Wix vs Squarespace · Head to head Wix vs Squarespace, from someone who's built on both and left both.
For a small business these two website builders land closer together than the comparison articles make out. The plans start two dollars apart, both cover the search basics now, and the real difference shows up the day you want to go somewhere else. I'm Willis, I run Another Monday out of Baltimore, and I've built on both of them.
| What you're comparing | Wix | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan, billed yearly | $17 a month | $19 a month |
| The middle plan | $29 a month | $29 a month |
| Your blog, if you leave | Does not come out | One blog page, as .xml |
| Your store products, if you leave | CSV, 5,000 rows a file | .csv, up to 10,000 products |
| The schema on your pages | Preset on product pages, plus your own on top | Automatic, and not yours to edit |
| Your pages and your design | Made again on the other side | Made again on the other side |
Two dollars a month apart to start. Years apart on the way out.
Prices are the yearly billing rate each vendor shows by default, taken from wix.com/plans and squarespace.com/pricing on September 10, 2026. Month to month costs more on both and neither one publishes that figure on the same view, so no month-to-month number appears anywhere here. Everything else comes from the two help centers, read the same day. Both vendors change these without telling anybody, so check yours before you act on any of it.
Wix gives you more room. Squarespace gives you fewer mistakes.
That trade runs through every part of this. Both are drag and drop website builders, and they mean two different things by it. Wix gives you a canvas and lets you drag anything anywhere, which is freedom if you have an eye for it and a mess if you don't. Squarespace keeps you inside a grid that holds a page together even when you're editing your own prices at ten at night. I've watched owners do good work on both and rough work on both, and the platform was never the thing that decided which. Ease of use is not the same question as who it is easy for.
You are going to run it yourself
Squarespace, most times. It holds you inside a grid, so a page you edited in a hurry on a Sunday night still reads as designed. That matters more than any feature list once you are the person maintaining it.
The business needs one specific thing
Wix, usually. You can place an element where you want it and the app market goes deeper. If there is one thing the business runs on, find out whether Wix already does it before you compare anything else.
Your work comes from Google
Either one carries you a long way, and then both stop in the same place. That is the ceiling, and it is where the businesses I move usually decide they would rather own the code.
Squarespace also holds a discount you should know about before you price anything: it runs a 14 day free trial and says paying annually saves up to 36 percent, so the rate on its pricing page is already the discounted one. Wix says the same thing a different way, that its displayed prices are for yearly subscriptions paid in full up front.
Pick for the person who has to run it, not for the feature list.
Four things each one genuinely beats the other at, with the source under every one.
Squarespace takes the design floor and Wix takes the ceiling, and both of those cut against a page like this one having a winner. I've been caught out by every one of these on somebody's live site.
Where Squarespace wins
The editor is calmer to run yourself
Squarespace keeps you inside a grid, and that grid is doing you a favour. A page edited in five minutes between customers still comes out looking composed. It is the single most common reason I leave a small business exactly where it is.
The sitemap and the schema are handled
Squarespace's help center says it creates and updates your sitemap for you and that you do not need to submit one manually. It also generates structured data for blog posts, events, local business, organization, product and website pages. That is real work you never have to do or pay anybody to do.
Your writing comes out with you
Squarespace exports one blog page, with all of its posts and up to 1,000 comments per post, as an .xml file. Wix's help center says exporting blog posts to other platforms is not possible at all. Two hundred posts in, that gap is the whole ball game.
My own venue ran on it
Studio 87 was my event venue in Baltimore. It sat on Squarespace, search drove it past 380 bookings in about three years, and the platform never once got in the way of that. I am a Squarespace Circle Gold member and I still put small businesses on it.
Where Wix wins
You can put things where you want them
Wix hands you a canvas. Squarespace hands you a grid and argues with you about the edges of it. For a business whose page needs a shape the templates do not have, that argument gets old fast.
Your commerce data comes out clean
Wix exports store products with their data to CSV at 5,000 rows a file, orders from their own tab, and up to 50,000 contacts at a time. Digital products are the documented exception. If your customer list is the asset, Wix hands it back in better shape.
You can write your own schema
Wix creates a default preset markup for product pages and says you can write your own custom markup over it. Squarespace's documentation says its schemas cannot be edited or removed. For most owners that is academic. For a business going after one specific search result, it is the job.
The old search complaint is dead
Wix had a genuine technical problem with search years ago and fixed it. Both platforms cover the basics now, so that complaint is not one of the real differences between them, and repeating it would just make this page wrong.
Squarespace decides more of your website for you, and it does a good job of the parts it decides. Wix decides less and hands the consequences to whoever is holding the mouse. Neither of those is a flaw. They're two products aimed at two different owners, and the only question is which owner you are.
The plans are two dollars apart, and the fees underneath them are not.
