Wix vs Squarespace: Which is Better in 2025?

For complete beginners, both platforms have their strengths, but they cater to different types of newcomers. Squarespace offers a more guided experience that's harder to mess up. Its templates are designed with guardrails that help you create something that looks professional even if you have zero design sense. There's less customization, but that's actually a blessing if you're just starting out – too many options can be paralyzing!

Wix, on the other hand, gives you more creative freedom right away, which can be either liberating or overwhelming depending on your personality. Their ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) feature is perfect if you want something up quickly – answer a few questions and boom, you've got a decent starting point. Just be careful with Wix's drag-and-drop freedom; I've seen many beginners create some truly chaotic layouts because there aren't as many design guardrails.

This isn't a simple dollars and cents question. While Wix offers a free plan and generally lower starting prices ($16 vs. $23 monthly for comparable plans), Squarespace includes more in their base packages. It's a bit like comparing a budget hotel that charges extra for WiFi and breakfast versus a slightly pricier option where everything's included.

With Squarespace, you're paying a premium for an all-in-one solution with better reliability, cleaner code, and templates that look polished right out of the box. Their unlimited storage on all plans is genuinely valuable if you work with lots of images. Wix might seem cheaper initially, but consider whether you'll need to spend extra on premium apps or higher tiers to get features that come standard with Squarespace. For many small businesses, the time saved from not having to troubleshoot Wix's occasional performance issues makes Squarespace worth the extra few dollars per month.

If you're selling online, both platforms have matured significantly in recent years, but they still have distinct personalities in the e-commerce space. Squarespace feels like it was built with creative entrepreneurs in mind – it's particularly suited for brands where aesthetics matter, like clothing, art, or specialty foods. The checkout experience is consistently smooth, and their product image displays are pretty much unmatched for visual appeal.

Wix has made huge strides with their e-commerce offering and actually provides more flexibility for certain types of businesses. If you need complex product variants or custom fields, Wix gives you more options without requiring a developer. Their subscription selling features are also quite robust. That said, Wix stores tend to require more backend management and optimization to match Squarespace's out-of-the-box performance. For most small to medium stores (under 100 products), either platform works well, but Squarespace typically delivers a more polished customer experience with less setup time.

I wish I had better news, but the truth is neither platform makes it particularly easy to jump ship. There's no magic "export to competitor" button here. Moving from one to the other requires essentially rebuilding your site from scratch, though your content can be salvaged.

If you're moving from Wix to Squarespace, you'll need to manually transfer your text content, download and re-upload all your images, and reconstruct your site structure. Blog posts are especially painful to transfer since formatting often breaks in the process. Going from Squarespace to Wix presents similar challenges. The saving grace is that both platforms allow you to build your new site while keeping the old one running, so you can take your time with the transition. If you're on the fence, I recommend spending time in both platforms' free trials before committing to reduce the chance you'll want to switch later.

This is a question where things have changed significantly in recent years. Historically, Squarespace had a clear advantage with cleaner code and better mobile optimization both factors Google cares about. While Squarespace still edges out Wix in terms of technical SEO foundation, Wix has closed the gap substantially.

The truth is that for most small businesses, either platform can be optimized well enough to rank for your target keywords. The basics customizable page titles, meta descriptions, URL structures, etc. are handled well by both. Where Squarespace still maintains an advantage is in page speed and mobile performance, which are increasingly important ranking factors. Wix sites tend to be heavier and slower unless you're careful with optimization. That said, Wix offers more granular control for SEO power users who want to tweak every aspect of their site's technical SEO. For most website owners, though, your content quality and backlink strategy will influence your rankings far more than your choice between these two platforms.