Your website is only as good as the platform it’s built upon, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that a solid foundation is absolutely crucial for eCommerce stores. In this Squarespace Commerce Plan review, I take a closer look at two of Squarespace’s most popular eCommerce plans.
I’m a big fan of Squarespace. In my Squarespace review, I have covered all the key features and pros and cons of this easy-to-use website and online store builder. Here, I will zoom in on their Commerce plans (Basic is $27/month and Advanced is $49/month).
If your customers have to wait for more than a second or two for the page to load or if they have a bad user experience, they’re going to take their custom and apply it somewhere else. You lose out on business, and your competition laughs at your misfortune.
Absolutely no business owner wants that. This means you have to choose your eCommerce platform carefully. You want a trusted provider with a proven track record of reliability. And you want a solid range of features that can make your eCommerce store run like a well-oiled locomotive.
Enter Squarespace.com. Okay, so it’s not the most popular option for eCommerce out there (back off Shopify, this is Squarespace’s, er, space), but it is trusted, reliable, and solid. And for that, it’s worth my time to give it a proper review.
So let’s discover together whether Squarespace holds its weight in the world of e-commerce or not and whether it’s right for you.
TL;DR: The Commerce Basic plan ($27/month) is excellent and will satisfy the needs of large and small e-commerce stores, beginners and pros alike. However, the Commerce Advanced plan ($49/month) is, in my opinion, not worth the massive price difference, and certain features can be found elsewhere for a lower price.
Pricing
Squarespace allows you to pay for its Commerce plans on a monthly or annual basis:
- Commerce Basic: $36/month or $27/month paid annually
- Commerce Advanced: $65/month or $49/month paid annually
Paying annually gives you a 24% discount. All plans come with a 14-day free trial too.
Squarespace only applies a money-back guarantee for annually paid plans that are canceled within 14 days of payment. If you are a monthly subscriber, that means you can’t get a refund once you have paid for the month.
Squarespace Commerce Plan Pros and Cons
Pros
- A great selection of e-commerce features to set up and grow your store
- Zero transaction fees make everything that much sweeter
- The templates are gorgeous and mostly easy to work with
- I love the hassle saved with the convenient Facebook and Instagram integration
Cons
- Subscription payments should be available on both plans
- The Commerce Advanced plan isn’t really worth the money
What is Squarespace and the Commerce Plan?
Squarespace entered the market in 2003 and has grown steadily ever since. Right now, it has around three million websites on its books and has won multiple awards for being a great place to work.
It is a comprehensive website builder that offers a range of features, including Squarespace e-commerce, Squarespace site design, Squarespace extensions, and Squarespace templates. Squarespace sites can be customized with a range of design options, including Squarespace templates, to create a unique, professional-looking Squarespace online store.
Squarespace SEO features ensure your website is optimized for search engines, with Squarespace analytics offering insights into your website’s performance. Squarespace pricing is competitive, with Squarespace offers available to help you save money.
Squarespace email campaigns, Squarespace’s platform, and Squarespace user support, all combine to make Squarespace one of the best Squarespace commerce review-approved website builders available.
The platform itself isn’t the easiest to use, but it is most certainly easier to grasp than WordPress. And for that reason, I think it’s a good option if you’re starting out in the world of e-commerce.
When it comes to plans, Squarespace has four available, three of which are equipped with e-commerce features. The Commerce Basic and Commerce Plus plans are the two that boast the most features and are suitable for high-volume selling.
What’s the difference between the two? Well, I’ll cover that in detail below.
Features at a Glance
- A large range of templates, all mobile optimized
- Free custom domain for one year
- Free professional Gmail for one year
- 0% transaction fees on sales
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Free SSL certificate
- 30-minutes video storage
- Advanced analytics
- CSS and Javascript customization
- Marketing tools such as popups and banners
- Fully integrated e-commerce tools
- Sell unlimited products
- Add unlimited site contributors
- 24/7 customer support
If you subscribe to the upgraded Commerce Advanced, you get the following features in addition to the above:
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Subscription-based payment facility
- Dynamic shipping tool
- Advanced discount options
- Commerce API
Here’s a full breakdown of eCommerce capabilities included in Squarespace’s eCommerce plans:
| Features | Basic Plan | Advanced Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Fully integrated eCommerce (order, inventory, and product catalog management, payment, tax, and shipping tools, accept payments with Stripe or PayPal, and allow customers to pay with credit card, Apple Pay or Afterpay) | Yes | Yes |
| Transaction fees * | 0% | 0% |
| Sell unlimited products (physical products, services, digital products, digital gift cards) | Yes | Yes |
| Checkout on your own domain name | Yes | Yes |
| Point of sale (POS) | Yes | Yes |
| Product reviews | Yes | Yes |
| Customer accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced merchandising features (display related products; offer product waitlists; drive urgency with low stock alerts, and more) | Yes | Yes |
| Sell on Facebook & Instagram | Yes | Yes |
| Limited availability labels | Yes | Yes |
| Abandoned cart recovery | No | Yes |
| Sell subscriptions | No | Yes |
| Members only content | No | Yes |
| Dynamic shipping rates | No | Yes |
| Free shipping based on thresholds | No | Yes |
| Advanced discounts | No | Yes |
| Commerce APIs | No | Yes |
Why Choose the Commerce Plan?
