Do you want to skip the read and get right to my winner? Squarespace is my winner within this Weebly vs Squarespace comparison platform test.
Introduction to our Weebly vs Squarespace Comparison.
In this Weebly vs Squarespace head-to-head review, we compare two of the most popular website building platforms today. While it's true that Weebly currently edges Squarespace in terms of registered user count, the platform has plenty of value-added features that's getting attention.
We deep dive into the Weebly versus Squarespace site builders to get to the bottom of how each platform performs on several criteria. In this contest, we look at both Weebly Squarespace ease of use, features and flexibility, SEO and mobility, eCommerce tools, support and resources.
To simplify this review, we declare a winner in each section.
Let's get moving!
Overview: Which of Weebly or Squarespace Will You Choose?
Let's kick off this Weebly versus Squarespace platform comparison with a rundown of what Weebly Squarespace are in a nutshell.
Weebly:
The first argument in the Weebly vs Squarespace face-off is Weebly can build a fully functional online store for a lower cost. A highly trusted brand, Weebly has, to date, generated over 50 million websites on its Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.
The website builder really levelled up its game when eCommerce experts Square acquired it.
Squarespace:
Squarespace started as a blogging platform in 2014 but has risen to the eCommerce challenge soon enough. Also a SaaS platform like Weebly Squarespace has parallel offerings as its rival.
The immediate downside though is that it doesn't offer a free version.
Ease of Use:
When considering whether to use Weebly versus Squarespace as your online selling platform, ease of use is key. We will consider this factor and start with:
Weebly:
Weebly is one of the easiest to use among website builders, a point for Weebly vs Squarespace. The platform is very straightforward and made explicitly for business owners with zero website building experience.
Plus, it provides flexibility in template choices unlike other website builders. You can replace your first-choice template even after going live.
Squarespace:
Versus Weebly Squarespace is not as easy to use and figure out. As a result, it's a tad challenging for total newbies.
But if you’re used to making websites and know what you want, it becomes really intuitive.
Winner – Weebly! within this ‘Ease of Use' Weebly vs Squarespace comparison.
Features and Flexibility:
In terms of features and flexibility, when we compare Weebly and Squarespace, the latter has the edge. Here are a few key pointers on both.
Out-of-the-box:
What to expect from Weebly or Squarespace out-of-the-box?
Weebly:
Ever since its partnership with Square, Weebly has established itself as the go-to eCommerce solution for small businesses.
Most of its features are for running an online store with utmost convenience: an online store builder, robust SEO tools, marketing tools, and business-appropriate design templates.
Squarespace:
There is a lot of praise for Squarespace’s templates and customisation that makes your website look like the only one of its kind. When placing Weebly versus Squarespace side by side, the latter wins in visual appeal.
Another one of its best features is it allows user login for returning customers, increasing sales if you develop a loyal consumer base. Also, compared to Weebly Squarespace has more native eCommerce functionality in their standard plans.
Weebly vs Squarespace Themes and Templates:
Which among Weebly or Squarespace will let you create a more stunning website?
Weebly:
There are only over 50 themes to choose from, but beautifully designed. Some have concrete structures, but the layouts between themes are not interchangeable. If none of their available themes appeals to you, you can buy and export a 3rd party theme, though you should know how to implement the design into the code.
check the latest weebly Themes and templates now
Squarespace:
Squarespace has over 115 templates to choose from, all of them looking very stylish and contemporary, as if you had paid a big shot design team a truckload of money to design your website. The designs look even better with HD, high-quality photos; if you cannot produce your own, you can access Unsplash’s royalty-free image library for stunning professional images.
check the latest squarespace Themes and templates now
Weebly vs Squarespace Customisation Tools:
Weebly:
Customisation is minimal, not much beyond changing colours and fonts.
Squarespace:
Besides customising your templates and moving around elements within the template, you have access to over 1600 web-friendly fonts. You can add your CSS code to customise your template if you’re on the Business and Commerce plans.
One of their nifty customisation tools is a logo maker or an app that can help you design a logo if you don’t have one yet. You can download a high res version of your logo from the builder to use on your merch and offline branding.
Weebly vs Squarespace 3rd Party Integrations:
Between Weebly versus Squarespace, which platform can interface with more apps?
