How much is Squarespace?

How much does Squarespace cost? Well, it depends on several factors: the hosting plan you choose and any additional Squarespace extensions or add-ons you find necessary for your website. 

In the early days, Squarespace was appreciated for its simple, all-in-one pricing. We’ve been building Squarespace websites since 2013—back when it was easy to understand exactly what you were getting and how much it would cost. However, as the platform began offering more specialized features, they transitioned to a more layered and complex pricing system. For a number of years, identifying the ideal Squarespace package was needlessly complicated. But with the introduction of their latest pricing plans, it’s a bit easier to evaluate things and find what best suits your needs.

• 2025 Squarespace Pricing for hosting:

  • Basic Plan: $192 annually (previously called Personal)

  • Core Plan: $276 annually (previously called Business)

  • Plus Plan: $468 annually (was Commerce for $336)

  • Advanced Plan: $1188 annually (was Advanced Commerce for $624)

  • Enterprise or bulk plans: Custom pricing requires a call with the Squarespace Enterprise sales team.

• Additional Fees: See other Squarespace fees plus additional costs to consider.

• Squarespace Marketplace: What is it and how much does it cost?

• Free Trial: Learn how to get an extended 12-month trial.

• Squarespace Discounts: Save 10%, 25%, or 50% on your first year.

Startups, established SMBs, and even enterprise organizations choose Squarespace for varied reasons. But if you plan to use the platform only for blogging, proof of concept, or to promote a short-term initiative you’ll have very different needs than a membership-based business that also sells products.

Comparing the annual Squarespace cost for low-end and high-end setups:

• Least expensive setup: If you keep things as simple as possible with only a Basic Plan website and a custom .com domain, your expenses will be a little over $200.

• Most expensive setup: If you used all the Squarespace bells and whistles available with an Advanced website plan, a newer TLD domain, the Max email marketing plan, Powerhouse appointment scheduling, your expenses would be nearly $3000 per year.

So if your small business is budget-minded, take time to figure out which plan you need to get started. Many sites using the Core plan should actually be on the Basic plan. And just as many Core plan sites would be better served by a Plus plan.

⚠️ NOTE: Forbes incorrectly states: “Unlike other site builders, there are no hidden fees and pricing doesn’t increase upon renewal,” this isn't accurate—prices do increase.

In the past, the cost of hosting was determined by the time of your sign-up, and it would persist at that rate. Previously, Squarespace's official documentation mentioned, “we'll honor the pricing you signed up at.” However, back in 2022, Squarespace changed their policy and adjusted renewal rates universally, impacting even their longstanding legacy plans.

Despite these changes, for many small businesses, Squarespace remains the most suitable platform. Learn more in our updated Squarespace Review.

Squarespace Pricing Explained

Squarespace offers 4 pricing tiers for hosting. All plans apply to both 7.0 and 7.1 templates. The four plans differ in features and transaction fees—visit Squarespace’s pricing page for an up-to-date features list. See our calculator for older plans to evaluate if you should move to the newer pricing structure.

Annual vs Monthly Hosting

Our usual recommendation is to pay annually—versus month-to-month—to save on fees. And in the case of Basic vs Core plans, a monthly Basic plan will cost you more than an annual Core plan for the year. Overall, if you plan to use Squarespace for at least a year, it makes sense to pay for the year in advance.

Note, Squarespace only offers refunds of annual plans within 14 days of purchase.

If these prices seem high, keep in mind Squarespace is designed to be an all-in-one hosting platform—and everyone is eligible for a Squarespace discount for their first year.

All Squarespace plans include:

• A mobile-ready website with hosting

• SSL-security

• E-commerce and blogging capability

• Video storage

• Ability to install Google Analytics 4

1) Basic Plan

This is a great plan to test the waters with Squarespace.

When should you upgrade from Basic to Core? When evaluating Squarespace Basic vs Core plans, if you need more than 30 minutes of video storage, want to integrate 3rd party apps via code injection, or use certain built-in marketing features (see below), then you’ll need to upgrade. The Basic plan charges an extra 2% fee for online store transactions and 7% for digital content transactions.

2) Core Plan

This upgrade removes the extra store transaction fee and offers the ability to customize your website with code. You gain customer discounts, real-time shipping rates, and Google Shopping. Core gives you 5 hours of video storage, and nice-to-have marketing features like a Promotional Pop-up, an Announcement Bar, and a Mobile Information Bar.

Important: While “store discounts” are listed as included, one-time use per customer is only available on the Advanced tier with older plans—see “Feature Gating” below for details.

3) Plus Plan

When should you upgrade from Core to Plus? This decision is often based on how much video storage your business needs (5 vs 50 hours) or if you sell digital content (5% vs 1% fees). This level also allows for a more flexible customer discount setup.

4) Advanced Plan

When should you upgrade from Plus to Advanced? If you’re primarily looking at saving on transaction fees with Squarespace Payments, the tier upgrades are not worth it unless you’re already doing significant sales. You’ll want to analyze your annual digital sales to see if the higher hosting fees are worth it in relation to any savings.

If you were on the older Advanced Commerce plan and are wondering if the new Advanced plan is worth the cost, you very likely might be able to move down to the new Plus plan and actually save money—crunch the numbers.

Special Considerations

Legacy Pricing

The pricing shown above is what you will pay if you sign up or switch plans today. But if your site has been around for a while, you might have a Squarespace legacy plan.

In 2022, Squarespace removed pricing and feature information from their legacy plan page—this was tied to their decision to increase plan prices across the board—but the information is available on the Wayback Machine.

