WooCommerce vs. Squarespace

Choosing the right eCommerce platform will save you time and money later. WooCommerce and Squarespace are two of the most popular options, but since they serve different audiences, understanding their differences is vital.

When I began selling products online, I tried multiple platforms, including WooCommerce and Squarespace. Based on that knowledge, I’m comparing the two platforms in this complete article. By the end, you should know which one is better for you.

WooCommerce is an eCommerce platform designed to work within WordPress. The company has been focusing solely on eCommerce since 2017, having originally operated under the name WooThemes.

Today, WooCommerce powers 3.6 million stores globally—including almost a third of the world’s top million eCommerce websites. Brands that use WooCommerce include the New Zealand All Blacks, Van Leeuwen, and Yoast.

WooCommerce, like WordPress, is open-source.

Squarespace is primarily a website builder, but eCommerce business owners are also part of its audience. The platform, founded in 2003, is closed-source.

Since launching over 20 years ago, Squarespace has powered millions of websites. The company is based in New York City, with offices and employees in other parts of the world. Now that you know a bit more about WooCommerce and Squarespace, let’s compare them. We’ll cover each of the following:

WooCommerce, on the other hand, is much more complex. You’ll have to learn not only how to customize your website but also how to integrate payment solutions and secure your website. Rather than learning everything in one go, discovering all of WooCommerce’s benefits is more of an iterative process.

Given its simplicity, Squarespace wins if you’re looking for a smaller learning curve. However, WooCommerce will likely be more useful if you plan to grow your eCommerce store in the long run.

Winner: Squarespace

Theme Availability

Squarespace has hundreds of themes available. When creating a new site, you can choose your desired category. Squarespace will also ask you about your website’s primary intentions, to help you pick a better-fitting theme.

Besides choosing from pre-designed themes, you can also build a site from scratch with AI. Moreover, you’ll find various Squarespace themes for sale online.

Despite Squarespace’s diverse website theme offerings, looking past WooCommerce is hard. You can download thousands of WordPress themes designed with WooCommerce in mind. Kadence is my personal favorite; with the Full Bundle plan, you get ShopKit for WooCommerce included.

Winner: WooCommerce

Security

Ticking off your website security checklist is even more important with an eCommerce store, and your chosen platform can make a huge difference. Squarespace manages security for you, and you automatically get a free SSL certificate when you launch your site.

Squarespace also has a sophisticated system to prevent direct denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Furthermore, you can enhance the security of your eCommerce store with tools like two-factor authentication (2FA).

Managing security in WooCommerce is more hands-on, so you’re responsible for implementing the right procedures. The good news, however, is that you can choose your own servers and hosting providers to maximize site security. You can also implement cloud security practices.

WooCommerce does have 2FA, and I recommend setting this up as soon as you launch your store. While many security plugins are available elsewhere, I suggest spending money on a more comprehensive security infrastructure.

Squarespace offers more hands-off security, but you can maximize site safety with WooCommerce. I’m giving them both a point here.

Winner: Tie

Mobile Optimization

Optimizing your eCommerce store for mobile is essential for the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO). Squarespace’s themes are already largely optimized for mobile, with dynamic elements that change based on screen size.

Squarespace themes also tend to run quickly from a baseline on mobile devices. However, your site customization will play a huge role. If you add large image file sizes, your eCommerce store will inevitably run more slowly.

Your WooCommerce mobile optimization depends on multiple factors. Your chosen theme plays a huge role, and I recommend researching it in depth before making a purchase. The servers on which you host your store also play a role.

Squarespace again has a better default mobile optimization baseline. However, WooCommerce is more customizable in this respect. Therefore, it’s another tie.

Winner: Tie

eCommerce Store Customization

Since WooCommerce is open-source, the customization possibilities are endless. You can find plugins and extensions for virtually anything. For example, you can integrate instant checkout solutions to facilitate faster sales and (potentially) more revenue.

You can also integrate plugins for your WordPress website to further customize WooCommerce and maintain a consistent brand. Moreover, it’s possible to completely control your SEO tools—plus many other elements.

WooCommerce also offers complete control over the territories you sell to, along with your product descriptions and more. Besides plugins, you can use several shortcodes.

Squarespace offers a reasonable degree of customization, too. You can change your product descriptions, upload images, and change your page layout. You can also integrate tools like Google Analytics.