Weebly:
Weebly has an App Center for additional functions that you may want on your website, such as comments and contact forms, social media connectivity, or even for simple tools like a Back to Top automatic scroll button. You can find more apps with the Square App Store.
Squarespace:
Squarespace allows access to 3rd party plugins and extensions, such as Dropbox, MailChimp, Pinterest, ChowNow, and more, and premium extensions if you’re on the higher Business and Commerce plans. However, the latter can be quite expensive.
Weebly vs Squarespace Hosting:
Both Squarespace vs Weebly are fully hosted on their own servers.
Weebly vs Squarespace Backups:
Weebly:
You can backup and export your site as a zip file, but you won’t be able to import it back into Weebly. However, you may use this backup as a reference.
Squarespace:
There is a notion that Squarespace backs up its websites, but attempting to access previous versions of your site is complex and daunting. Squarespace users will advise you to make your own backups.
Winner – Squarespace! within this ‘Feature and Flexibility' Weebly vs Squarespace comparison. The templates Squarespace offers tip the scales here.
Weebly vs Squarespace eCommerce Tools:
Whether you choose Weebly to Squarespace or any other platform,, eCommerce tools' availability is absolutely crucial to making the most of your online presence. Both platforms offer extensive choice.
Weebly:
The eCommerce builder is one of the most uncomplicated builders around.
But both Weebly or Squarespace store builders are obviously made for small businesses. You have all you need to sell a substantial number of products.
Yet if you want to grow into an enterprise eventually, you would inevitably outgrow Weebly, as well.
That said, its eCommerce tools are exceptionally hardworking. You can use Square’s payment gateway, as well as Stripe and PayPal. You can also set up tax settings and create several shipping options for different order types and destinations. It has a built-in email marketing tool so that you can streamline your marketing strategies.
Squarespace:
Comparing Weebly versus Squarespace, the latter has more in-house eCommerce tools. It has dedicated eCommerce plans through the Business and Commerce plans. They take a 3% transaction fee from your sales at the Business plan. There are no transaction fees with the upper Commerce plans, though.
Also, since you are paying for the service, Squarespace’s eCommerce tools are more sophisticated than Weebly’s.
It is pretty easy to populate and manage your online store, with many attractive templates from which to choose. However, the only payment gateway options are Stripe and PayPal.
Winner – Squarespace! within our ‘eCommerce Tools' Weebly versus Squarespace comparison. Simply includes more tools as standard.
Weebly vs Squarespace SEO and Mobility:
In the Weebly vs Squarespace decision stakes, the SEO & Mobility features cannot be ignored. The good news is that both offer advantages for your online presence. Here are highlights of the Weebly versus Squarespace SEO and Mobile functionality.
Weebly:
Weebly has solid SEO support, and each product page in your online store is optimised for search.
There have been complaints about Weebly websites loading rather slowly, and many have reported that it may be due to the integrated 3rd party plugins used on the site. In their community forums, Weebly assures its customers that they have improved their page speeds and overall efficiency.
Squarespace:
Squarespace is optimised for search in that it is secure, enables SSL for free, and allows you to insert your own keywords and meta tags.
Similar to Weebly Squarespace assures that it optimises your site for faster loading speeds. However, your site's content may still affect how long the page will load.
On Weebly vs Squarespace mobility, both platforms are fully mobile-responsive.
Winner – Squarespace! within our ‘SEO and Mobility' Weebly vs Squarespace comparison.
Support and Resources:
Weebly:
Weebly provides email, social media and live chat support, and for the paid plans, telephone support. It has an organised and extensive Knowledge Base, which is more intuitive if you login with your Weebly account.
Their Online Community is also somewhat helpful if you’re patient enough to surf through the topics.
Squarespace:
No telephone support for Squarespace, but their live chat is quite responsive, and they respond to emails within a day.
Their online support system is extensive, with in-depth articles, video workshops, community forum, and scheduled live webinars to get familiar with creating and maintaining your site.
You can also opt to Hire an Expert, that is, get matched with an experienced designer or developer to help you build your site.
Winner – Weebly! within our ‘Support and Resources' Weebly vs Squarespace comparison. Both very good but Weebly simply has telephone support when Squarespace doesn't.