Every figure below is the yearly billing rate, which is what both vendors put on screen by default. Month to month costs more on each of them and neither one publishes that number on the same view, so I'm not going to make one up for you.
| Tier | Wix | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | Light, $17 a month | Basic, $19 a month |
| Middle plan | Core, $29 a month | Core, $29 a month |
| A step up | Business, $39 a month | Plus, $49 a month |
| Top plan | Business Elite, $159 a month | Advanced, $99 a month |
The entry rates are two dollars apart and the middle tier is identical, so anybody answering which one is cheaper with a clean winner is padding. What separates them sits underneath the plan name. Squarespace charges a 2 percent transaction fee on its cheapest plan and drops that to zero from Core up, with payment processing starting at 2.9 percent plus 30 cents and improving as you climb. Its cheapest plan also can't take custom CSS or JavaScript, which you find out the first time somebody hands you a snippet to paste in.
My own number goes on the page for the same reason theirs should. The website gets made inside a monthly plan: $800 a month at two pages, $1,550 at four, $3,500 at ten, at a declining rate per page, on a three month minimum and then month to month. The full sheet and what each tier includes sit on the marketing services page. Nobody gets a separate project invoice for the website itself.
Set $800 against $19 and it should look absurd, because it's a different purchase. One is software you drive. The other is somebody writing your pages, structuring them so search can read them, and picking up the phone when a form stops sending.
Whatever either one costs you a month, the day you leave costs more.
Which way are you leaning?
Send the link to whatever you're running now, plus a line about what you need it to do that it isn't doing. I read the site and look at who you're up against before I answer.
- 450K+ search impressions across the sites we manage
- 5,800+ organic search clicks across the sites we manage
- 600+ leads and booking requests across the sites we manage
Last 90 days, across the sites and Search Console/GA4 accounts Another Monday manages. Figures as of August 2026.
Squarespace is easier to leave with your words. Wix is easier to leave with your customers.
Both exports are partial, and they're partial in opposite directions.
| What you have | Leaving Wix | Leaving Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Blog posts | No export to another platform | One blog page as .xml, up to 1,000 comments a post |
| Store products | CSV, 5,000 rows a file, no digital products | .csv, up to 10,000 products, without reviews or images |
| Orders | Exported from the Orders tab | .csv, on every plan |
| Contacts | Up to 50,000 at a time, as CSV | Not part of the site export |
| Pages and layout | Nothing leaves | Layout pages, text and image blocks, gallery pages |
| Album, index, portfolio, store pages | Nothing leaves | Named in the do-not-export list |
| Style settings and custom CSS | Nothing leaves | Named in the do-not-export list |
| Your domain | Transfers to another host | Transfers to another host |
Line those up and neither one comes out ahead. Squarespace hands back your writing and keeps your design. Wix keeps your writing and hands back your commerce data: products to CSV at 5,000 rows a file, orders from their own tab, and up to 50,000 contacts at a time. Whichever way you go, the pages themselves get made again by a person, and that is the part of the bill nobody estimates before they need it.
The redirect list is the one people forget
This one is mine, off real moves, and it is not in anybody's documentation. Squarespace keeps your custom redirects in a URL Mappings panel inside the account, and cancelling the subscription takes them with it. That panel gets copied out before anything else happens.
A Wix site has to run on Wix
Wix's own documentation says it: the site is built with Wix technology and has to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers. The same article says the content you build belongs to you. Both things are true at once, and the second one is why there is no file anywhere that contains your website.
Squarespace to Squarespace is not a move either
Straight from the export guide, and it surprises people: it is not possible to export content from one Squarespace site and import it into another. The .xml file is shaped for WordPress. Two Squarespace sites and a rebuild between them is still a rebuild.
Changing a Wix template is the same job as leaving
Wix's help center says you cannot switch a published site onto a different template, and the workaround it documents is a new site, your pages and media copied across, then the plan and the domain moved over. That list is a migration wearing a different name.
If you're specifically on Wix and looking at the door, the full inventory and the list of things to save before you touch the billing page are on Wix alternatives, and what comes out of Wix with you. From the Squarespace side, including what a move gets quoted at and the six things that break quietly, read Squarespace alternatives, and what the move costs.
The part nobody budgets for is having every page made again by a person.
What costs you two years in is the ceiling, not the subscription.
One client's Squarespace invoice came to $276 for the year. That's the figure owners quote at me when they ask whether moving is worth it, and it's the least interesting number in the whole conversation. What shows up two years in is a different list entirely.
The parts you are not allowed to touch
Squarespace generates your schema and says in its own documentation that you cannot edit or remove it. Wix writes a preset on product pages and lets you add your own markup on top. Neither is a problem on day one. Both become one the day a specific search result is worth money to you.
