Squarespace vs Shopify In 2026: Which Platform Should Run Your Store?
Daria Pohrebniak
Marketing Director - Reverb
10.18.2026
Squarespace and Shopify both promise a beautiful online store without code, and both deliver. They just start from different places. Squarespace is a design-led website builder with solid ecommerce built in. It is a favorite of creatives, boutiques and service businesses that want a gorgeous site where the shop is one part of the story. Shopify is a dedicated commerce platform built to sell, process orders and scale, used by everyone from first-time sellers to global brands.
For a small, visually driven store, the choice is genuinely close. As catalogs, order volumes and sales channels grow, the gap widens in Shopify’s favor. This guide compares plans and fees, design, store features, marketing, apps and scalability using current US pricing as of October 2026, so you can choose with your next three years in mind rather than just launch day.
Short answer: choose Squarespace for a design-first brand site with a modest catalog, content or memberships; choose Shopify if selling products online is your core business or you expect to grow quickly.
Supports physical, digital, service and subscription products
Unlimited products
Point of sale
Squarespace POS (US and UK)
Shopify POS, POS Pro at $89 per location per month
App ecosystem
Small extensions catalog
Shopify App Store, the largest commerce ecosystem
Best for
Creatives, boutiques, service businesses
Product brands and fast-growing stores
What Is The Difference Between Squarespace And Shopify?
The main difference between Squarespace and Shopify is priority. Squarespace prioritizes the website: typography, layout, imagery, brand storytelling. Its commerce features are well integrated and attractive, but they are part of a broader website product that also includes blogs, portfolios, scheduling, email campaigns and member areas.
Shopify prioritizes the store. The admin is organized around products, orders, inventory and customers. Its checkout, powered by Shop Pay for returning shoppers, is one of the most optimized on the web. Its sales channels push your catalog to marketplaces and social platforms, and its app ecosystem covers virtually every ecommerce need. Content pages and blogging exist, but they are secondary.
A simple test: if you would describe your business as a brand, studio or service that sells some products, Squarespace fits naturally. If you would describe it as an online store, Shopify is built for you.
Squarespace vs Shopify Pricing In 2026
At first glance Squarespace looks cheaper, with an entry plan $10 below Shopify’s. The real comparison depends on transaction fees and what you sell. All prices below are US prices as of October 2026.
Squarespace Pricing
Squarespace offers four plans. On annual billing they cost $19 (Basic), $29 (Core), $49 (Plus) and $99 (Advanced) per month; monthly billing is $25, $39, $65 and $139. Every plan can sell, but Basic adds a 2% platform fee on product sales. Details are on the Squarespace pricing page.
Squarespace plan
Annual price per month
Fee on product sales
Fee on digital products and memberships
Card processing
Basic
$19
2%
7%
2.9% + 30 cents
Core
$29
0%
5%
2.9% + 30 cents
Plus
$49
0%
1%
2.7% + 30 cents
Advanced
$99
0%
0%
2.5% + 30 cents
ACH payments cost 1.5% on Basic and 1% on Core and above. Plus adds enhanced shipping and tax tools, and Advanced adds advanced subscription and shipping features with the lowest fees.
Shopify Pricing
Shopify’s main plans cost $29 (Basic), $79 (Grow) and $299 (Advanced) per month on annual billing, or $39, $105 and $399 billed monthly. Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 per month. New stores get 3 days free, then $1 per month for 3 months, per the Shopify pricing page.
Shopify plan
Annual price per month
Online card rate (US)
In-person card rate
Third-party gateway fee
Basic
$29
2.9% + 30 cents
2.6% + 10 cents
2%
Grow
$79
2.7% + 30 cents
2.5% + 10 cents
1%
Advanced
$299
2.5% + 30 cents
2.4% + 10 cents
0.6%
Plus
From $2,300
2.25% + 30 cents
2.3% + 10 cents
0.2%
With Shopify Payments there is no extra transaction fee. Use another payment provider and Shopify adds the fee shown on top of that provider’s rate.
Total Cost Of Ownership
For physical products, Squarespace Core and Shopify Basic are the fair comparison: both cost $29 per month annually, both charge no platform fee with their own payment processor, and both process US cards at 2.9% plus 30 cents. Squarespace Basic at $19 looks cheaper, but its 2% fee makes it more expensive than Core once you sell more than about $500 a month.
The difference shows up as you grow. Squarespace’s Plus ($49) unlocks a lower card rate of 2.7% plus 30 cents that Shopify only offers on Grow ($79), so for a store doing $15,000 to $25,000 a month, Squarespace can be the cheaper home. Shopify’s advantage at that stage is not price but capability: more inventory locations, more apps, more channels and a checkout that tends to convert better. Shopify stores also typically spend $20 to $200 or more per month on apps, which Squarespace users often avoid by using built-in tools.