Let’s now have a look at the best of what the Commerce plans have to offer.
Industry-Leading Templates and Editing Tools
I’m a sucker for a good template. They make everything so much easier and faster to build. E-commerce stores are notorious for taking a lot of work to create, particularly if you’re starting your Squarespace website from ground zero.
Templates are used on pretty much all software platforms now, but the quality varies greatly. However, I’m pleased to report that Squarespace’s offerings not only look polished and impressive, they also work very well too.
You’ve got options for high-volume stores as well as templates for more boutique-style shops and everything in-between.
Of course, all templates are fully customizable using the dead easy drag-and-drop editing tool. What I particularly like here are the Site Styles, where you can instantly change the font sets, color palettes, and other global settings for a seamless look throughout your Squarespace eCommerce store.
Upon using the editing tool, I did find it a little glitchy, and it crashed a couple of times. Whether that was a one-off instance or a common theme remains to be seen.
As a final point, if you’re a brand new store, Squarespace has mini walkthrough guides and help sections as you move through the editing tool. This is a nice touch as it ensures you understand what you should be doing to get your store off the ground.
0% Transaction Fees
A quick but important feature to point out. Many eCommerce platforms just love to take a cut of your earnings on top of the subscription fee that you pay. Depending on the platform, this can be anything from 1% – 5%.
Indeed, Squarespace takes a 3% cut of all sales if you are subscribed to the Business plan. However, the Commerce plans are exempt from any transaction fees where Squarespace is concerned. That’s right. There are 0% transaction fees on all of your sales.
The price difference between the Squarespace Business plan and the Commerce Basic plan is $4/month, so for this feature alone, it’s worth upgrading and paying slightly more because it can save you an absolute tonne of cash in the long run.
Quick disclaimer: This transaction fee exemption does not apply to any third-party payment providers you integrate and use with Squarespace (Stripe, for example). These platforms have their own fees independent from Squarespace, and you are still obligated to pay them no matter which Squarespace plan you subscribe to.
Website Builder with Fully Integrated E-Commerce
The main reason we’re all here is for the eCommerce functionality and capabilities these plans provide. And the range you get is decent. Really decent.
For starters, there are no limits to how much you can sell. The sky is the only limit here. And it doesn’t matter how you sell either. Whether online or in-person, Squarespace keeps track of your inventory, customers, and analytics all on the same dashboard.
You can link to your preferred payment provider (Stripe, PayPal, etc.) so customers can checkout direct from your domain, and to make life better for the customer, they can create their own Squarespace account for your store, which holds all their purchase information.
You also get a truckload of upselling features to drive urgency among your shoppers, such as product waitlists, low-stock alerts, featured items, and more. Plus, you can use popups and banners to shout about any sales and promotions you have going on.
You’re not limited to selling physical goods either. Squarespace eCommerce platform lets you sell digital products such as courses and e-books, plus you have the option to maximize your revenue and set up recurring payments such as subscriptions. Dropshippers and print-on-demand sellers are all catered for here too.
Overall, it’s got all the eCommerce tools you need to build and grow a successful store. I can’t find any glaring gaps in the product features, and I think it’s enough to satisfy seasoned pros too.
Integrate With Facebook and Instagram
Here’s a good one, you can sync your Squarespace product catalog with Meta in order to advertise and sell on Facebook and Instagram. This is super convenient as it saves you from having to faff about and upload the information separately.
Essentially, once you have synced your store, you can then sell and advertise straight from any posts, stories, reels, and ads that you make about your store’s products. How good is that?!
Syncing happens hourly, so you don’t have to worry about your inventory levels or whether the information displayed on Insta or Facebook is accurate.
Commerce Advanced Features
Finally, we need to see what makes Commerce Advanced worth the extra subscription fee. Upgrading from Commerce Basic does unlock a few extra goodies, but it’s not that much.
Here’s what you get:
- Abandoned cart recovery: Automated emails to remind customers to finish the checkout process
- Subscription payments: Allow customers to pay for things on a recurring payment (courses, for example)
- Advanced shipping: Set dynamic shipping rates depending on where the customer is based
- Advanced discounts: Discounts can automatically apply to qualifying orders without the customer having to enter a coupon code or suchlike
- Commerce APIs: For the techies. Add custom integrations with third-party apps
My main gripe for this entire review is the fact that subscription payments are only available on the most expensive plan.
