SquarespaceWebsite Builders
Oleh KemSquarespace Pricing and Plans in August 2026: Basic, Core and Advanced Costs with the Transaction Fees
Squarespace costs $19 a month on Basic, $27 on Core and $36 on Advanced, or $12, $17 and $25 with the year paid up front, as of . No plan is free. Basic also takes 2% of store sales and 7% of digital and membership revenue, and it stops at two contributors.
The subscription is the smaller number here. Basic keeps 2% of everything the store sells and 7% of anything sold as digital content or a membership. Core drops the store cut to zero and the digital one to 5%. Advanced takes neither. Revenue picks the tier long before features do.
So the useful question is when each step pays for itself. Core costs $60 a year more than Basic, which 2% recovers on $3,000 of store sales. Advanced costs $96 more than Core, and its extra five points recover that on $1,920 of memberships. Do that sum first. Seven charges sit outside the subscription, and the $12 annual entry runs well under a category middle of $18. Every figure here came off Squarespace's pricing page in .
This page prices the Squarespace website plans, Basic through Advanced. Squarespace Premium, the separate service programme for growing businesses, carries no published rate and is not priced here.
filled dot = rate the vendor publishes · hollow dot = quote only
filled dot = rate the vendor publishes · hollow dot = quote only
Two of these charges are percentages of what you sell, and no billing cycle moves them.
Month to month, cancel any time. Free does not move with the cycle.
The three plans, the caps that end each one, and what the annual cycle saves.
Squarespace pricing plans: $19 a month at entry, $36 at the top
Features
Features
Features
Both cycles exactly as the vendor publishes them. The annual column is the vendor's own per-month figure on a twelve-month commitment.
Vendor pricing pageSquarespace plan steps: $60 a year to Core, $96 more to Advanced
Two steps exist, and both are bought to switch off a percentage.
Yearly totals at the vendor's published rate for each cycle.
What Squarespace costs you: one plan, plus a cut of every sale
What your line costs on the published rates
The subscription is all this line holds. Whatever the site sells is charged again as a percentage.
That pricing page has been read 5 times on the record, and it has not moved.
Where the bill sits above the advertised rate
$84 of it is the monthly cycle, which this vendor prices harder than most of the category.
What is in your bill that the advertised rate does not price
Basic keeps 2% of store sales and 7% of digital content and memberships. Core takes zero and five. Advanced takes neither. On a $50,000 year the entry tier's cut is $1,000, which no subscription line on this card comes close to.
A custom domain comes with the annual cycle, and on Basic under monthly billing our capture showed it struck through. Google Workspace email is free for a year on Core and Advanced, then billed by Google at Google's own rate.
Where your rate sits against the category
Against the 21 builders we measure, that rate is above their $18 mark. As a subscription this is cheap, which is precisely why the percentage is the part worth arguing about.
All three tiers live in the bottom half of the category. What you save on the subscription can walk out through the till.
The configuration we would sign off
Take the tier whose fee schedule matches what the site will sell this year.
You sit above what your answers ask for. The cheaper tier bills a percentage, so do that sum before dropping.
The calculator prices the subscription. Percentages follow revenue rather than the plan, so add them yourself from the fee schedule in the register.
Open squarespace.com pricingWhich Squarespace plan you need: your sales volume decides it
| Your case | Plan | Why this one |
|---|---|---|
| A site that sells nothing at alla portfolio, a studio page, a restaurant with a menu and a map | Basic $19 a month, or $12 with the year up front | The transaction fee never fires when nothing is for sale, so the cheapest tier is the whole product. What can still stop you is people: Basic holds two contributors and the cap is hard, not a nudge. A year costs $144 up front against $228 paid monthly. |
| A shop turning over less than $3,000 a yeara few prints, an occasional commission, sales that come in waves | Basic $19 a month, or $12 with the year up front | 2% of store sales is the price of staying here. Core costs $60 a year more and takes that 2% to zero, so the swap pays off at $3,000 of annual sales. Below that number the fee is cheaper than the upgrade, and it is the only tier where that is true. |
| A store where sales are the pointa real catalogue, repeat customers, shipping to work out | Core $27 a month, or $17 with the year up front | The store fee goes to zero and the contributor cap disappears. The record also puts CSS and JavaScript access, shipping and tax services and a year of Google Workspace email on this tier. Digital content and memberships still cost 5%, which is the one thing Core does not fix. |
| Revenue that arrives as memberships or downloadsa course, a paid newsletter, a members area, digital files | Advanced $36 a month, or $25 with the year up front | The 5% cut on digital content and memberships goes to zero here. The step costs $96 a year over Core, which those five points recover on $1,920 of member revenue. Advanced also lets you link your own shipping carrier, which matters to a warehouse and to nobody else. |
| Not ready to commit twelve monthsa launch with a moving date, a project on trial, a client who may not sign | Any tier, billed monthly $19, $27 or $36 a month | Monthly costs $84 a year more on Basic, $120 on Core and $132 on Advanced. That is the widest annual discount Squarespace publishes, between 30 and 37 percent by tier. Our capture also saw the free domain struck through on Basic under monthly billing. We could not confirm it, so treat the domain as an annual-cycle benefit until Squarespace says otherwise. |
Squarespace cost by contributors: two on Basic, then no limit
Subscription cost at the published rates. The percentages on sales are left out, because they follow the till rather than the plan.