A Worked Example
Consider a boutique selling $8,000 a month in physical products with an average order of $80 (100 orders). On Squarespace Core or Shopify Basic, both at $29 per month, US card processing at 2.9% plus 30 cents comes to about $262 per month, so the total is roughly $291 on either platform before apps or add-ons. On Squarespace Basic the 2% platform fee would add $160, which is why Basic only makes sense for very low sales. At $20,000 a month (250 orders), Squarespace Plus at $49 with its 2.7% plus 30 cents rate costs about $49 plus $615 in processing, while Shopify Grow at $79 at the same card rate costs about $79 plus $615. Squarespace is $30 a month cheaper at that point, and Shopify has to earn that back through higher conversion or lower app and operations costs. These are illustrations; real costs depend on your card mix and payment methods.
For digital products and memberships, Squarespace’s platform fees (5% on Core) are significant. A creator selling $5,000 a month in courses on Core would pay $250 in platform fees before card processing, so moving to Advanced, where that fee is 0%, or comparing with a Shopify app setup is worth modeling.
Design And Templates
Squarespace is the design leader here. Its templates are elegant, editorial and consistent, and the section-based editor makes it hard to produce an ugly page. Product pages look premium with minimal effort, and the rest of the site, from the about page to the journal, shares the same polish. For fashion, art, homeware, jewelry and lifestyle brands that sell on aesthetics, this is a real advantage.
Shopify’s themes are built for selling. They include merchandising features such as collection filtering, quick add, product recommendations and promotional sections, and they are tuned for conversion and speed. Premium themes look excellent, and a developer can customize every pixel with Liquid or go headless. The out-of-the-box result is more commercial and less editorial than Squarespace, which is often exactly what a growing store needs.
Verdict: Squarespace for brand-led design with little effort. Shopify for conversion-focused store design and unlimited customization with a developer.
Ease Of Use
Squarespace is easier for building and maintaining a complete website. The editor, commerce settings, scheduling and email tools all live in one tidy dashboard. Owners who are not technical tend to feel at home quickly.
Shopify is easier for running a store day to day. Orders, fulfillment, shipping labels, inventory, refunds and customer service are front and center. Setting up a theme and choosing apps involves more decisions than Squarespace, but once live, the store admin scales gracefully from ten orders a week to a thousand a day.
Ecommerce Features Compared
Both platforms cover the essentials: product variants, inventory, discount codes, abandoned cart recovery, tax tools, shipping rules, gift cards and customer accounts. The gaps appear at depth.
Products And Inventory
Shopify supports unlimited products, multiple inventory locations (up to 10 on its standard plans and 200 on Plus, according to its plan comparison), bulk editing, metafields and detailed inventory reports. Squarespace handles physical, digital, service and subscription products well for small and mid-sized catalogs, with inventory tracking and low-stock alerts, but offers less control for large or complex catalogs.
Checkout And Payments
Shopify’s checkout is its strongest asset. Shop Pay remembers returning customers across Shopify stores, and Shopify supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and many local payment methods. Squarespace’s checkout is clean and reliable, supports Squarespace Payments, Stripe, PayPal and Apple Pay, but lacks the network effect of Shop Pay.
Selling Models
Squarespace shines for mixed models: physical goods, digital downloads, services booked through Acuity Scheduling, subscriptions and member areas, all in one place. Shopify covers the same ground mostly through apps, and goes further with B2B and wholesale features, advanced subscriptions and complex bundles.
Sales Channels
Shopify connects to Google, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, Amazon and its own Shop app, with inventory synced across all of them. Squarespace supports selling on Instagram and Facebook and product feeds for Google, which covers social basics but not the breadth of channels a multichannel brand needs.
Marketing And SEO
Squarespace includes strong brand marketing tools: Email Campaigns (a paid add-on) with templates that match your site, social integrations, SEO settings and a good blogging engine for storytelling. Its SEO handles the essentials automatically, which suits brands competing on content and visuals.
Shopify offers Shopify Email, Shopify Messaging and automations, and integrates deeply with leading platforms like Klaviyo, Meta and Google. Its SEO covers the technical basics and can be extended with apps for schema, redirects and image optimization. For a store relying on paid acquisition, email flows and retention marketing, Shopify’s ecosystem is the stronger engine. Our list of top Shopify SEO agencies in 2026 covers specialists who handle the search side.
Apps And Integrations
The Shopify App Store is the biggest advantage Shopify has over any website builder. Thousands of apps cover reviews, loyalty, subscriptions, upsells, product customization, shipping, accounting and marketing, and almost every ecommerce SaaS tool integrates with Shopify first.
Squarespace Extensions is a smaller, curated catalog focused on shipping, inventory, accounting and marketing. Core and above allow custom code injection for small tweaks. Because Squarespace bundles more features natively, many small stores never miss the larger ecosystem. Larger stores usually do.
Point Of Sale
If you also sell in person, Shopify has the more mature retail offering. Every paid plan includes casual in-person selling, and POS Pro adds staff management, advanced inventory and omnichannel features for $89 per location per month on annual billing. Squarespace offers a mobile point-of-sale app for merchants in the US and UK, with Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android, Square Reader support in the US and inventory that syncs with your online store, according to Squarespace’s point of sale guide. It suits markets, pop-ups and events well, but it is not designed for full multi-register retail stores.
