Stephanie Cole

Squarespace vs Webflow: Which Website Builder Should You Pick?

October 16, 2025

Linda set both of these up so I could actually compare them side by side. She said one took maybe twenty minutes and the other took closer to two hours. I didn't know which was which until she pointed it out, and honestly I'm not sure it would have changed anything for me. I just needed something that looked professional without me having to make a lot of decisions. One of them kept asking me to make decisions.

Quick Verdict: Which One Should You Choose?

I had Derek build out the first version and Linda redid it about a month later on the other one because Derek's "got a style," apparently. I didn't know there was a difference until I tried to move a text box on my own and spent 40 minutes on it. That felt normal to me. Chris said it wasn't.

Stick with the simpler one if: you handed someone a folder of photos and said "make it look nice." I got a site I could actually update myself. Changed a banner image in maybe four minutes without texting anyone.

Switch to the other if: you have someone like Derek who talks about spacing like it's a personality trait. He built something with animations I didn't ask for. I've been told they're impressive. Our contact form went from ignored to around 3 to 4 submissions a week, which Tory said was good.

Pricing Comparison

Both platforms use tiered pricing, but the structures are quite different. Squarespace keeps it simple with one price per plan. Webflow splits costs between Site plans (for hosting) and Workspace plans (for collaboration).

Jamie was asking me about monthly costs yesterday. I told him my horse's hoof care person charges more than either of these options. He thanked me three times for sharing that.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace recently rolled out new plan names: Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced. These replace the old Personal, Business, and Commerce tiers. All plans include hosting, SSL, templates, and a free custom domain for the first year on annual billing.

The Core plan hits the sweet spot for most small businesses-it removes transaction fees on physical products and unlocks custom code injection. If you're selling digital products or memberships heavily, you'll want Plus or Advanced to avoid those percentage fees eating into margins.

Squarespace's pricing is straightforward and all-inclusive. When you pay for a plan, you get everything: hosting, security, templates, and basic features. Domain renewal after the first year typically costs $20-70 annually depending on your domain extension. The platform also offers optional add-ons like email marketing (starting at $5/month) and scheduling tools, but none are required to run a functional site.

Check out our full Squarespace pricing breakdown for more details, and grab a Squarespace coupon before signing up.

Webflow Pricing

Webflow's pricing is more complex because you pay separately for hosting (Site plans) and collaboration tools (Workspace plans). This layered pricing structure confuses many new users, but it allows more flexibility for agencies and teams.

Site Plans (per website):

Here's the gotcha: Webflow's site plans are just for hosting. You also need a Workspace plan if you're working with a team, which means you're potentially paying twice. This catches agencies off guard constantly.

Ecommerce Site Plans:

That $212/month Advanced ecommerce plan is eye-watering compared to Squarespace's $99/month max. Webflow's ecommerce is really only worth it if you need its design flexibility-otherwise you're overpaying.

Workspace plans add another layer of cost if you're working with a team. The free Starter workspace limits you to 2 sites. Paid workspaces (starting at $16/month for Freelancer) unlock collaboration features, more unhosted projects, and code export capabilities.

Webflow's pricing structure changed significantly in recent updates, introducing per-seat pricing for team members. Full seats cost more than basic seats, and the complexity has frustrated many users. For solo users, you can stick with just a Site plan, but agencies need to factor in both Site and Workspace costs when budgeting.

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Ease of Use

Linda set both of these up for me. She spent about half a day on the first one and I thought that was just how long websites took. Chris said that was actually pretty fast. I would not have known either way.

The first platform – the simpler one – I actually used myself after Linda handed it off. You pick a template, click on whatever you want to change, and type. That's mostly it. I built out a whole secondary page for the foundation on my own without asking anyone. It took me maybe two hours and I wasn't stressed once. The sidebar is organized in a way that just makes sense. I kept expecting to hit a wall and I didn't.

The one thing that got me: it doesn't save automatically. I lost about forty minutes of work the first time because I didn't realize I had to hit a button. I now hit save constantly, like every three sentences. This walkthrough helped me get oriented early on.