The page weight that was never yours
A heavy template site is usually carrying the platform's own bundles and the scripts it wires in for every site on it. Compressing your photos buys you a little and then stops, because the rest of the weight came with the product you bought.
The one no that decides it
Price is almost never what moves somebody off a platform. A no is. A Spanish version of every page that Google reads as a matched pair, an intake form that asks what you ask on the phone, a calculator the business quotes from. One no on something that matters, and the question answers itself.
The businesses still happy on either platform two years in have one thing in common, and it isn't the platform. Their work comes from somewhere other than search. Referrals, repeat customers, a busy Instagram, a phone that rings because people in the neighborhood know them. In that shape of business the website proves you're real, and both of these do that job for about the price of a phone bill.
Almost nobody leaves over the invoice. They leave over one no.
Both cover the search basics now, and split on what you're allowed to change.
If your customers find you by typing what they need into Google, both of these carry you further than people expect. Titles, descriptions, headings, clean URLs, a sitemap, redirects. All of it present on both, and the difference between the two platforms is smaller than the difference between doing that work and skipping it.
Squarespace's help center says it creates and updates your sitemap for you, and that it generates structured data for blog posts, events, local business, organization, product and website pages, which you can't edit or remove. Wix's says it writes a default preset markup for product pages and that you can create your own custom markup if you need to.
That is Squarespace's biggest strength and its ceiling in one breath. You get correct markup with no work and no invoice. You also get exactly that markup and nothing beyond it. For a business selling one service in one city, nobody ever feels the limit. For a business going after a result somebody else is already working, it's the job.
Where both of them stop is the same place. You can't restructure how a page is put together, you can't remove weight the platform ships to every site on it, and you can't run the internal linking the way a competitive search wants it run. That's the wall, and it's why the businesses I move usually end up on code they own instead of on the other platform.
If you're staying where you are and want more out of the platform you're already paying for, I wrote the on-platform version of this conversation up as the honest read on the platform.
When neither one is the answer, and where both beat a custom site.
I custom-code websites for a living, which makes me the wrong person to ask. These four are true anyway.
You edit it yourself
A custom-coded website has no do-it-yourself editor unless somebody wires one in. On Wix or Squarespace you change your own hours and prices at ten at night and nobody has to be awake for it.
Somebody else does the upkeep
Updates, security and backups are the platform's problem on both. That's the whole trade you're making, and for a lot of businesses it's a good one.
It is live in days
A custom site takes a few weeks of writing and coding, then a stretch of movement in search while Google re-reads it. A template is up this week.
The money is not close
Nineteen dollars a month against a plan that starts at $800. Those are different purchases, and the cheaper one is the right call for plenty of businesses.
Custom code earns its money in one situation and it's a narrow one. Search has to be a channel you're counting on, the platform has to be the thing standing in the way of it, and enough work has to ride on the site that a few weeks of movement in Google is a risk worth taking. When all three are true, the rebuild pays for itself inside a year. When they aren't, I tell people to stay put, and I do that more often than the other thing.
What that work looks like, what comes with it and what it deliberately leaves out is on the small business website design page.
Nobody should rebuild a website because they got bored of the one they have.
Bring the site you've got. We'll work out whether it's the platform or the pages.
Grab 30 minutes with WillisWho's telling you this, and what I've got riding on it.
I built on Wix and WordPress for years before I ever charged anybody for a website, then spent a long stretch on Squarespace and put more than 20 small business websites on it, inside 25 or so in total. I'm a Squarespace Circle Gold member. My own work is custom-coded now, and I'll still put a small business on Squarespace when that's the right call for them.
I've moved businesses off both. One off Wix, a tutoring service, rebuilt page by page onto code it owns and live since August 2026. Four came off Squarespace, plus this site, which ran on the platform until that same month. The companies behind those are local service businesses: a collision shop, an appliance repair company, a nail studio and a therapy practice. They're listed with live links on the marketing clients page.
A Circle Gold member who doesn't put new sites on the platform any more has nothing riding on which way you go. That's the only reason I can hand Squarespace four wins up there and mean it. The rest of the background, the teaching and the credentials sit on the local marketing expert page.
Wix vs Squarespace, the questions owners ask me.
Which is better, Wix or Squarespace?
Wix is better if you want to place things exactly where you want them and add features the templates do not cover. Squarespace is better if you are the one running the site and you want it to look composed without having to think about it. On the yearly billing rate each vendor shows by default the two start two dollars apart, so price is not the tiebreaker.
What is more expensive, Squarespace or Wix?
Squarespace and Wix cost close to the same. On the yearly billing rate each vendor shows by default, Wix starts at $17 a month and Squarespace at $19, and both charge $29 for their middle plan. Squarespace also takes a 2 percent transaction fee on its cheapest plan and drops that to zero from Core up. Those figures came off wix.com/plans and squarespace.com/pricing on September 10, 2026.
