You've seen the Squarespace commercials. Beautiful templates. Drag and drop. "Build it yourself in an afternoon."
And honestly? The templates are beautiful. Squarespace has earned its reputation as the sleek, design-forward website builder. With 18% market share, it's the second most popular website builder in the world.
But here's what those polished commercials don't show you: what happens after you've committed to your template. After you've spent a weekend building. After you realize you want to change things.
I've rebuilt enough Squarespace sites to know where the frustrations hide. Let me save you the surprise.
The Real Cost of Squarespace
Squarespace's pricing looks straightforward at first glance. According to Site Builder Report's 2026 pricing breakdown, here's what you're looking at:
- Basic Plan: $16/month (billed annually)
- Core Plan: $23/month (their recommended tier)
- Plus Plan: $39/month (for serious e-commerce)
- Advanced Plan: $99/month (for large stores)
So somewhere between $16 and $39/month for most small businesses. That seems reasonable, right?
But wait. There's more hiding in those plans.
The Fees They Don't Mention in the Ads
Here's what catches people off guard (and it's not just Squarespace—we covered more in The Hidden Costs of 'Free' Website Builders):
On the Basic plan, Squarespace takes 2% of every sale for physical products and services. Selling digital products? That jumps to 7%.
So if you're a contractor selling a $500 service package, Squarespace takes $10 off the top—on top of the credit card processing fees (another 2.5-2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction).
To eliminate those Squarespace transaction fees, you need to upgrade to Core ($23/month) or higher. Suddenly that "affordable" $16 plan doesn't make sense for anyone actually selling something.
Then there's the add-ons:
- Domain renewal: $20-70/year after your free first year
- Email (Google Workspace): $6-72/month per address
- Appointment scheduling: $16-49/month extra
- Members area: $9-35/month extra
- Email marketing: $5-48/month extra
A realistic monthly cost for a small business using Squarespace properly? $40-80/month once you add what you actually need.
Not the $16 you saw in the ad.
The Template Trap Nobody Warns You About
Here's the thing that really surprises people:
Once you pick a template in Squarespace 7.1, you can't switch it.
Read that again. If you spend a weekend building your site on one template, then realize you hate it, you can't just "try a different one." You'd have to start over from scratch.
Squarespace says this isn't a problem because all 7.1 templates use the same underlying system. But anyone who's tried to dramatically change their site's look knows this is frustrating. You're locked in.
Compare that to working with a professional designer who can actually redesign your site when your business evolves—without losing all your content and starting over.
The Limits You'll Hit Eventually
Squarespace works great—until you need something beyond the basics. Here's where it starts to chafe:
Limited navigation structure. You can only have one level of dropdown menus. If your business has services with subcategories, or you need a more complex site structure, you're stuck.
Only 47 extensions available. Compare that to platforms like WordPress with 60,000+ plugins. If you need specific functionality that Squarespace doesn't offer out of the box, you're often out of luck.
Limited payment options. You're stuck with Stripe and PayPal. No Square. No multi-currency selling. If your customers prefer different payment methods, too bad.
No autosave. No version history. If your browser crashes while you're editing a page, that work is gone. There's no way to restore a previous version.
These might not matter on day one. But they matter on day 100 when your business has grown and you're bumping against limits.
The Time Investment Nobody Calculates
Here's the real cost of DIY that doesn't show up in the monthly fee. (We dig deeper into this in Why Your DIY Website Might Be Costing You Customers.)
Building a website yourself typically takes 190-400 hours when you factor in learning the platform, planning, building, testing, and refining. That's 5-10 weeks of full-time work, usually spread over months of nights and weekends.
Even if you use a more conservative estimate—say, 30-40 hours for a basic Squarespace site—that's still a lot of time. If your time is worth $50/hour to your business, that's $1,500-2,000 in opportunity cost before your site even goes live.
And it doesn't stop there. Small businesses spend an average of 5 hours per month on website maintenance—updates, content changes, troubleshooting issues.
Five hours a month times $50/hour = $250/month in your time. Every month. Forever.
Suddenly that "cheap" DIY website isn't so cheap.
The Support Problem
When something goes wrong with your Squarespace site, who do you call?
Well, you can't call anyone. Squarespace doesn't offer phone support. You can use live chat or submit a ticket. And hope someone gets back to you before your customers notice your site is broken.
The live chat is good—Squarespace has solid customer service compared to many competitors. But there's a difference between chatting with someone who explains how the platform works and talking to someone who actually knows your business and can fix your specific problem.
If your site goes down on a Saturday night and you can't figure out why, you're on your own until support gets back to you.
The Mobile Reality Check
Here's something most people don't think about until it's too late:
68.2% of website visits now come from mobile devices. That means most of your potential customers are looking at your site on their phone, not a computer.
And 53% of mobile visitors will leave if your page takes more than 3 seconds to load.
Squarespace templates are mobile-responsive, which is good. But many DIY builders end up with bloated sites—too many large images, too many fancy animations—that load slowly on phones. And Squarespace gives you limited control over optimization.
You might build something that looks gorgeous on your desktop and discover it's frustratingly slow for the majority of people actually visiting your site.
What About Hiring an Agency?
The traditional alternative to DIY is hiring a web design agency. (If you go this route, read 5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring Any Web Designer first.) Let's be honest about those costs too:
- $5,000-15,000+ upfront for design and development
- 8-12 weeks to launch (sometimes longer)
- $100-200/hour for any changes after launch
For a lot of small businesses, that's overkill. You don't need a $10,000 custom masterpiece with every bell and whistle. You need something professional that works.
And after that big upfront investment, every time you need to change your hours or add a new service page? More billable hours.
Agencies make sense for complex projects. But for a local business that needs a clean, professional web presence? There's a middle ground.
When Squarespace Actually Makes Sense
I'm not here to trash Squarespace. It's a good platform for the right situation. DIY works if:
- You genuinely enjoy building websites (not just "I want to save money")
- You have 30+ hours to invest in the initial build
- Your needs are simple and won't outgrow the platform's limits
- You're comfortable handling ongoing maintenance yourself
- You don't need phone support when things break
If that's you? Squarespace is solid. The templates really are beautiful.
But if you're reading this thinking "I don't have 30 hours" or "I just want someone to handle it"—DIY probably isn't your answer. (Not sure if you even need a website? Check out why small businesses still need websites in 2026.)
What YouGrow Does Differently
We built YouGrow for business owners who don't want the DIY headache but also don't need the $10,000 agency treatment.
$79/month. That's it. Everything included:
- Custom-branded professional website (built by a human, not a template picker)
- Unlimited reasonable updates—email or call us, we handle it
- Hosting, security, backups, SSL
- Built accessible from day one
- No setup fee for founding members
- Month-to-month, cancel anytime
Your site goes live in days, not months. You never log into anything. When you need something changed, you call 805-439-6288 and talk to a real person who knows your business.
Not a chat bot. Not a ticket queue. Your neighbor in Arroyo Grande.
Want to redesign in a few years? Included—it's our Everfresh Guarantee. No template trap.
Ready to stop fighting with website builders? Get Your Website.