Scalability
Squarespace scales comfortably for small and mid-sized brands, especially those with strong content, services or memberships. It becomes limiting with large catalogs, multiple warehouses, wholesale, international selling at scale or heavy app needs.
Shopify scales from the first sale to the largest DTC brands. Upper plans reduce card rates and add staff accounts and reporting, and Shopify Plus adds checkout customization, B2B, automation and enterprise support. If you expect rapid growth, starting on Shopify avoids a migration later, which is why “switching from Squarespace to Shopify” is such a common search.
Support
Shopify offers 24/7 support by chat and email, a large help center and a huge partner network of agencies, developers and app vendors. When a store problem is complex, there is almost always someone who has solved it before. Squarespace provides 24/7 email support, live chat during business hours and a well-written help center, which covers the needs of most small businesses, though its partner ecosystem is much smaller.
Moving From Squarespace To Shopify
If you are already selling on Squarespace and outgrowing it, a move to Shopify is a well-trodden path:
Export products as CSV from Squarespace and import them into Shopify, then check variants, images and inventory.
Choose and customize a Shopify theme, since Squarespace designs do not transfer.
Recreate pages, blog posts, discount codes, shipping rules and taxes.
Set up 301 redirects from every old URL so search rankings and backlinks carry over.
Connect your domain to Shopify, test checkout thoroughly, then cancel Squarespace.
Our guide to canceling Squarespace covers how to keep your domain during the switch, and specialists from the lists below can handle the full migration.
Which Should You Choose?
Both platforms are strong. The right choice depends on what your business sells and how fast you expect to grow.
Choose Squarespace If…
Your brand sells on aesthetics and you want a stunning site with little effort.
Your catalog is small to mid-sized and unlikely to grow into thousands of SKUs.
You sell a mix of products, services, appointments, content or memberships.
You want one dashboard for website, store, scheduling and email.
You prefer built-in tools over managing a stack of apps.
Choose Shopify If…
Online product sales are the core of your business.
You expect strong growth in catalog size, order volume or sales channels.
You want the most conversion-optimized checkout and Shop Pay.
You need specialist apps for subscriptions, loyalty, reviews or fulfillment.
You may need wholesale, B2B, multiple locations or enterprise features.
When Neither Fits
If you need a content-heavy site with full code ownership alongside a store, WooCommerce on WordPress is the main alternative; see our WooCommerce vs Shopify comparison. Very large or complex catalogs may also warrant an enterprise platform.
Who To Hire
The right partner can make either platform look and perform far better. For Shopify especially, there is a deep pool of specialist agencies. These ReVerb lists are a good place to start:
Shopify is better for dedicated online stores thanks to its checkout, inventory tools, sales channels and app ecosystem. Squarespace is better for design-led brands, creatives and service businesses selling a modest catalog alongside content, bookings or memberships.
Is Squarespace cheaper than Shopify?
Squarespace’s entry plan is cheaper at $19 per month on annual billing, but it adds a 2% fee on sales. Squarespace Core and Shopify Basic both cost $29 per month annually with no platform fee on physical products, as of October 2026. Squarespace Plus unlocks lower card rates at a lower price than Shopify Grow.
Does Squarespace charge transaction fees?
On the Basic plan, Squarespace charges 2% on product sales. Core and above charge 0% on physical products. Digital products and memberships carry separate fees of 7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus and 0% on Advanced, plus card processing.
Does Shopify charge transaction fees?
Not when you use Shopify Payments. With a third-party payment provider, Shopify adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, on top of the provider’s own processing rate.
Can I use Shopify with Squarespace?
You can embed Shopify products on a Squarespace site using Shopify’s Buy Button, which some brands use to keep a Squarespace site while selling through Shopify. Most growing stores eventually consolidate on one platform for a unified checkout, analytics and customer data.
Is Squarespace or Shopify better for a small business?
For a small business whose website does more than sell, such as a studio, salon, consultancy or boutique with a small catalog, Squarespace is often simpler and better looking. For a small business built around selling products online, Shopify is the stronger long-term foundation.
How do I switch from Squarespace to Shopify?
Export your products as CSV, import them into Shopify, rebuild your design on a Shopify theme, recreate pages and settings, set up 301 redirects from old URLs, then point your domain to Shopify. Many Shopify agencies offer fixed-price migrations.
Conclusion
The Squarespace vs Shopify decision is really a question of what your website is for. If it is a brand experience that also sells, with a curated catalog, services or memberships, Squarespace delivers beautiful results with minimal effort and fair pricing. If it is a store first, where conversion rate, inventory, channels and growth matter most, Shopify is the platform built for the job.
If you are leaning toward Shopify or planning a move from Squarespace, working with one of the specialists on the ReVerb lists above can protect your design, your rankings and your launch date.
