you choose your website’s home.
Note: Some people get confused between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is a paid web hosting service while WordPress.org is a free, open-source website platform that requires self-hosting. In this comparison, we’re referring to the free WordPress.org.
Squarespace vs Wix vs WordPress Comparison Chart
| Model | Squarespace | Wix | WordPress |
 |  |  | |
| Price | Check Price on Squarespace | Check Price on Wix | Check WordPress hosting on SiteGround |
| Standout Features | Stunning themes; great for businesses in the creative industry | User-friendly drag and drop website builder | Offers endless customization and third-party integrations |
| Hosting | Yes | Yes | Requires self-hosting |
| Unlimited Bandwidth | Yes | Yes | Depends on your hosting plan |
| SSL Certificate | Yes | Yes | Depends on your hosting plan; Free encryption plugin available |
| Domain Name | Free for one year | Free for one year | Depends on your hosting plan |
| E-commerce | Available | Available | Yes, with WooCommerce |
| SEO | N/A | SEO Wiz | Extensive options, including YoastSEO |
| Dropshipping | Only Printful | Modalyst | Yes, with plugins |
| Shipping Discounts | Depends on your chosen third-party shipping extension | Yes, on USPS | Depends on your chosen plugin |
| Third-Party Plugin | Around 20+ extensions available | Around 200 apps available | Around 54,000 plugins available |
| Abandoned Cart Recovery | Yes | Yes | Yes, through a plugin |
Design and Interface
Squarespace boasts stunning, award-winning themes, but Wix and WordPress offer better customization for those who have a good eye for design
Each of the three website platforms is excellent in its own right. For those who want an easy, quick way to build a website and don’t mind the lack of customization, Squarespace is a good choice. Its award-winning templates look stunning on desktop and mobile and can be customized to match your branding. However, if you want to change certain elements and their positions on Squarespace, you will have to know some CSS and HTML coding. For some, Squarespace’s design can be too limiting so they end up hiring someone to customize their Squarespace website.
Wix, on the other hand, is a drag and drop builder that lets you place photos, buttons, and similar elements exactly where you want them on the page you’re designing. Its interface is intuitive and easy, but the freedom you get with customization can also make your website look unprofessional if you don’t have a good eye for design. Also, the downside to Wix is you can’t change the theme once you publish your site. You can still customize it easily, but if you decide that you want a different theme, you’ll have to start from scratch.
Just like Wix, WordPress offers a ton of customization options. However, its interface requires a steeper learning curve as it is not as intuitive as Squarespace’s or Wix’s. With that said, if you do know your way around WordPress, the sky’s the limit in terms of customization and functionalities. You have plenty of themes, templates, and theme builders to choose from, although if you want themes or templates with clean code, they’re typically not free.
E-Commerce Features
WordPress and WooCommerce is one of the most popular set of tools online stores use, but they are not as straightforward as Squarespace and Wix
If ease of use for e-commerce stores is the only measuring stick here, Squarespace wins. It’s easy to set up an online store on Squarespace and set up the payments, taxes, and whatnots. However, to be able to manage shipping and shipping rates, you’ll have to subscribe to Squarespace’s extensions, such as ShipStation and Shippo. Wix has this integrated into its platform, including discounts to USPS.
For dropshippers, Wix is also better than Squarespace as you can conveniently set up a dropshipping store through Modalyst. As for Squarespace, you’ll be limited to dropshipping on Printful, unless you’re willing to manually process the orders with your supplier. Meanwhile, WordPress offers the most options for dropshippers as it is compatible with a couple of plugins specifically created for dropshipping. These include WooCommerce Dropshippers, AliDropship, and WooDropship, to name a few.
Of the three, WordPress remains the most powerful platform for e-commerce, if you’re familiar with coding and web development, that is. Whatever Squarespace or Wix can offer in terms of building and running your online store, WordPress can do it through any of its 54,000+ plugins in its repository. However, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll probably end up spending more time troubleshooting than actually marketing and selling your products or services. Also, WordPress may be free, but to be able to achieve the look and features of the online store you want, you may have to pay for third-party plugins.
