Which is Best?

Squarespace and Weebly are fundamentally different in several ways.  Squarespace tends to be all-inclusive, with little need for plug-ins or add-ons.  With great themes, and a clean, organized editor, Squarespace offers professional capabilities to anyone, regardless of your background.  Weebly is a bit more customizable on the other hand, with a large app store and more freedom in the editor.  Weebly has a free version and a very cheap version but we do not recommend those unless for a school project. So which should you choose; Weebly or Squarespace?

In 2021, one of the most difficult parts of building a website is actually choosing a website builder. So many great builders exist with comparable prices that make building a website a breeze that it can be challenging to make a choice.

When reviewing these options including Squarespace and Weebly, you must compare the features, assigning weight to the ones you care the most about, to come to a conclusion. Pricing isn’t enough to help you make a determination so it’s important to consider what is and isn’t offered. This guide will break down the features of both builders including design abilities and available apps to help you choose whether Squarespace or Weebly is right for you. 

Pros and Cons: Squarespace vs Weebly

Design: Editors With Different Learning Curves

Both Squarespace and Weebly make  adding elements and text a breeze with non-technically-friendly editors. After choosing the right theme, using the editor effectively to customize your website will be an essential step to setting your website apart from your competitors. 

Squarespace and Weebly have similar editors which allow you to add text and elements like images to specific parts of each page. Weebly’s editor is more beginner-friendly than Squarespace’s but both can be figured out with a little practice. Weebly has more of a drag-and-drop system with slightly less freedom to move things around than Wix. 

We made full tutorials for Squarespace and Weebly on the Santrel Media YouTube channel.

Squarespace also allows you to drag and drop elements but only to certain parts of the page. You’re constrained by Squarespace’s unique markup and “content blocks” system that only allows elements to be dropped on certain parts of the page. This content blocks system is reminiscent of WordPress which limits the user in what areas elements can be added to the page.

Key Takeaway: Weebly’s editor is more intuitive and beginner-friendly and wins in this category. 

Themes: 100 vs 42 Templates

When building your website with Squarespace or Weebly, one of the most important decisions for your site’s design will be choosing a theme. This theme will affect your site’s look and features. 

Squarespace offers 100 themes for a range of subjects from online stores to podcast websites. On their Templates page you can peruse templates in different categories that match your site’s main purpose and pick the perfect one that will help your personal or business website succeed. Squarespace’s themes are professional and modern in design and will impress your visitors or customers. One perk of Squarespace’s themes is that you can edit the underlying HTML and CSS, if you’re coding savvy, to perfect your site’s look. 

Weebly has just 40 themes which are carefully curated to serve their customers’ needs. You can find the perfect theme for your site by first selecting your applicable category like Business or Blog and then choosing the theme that matches your tastes for your new site. 

All of Weebly’s themes are carefully curated and responsive for any device you view them on. 

Key Takeaway: In this category, Squarespace and Weebly are evenly matched in site quality but Squarespace’s larger selection provides over double the options. 

Apps

If you want to add new features or integrations to other services on your website, you can make use of Squarespace or Weebly’s app marketplaces. Squarespace offers just over 30 apps, many of which are ecommerce focused. Weebly offers over 350 apps which help with a broad range from aesthetic changes to marketing abilities. 

Weebly’s apps like Icon allow you to add unique icons to your site and Popup allows you to better engage new visitors with popup messages with call to actions. Squarespace also offers design and marketing integrations with platforms like Noun Project which offers free icons and Mailchimp, an email marketing platform, to make your life as a website and business owner easier.

Key Takeaway: In this domain, Weebly offers a greater selection of apps which will be of more use to your site but Squarespace will likely add more in the future. 

Pricing

While pricing shouldn’t be the top factor you consider when choosing a website builder, it can make or break your choice when weighed alongside the other factors detailed in this guide. Squarespace is the more expensive option when compared with Weebly but for good reason considering the robustness of the product you receive. 

Both Squarespace and Weebly have simple pricing plans with Squarespace offering four options, one for personal sites and three for business and ecommerce. Weebly offers three options, one for personal, business, and ecommerce users.

Squarespace offers impressive features with their business plans that are worth the price including being able to sell on Instagram and hosting customer accounts so returning customers can checkout with ease and you can track preferences. If you prioritize price and just need a basic website for say, a wedding, Weebly is the better pick. If you want an impressive business or online store site, Squarespace should be your choice. 

All pricing options below are based on annual payments plans. You can expect to pay more if you pay month-to-month. View pricing options below. 

Squarespace Pricing

Weebly Pricing

Key Takeaway: If you just need a personal website, Weebly’s pricing is right for what’s offered. If you need a business website, Squarespace’s offerings are a better value. 