However, because it’s closed-source, Squarespace does not offer anywhere near the same level of customization as WooCommerce. As you scale your eCommerce store, you’ll probably want more control over everything; for this reason, WooCommerce gets a point here.

Winner: WooCommerce

Pricing

WooCommerce in and of itself is free. However, you must pay for hosting, your domain, and plugins. You might also need to pay for your theme, and if you aren’t tech-savvy, you may have to hire a developer to customize your website.

Squarespace, on the other hand, has monthly and annual subscriptions. Pricing varies depending on region, and you may have to pay sales tax in addition to the base price. Expect to pay the following if you’re based in the US:

Note that you need to pay for your domain in addition to the subscription fee. However, you can get a free domain for the first year.

While WooCommerce is technically free, you don’t necessarily know how much you’ll pay before signing up for add-ons, domains, and so on. So, because Squarespace’s pricing is more set in stone, I’m giving Squarespace the point here.

Handling Payments and Tax

Depending on your location and where you ship to, you might need to pay sales tax. Setting this up is essential from the get-go. If you sell within the US on Squarespace, you can automatically calculate sales tax with TaxJar. However, you need to manually set up tax rates for other parts of the world.

With WooCommerce, you’ll need to integrate the WooCommerce Tax plugin. Doing so, however, is free.

Squarespace handles payments for you, and you can accept multiple methods – including Mastercard and Visa. On the other hand, WooCommerce will require you to integrate your own payment gateway.

WooCommerce is better for automatic tax calculation, but taking payments in Squarespace is much easier. So, I’m giving both tools a point again.

Winner: Tie

Scalability

Squarespace is a fantastic eCommerce website builder for beginners, and you can launch your website much faster. As a result, you can take business more quickly and grow your bottom line.

When you’re ready to scale, you can upgrade to a different Squarespace plan if needed. However, due to the platform’s closed-source nature, you may encounter issues scaling your store through Squarespace.

On the other hand, WooCommerces’s scalability is relatively uncapped. You’ll need to ensure that your servers and resources can handle your traffic and payment volumes, but you can grow a huge eCommerce store if you wish to.

Winner: WooCommerce

Site Visibility

Applying SEO to your eCommerce store is vital to maximize visibility, regardless of whether you have a local or international audience. With WooCommerce, you can integrate multiple SEO plugins to improve your presence. For example, you can connect to Google Analytics and monitor your traffic via MonsterInsights.

You can integrate tools like RankMath, Yoast SEO, and All-in-One SEO (AIOSEO) to optimize your products and pages. Moreover, you can edit your categories, URLs, and meta descriptions/titles.

WooCommerce also has a Google for WooCommerce plugin, which allows you to share your products on Google and YouTube.

You can also edit your product descriptions, along with your page metadata, when using Squarespace. Moreover, you can monitor your traffic via Squarespace SEO. The tool directly integrates with Google Search Console and shows you clicks, impressions, and many other metrics.

Squarespace also offers an SEO checklist. Moreover, you can leverage its dedicated eCommerce tools. For example, Squarespace will create pages designed with SEO for all your products.

Squarespace offers a solid selection of SEO tools to help you improve your visibility. Both platforms are ideal for beginners, but WooCommerce allows for more complex SEO customization.

WooCommerce is the best option for anyone who wants to build an eCommerce store and desires more control over customization. You can design your store exactly how you want, with endless scalability options. Moreover, you can pick the exact servers and hosting partners you’d like.

If you have technical expertise, WooCommerce can help you stand out from your competitors. The platform is also ideal if you already have a WordPress website and want to keep everything on the same site.

Squarespace is a better option if you’re a total eCommerce beginner and want a simple store to sell your products and services. You can quickly get set up, and it’s also very easy to list what you want to sell.

You should also consider Squarespace if you don’t want to spend time setting up payment gateways. Moreover, it’s an ideal option if you want your website security managed by someone else.

WooCommerce and Squarespace are two of the most popular platforms for eCommerce stores, and if I had to pick an outright winner, it would be WooCommerce. Despite its steeper learning curve, you’ll have more control over your website. It’s also easier to scale in the long run, and you can make it match your branding elsewhere. Squarespace is still an ideal beginner’s option, but looking past WooCommerce is hard.