Disclosure: some links on SquareLocator are affiliate links, so I may earn a commission if you buy a plugin or template through them, at no extra cost to you. Neither Square nor Squarespace paid for this comparison.
Quick answer: choose Square Online if you already take card payments with Square, most of your sales happen in person, and you want a free web shop that shares stock and orders with your till. Choose Squarespace if the website itself has to win customers: you want real design control, a blog, scheduling or memberships, and a shop that looks like a brand rather than an order form. They are separate companies, and the only place they connect is at the counter, where a US Squarespace store can take in-person payments with a Square reader.
Square and Squarespace are different companies
Square (its website is squareup.com, which is why so many people search for "Squareup") is a payments and point of sale company owned by Block, Inc. It makes card readers, terminals and the software behind them, and it also offers a website builder called Square Online, which came from its 2018 purchase of Weebly. In the US Square now calls it simply "websites" (checked September 2026); in the UK it is still Square Online, and it is the same tool.
Squarespace is an independent website builder founded in 2003 and taken private by the investment firm Permira in 2024. There is no shared ownership, no partnership beyond one point of sale integration, and the similar names are a coincidence. The rest of this guide treats them as what they are for most searchers: two platforms you might build a small business site and shop on.
Why I am comparing them
I run a UK Squarespace agency that has been a Platinum Partner since 2018, and I have built more than 400 Squarespace sites for clients. SquareLocator itself runs on Shopify, and I have taken card payments with a Square reader at events, so I have used both as a customer. That matters because the honest answer is not "Squarespace wins": Square Online does one thing better than any website builder I have used, and if that thing is your whole business, build on it.
Square Online vs Squarespace at a glance
| Square Online | Squarespace | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Shops, cafes and stalls that sell in person with Square and want an online shop that mirrors the till | Brands, creatives and service businesses that need a design-led site with shop, blog and booking built in |
| Pricing model | Free plan plus processing fees; paid plans from £20 a month in the UK (checked September 2026) | Subscription only: Basic, Core, Plus and Advanced, with a free trial |
| Free plan | Yes, on a square.site address; a custom domain needs a paid plan | No permanent free plan, only the trial |
| Design and templates | Shop themes with colour, font and section controls; layouts built around the catalogue | Free-form drag and drop layouts, a large first-party template library and a third-party template market |
| Ecommerce | Physical goods, food ordering, click and collect, local delivery, gift cards and loyalty, synced with Square POS | Physical and digital goods, services, subscriptions, gift cards, abandoned cart recovery and invoicing |
| In-person POS | Square's core business: readers, terminals, kiosks and tills with shared inventory | A POS mode in the Squarespace iOS app, US only, which relies on a Square reader |
| Payments and fees | Square processing on every sale; no separate platform transaction fee on the free plan | Squarespace Payments, Stripe or PayPal; 2% store transaction fee on Basic, 0% from Core (checked September 2026) |
| Blogging and content | Standard pages around the catalogue; built for selling, not publishing | A proper blog, portfolios, video, newsletters and email campaigns |
| Memberships and courses | Not a focus; loyalty and marketing instead | Member sites, courses and paid digital content on every plan; transaction fee falls on higher plans |
| Scheduling | Square Appointments, which has a free tier | Acuity Scheduling, a Squarespace-owned add-on, embedded on your site |
| SEO and custom code | Page titles, descriptions and a sitemap; limited code access | Full SEO settings, custom CSS on every plan, code injection from Core and a plugin ecosystem |
Design and templates
This is the widest gap between the two. Square Online gives you a handful of shop themes and a section-by-section editor: pick a layout for the header, featured items and category grid, then adjust colours, fonts and spacing within the theme's limits. It produces a clean, mobile-first shop quickly, which for a takeaway or a market trader is exactly right, but it will not give you a page that looks unlike every other Square Online shop.
Squarespace's Fluid Engine editor lets you place blocks anywhere on a grid, overlap them, and set separate desktop and mobile arrangements. Every first-party template is a starting point rather than a cage, and beyond those there is a market of independent designs, which SquareLocator curates. Browse the Squarespace templates hub, or go straight to the templates for small businesses and the templates for retail brands if you are building a shop.
Selling online
Both run a working online shop, so the question is what kind. Square Online's catalogue is your Square till's catalogue: one product list, one stock count and one customer directory across the counter and the web. Fulfilment suits local trade: click and collect, local delivery by your own staff and a shipping calculator by price, item count or weight. It also handles food ordering, Instagram and Facebook shops, eGift cards and loyalty, with Clearpay built in for UK sellers (checked September 2026).
Squarespace commerce is broader rather than deeper: physical products, digital downloads, services, subscriptions, gift cards and member-only content, on every plan. Its pricing page (checked September 2026) lists abandoned cart recovery, customer accounts, invoicing and print on demand on every plan, while discounts, carrier-calculated shipping, Google Shopping and automated tax start at Core. My guide to the best Squarespace templates for ecommerce shows the layouts that convert.
Selling in person
Square wins this outright. In-person payments are Square's reason for existing: contactless readers, countertop terminals, kiosks, tills for restaurants and retailers, and staff and inventory tools that report into the same dashboard as the online shop, so a sale on the floor and a sale on the website reduce the same stock line. On Square's UK pricing page (checked September 2026) the in-person rate is 1.75% for UK cards, with a free software plan and paid packages from £29 a month.
Squarespace has a point of sale mode inside its iOS app, but its own point of sale page (checked September 2026) is clear about the limits: United States only, a Squarespace store plus a Square account and reader required, and a mobile checkout on an iPhone or iPad rather than a full till with the hardware, staff and kitchen tools Square sells. If in-person selling is the core of your business, build on Square Online, even if its design tools feel limiting.
