Squarespace was founded by entrepreneur Anthony Casalena in 2003 from his dorm room at the University of Maryland, College Park. The company now employs over 1760 people. The platform hosts millions of websites.
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is a website builder and hosting platform with an intuitive user interface and a simple drag-and-drop editor. It empowers entrepreneurs to build their own websites, such as online stores, portfolio sites, or blogs, without needing any coding skills.
Squarespace is primarily known for its beautiful templates, easy customization, and AI-powered tools that help people create content or enhance their websites.
Squarespace also offers a Point of Sale (POS) that lets you sell your products in person while tracking inventory and customer data in one place, all through the Squarespace app.
How does Squarespace work?
Squarespace lets users create websites of any type. You can choose from a service, an online store, invoicing, scheduling, donations, memberships, a blog, or a portfolio site to build. From there, you choose from 28 templates for your main website design. You can customize your template by uploading your own images with the drag-and-drop editor. You can also instantly generate copy with AI.
Once you’ve completed your website and added your products or services to the platform. It’s time to start selling your products. Unfortunately, Squarespace doesn’t offer a marketplace to sell your products. You’ll need to find other ways to bring in potential visitors to your website, such as advertising, social media, and more.
What you need to know about selling on Squarespace
One thing you need to know about selling on Squarespace is that there are no free plans. They offer a 14-day free trial so you can check out the platform for yourself. Plans start at $30 per month, though you can save with an annual subscription. To get unlimited contributors, advanced website analytics, and a professional email from Google Workspace, you’ll need to sign up for the $45 plan. Overall, if you’re a beginner without any sales, this platform can be expensive. You might want to check out Squarespace alternatives for cheaper (or even free) website builders.
Squarespace also charges transaction fees and credit card fees on lower-tier plans. If you accept credit or debit card payments, you’ll pay 2.9% + $0.30 for all domestic transactions on the Basic plan. If someone uses an international card, you’ll be charged an additional 1.5%. If you need to convert currency, you’ll also be charged a 1% transaction fee. Certain credit cards or services, such as American Express, Klarna, or Afterpay, also charge an additional fee of up to 6% + $0.30. All these fees add up, while leaving you shortchanged.
While Squarespace does have instant payouts, they’re subject to additional fees. You’ll need to pay an additional 1.5% transaction fee to get paid instantly. Plus, there are minimum requirements of $0.50 for the US and varying prices for other countries. Instant payouts are also only available in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.
Squarespace doesn’t offer specialized features for selling digital products. For example, they don’t have built-in PDF stamping or even an affiliate marketing program to help you attract more sales through affiliates.
This platform also only allows selling in one currency. This can negatively impact international sales, as customers may prefer to pay in their own currency.
Is Squarespace the best platform to sell products?
No, Squarespace isn’t the best platform to sell products; Payhip is. Payhip offers a free forever plan with no monthly subscription. All you pay is a 5% transaction fee once you’ve made a sale. That equals more money in your pocket, so you can run a thriving online business. You can sell digital downloads, such as ebooks, memberships, and online courses, as well as physical products, coaching services, and software. To start selling products online, sign up for free.