What is the downside of Wix compared with Squarespace?
The biggest downside of Wix next to Squarespace is that your writing does not come out. Wix's help center says exporting blog posts to other platforms is not possible, while Squarespace exports one blog page with all of its posts as an .xml file. The second downside is the same freedom people like it for: a canvas that lets you put anything anywhere also lets you make a mess of a page.
Wix, Squarespace or WordPress: which one should a small business pick?
Wix and Squarespace both carry the updates, the backups and the security for you, and WordPress hands all three back to you. That is the real split. Pick WordPress when somebody in the business will own the plugins and the patching every month, and pick one of the hosted two when nobody will. A painting company's WordPress site is coming over to me right now, and the plugin and patching list turns out to be most of that job. If WordPress is the one you are on, the WordPress alternatives, side by side with the reason each one answers are on their own page.
Is Wix or Squarespace better for a local service business?
For a local service business the two run close, and Squarespace edges it for an owner who updates the site themselves. Both handle titles, descriptions, headings, clean URLs and a sitemap, and Squarespace generates its sitemap and its structured data automatically. What decides it is usually one specific thing the business needs, like a booking flow or a Spanish version of every page, so check that before you compare anything else.
Is Wix or Squarespace better for selling products online?
Wix is better for selling online if you ever plan to leave, because its commerce data comes out in better shape. Wix exports store products to CSV at 5,000 rows a file, orders from a separate tab, and up to 50,000 contacts at a time. Squarespace exports up to 10,000 products to .csv and its orders to .csv on every plan, though the product file leaves out customer reviews and images. A business that really is a store tends to outgrow both.
Is Wix or Squarespace better for a blog?
Squarespace is better for a blog, and the reason is the exit. Squarespace exports one blog page with all its posts and up to 1,000 comments per post as an .xml file you can take elsewhere. Wix's help center says exporting blog posts to other platforms is not possible. If you write regularly, that gap gets wider every month you keep writing.
Is Wix or Squarespace better for photographers and portfolios?
Squarespace is the usual pick for photographers, and it comes with a catch worth knowing before you commit. Its templates are built around images, so a gallery looks right without much work, and gallery pages do come out in the export. Portfolio pages and album pages are named in Squarespace's own do-not-export list, so a portfolio assembled that way is a rebuild the day you move. Wix gives you more layout freedom and no blog export at all.
Is Wix or Squarespace better for SEO?
Wix and Squarespace both cover the search basics now, and the gap between them is smaller than the gap between doing the work and skipping it. Squarespace creates and updates your sitemap automatically and generates structured data its documentation says you cannot edit or remove. Wix writes a default preset markup on product pages and lets you add your own on top. Wix's old technical problems with search were fixed years ago, so that is not one of the real differences.
Which is easier to leave, Wix or Squarespace?
Squarespace is easier to leave with your words and Wix is easier to leave with your customers. Squarespace exports one blog page as an .xml file and leaves behind album, cover, index, info, calendar, portfolio and store pages, plus your style settings and custom CSS. Wix exports no blog at all, and exports products, orders and up to 50,000 contacts as CSV. On both of them, the pages and the design get made again by a person.
Can you move a website from Wix to Squarespace?
Moving from Wix to Squarespace means rebuilding the site, and no import shortcut exists. Wix says a Wix site has to run on Wix's servers, so no file contains your website, and its help center says blog posts cannot be exported to another platform. What travels is your domain, your store data as CSV and your original images. Everything else gets made again, which makes the better question what you would rebuild it on.
Do you own your website on either platform?
On Wix and on Squarespace you own your content and your domain, and you rent the website itself. Wix's own documentation says the content you build belongs to you and, in the same article, that the site has to run on Wix's servers. Squarespace works the same way. Stop paying either one and the site stops existing, which is how every hosted builder works and is worth knowing on the way in.
Will I lose my Google rankings switching between them?
You keep your rankings switching between Wix and Squarespace when every old address lands on its replacement in one hop and the new page covers the same ground. Positions move around for a few weeks while Google re-reads the site, and that part is normal. The rankings that do get lost belong to pages nobody wrote down before the switch, which is why the URL list comes before any design work.
When is a custom-coded website the right answer instead of either?
A custom-coded website earns its money when three things are true at once: search is a real channel for you, the platform is the thing standing in the way, and enough work rides on the site to justify a few weeks of movement in Google while it settles. If any one of those is missing, staying on Wix or Squarespace is the cheaper answer. I say that to more people than I sell to.
Still can't decide between the two?
Call or text me, tell me which one you're on and what it's stopping you doing. Half these calls end with me saying the platform is fine and the pages need work, which is a cheaper answer than either of us expected.
También hablamos español.