The second platform Linda spent considerably longer on. She described it to me using the word "flexbox" and I nodded. I went in afterward to make one change – moving a block of text slightly to the left – and I was in there for probably forty minutes before I gave up and texted her. She fixed it in four minutes. I watched over her shoulder and still didn't fully understand what she did.

Derek tried to learn it on his own. He said he got comfortable with the basics after a few weeks but that he already knew some web stuff. I have no frame of reference for what that means. Tory tried after Derek made it sound manageable and she described the experience as "hostile." I think the platform assumes you know things most people don't know.

That said, the training library the second platform offers is genuinely good. I watched two videos just to understand what Linda was doing and they were clear and not boring. I still couldn't do it myself but I understood it better, which felt like progress.

Honest version: the first one I can use. The second one I can watch someone else use. If your situation is closer to mine – where you have one person who handles this stuff and you occasionally need to go in and change a headline – the gap between them is enormous. I updated our contact page myself about six times in one month on the simpler one. I have never touched the other one unsupervised.

Templates and Design

Linda picked the template. I didn't have strong opinions and she'd used the platform before, so she just sent me a link and said "this one." I clicked around in the style panel for maybe twenty minutes changing fonts and the color of one button. That was the extent of my design involvement. It looked fine. Actually it looked better than fine – the base template was genuinely nice and I didn't have to do much to make it feel like ours.

What I noticed is that when I tried to move a section somewhere it didn't want to go, it just... didn't let me. I thought I was doing something wrong. Chris looked at it and said no, that's just how it works, some things are fixed. I found that annoying for about a day and then forgot about it because nothing I actually needed to move was the thing that was locked. So in practice it didn't matter. We got through maybe 6 page layouts before I stopped noticing the constraints at all.

The other platform is a different situation. Tory used it for a client project and described it as "you can do anything but someone has to know what they're doing." She built a page from a paid template – I think it cost something, I don't know what – and ended up gutting most of it anyway. She said it took her about four hours to get it where she wanted. She seemed to think that was fast. I would have thought that was slow but apparently it's not.

Design Flexibility and Customization

Tory set up both of these for me. I think she used some kind of starter template on the first one and built the second one more from scratch. She said the second took significantly longer. I didn't know what that meant in terms of whether that was normal or not until Derek looked at it and made a face.

The first platform felt like it was making decisions for me, which honestly I didn't mind. I changed the fonts and the button colors and moved some things around and it still looked like a real website. That felt like a win. I tried to add a second navigation menu for a different section and apparently that's just not something it does. Tory said I could work around it but the workaround involved pasting something into a box I didn't understand, so I left it alone.

The second one was different. Tory built something that looked nothing like any template I'd seen, which was the point. She did a scroll animation on the services page that I genuinely thought required a developer. It did not, apparently. I've had visitors spend about 40% longer on that page compared to the old version, which Chris noticed before I did and mentioned at the wrong moment.

The thing is, I couldn't have built that second site myself. I opened it once to change a headline and accidentally broke the layout on mobile. It took Tory twenty minutes to fix what I did in four seconds. The first platform I can actually get into without supervision. I've updated it maybe eight or nine times without calling anyone.

So when people ask me about squarespace vs webflow, I tell them it depends entirely on whether you have a Tory. I have a Tory two days a week. That changes the answer.

Ecommerce Capabilities

Linda set up the shop side of things. I asked her how long it took and she said about half a day, which I didn't think was unusual until Chris made a face. Apparently that's on the longer end. I would have just called someone but Linda said it was fine and honestly she seemed to enjoy it.

Once it was running, selling through it felt pretty straightforward. We had physical products, a couple of digital downloads, and a gift card option that Tory suggested we add. I didn't set any of that up myself but I did manage orders for about six weeks, and it never felt complicated. Checkout looked clean on my phone, which I checked probably more than I needed to.

The part that frustrated me was international. We had a customer in Germany who emailed asking why the price looked different at checkout. I didn't have an answer because I didn't fully understand it myself. Linda explained something about currencies only showing properly once you're actually checking out. I just assumed it would handle that automatically. Apparently not.

Shipping outside the US was also messier than I expected. I thought it would calculate rates on its own, but Linda had to enter fixed amounts manually based on weight. She didn't complain about it but she did mention it twice, which with Linda means she definitely found it annoying.