Weebly Squarespace Pricing:
We know how pricing ranks as one of the most important considerations in choosing between Weebly versus Squarespace. Therefore, here is an overview of Weebky Squarespace pricing structure:
Weebly:
The best thing about Weebly: a free, no-expiration plan. Of course, this plan comes with limitations such as forced ads and limited features.
eCommerce is not available with the Free and Connect plans. However, you will get you a beautifully designed, search engine optimised content website that can capture leads with contact forms and allows you to connect a custom domain. The downside: it still comes with ads!
Meanwhile, the Pro plan and the Business plan let you build your online shop. These plans cover unlimited storage, marketing and site analytics tools, telephone support, and they take down the Weebly ads that appear in your site on the lower plans. There are more tools with the Business plan, which is quite a good deal for the price.
The Pro and Business plans also throw in a free domain and Google Ads credit worth $100.
As can be seen from Weebly terms of service, customers are also offered 14-day money-back guarantee for peace of mind.
For those looking for a dedicated eCommerce solution, two plans are offered:
- Weebly Business; and
- Weebly Business Plus plan.
>> Click for the lowest Weebly pricing plans today <<
Squarespace:
Unlike Weebly Squarespace does not offer a free plan. However, following Squarespace Terms of Service, Squarespace offer a free 14 day trial.
You can consider any of the 4 monthly price options:
>> Click for the lowest Squarespace pricing plans today <<
Transaction fees are non-existent on the Basic Commerce and Advanced Commerce plans, and you get more eCommerce tools, such as Customer Accounts and Products to Instagram.
Further, Advanced shipping and Abandoned Cart Recovery are only available with the Advanced Commerce plan.
Winner – Draw! within our ‘Pricing' category for Weebly or Squarespace comparison. The pricing for non ad plans is very similar for what is offered. This should not be a deciding factor for your choice.
Weebly Squarespace Comparison Winner:
Whilst both platforms are excellent choices for your online presence, we have used and studied both platforms thoroughly and we call Squarespace the winner to this Weebly or Squarespace comparison platform test.
Conclusion and Recommendation to our Weebly vs Squarespace Comparison:
Wrapping up, which do you choose – Weebly or Squarespace?
Whatever features Weebly lacks, it compensates with other elements that perform exceptionally well, and the same can be said of Squarespace, but for different aspects. Choosing between them is only a matter of which builder is best for your purposes.
What is Weebly best used for?
If you’re a small business, Weebly has all the tools you would need to create an online store, even without knowing where to begin.
What is Squarespace best used for?
Squarespace is the go-to builder if your website needs to be aesthetically pleasing. Also, if you’re particular about customisation and branding and willing to spend a little more for more features, Squarespace is a better option. It is also the better choice for blogs and portfolios because of the intuitive CMS, for your blog, and the design template options, for your portfolio.
Weebly or Squarespace Alternatives:
If one would put together Weebly Squarespace Wix and WordPress, you could probably come up with the perfect website builder. Wix is also an easy platform to use like with Weebly and has good customisation, while WordPress remains the best blogging platform.
Here's a list of the best Weebly or Squarespace alternatives to create a website;
| Rank | Website Builders | Our View |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Squarespace | Best for Design & Creatives |
| 2 | Shopify | Best All-In-One eCommerce solution |
| 3 | Webflow | Best for advanced design tools |
| 4 | Weebly | Best for ease of use |
| 5 | Wordpress.com | Best for beginner blogging |
| 6 | Carrd | Best for single page websites |
| 7 | Wix | Good for general use |
Weebly vs Squarespace Final Word:
It is clear from this Weebly versus Squarespace review that both website builders have the same goal: to provide a simple platform for business owners without technical know-how.
When building an easy online store to help your small business expand, Weebly or Squarespace are both excellent platforms to use, depending on your preferences and how much you’re willing to spend.
If you can't make up your mind yet on whether to choose Weebly or Squarespace, a test drive should be in order. Take advantage of the 14-day free trial period offered by Squarespace to get a real feel.
Try Squarespace for Free today
That’s all for now:
If you've read our Weebly vs Squarespace comparison up to here, we are grateful. Remember to always keep abreast of the latest developments on website builders, eCommerce, and other Weebly Squarespace alternative comparison articles, such as the ones below;
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