Ecommerce

Squarespace and Weebly both offer ecommerce plans for new website owners who wish to start an online store. While Squarespace used to have the edge in ecommerce, Weebly has been upping their game in recent years with a partnership with Square, offering more ecommerce expertise in themes, user experience, and checkout abilities. 

Despite new features by Weebly, Squarespace has the advantage in this category with their two ecommerce focused plans with powerful features like the ability to sell subscription products, a popular new trend in ecommerce. Another edge which Squarespace offers is its integration with Instagram, allowing you to easily sell your products on social media. Squarespace also offers cart abandonment recovery features that will help you convert otherwise lost customers with products awaiting purchase. In addition, you can manage your ecommerce store remotely with the Squarespace Commerce app. 

Weebly has a quick checkout experience with its Square integration and beautiful online store-specific themes that are sure to impress customers. Weebly also offers impressive metrics tracking to help you get a better sense of how well your store is selling, in addition to ecommerce-specific emails that can be sent through Promote to market your products. With Weebly, you can also get past customers to leave reviews to help provide social proof for your products.

Key Takeaway:  While Weebly is catching up quickly in this space, Squarespace should still be your go-to if you’re creating a professional online store. 

Blog

It has never been easier to launch on a blog on your website whether content is your main business or you wish to earn more traffic from search optimized posts. While upstart website creators who want to start the next big news site would be better off getting started with a content-focused website builder like WordPress, Weebly and Squarespace will both help you create professional blogs with ease. 

Like in ecommerce, Weebly has upped its game in recent years and now offers a great blog-building experience with excellent content organization with categories and subcategories that you can house content under. 

Squarespace has a straightforward blog platform that can be easily edited if you’re familiar with the main site editor. All of the features you would expect of a modern blogging platform are offered by Squarespace and leaves little to be desired. 

Both Squarespace and Weebly allow you to have multiple contributors and authors on your blog with their logins who you can assign editor and admin roles to. 

Key Takeaway: Weebly and Squarespace are tied here with comparable blog creation and publishing abilities. 

SEO

Optimizing your website according to search engine best practices has never been more important as more people rely on search to find the right information to consume and products to buy. Following search engine optimization, or SEO, best practices like optimizing content for high-traffic keywords is vital for earning traffic for your new website. 

Both Squarespace and Weebly offer great SEO abilities and tools at your disposal and provide helpful information for you to get started optimizing your website and new blog content you create. Squarespace integrates all SEO tools from the jump on your website while Weebly has you download SEO apps to fully optimize your website. 

One feature that’s particularly helpful in Weebly’s SEO arsenal is their definition of different important terms in their editor and their offer of editing of titles, meta descriptions, and URLs for SEO purposes. They also offer a SEO Starter checklist to help you follow keyword research and tracking best practices. One failure of Weebly SEO is their limitation of header tags to just H1s and H2s. More header tags from H3s on would be more optimal for your site’s SEO. 

Key Takeaway: In this category, Weebly has slightly better SEO abilities and instruction than Squarespace. 

Additional Features: Email Marketing, Ads, and More

Beyond the core categories covered above, some extra features offered by Squarespace and Weebly will help to make your website and marketing efforts more effective and profitable. From basic G Suite integrations to adding ads, here are the top additional features offered by these two website builders. 

Both Squarespace and Weebly offer integrations with G Suite so you can set up an account to create a professional email address associated with your custom domain for added professionalism as well as Google’s great office software like Google Sheets and Slides. 

Weebly also offers Promote, an email marketing platform with a simple email drag-and-drop builder, mobile-responsive templates, and reports with all of your must-track metrics. This platform is comparable to Mailchimp, one of the most powerful email marketing platforms available. With Promote, you can get website viewers subscribed with ease from your website. Promote costs about $10 a month but is well worth the cost for such an effective way to engage readers and customers.

A big perk of using Weebly is the ability to add Google Adsense to your website so you can monetize traffic. It’s a relatively simple process which will help you earn some extra dollars to add an extra revenue source. 

Squarespace doesn’t offer Google Adsense advertising or a built in email marketing platform. What it lacks in features, Squarespace makes up for in robustness for your new website.

Key Takeaway: While Squarespace has a robust platform with plenty of great features, Weebly takes the cake for the sheer number of extra features that go above and beyond. 

Final Verdict: 8 Core Strengths to Weigh

Now that every important category of Squarespace and Weebly features has been covered comes the difficult decision of choosing one. The table below breaks down the key takeaways from each category so you can weigh the features you value most and make your decision. 

If you want to further explore the Weebly or Squarespace website builders or just want to dive right in and learn how to build with your choice, watch Santrel Media’s tutorials for either builders. The Weebly tutorial and Squarespace tutorial will walk you through every step of creating a new site on either website builder and may also help sway you if you’re still on the fence regarding which builder to choose. 

If you’d like a quick overview of what this guide has covered, check out Santrel Media’s head-to-head video comparison of Squarespace and Weebly. 1