All the Squares

Are Squarespace & Square one in the same?

Nope! Squarespace & Square are two completely different companies both offering user friendly website design platforms or content management systems.

I have received this question and encountered this assumption numerous times from business owners. It is confusing and was worthy of a blog post to share more.

Square is a very popular payment processor that also offers a very basic website design option and the ability to add an online storefront to a brick & mortar store.

Squarespace is an all in one content management system and website design platform. Squarespace does not offer payment processing but does easily integrate with Square as one of the options to accept payments.

Let's take a closer look:

Square has been around as a payment processor since February of 2009. In June of 2013, Square launched Square Market enabling business owners to create an online storefront and most recently acquired another design platform, Weebly.

Square offers a one stop shop to create an online store and even has a free option to build a site. There are payment processing fees like all merchant services. However, the fees are more affordable and is less expensive than other website builders with the exception of the top tier plan. Square also offers a robust inventory management system and can sync brick and mortar to the online store front with ease.

Squarespace was created in 2013 in a college dorm room at the University of Maryland. It is one of the most well known design platforms that now includes many tools for business owners like the recently acquired Acuity Scheduling. Squarespace offers many beautiful and modern design templates to get your website set up quickly.

As mentioned above, Squarespace integrates with Square and also Stripe with the ability to add PayPal as a secondary payment option. Squarespace does not offer a free plan but is also very affordable with e-commerce options that do not charge any additional processing fees. You will still have the merchant fees but at least Squarespace doesn't take anything else off the top!

As far as site design, Squarespace is the clear winner over Square. There are many more template options to choose from with the ability to further customize the template easily with code.

My opinion on the two options:

Both platforms offer drag and drop editors and free templates to get your website off the ground. However if a more sophisticated design is important to you, Squarespace is the clear winner. There are so many more options to customize your site with e-commerce available.

Squarespace is an awesome choice for service based businesses or e-commerce stores with less than 100 products. In my opinion, Square works well for simple online store fronts that do not require much customization and for the ease of use for those owning a brick & mortar wanting to expand online. Of course, my number one for e-commerce will always be Shopify. Read my previous blog post about why here.

With that said, I definitely see a place where Square can serve a business well. For example, check out Leslie Wall Beauty Co. For a Spa owner, Square works well for a simple yet beautiful and functional website allowing Leslie Wall Beauty Co. to showcase her spa and services as well as book appointments and accept payments.

If you were one of the many confused about the difference with ALL THE SQUARES, I hope this was helpful. If you are unsure about which option is right for your business, please reach out.