Squarespace hidden costs: 2% of sales before any plan changes
Price check history
Each read of the published rates is on the record with its date. Across 5 of them the three plans held.
We watched from spring 2026 onward and claim nothing about the years before that. five reads, no movement.
Where this rate sits in the category
21 website builders tools priced by one method. Entry rates run $4.50 to $97 a month, and the middle sits at $18.
Every calibration point was read the same way and on the same pass, August 2026.
Seven charges that sit outside the advertised rate
Sorted by how much each one adds once the site is live.The transaction fee outgrows the subscription
Basic takes 2% of store sales and 7% of digital content and memberships. Core takes 0% and 5%. Advanced takes neither. On $50,000 of store sales that 2% comes to $1,000 a year, against a $60 upgrade that removes it. Nobody with a real catalogue stays on the entry tier for long.
Losing the processor fee means using Squarespace Payments
The record is explicit that removing the third-party processor charge requires Squarespace's own payment product. If you are committed to another processor, the fee schedule above is not the whole story and the tier upgrade does not buy you out of it.
The free domain carries an asterisk we could not resolve
A custom domain is included with an annual subscription. On the monthly view our capture showed the line struck through on Basic specifically, and nothing on the page settles whether that is a billing-cycle rule or a display quirk. Confirm it in the vendor's own FAQ before you count on it.
Google Workspace email is free for a year, then it is Google's bill
Core and Advanced include professional email for the first year. After that it renews at Google's own price on Google's own terms, and the pricing page carries a second asterisk pointing away from itself. Budget it as a separate subscription from month thirteen.
Two contributors on Basic, and no way to buy a third
The cap is not a soft nudge. A designer plus an owner fills it, and the only route past it is Core at $17 a month on annual billing. There is no per-person add-on, which makes a $60 step the price of one more login.
Monthly billing costs between $84 and $132 a year
Basic runs $228 over twelve monthly payments against $144 up front. Core is $324 against $204, Advanced $432 against $300. The discount is unusually deep, 30 to 37 percent depending on the tier, which is another way of saying the monthly path is priced as a penalty.
Squarespace Premium exists and is not priced
The pricing page links out to a separate programme with a hands-on team for service businesses. No rate appears anywhere on the pricing page. If a salesperson brings it up, understand that you are leaving the published plans entirely.
What Squarespace marks but does not explain
Three asterisks that decide real money. The pricing page prints the mark and stops there.
- 01What the included domain does on Basic under monthly billing. The page marks the line and never explains the mark.
- 02What Google Workspace email costs from year two, which the second asterisk points away from.
- 03Any rate for Squarespace Premium, a programme the pricing page links to and never prices.
Squarespace billing and commitment terms
| Contributor | Someone with access to edit the site. Two on Basic, unlimited on Core and Advanced. |
| Transaction fee | The vendor's cut of what the site sells. 2% of store sales and 7% of digital and membership revenue on Basic, 0% and 5% on Core, none on Advanced. |
| Squarespace Payments | The vendor's own processing product. The record notes it is what removes the separate third-party processor charge. |
| Annual subscription | Twelve months paid at once, at 30 to 37 percent off the monthly rate depending on tier. The included domain is attached to this cycle. |
| Trial | Fourteen days, free. It is a way in, not a price, and no plan stays free afterwards. |
| Professional email | Google Workspace, included for the first year on Core and Advanced, then billed by Google on its own terms. |
Squarespace pricing against WordPress.com, Ghost and Strikingly: three jobs
The three builders a Squarespace buyer usually shortlists, read at the job each one is actually good at.
| The job | Squarespace | The rival | Our verdict on this job |
|---|---|---|---|
| A brochure site somebody else will maintainA handful of pages, an enquiry form, no checkout. | Basic $19/mo= $19 a month for youno percentage where nothing sells | WordPress.com $10.5/site/mo= $10.50 a month for youcheapest tiers, more assembly required | WordPress.com on price, Squarespace on finish$19 on Basic against $9 a month for WordPress.com Personal. The extra ten buys templates a client can be handed without a manual, and on a site that sells nothing the fee schedule never comes into it. |
| A paid newsletter with a member listPublishing, recurring revenue, subscribers who log in. | Core $27/mo= $27 a month for you5% of member revenue until Advanced | Ghost $18/mo= $18 a month for youpriced by how long the list gets | Ghost, if the list is the businessGhost Starter is $18 a month against $27 for Core, and the subscription line is not what decides this. Squarespace keeps 5% of membership revenue until Advanced at $36, while Ghost prices the list itself. |
| One long page with a small shop on itA launch page that takes a handful of orders a week. | Basic $19/mo= $19 a month for you2% of store sales at the entry tier | Strikingly $20/mo= $20 a month for youalso keeps a cut at its entry tier | Strikingly for a page, Squarespace for a siteStrikingly PRO is $20 a month against $19 for Basic, and both keep a percentage of sales down at entry. The tie breaks on what you are building: one scrolling page there, a multi-page site here. |
Switching to Squarespace from WordPress.com, Ghost or Strikingly: three moves
Three moves onto Squarespace, where the fee schedule matters more than the subscription gap.