This is such a basic feature, and most competing platforms include it as a standard feature on most plans. It’s nothing special, so I don’t see why you should have to pay top dollar to access it.
Do I think it’s worth paying almost double for this upgrade? No, not really. Unless the features above are mega important to you, which I doubt they are.
About Squarespace
Squarespace Sales and Marketing Tools
Squarespace offers a range of powerful sales and marketing tools to help businesses maximize their online presence. Features like point of sale, customer accounts, inventory management, and abandoned cart recovery make it easy to manage your online store. Squarespace advanced commerce plans also offer additional powerful features that are perfect for businesses looking to grow their online presence.
Whether you are selling products or services, Squarespace makes it simple to sell online. With Squarespace sell services or subscriptions, you can easily manage recurring payments and subscriptions from your customers.
Squarespace online sales are also made easy with promotional pop-ups, designed to capture the attention of your customers, and Squarespace email marketing tools that enable you to engage with your audience and drive sales. Squarespace is an all-in-one solution for businesses looking for a powerful and customizable platform to manage their online sales and marketing efforts.
Squarespace Templates
Squarespace is an excellent website building tool that offers a robust set of features for building a website from scratch, including a range of Squarespace templates. Squarespace templates are easy to use and come in a variety of styles to fit any need, whether you’re launching an online store or creating a portfolio.
Squarespace templates are designed to be responsive, optimized for mobile devices, and easy to customize using Squarespace’s website building tool. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer, Squarespace templates provide a range of options to help you create a website that accurately reflects your brand.
Moreover, Squarespace templates integrate seamlessly with Squarespace e-commerce templates, providing a comprehensive set of Squarespace templates and e-commerce functionality to create a Squarespace online store that will set your business up for success.
Squarespace E-commerce Features
Squarespace’s e-commerce functionality includes Squarespace e-commerce plans, Squarespace site design, and Squarespace’s templates. Squarespace websites are designed for e-commerce, making it easy to sell products online with the most up-to-date technology.
Squarespace integration with other platforms such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square make accepting payments a breeze. Squarespace’s inventory management feature assists with tracking inventory levels and keeping track of orders.
Squarespace users can manage their online stores with ease thanks to the Squarespace dashboard, which offers insights into website performance and analytics.
Additionally, Squarespace offers a range of Squarespace e-commerce templates, including the Squarespace logo that can be customized to fit your brand. Squarespace reviews have praised the platform for its intuitive design and ease of use, especially when it comes to integrating Squarespace with other e-commerce platforms.
Other Squarespace Features
Squarespace is more than just a website builder. Whether you’re just starting your online business or looking to take your existing one to the next level, Squarespace has a range of features that can help you grow. With Squarespace free and custom domain options, you can register the perfect domain name for your website.
Additionally, Squarespace transaction fees are low, allowing you to keep more of your sales revenue. Squarespace integration with Square and other payment processors makes it easy to manage payments and orders. Squarespace per month payment structure is also competitive, with scalable pricing plans to fit your budget.
Squarespace also supports Apple Pay, a seamless payment method that makes it easy for customers to check out from your website. Squarespace SEO tools help ensure your website is optimized for search engines, while Squarespace’s intuitive platform makes managing your online business simple and accessible.
Questions & Answers
Our Verdict ⭐
If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably guessed what I’m about to say.
Overall, the Commerce Basic plan is great for selling online. The eCommerce features shine, and you get a lot of bang for your (very affordable) buck. Can the same be said for the Commerce Advanced plan?
Nope.
I don’t think the additional features are worth such a significant price hike. Especially when they’re included as standard on competing platforms.
Build your dream website or online store with Squarespace – create a stunning online presence with ease. Start your free trial today.
All types of e-commerce stores, large and small, will thrive on the Commerce Basic plan, so I recommend giving it a go, no matter where you are in your e-commerce journey. Want to sell subscription-based products? I recommend you look elsewhere.
Time to stop reading and take action and build your own online store. Start your e-commerce adventure today by signing up here.
How We Review Website Builders: Our Methodology
When we review website builders we look at several key aspects. We assess the intuitiveness of the tool, its feature set, the speed of website creation, and other factors. The primary consideration is the ease of use for individuals new to website setup. In our testing, our evaluation is based on these criteria:
- Customization: Does the builder allow you to modify template designs or incorporate your own coding?
- User-Friendliness: Are the navigation and tools, such as the drag-and-drop editor, easy to use?
- Value for Money: Is there an option for a free plan or trial? Do paid plans offer features that justify the cost?
- Security: How does the builder protect your website and data about you and your customers?
- Templates: Are the templates of high quality, contemporary, and varied?
- Support: Is assistance readily available, either through human interaction, AI chatbots, or informational resources?
Learn more about our review methodology here.