SEO
WordPress has the most SEO plugins available for beginners, but Squarespace and Wix also have their own basic SEO tools built-in
Squarespace and Wix have their own basic SEO tools integrated with their platform. They let you add metadata in your posts, set heading hierarchies, and the like. If you’re a complete beginner and you don’t know SEO best practices and basic on-page optimization, you’ll probably find SEO tools like Yoast or Rank Math extremely helpful. These plugins, however, are only available to WordPress.
WordPress has a host of SEO plugins that can guide you while you’re writing your content and copy. With that said, site speed is also extremely important for SEO. Make sure you’re not bloating your WordPress website with plugins as that will slow your site down.
A common myth is you need an SEO plugin to optimize your content for search engines. SEO plugins can serve as a guide and an easy way to create XML sitemaps and robots.txt, but a huge part of SEO can’t be taken care of by SEO plugins like Yoast or Rank Math alone. If you do your keyword research properly and you know how to optimize your content well, it won’t matter as much whether you’re on Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress.
Pricing
Wix offers the most affordable plans overall while WordPress can be the cheapest option if you don’t hire a developer
Comparing the pricing plans of Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Squarespace’s plans start at $16 USD for a personal website, but if you want to start selling or get access to its more advanced tools, you’ll need to upgrade to its higher-tier plans. You should also factor in the additional cost of a shipping extension for Squarespace. Paying for Squarespace’s annual subscription will save you up to 30% compared to paying monthly.
Wix, meanwhile, has different pricing plans for professional websites and e-commerce or business websites. Its entry-level e-commerce plan is slightly more expensive than Squarespace’s, although you get more freedom with customizing your online store on Wix. The good thing about Wix is you get a free G Suite Mailbox as well when you subscribe to a qualifying plan.
As we have previously mentioned, WordPress.org is free to install and use. The initial cost you’ll incur lies in the hosting and domain registration fees. Most hosting providers such as SiteGround and Bluehost offer free domain registration and SSL certificate within your first year, and their overall cost is still on the affordable side. Keep in mind, however, that WordPress is only cheap if you know your way around it. Otherwise, you may have to hire a developer, and that doesn’t come cheap. Hosting providers offer a one-click WordPress installation that makes things easier, but the dashboard may still confuse some. With that caveat aside, WordPress remains a powerful platform and a worthy investment for your business.
Verdict
Wix is overall the most intuitive website builder, while Squarespace offers the quickest and most affordable way to start selling online
If you have basic coding knowledge and don’t mind spending time developing and designing your website, WordPress is the best and can be the most affordable way to build a website. Unlike Squarespace and Wix, however, WordPress requires maintenance, updates, and some coding knowledge to be able to design a responsive website that looks professional. SiteGround is among the best and most reliable WordPress hosting providers out there while Bluehost is an affordable alternative to SiteGround.
On the other hand, those who are not comfortable setting up their own hosting and developing a WordPress website can’t go wrong with either Squarespace or Wix. Squarespace’s e-commerce plans start at a lower cost than Wix, but you won’t get the same customization options that Wix offers. If you’re happy with Squarespace’s templates, then it won’t be an issue. However, if you prefer to have more control of how your website should look like, then Wix and its drag and drop builder better fits your requirements.
FAQs
They are comparable in terms of features, but Wix has a better drag and drop website builder interface than Squarespace.
For beginners who don’t know anything about hosting or registering domain names, Wix is better. WordPress is overall more powerful, but it also requires a steeper learning curve.
Squarespace is cheaper if you pay for an annual subscription. If you opt to pay monthly, however, Wix’s base plan for e-commerce costs less than Squarespace’s Business plan.
WordPress is overall better and more powerful than Squarespace, but the latter is a lot more beginner-friendly.
