Squarespace vs WordPress: Which one is right for you? (2026 edition!)

Despite WordPress being the reigning king of website builders, I have a cautionary tale.

Recently I had a new client come to me asking me if by hiring me they would be able to update their site. I was confused at first until they told me they had hired someone to build them a site, but then the person they hired kept the site under lock and key from them!

They couldn't update anything on it themselves. They had to make a request to the shall-not-be-named company (honestly it doesn't matter, there are many companies like this) every time they wanted an event posted or to change their phone number.

Of course, this always came with an "update" fee of $75 per update. This is on top of the $35/month they were paying for their website!

I don't think my client was gullible in choosing this company. Everywhere you go online you see web developers talking about how you should choose WordPress over xyz builder. It's endlessly customizable, has fast loading times, and you "own" your site. (I take issue with this last one but I'll get into why later.)

What people who recommend WordPress don't seem to understand, most of the time not all of the time, is that not all of us want to spend time updating our site monthly, making sure plugins are current (so that our site still works), that nothing is broken visually, and most importantly, we don't want to touch a lick of code. We just want it to work, look good, and we want to be able to update it ourselves.

To be honest, my client was ripped off. She wanted control, she wanted to be able to do these things herself! She wasn't super techie but wasn't that bad with it either!

Now she does all those things herself. I empower my clients to be able to update their website. Of course, if they want a big revision they might need to contact me again and I'm happy to help, but the beauty of Squarespace is that anyone can do basic updates.

So what exactly makes Squarespace a strong choice for the average person and especially creatives, over WordPress? And why might you still want to use WordPress?

Squarespace vs WordPress: First, Let's Clarify Which WordPress

Quick but important note: there are actually two WordPresses.

WordPress.com is a hosted website builder, similar to Squarespace, where they handle hosting for you. It's relatively beginner-friendly but quite limited in its free and lower-tier plans.

WordPress.org is the self-hosted, open-source platform: the one developers rave about, the one that powers 43% of the entire internet, and the one most people mean when they say "WordPress." This is what we'll be comparing to Squarespace throughout this post.

The distinction matters because the experience and costs are very different between the two.

Squarespace vs WordPress: Editor

Squarespace has both the advantages and disadvantages of having one editor. It's an advantage because it means you have one editor to learn, integrated with the hosting provider.

Squarespace is simple.

At the same time, Squarespace is less flexible than WordPress. There's no getting around that. If you have a specific and extremely unique vision for your site, you might want to go with WordPress. Even I, a loyal Squarespace designer, can admit that.

WordPress as an editor is hard to pin down because there are many, many plugins and builders to choose from. Some of the most popular ones are Elementor, Divi, and Seedprod. (I myself played around with Elementor for about 6 months before coming back to Squarespace. 😅)

These are all additional paid add-ons that you have to subscribe to in order to build your site nicely. This brings the cost difference between Squarespace and WordPress much closer than people expect. I was saving roughly $100 a year using WordPress and hating the headache that came with updating my site. That's roughly $8 a month. My time is definitely worth more than $8 per hour!!!

Squarespace vs WordPress: Pricing

Let's get specific about costs, because this is where people are often surprised.

Squarespace Pricing

• Basic: $16/month (billed annually): Portfolio sites, blogs, you can now sell unlimited products on this plan (though with transaction fees)

• Core: $23/month (billed annually): Most businesses. 0% transaction fees, advanced analytics, code injection

• Plus: $39/month (billed annually): Growing stores, abandoned cart recovery

• Advanced: $99/month (billed annually): Large e-commerce operations

Everything is included: hosting, SSL, templates, and built-in tools. Optional add-ons like Email Campaigns (starting at $5/month) are separate but integrated.

WordPress Pricing (it's complicated)

WordPress.org itself is free to download. But to actually run a website you'll need:

• Hosting: $14-$35/month for reliable hosting (budget hosts are cheaper but you get what you pay for in terms of speed and support)

• Domain: ~$15/year

• Theme: Free to $120 (the free ones are limited; premium themes unlock the good stuff)

• Page builder (Elementor, Divi, etc.): $60-$90/year

• Essential plugins (SEO, security, backups, forms, caching): $0-$200/year

• Developer fees: If you need help, WordPress developers typically charge more than Squarespace designers because the complexity warrants it

A realistic professional WordPress site runs about $25-$60/month. Comparable to Squarespace, but with significantly more maintenance on your end.

The honest take? WordPress is not the budget option it used to be compared to website builders. The cost difference has largely evaporated. What remains is the difference in complexity and maintenance responsibility.