WordPress.com
Coming off WordPress.com at $10.50 a month, the equivalent line here is $19.WordPress.com exports content in a format Squarespace can read, and the theme does not come with it. Design work is the real cost of this move, and a shop adds 2% on Basic that WordPress.com charges differently.
- Import the posts first and rebuild the pages by hand, since only the content crosses cleanly.
- Count the editors before you pick a tier. Basic holds two, and WordPress.com does not cap them the same way.
- Keep the old site live until the domain resolves here, because the included domain covers a new registration rather than a transfer you have already paid for.
Ghost
Ghost bills $18 a month, and the tier replacing it costs $27.Ghost is a publishing product with a member list attached, and Squarespace sells memberships as a fee-bearing feature. The subscribers move; the economics of them do not.
- Work out what your member revenue is worth at 5%, because that is what Core keeps and Advanced does not.
- Export the subscriber list before anything else, and check what happens to paid subscriptions in transit with both vendors.
- Rebuild the archive last. Nothing about a publishing theme survives the move, so budget design time rather than migration time.
Strikingly
At $20 against $19, the subscriptions are close and the percentages are not.A single scrolling page rebuilds as a multi-page site here, which is more work than it sounds. Both products keep a cut of the shop at entry, so compare the fee lines rather than the plan names.
- Split the long page into real pages first, because the section-per-scroll structure has no equivalent here.
- Move the store last and check the fee on both sides at your actual volume, not at the headline rate.
- Take the annual cycle only after the rebuild is live, since a year is paid in one go at $144 to $300.
Is Squarespace worth it: a cheap subscription and a 2% cut on Basic
Updated
4.5 of 5
At $12 a month on annual billing, Squarespace enters at the cheap end of the builders we price, where the middle rate is $18. The published tiers stop at $25. As subscriptions go this is a cheap product. The fee schedule is where the real money moves. A store doing $50,000 a year pays $1,000 in fees on Basic and nothing on Core, so the tier that looks like an upgrade is often a discount.
The logic inverts when nothing is for sale. A portfolio or a restaurant page never triggers a percentage, so Basic at $144 a year is the entire product. The upper tiers then sell features that site will never use. The two things we would not sign blind are the domain asterisk on Basic and the processor rule, because both change the bill without changing the plan you chose.
- You want to try it without payingthere is no free tier at all, only a 14-day trial.
- Three people need editing rights on a budgetBasic stops at two, and the fix is a $60 a year step.
- You are married to another payment processorthe extra processor charge only comes off with Squarespace Payments.
- You publish for members rather than sell productsGhost starts at $18 a month and is built around the member list.
Squarespace pricing FAQ: twelve answers on fees, tiers and trials
10.1How much does Squarespace cost per month?
10.2Is there a free version of Squarespace?
10.3Does Squarespace charge transaction fees?
10.4What is the difference between Squarespace Basic and Core?
10.5When is Squarespace Advanced worth it?
10.6How much do you save with Squarespace annual billing?
10.7Is the domain on Squarespace really free?
10.8How many people can edit a Squarespace site?
10.9Is Squarespace expensive?
10.10Does Squarespace charge extra for email?
10.11Can I use my own payment processor with Squarespace?
10.12What is Squarespace Premium?
Squarespace price sources: the pricing page, asterisks included
Three documents, and what each one was read for.
- squarespace.com/pricingAll three tiers, both cycles, the transaction-fee table and every asterisk printed under it
- ComparEdge open pricing dataWhat the other twenty-one builders charge at entry
- our dated price recordEvery dated check recorded against this product
Last verified August 5, 2026. Rates change without notice, so confirm at squarespace.com/pricing before you commit.
ComparEdge is an independent platform and is not affiliated with Squarespace. We take no payment for placement and no payment from the vendors we check. Rates change without notice, which is exactly why we date every read and keep the ones that came before.
More on Squarespace pricing and the pages beside it
Looking for what each plan actually includes? The Squarespace review goes through the tiers feature by feature. Want every rival in this category priced the same way? The Website Builders rankings price them all by one method. Still weighing another option? The alternatives page puts Squarespace next to each of them.