IMPORTANT: Many legacy plans are feature-rich and cost much less than current plans—analyze the numbers before switching plans.

Feature Gating Without Clear Disclosure

Squarespace lists certain features as available across multiple pricing tiers, but functionality isn’t always consistent across tiers.

A good example is store discount codes: they’re listed as available across plans, but what’s not obvious is that key functionality—like limiting a discount to one use per customer—is only available on an Advanced Commerce plan for some users.

For most eCommerce businesses, a “10% off your first order” type promotion is a standard tactic. Without usage limits, though, that discount can be reused indefinitely. So while “discounts” are offered across three tiers, for some users, only the top plan includes the basic rules most businesses would assume are part of the feature.

Additional Squarespace Fees

What about other Squarespace fees? Squarespace is intended to be an all-in-one hosting platform. But there can be extra costs or “hidden fees” that catch some new customers off guard. In addition to the pricing plans outlined above, you’ll want to consider other related costs such as:

Domains: See Squarespace Domain pricing

You’ll pay to register a custom domain (pricing varies by TLD): www.yourbusiness.com

Note, you do not have to use Squarespace for domain registration, but it can make things easier for some organizations. You can also look at companies such as GoDaddy or Hover. Squarespace’s domain registration service is powered by Squarespace LLC and Tucows. Tucows is also the parent company of Hover.

Email Marketing: See Squarespace Email pricing

If you want to send marketing emails, you’ll need to use an email marketing platform. Squarespace offers paid plans. Mailchimp offers a free tier for new businesses.

Business Email: See Google Workspace Pricing via Squarespace

Most businesses need professional email: name@yourbusiness.com

This is especially true if you plan to send bulk emails via an email marketing platform, like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc. These platforms require a verified domain-based email to comply with anti-spam laws like CAN-SPAM and to reduce bounce rates and spam flags.

Squarespace does not host email, so check with Google Workspace or your domain registrar regarding email hosting.

Scheduling: See Acuity Scheduling pricing

Many businesses are interested in integrating a scheduling or booking app. Squarespace acquired Acuity Scheduling in 2019 and added the functionality to the backend of Squarespace. If you want something simple, Calendly offers a free plan—learn how we use Calendly with Squarespace.

Credit Card Transaction Fees

If you take payments online or accept credit cards, you will pay processing fees. We prefer Stripe over Paypal or Squarespace Payments. Learn more about transaction fees on Squarespace.

Note, if you add Afterpay to Squarespace, you’ll encounter higher fees.

Squarespace Digital Products

This particular product applies to older plans, such as Personal, Business, Commerce, and Advanced Commerce. Older plans sell digital products—such as Squarespace courses, membership programs, or ebooks—for a 9% transaction fee. Alternatively, you can choose a Digital Products add-on package to lower or eliminate these fees.

Third-Party Apps

Third-party apps you use to run your business (shipping, accounting, inventory, etc.) will likely have their own monthly or annual fees, plus possible transaction fees.

Many third-party services can be embedded into your site with custom code. To inject code, you’ll need the Squarespace Core plan or higher.

In 2019, Squarespace launched what they call Squarespace Extensions. These third-party integrations can be used in conjunction with Squarespace stores and the individual apps may charge fees.

Legal Information

You’ll want to consult with a lawyer regarding your Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, Legal Disclaimer, Affiliate Disclosure or any other legal information.

Images and Graphics

Free stock images are available, but at some point you’ll likely hire a graphic designer to create a logo and other brand assets. Or you might purchase stock images or videos. And you might hire a photographer for headshots or photos of your business.

Squarespace Marketplace Fees

In 2019, Squarespace launched what is called the “Squarespace Marketplace” on the 99designs platform. The Marketplace is a list of independent agencies and freelancers offering services such as websites, email marketing, or online strategy at varying levels of expertise and thus varying price points.

Squarespace officially maintains direct customer support, but over time, they’ve increasingly directed users to their community forum and the Marketplace for help.

Marketplace-based projects include higher fees than standard invoicing channels: a $100 introduction fee and 5-15% fee paid by the designer, plus an additional 5% surcharge paid by the client. For example, a $5000 project actually invoices to you for $5250. On that same project, a top-level designer pays $350 in fees (5% plus the intro fee). While an entry-level designer would pay $850 in fees.

This differs from normal business transactions where you’d pay a $5000 invoice and the designer would pay the usual 2.9% credit card transaction fee or no fees if paid by check.

The “client introduction fee” greatly impacts small projects. For example, on a $500 Marketplace quote, you’d pay $525, yet a top-level designer only earns $375 (paying $125 in fees or 25% of their quote). Most designers factor these Marketplace fees into their quotes for smaller projects—if they don’t, it generally signals inexperience, which can be a red flag for project execution.

Related: Back in 2021, Squarespace changed wording in their support documentation from “hire a Squarespace expert” to “hire a vetted SEO expert.” The links lead to the Squarespace Marketplace, but none of the profiles—including our profile—have been vetted for SEO skills. Why does this matter? Because the wrong hire increases business costs. If you need help with your online presence, first learn how to verify basic digital marketing or SEO skills.

Squarespace Free Trial

Standard 2-week trial: Squarespace does not offer a free website option, but they do offer a default 2-week free trial without a credit card.

Extended 12-month trial: Platinum Squarespace designers can open a 12-month free trial with 25% off annual hosting. Gold Partners can offer a 6-month trial with 20% off.

Squarespace Discounts

Learn more about verified Squarespace promo codes:

• 10% Off for everyone: GIMME10

• 25% Discount: Add a Squarespace Platinum Partner to your account for 25% savings.

• 50% for Students through the education program.

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