Abandoned cart emails weren't available on the plan we started with. We upgraded after I noticed we were getting a lot of people who didn't finish buying. I don't know what the plan cost. Derek handles that. But the cart recovery emails, once they were on, helped. Open rate on those ran around 34%, which Jamie said was solid.

The second platform was set up by Derek, who I think watched a tutorial series about it because he kept referencing specific episodes. He was excited about the design control, and I'll admit the product pages looked genuinely better than anything I'd seen us put together before. The checkout had this minimal feel that matched our actual brand instead of just looking like a default store.

What I noticed using it day-to-day was that it got slow once we had more than a few dozen products loaded. Not broken, just sluggish in a way that made me not want to go in and update things. I started avoiding the product editor around week three, which probably wasn't ideal. Derek said that was normal for what we had loaded. Chris disagreed but didn't offer a solution.

The design flexibility is real but it comes with a cost I don't fully understand and a learning curve I definitely didn't climb myself. For the kind of store where how it looks is the whole point, I think it earns its place. For anything where you're moving real volume or need shipping to just work without someone configuring it carefully, I'm not sure it's the right fit. That's just my read from using both.

SEO and Performance

Linda set up both sites for a comparison we were doing. She said one of them took noticeably longer because there were more settings to dig through. I assumed that was normal. Chris later told me it was because one platform gives you a lot more control over how pages get indexed and how redirects work, which apparently matters for search.

I don't fully understand what that means, but I did notice our load time on the more controlled one dropped from about 3.1 seconds to 1.8 after Linda adjusted something in the structure. She seemed pleased. I nodded.

The other platform handled most of the search stuff automatically, which honestly I preferred. I didn't have to touch anything. It just worked. For the kind of site we were building, that was fine. Derek said our content mattered more than whichever platform we picked, and I believe him because he said it very confidently.

If someone is going to be in the backend adjusting technical details regularly, the more hands-on option probably makes sense. For me, the one that required fewer decisions was the one I trusted more.

Content Management System (CMS)

I honestly didn't realize the two were that different until I tried to move a piece of content and it just... didn't go where I expected. Linda had set up the first one for us. She said it was pretty self-explanatory, which I think was her way of saying she figured it out as she went. I took her word for it.

The one we started with kept everything in obvious buckets. Blog posts here, pages there, products somewhere else. I added maybe six posts on my own before I stopped second-guessing where things were going. It felt like a filing cabinet that was already labeled. What it didn't do well was let me build anything unusual. I wanted a section that was sort of a staff directory with specific fields for each person and it just wouldn't bend that way. Chris said that was a known limitation. He said it like I should have already known.

The second one was a different situation. Jamie had configured the whole collections setup before I touched it, and when I went in to actually add content I spent probably forty minutes figuring out why my entry wasn't showing up on the page. Turns out I hadn't published the collection item separately from the page. I didn't know that was a step. I added about 31 items across three different collections before I stopped making that mistake.

Once I understood it, I could see why people prefer it for complicated stuff. But I wouldn't hand it to someone and walk away. I tried that with Tory and she called me within the hour.

Integrations and Extensibility

Linda handled the setup for both, and honestly I could not tell you what the difference was under the hood. She just handed me two live sites and said "here, same content, different builders." I didn't know that was unusual. Chris apparently thought it was a lot of work. I took her word for it.

The first one felt like it was built to stay inside its own lane. I could connect my email list, plug in the scheduling tool we use for client calls, and link up our social accounts without any real friction. That part was fine. But when Jamie asked me to add some custom tracking script, I had to go find where the platform even lets you do that. Took me longer than it should have. It exists, it just isn't obvious. The available add-ons felt handpicked rather than comprehensive, which I didn't mind until I needed something specific and it wasn't there.

The second one was different in a way I noticed immediately. There were more connection points, more places to plug things in. I ran about 9 different third-party tools through it before I stopped counting, and only one gave me any real trouble. Derek connected it to our external database at some point and I still don't fully understand what he did, but it worked. Forms, analytics, the marketing automation we use, all of it played nicer here than I expected.

