Congratulations, you’ve created your beautiful website and you’re ready for launch! But now for one of the most important questions, which Squarespace plan is right for your business?
Squarespace has two types of plans: Websites and Online Stores (formerly Sites and eCommerce). How do you know which one is the right fit for you so you have all the features you need and want for what you’re actually paying?
Basically, Website plans are for sites that don’t sell a bunch of physical or digital products. Your site exists to convey mostly information and the services you offer and maybe a few digital or physical products, but nothing you anticipate selling a high volume of. For this reason, Squarespace charges a small fee on every product that is sold. Conversely, the Online Store plans are higher in price but Squarespace doesn’t charge you, the owner, a fee when you sell a product.
Here’s a quick description to give you a better idea of each of the different types of plans and options in each plan:
Website Plans
Option 1: Personal Site - This plan is for the website that simply exists to convey information. Basically, you are not “selling” anything (aka there are no transactions going on on your website) and are just a platform for online users to see your information.
Option 2: Business Site - This site plan offers more flexibility by including premium features like the announcement bar and custom CSS. You as a business owner/operator are more than likely going to be utilizing this plan, even if you don’t necessarily sell a product on your site, so you can take advantage of those premium features. If you do sell products, Squarespace charges a 3% transaction fee.
Online Store Plans
Option 1: Basic - This plan is for the commerce site that is just getting started. Linking products to instagram, accounting tools, label printing and customer accounts are a few features offered in this plan.
Option 2: Advanced - Your commerce site is off the ground and you’re ready for some higher-end features. The advanced online store plan offers more options like subscriptions, gift cards, and abandoned cart recovery. This is the best plan if your business is at a pretty automated, higher level.
Option 2 of each plan includes features from each of the plans of lower tier (e.g. Business has all of personal site’s features + more, basic online store has all business site features + more, etc.).
Note: You can basically answer the question of which site plan you want to use by asking one simple question - am I selling any products, digital or physical? If the answer is “Yes,” you immediately eliminate the personal site option. Additionally if you want to include some no- brainer features like the announcement bar, you’re going to need a site at the business level or above (which is what I would expect from a business owner anyways - you go girl!).
Finally, if you are selling something, remember the business plan allows you to sell products, but each sale comes with a 3% transaction fee at your expense while the online store plans do not charge this fee. It’s a good idea to do some calculations to see which plan would be best - are you selling enough so that a 3% fee isn’t too much and doesn’t cost more than upgrading to one of the online store plans? Or would it make more financial sense to pay for the plan with no transaction fees because you will be selling so much to the point where you’re saving yourself some transaction fee money?
All plans come with the following basic features:
24/7 Customer Service Support (and it’s AMAZING!)
Free Annual Domain (if you buy an annual plan)
Unlimited Bandwidth and Storage
SSL Security
Website Data
Optimization for mobile
You can check out more details about the exact features each Squarespace plan has by clicking here.
Still not sure which plan works best for you yet? I’ve created a basic checklist to help you determine which plan is best for you:
All done? Awesome!
Now find the last check mark on the list, and that is the plan that will meet your needs! Remember, each higher-tiered plan will have features from every tier below in addition to its own special features.