Squarespace vs WordPress: Ownership

Let's just get this out in the open. No matter which platform you choose, you may feel like you don't "own" your site enough. What do I mean by that?

With WordPress, people will often say you own your website and only pay for hosting. If you are making the site yourself, yes, you absolutely have more control. However, consider the case of my client: she certainly didn't feel like she owned her site! If you hire someone to create your website, which is likely unless you're a budding developer yourself, you're beholden to them to make changes. And in some cases, if you stop paying, the site is simply gone.

I don't want to make WordPress sound more complicated than it is. It's entirely possible to have no web development background and still build a decent WordPress site. But if you have no experience it will take significant learning (aka, time).

You have to install WordPress, set up config files, upload and connect to a database, set up... Have I lost you? This is all before you've even put a title on your homepage. If this sounds like something you don't want to jump into, I strongly suggest Squarespace.

One more thing people aren't talking about enough in 2026: WordPress security. Because it's open-source and powers such a large chunk of the internet, it's a major target for hackers. You're responsible for keeping WordPress itself updated, keeping all your plugins updated (an outdated plugin is a security hole), and running security monitoring. This requires either your time or a paid security plugin. Many people are quietly moving away from WordPress specifically because the ongoing maintenance burden has become overwhelming.

Yes, with Squarespace you "own less." When people say this, they mean it's more difficult to migrate your site to another platform in the future. Notice I said more difficult but not impossible? Here's what you can easily export to WordPress:

• All basic pages

• One blog page (all posts exported as WordPress pages under 'blog')

• Gallery pages

• Text, image, and embedded blocks

What you'd have to manually port over:

• Product pages, album pages, and event pages

• Audio/video and product blocks

• Style changes and custom CSS

• Folders and index pages

• More than one blog

The bottom line: you can get a working skeleton out of Squarespace if you really need to. But most people never need to.

A final note on ownership. You're always going to pay someone, whether for hosting, plugins, or a combination. It's less a black-and-white question of who "owns" your site and more about who you're beholden to and how much ongoing maintenance you want to take on.

Squarespace vs WordPress: SEO

I'll try to avoid giving a full SEO 101 lesson here, but here's what matters.

Squarespace lets you customize:

• Titles and meta descriptions

• Alt-text on images

• URLs

• 301 redirects

• 404 error pages

• Schema markup (basic)

• Google Search Console and Google Analytics (direct integration)

This is genuinely solid for the vast majority of small businesses. If you know your keywords and compress your images, you can rank well on Squarespace.

I use SEOspace*, which I still highly recommend in 2026. It's grown a lot since I first mentioned it and is a great way to audit and improve your Squarespace SEO without hiring a specialist.

WordPress also covers all of the above AND offers more advanced SEO plugins. Yoast SEO and RankMath are the big players, and both have robust free versions. For highly competitive industries or complex sites, WordPress SEO tools are more powerful.

The honest truth for most of my readers: if you're a service-based business, creative, or coach, Squarespace's SEO is more than capable of getting you found. The people who genuinely need WordPress's advanced SEO tools are running large content sites, highly competitive e-commerce stores, or very technical operations.

That said, page speed matters for SEO, and Squarespace consistently scores better on load time tests than WordPress sites that haven't been carefully optimized. A slow WordPress site with great SEO tools can still underperform a fast Squarespace site with decent optimization.

That's a Wrap!

So what should you do with all this info? To summarize...

WordPress offers:

• Extreme customization and flexibility

• A higher degree of ownership and portability

• More powerful SEO and e-commerce tools at scale

• The ability to build almost anything imaginable

The trade-off: Significant learning curve, ongoing maintenance (security, plugin updates, backups), and a true cost that's closer to Squarespace than the "WordPress is free" argument suggests.

Squarespace offers:

• One integrated platform with hosting, design, and features included

• Beginner-friendly editor with AI assistance

• Automatic security, updates, and backups (no maintenance required)

• Beautiful, professional results without design experience

• Clear, predictable pricing

The trade-off: Less flexibility for very complex or large-scale builds, and harder to migrate if you ever want to leave.

My recommendation hasn't changed: If you want an easy-to-edit, beautiful site that you (or your clients) can manage without becoming a part-time web developer, Squarespace is the right call. If you genuinely need advanced customization, complex e-commerce, or highly specialized functionality, and you're willing to manage the technical overhead, WordPress delivers.

Only you can decide which is best for you. But I always recommend giving Squarespace a serious look before defaulting to WordPress just because "that's what everyone says."