My one concrete observation: after switching the contact form over, our submission-to-response lag dropped noticeably. Tory clocked it at roughly 40% faster processing on her end. I don't know if that's the integration or something else. But she noticed it without me saying anything, which I think means something.

Support and Resources

When I first had a problem with the one Chris helped me set up, I emailed support and someone actually responded the same day. I thought that was just how it worked. Turns out Linda had a completely different experience with the other platform we tested, where she said she waited almost two days and eventually just watched a tutorial video instead.

The one I use has a chat option. I did not know you could just... talk to someone in real time about a website problem. I used it when a section disappeared and I could not figure out what I had done. They fixed it while I was still in the window. I assumed that was normal until Derek said it was not.

The other platform has a whole video library that Tory swears by. She said she got through roughly nine lessons before she felt comfortable building anything on her own. I watched one video and closed the tab. I needed someone to just answer my specific question, not assign me homework.

Performance and Reliability

Linda set up both sites for us. I didn't ask how long it took but Jamie mentioned she was still at it when he left for lunch, which I guess was longer than expected. I wouldn't have known either way.

The first one loaded fine to me. I don't have a strong sense of what "fast" means for a website, but Tory ran some kind of test and said our load time dropped from around 4.1 seconds to 1.8 after Linda moved some images around. I'm told that's meaningful. I'll take her word for it.

The thing I noticed with the first platform is that nothing broke during the week we had that product push. I was expecting to have to call someone. We didn't. It just stayed up. That part impressed me more than I expected it to.

The second one felt more technical in a way I couldn't fully use. There were dashboards with numbers Linda seemed excited about. Bandwidth, requests, things like that. Chris said it gave more visibility into what the site was actually doing. For me that visibility mostly meant more screens I didn't understand.

If your site needs to stay up without babysitting, the first one was fine. If you have someone like Linda who knows what those numbers mean, the second one probably earns its price.

Collaboration and Team Features

Linda set up the contributor access for our site. I didn't ask how many people she added or what permissions she gave them. At some point I noticed I couldn't edit something and she explained I'd been set to contributor instead of administrator. I didn't know those were different things. Once she fixed it, it was fine.

What I did notice is that two people can't edit at the same time. I found this out because I was in the middle of changing a page and Derek apparently tried to get in and just got locked out. He didn't say anything until I mentioned the page looked wrong, and he said he'd been waiting. I don't know how long. Probably not a short time.

The agency-side setup was something Tory handled. She moved between client accounts without logging out, which I assumed everyone could do until she mentioned it was specific to the plan we were on. She said she was managing something like seventeen client sites from one place, which I gather is the point. I had no idea that was unusual until she seemed pleased about it.

The per-seat pricing was news to me when Chris brought it up. Apparently some seats cost more than others depending on what the person needs to do. I had been adding people without thinking about that. Chris seemed mildly horrified. We were at around nine seats at that point.

Learning Resources and Community

I never really looked into either community until Linda mentioned she'd found a fix for something by just searching the forum. I didn't even know there was a forum. For the first one, I did find answers pretty easily when I got stuck, but it felt like I was always reading the same three blog posts. Chris said that was normal and there just wasn't much else out there. I believed him.

The other one was different. I stumbled into what I can only describe as a rabbit hole. There were walkthrough videos, projects you could apparently clone and reuse, whole courses built by random people who clearly knew what they were doing. I watched maybe four or five tutorials before I realized I'd been at it for two hours. Derek apparently uses the forum regularly and said some of those community people basically built careers around it.

I went from having no idea how to fix a layout issue to having it sorted in about 11 minutes. That felt fast to me. Tory said it should have taken longer, which I think means I got lucky.

Migration and Portability

Jamie handled the migration when we moved over. I wasn't involved in the actual process, but he mentioned something about content not coming through cleanly and having to rebuild certain pages. I assumed that was just how moving a website worked. Apparently it's not, or at least it doesn't have to be.

From what I understand, one platform lets you export the actual code – like the real files – and the other one gives you something more like a summary document. Jamie said the code export was "theoretically useful," which I took to mean he didn't end up using it. We rebuilt about 60% of the pages from scratch anyway. I didn't realize that was unusual until he said most migrations shouldn't take three weeks.