Payments and fees
The two platforms charge in different ways, so the cheaper option depends on volume. Square Online's free plan has no monthly fee; you pay Square's processing fee on each sale, listed on the UK site as 1.4% plus 25p for UK cards and 2.5% plus 25p for non-UK cards (checked September 2026). Paid plans, from £20 a month in the UK, add a custom domain and more customisation, with discounted processing advertised on the top tier.
Squarespace charges a subscription first. On its pricing page in September 2026, Basic in the UK was £12 a month billed annually (£16 monthly) and Core £17 a month billed annually (£24 monthly), with Plus and Advanced above those; the US plans were $19, $29, $49 and $99 a month on annual billing. On top of that you pay card processing to Squarespace Payments, Stripe or PayPal, and on Basic Squarespace adds its own 2% transaction fee on shop sales, which drops to 0% from Core upwards. I have not quoted a Squarespace Payments processing rate because it varies by country and I could not verify a UK figure.
In short: at low volume Square Online is cheaper because there is nothing to pay until you sell. As turnover grows, a Squarespace Core plan with no platform transaction fee can work out similar, with far more website for the money. My Squarespace pricing explained guide breaks down what each plan unlocks.
Content, SEO and growth
If customers find you through search or through what you publish, Squarespace pulls ahead again. Its blog is a proper publishing tool with categories, tags, authors, scheduling and RSS, alongside portfolios, video, newsletters and email campaigns. Square Online gives you standard pages around the catalogue, but you would not run a content-led marketing strategy from it.
On SEO both cover titles, descriptions, clean URLs and sitemaps; Squarespace goes further with per-page settings, product structured data and third-party tools. I have rounded up the best Squarespace SEO plugins and tools, and if you only try one, my SEOSpace review covers the one I use most on client sites.
Extending the platform
Squarespace's biggest structural advantage is that it can be extended: custom CSS on every plan, code injection from Core upwards, and a mature plugin market. My best Squarespace plugins pillar is the place to start. For design changes without code, SquareKicker adds a visual styling layer over the native editor; my SquareKicker review explains where it earns its subscription.
Square Online's app marketplace is about operations (delivery, accounting, stock) rather than design. One genuine overlap is embeddable widgets: Elfsight's reviews, Instagram feeds and forms embed on Square Online as they do on Squarespace, so my Elfsight for Squarespace review applies to both.
Can you use Square with Squarespace?
Yes, but more narrowly than most people expect. Squarespace's US point of sale pairs with a Square reader so in-person sales are recorded against your Squarespace inventory: Squarespace runs the website and catalogue, Square supplies the hardware and processes the card, and Squarespace says it adds no transaction fee of its own.
What you cannot do is use Square as the online payment processor on a Squarespace website: web checkout goes through Squarespace Payments, Stripe or PayPal. And outside the United States there is no official Square integration at all, so a UK shop that wants a Squarespace site and a Square till runs two systems and keeps stock in sync by hand or through a third-party connector.
Who should choose Square Online
Build on Square Online if most of the following are true. You already use Square for in-person payments, or are about to. You sell physical products, food or drink, and online orders are mostly for collection or local delivery. You want one stock count across the counter and the web. You need to be live this week, would rather not think about design, and want to start with no monthly fee.
In that situation Square Online is not a compromise; a Squarespace site in the same role would mean manual stock reconciliation and a point of sale that does not exist in the UK.
Who should choose Squarespace
Build on Squarespace if the website is how people judge you before they buy: most service businesses, creatives, makers with a brand story, retailers who sell mainly online or ship nationally, and anyone who wants a blog, portfolio, course, membership or booking on the same site as the shop.
Having rebuilt sites that started on utility store builders, my experience is that businesses outgrow them faster than they expect. If you land on Squarespace, my guide on how to choose the right Squarespace template is the place to begin.
Related guides
- Squarespace vs Shopify
- Squarespace vs Wix vs WordPress
- Squarespace vs Webflow
- Squarespace pricing explained
- Best Squarespace templates for ecommerce
- How to choose the right Squarespace template
Frequently asked questions
Is Square the same as Squarespace?
No. Square, often searched as Squareup because its website is squareup.com, is a payments and point of sale company owned by Block, Inc. Squarespace is an independent website builder, and the only official link between them is Squarespace's US point of sale, which uses a Square reader.
Which is cheaper, Square Online or Squarespace?
At low volume, Square Online: its free plan has no monthly fee and you only pay Square's processing fee when you sell. Squarespace needs a paid subscription from the start, and its Basic plan adds a 2% transaction fee on shop sales, which disappears on Core and above (checked September 2026). As sales grow the gap narrows.
Can you sell in person with Squarespace?
Only in a limited way. Squarespace's point of sale mode in its iOS app is available in the United States and requires a Square account and reader. It records in-person sales against your Squarespace inventory, but it is not a full till and is not available outside the US.
Can you use Square payments on a Squarespace website?
Not for online checkout, which runs through Squarespace Payments, Stripe or PayPal. Square only enters the picture as the reader and processor for in-person sales through Squarespace's US point of sale.
Which is better for a shop, Square Online or Squarespace?
If you sell mostly in person and want online orders for collection or local delivery from the same stock as your till, Square Online is better integrated and cheaper to start. If you sell mostly online, ship widely, or need the site to carry your brand, blog and bookings as well as the shop, Squarespace is the stronger platform.
Can you switch from Square Online to Squarespace, or the other way?
Yes, but there is no one-click migration. Products can be exported and imported as CSV files on both platforms and you can move your domain, but page layouts, content and customer accounts have to be rebuilt by hand. Plan for a rebuild rather than a transfer.
Disclosure: some links in this article are affiliate links, and SquareLocator may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. Prices and features were checked on Square's and Squarespace's own websites in September 2026 and may change.
