Squarespace vs WordPress: Which Should You Choose for Your Website?

Choose Squarespace when you want a polished website live soon, built from a template and edited by your own team, with hosting and updates included in one plan. Choose WordPress when the site has to grow through plugins, hold more than one blog or years of content, or move to any host you pick. Underneath, the split is ownership: a Squarespace site runs on Squarespace's servers, while WordPress is free software that you install, own and keep up to date yourself, or through your developer.

Both run good business websites. Below are the costs side by side, what we found when we read Squarespace's own help pages on what leaves as a file, and a short way to decide.

What is the difference between Squarespace and WordPress?

Squarespace is a hosted website builder: the templates, the editor, the hosting and a domain sit in one subscription. You pick a template, edit its sections, and add Squarespace's own tools for a store, memberships or online courses. Squarespace runs the servers and the software, and its help center says many of its features rely on the platform's own JavaScript and CSS.

WordPress is open source software, licensed under the GPLv2, that runs on PHP and a MySQL or MariaDB database. WordPress.org says it powers over 43% of the sites on the web. You install it on hosting you choose, add a theme for the design and plugins for features, and every file and every row of the database stays yours.

Is Squarespace easier than WordPress?

For a first website, yes. Squarespace has no server to set up and no software to install, and its templates look finished on the first day. WordPress asks for more decisions at the start: the host, the theme and the plugins. Once a WordPress site is built well, editing a page or a post is just as easy in its block editor. The gap shows up later, when you want something the template does not offer.

Can you add custom code to each one?

On Squarespace, code blocks with your own CSS, HTML and JavaScript, and code injection for the whole site or a single page, come with the Core plan and above, and are not included on Basic. You work inside the page structure Squarespace gives you. On WordPress, over 76,000 free plugins cover most needs, and a developer can write custom PHP for the rest, because the whole codebase is open.

How much do Squarespace and WordPress cost?

On Squarespace's pricing page as US visitors saw it on 22 October 2026, Basic is US$19 a month billed yearly, Core US$29, Plus US$49 and Advanced US$99. Billed monthly, the same plans cost US$25, US$39, US$65 and US$139. Every plan is free for 14 days, and a yearly plan includes a free domain for the first year. Squarespace shows prices in your own currency, so check the figure for your country there.

Then come the fees on each sale. An online store on Basic pays a 2% transaction fee on top of the card rates, and Core and above pay 0%. With Squarespace Payments, card rates run from 2.9% + US$0.30 on Basic and Core down to 2.5% + US$0.30 on Advanced.

WordPress itself is free. You pay for hosting, a domain, any premium theme or plugins, and someone's time for updates every month.

The build is usually the larger cost on both. If you hire a developer through us, Squarespace and WordPress developers both start from US$12 an hour.

Can you take your website with you if you leave Squarespace?

This is the question to settle before you build, because it decides what a future move costs. We read Squarespace's help center on 23 October 2026 and checked what its export carries. The export is one .xml file, and the only format offered is WordPress's.

The images need the most care. Squarespace's help center says that when the file goes into a self-hosted WordPress site through the WordPress Importer plugin, the images might not migrate: WordPress can keep links to the copies on Squarespace, and those links stop working once the Squarespace site is cancelled. Its two fixes are importing into WordPress.com instead, or downloading the images and uploading them yourself. So keep the Squarespace plan running until every image sits in the WordPress media library. The export also needs a published, public site, and a trial site cannot export at all.

None of that is a reason to avoid Squarespace, but it means leaving is part copy and part rebuild. The pages and one blog come across, and the store, the design and everything else in the table are built again.

On WordPress, leaving is a copy. The files and the database go to any other host, and the site runs there as it did before. On either platform, keep your domain at a registrar you control: Squarespace lets you connect a domain bought elsewhere.

Which is easier to keep secure and up to date?

Squarespace, by design. The platform and the hosting are Squarespace's job, so there is no core software, theme or plugin of yours to update. On WordPress, the core software, the theme and every plugin need updates, and someone has to own them. WordPress's own release archive shows a little more than one core update a month over the last year on its newest version line, before a single plugin update is counted.

That workload is the real price of WordPress's freedom. A WordPress site needs a monthly routine: a backup, the updates, then a check of the pages that bring in enquiries or sales.

How do SEO and redirects compare?

Both let you set the title and meta description of every page, choose the URL of each page and post, and submit a sitemap to Google. Rankings come from the content, the speed of the pages and the links pointing to them, not from the platform's name.

The differences show when a site moves. On Squarespace, 301 redirects are typed as lines into one URL mappings field, limited to 400 KB, which Squarespace says is usually around 2,500 lines. A redirect works only once the old page is deleted or disabled, and image and file addresses cannot be redirected at all, because they sit on Squarespace's content delivery network. One line can move every post of a blog at once, with a [name] variable in the address. A site moving onto Squarespace with thousands of old addresses should count them before it commits. On WordPress, redirects come from a plugin or the server itself, with no cap beyond what the server can carry.

When is Squarespace the better choice?

• A business that wants a site live soon, built from a template, with no developer on hand.
• An owner or a small team who wants to edit every page themselves and never think about hosting.
• A portfolio, a studio or a brochure site that fits a Squarespace template and its own store and membership tools.
• A business that would rather pay one platform bill than manage a host, plugins and updates.

When is WordPress the better choice?

• A content library with more than one blog, many authors and years of posts.
• A site that will keep growing, with features that plugins already provide, such as multilingual content or a WooCommerce shop.
• A business that wants its code and data on a host it chooses, and the freedom to change host or developer at any time.
• A site with thousands of old addresses to redirect, or one that has to connect to other systems through custom code.

Squarespace vs WordPress: which should you choose?

Choose by how far the site will grow and who should own it. If you want a good-looking site live soon and a team that edits it without help, Squarespace handles the hosting and updates for one plan. If the site is a long-term asset that will add content, features and integrations for years, WordPress gives you ownership and room to grow, and a monthly update routine is the cost of that.

If you would rather have it built for you, you can hire Squarespace developers for a site your team runs in the Squarespace editor, or hire WordPress developers for a site you own outright, and interview each one before they start.