Squarespace vs. WordPress: 2020 website hosting costs, free trials and ease of use in contrast

Squarespace

If you have ever listened to a podcast, you have in all probability heard adverts for Squarespace. It’s an all-in-one hosted platform that differentiates itself from others in the marketplace with its design sense, founder and CEO Anthony Casalena instructed CNET.

“We strive to create the most seamless end-to-end experience within our platform,” Casalena stated. “There is no software to upgrade or plug-ins to maintain. Everything you need — from domains to email marketing to e-commerce tools — is built right into Squarespace.” 

Squarespace makes it simple to combine performance for portfolios, blogs and commerce websites in a single bundle, as a substitute of getting to patch it collectively by yourself, Casalena stated. It additionally affords commerce websites the flexibility to promote merchandise on-line and in-person with a point-of-sale system, and promote companies, settle for donations and guide appointments. Online companies may make the most of third-party extensions like QuickBooks Online. 

Start constructing a Squarespace website with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required. You can skip by means of any of those steps, however I discovered them useful. First, search by means of “what your site is about” choices to search out some beginning concepts and examples, starting from a private resume website to schooling to health. Next, choose your prime objectives, wish to promote merchandise, market your self or your enterprise or get appointments. Then, inform the positioning the place you’re within the course of, like “collecting inspiration” or “growing an existing business.” From there, you may see a number of totally different templates accessible to get began with. 

You’ll be given a quick tutorial on the best way to create, edit and magnificence pages. The interface is easy and straightforward to make use of — merely click on on an space of your website that you just wish to edit, and achieve this instantly. You can click on an icon to change between the desktop model and a cellular preview of your website. Built-in search engine marketing instruments can assist your website achieve extra traction in net searches. 

Squarespace’s lovely templates could also be notably interesting to photographers and visible artists. Its affinity for model and its all-in-one platform are additionally very interesting for small enterprise homeowners and entrepreneurs, because it saves them from having to rent a designer, marketing consultant or e-commerce skilled to create and run a horny and purposeful web site. 

“Squarespace allowed me to get started without prior development knowledge and create a professional-looking website,” stated Julia Goldstein, who runs JLFG Communications. “I can quickly and easily update content, add pages and more. The templates work seamlessly to create a uniform look and feel. Features like a mobile-friendly website and analytics are built into the platform, and it integrates well with third-party apps. I don’t spend loads of time figuring out how to deal with website problems.” 

If you have already got your personal area title (like YourName.com), you possibly can switch that over to Squarespace, so the identical tackle is then hosted on its platform. 

Pricing

Pay month-to-month, or get monetary savings with an annual subscription to Squarespace. Here’s how much a Squarespace site costs: 

• Personal: $12 per thirty days, billed yearly at $144 (or $16 per thirty days billed month-to-month)
• Business: $18 per thirty days, billed yearly at $216 (or $26 per thirty days billed month-to-month) 
• Commerce Basic: $26 per thirty days, billed yearly at $312 (or $30 per thirty days billed month-to-month)
• Commerce Advanced: $40 per thirty days, billed yearly at $360 (or $46 per thirty days, billed month-to-month)

WordPress

WordPress is the world’s hottest open-source net publishing platform, powering more than 35% of all websites on the web, together with websites for The Walt Disney Company, Quartz and Mercedes-Benz. It’s just a little complicated, however WordPress.com is a hosted web site constructing service constructed on WordPress. Whereas WordPress requires you to buy a site title by means of one other website and do extra hands-on work creating your website, WordPress.com does all of that for you — making it simpler to work with, however extra restricted in performance. 

Create a free check website to check out WordPress.com, and choose the kind of website you wish to create: weblog, enterprise, skilled or on-line retailer. I chosen the skilled class. Getting a fundamental model of the positioning up was simple, and solely required a username, password, my title and the title of the positioning. You can then go to Design > Customize to do issues like add a emblem or a widget (like audio, a Facebook plug-in or a comply with button). 

WordPress.com is a bit much less intuitive than Squarespace, and it takes some trial and error to determine what you are doing — although every part you click on on does comprise mini tutorials to assist. But you possibly can mess around with it without spending a dime, and improve to a paid account should you just like the outcomes. You may see a desktop and cellular preview of your website.

“The biggest thing we see with other website builders is that they might work well for a person in the short term, but because they are not open ecosystems like WordPress, people quickly start to find themselves limited or locked in when it comes to how they can expand or customize based on their growing business needs,” Mark Armstrong, editor for WordPress.com’s guardian firm Automattic, instructed CNET. “WordPress has the single largest ecosystem for plug-ins, services and developer and designer expertise, working hand in hand with the software.” 

To develop and customise your website, WordPress affords a lot of plug-ins that entice customers, together with Yoast SEO (for search engine marketing assist), Jetpack by WordPress.com (for website safety and efficiency administration) and WPForms (for making a contact kind). 

“Depending on your client’s needs, WordPress can be highly customized with plug-ins, and has a flexibility that just can’t be matched with other template sites,” stated Basil Larios, search engine marketing content material creator for Falcon Marketing. “Whenever we run into roadblocks with design it is usually because clients first build their sites on a template base. Once they begin to see growth and want to make more concrete changes then the template site becomes more limiting than what they had initially expected.” 

As with Squarespace, if you have already got a site title, you possibly can switch that over to WordPress.com, so the identical tackle is then hosted on its platform. 

Pricing

You can create a fundamental website without spending a dime, should you’re OK with the area being “YourSite.wordpress.com.” Or, you possibly can register a site like “sitename.com” that you just pay for. 

Here is how much a WordPress.com site costs: 

• Personal (greatest for private use): $four per thirty days, billed yearly at $48 (consists of customized area title and entry to 24/7 help)
• Premium (greatest for freelancers): $eight per thirty days, billed yearly at $9 (consists of superior design instruments, customized CSS and Google Analytics help)
• Business (greatest for small enterprise): $25 per thirty days, billed yearly at $300 (consists of customized plug-ins and themes, 200GB storage and dwell help)
• eCommerce (greatest for on-line shops): $45 per thirty days, billed yearly at $540 (features a extra highly effective, versatile platform designed to develop as your enterprise does)