The one thing I did notice personally: after we switched, updating the domain took maybe twenty minutes and nothing broke. I had fully expected the site to disappear for a few days. Chris seemed surprised it went smoothly. I'm not sure if that's a low bar or a real win, but I'll take it. Neither platform seems to want you leaving, which Jamie confirmed is very much on purpose.

Who Should Use Squarespace?

Linda set the whole thing up for me. I think it took her maybe two hours, maybe less – I honestly wasn't paying attention. I didn't know if that was fast or slow until Chris said that was pretty quick for getting a full site live. I assumed all websites just kind of... appeared faster than that.

What I noticed is that I never had to ask Linda to fix anything after. I've used other things where the setup is just the beginning of the problems. This one I logged into and it made sense immediately. I built out a second page myself in about 20 minutes and it didn't look embarrassing.

It's not going to let you do whatever you want. I tried to move a block somewhere it didn't want to go and eventually just stopped fighting it. But for what we actually needed – something that looked professional without me learning anything – it held up fine.

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Who Should Use Webflow?

Linda set the whole thing up for me. She said it took most of the day, which I didn't think was unusual until Chris asked why it took so long and apparently that's not how these things normally go. I would have just asked Derek but he was out that week.

Once it was running, I noticed pretty quickly that it wasn't built for people like me. It was built for people like Linda. The controls assume you already know what you're doing with layouts. I got through maybe three page drafts before I stopped touching the spacing settings entirely and just let her handle that part.

What I will say is the content side made more sense than I expected. I managed to update copy on roughly 11 pages without breaking anything, which felt like a win. If you already think in columns and padding, you'll probably love it. I do not think in columns and padding.

Real-World Use Cases

Linda runs a photography business and she had Derek set up her site because she said she "didn't want to touch it." He got it done in a Saturday afternoon. I thought that sounded fast but apparently that's actually pretty quick for a full portfolio site. She hasn't touched the backend since and it still looks good. That tracks with what I saw when I poked around in her account – the gallery stuff just works without you having to think about it.

Jamie's restaurant used it too. He connected some delivery thing and a reservation tool and said he didn't need anyone's help. I believed him because Jamie is not a tech person. If Jamie figured it out, the learning curve is basically flat.

The other one I've actually seen in the wild is Tory's agency. She builds sites for clients and she switched over because she said templates were making everything look the same. Her words. After switching she said she raised her project rates and booked out about 6 weeks further than before. I don't know if that's because of the tool specifically but she thinks it is and she's pretty convinced.

I did try building something myself once. Got about halfway through a five-page site in maybe 40 minutes before I hit something I couldn't figure out and asked Chris. He didn't know either. We left it.

The Bottom Line

Linda set ours up. She said it took her most of the afternoon and I remember thinking that seemed fast for building a whole website. Chris looked at me like I'd said something strange. Apparently that's actually a long time. I genuinely did not know.

From what I can tell, the simpler one is the right call for most people doing what we do. I didn't have specific design requirements. I didn't even know what that phrase meant until Derek used it in a meeting. We launched without any real drama and I've updated it myself maybe a dozen times since, which feels significant because I usually avoid touching anything that looks technical.

The other platform came up once when Tory mentioned she'd used it for a client. She described it like a tool that rewards you for already knowing what you're doing. That tracks. I used both briefly and the gap between them was obvious inside the first twenty minutes.

The one we ended up with, I've made something like 9 or 10 edits without breaking anything. That's my metric. That's what I care about.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I switch from Squarespace to Webflow (or vice versa)?

Yes, but it's not seamless. You'll likely need to rebuild your design in the new platform. Content like blog posts can be migrated, but custom layouts and styling won't transfer automatically. Plan for this to take time or budget for professional migration assistance.

Which is better for SEO?

Both platforms are capable of ranking well in search results. Webflow offers more granular SEO controls, but for most sites, the difference is negligible. Your content quality, keyword strategy, and backlinks matter more than your platform choice. Neither will hold you back from SEO success.

Can I use my own domain?

Yes, both platforms support custom domains. Squarespace includes a free domain for the first year on annual plans. Webflow requires you to purchase domains separately or transfer existing ones. You always own your domain regardless of platform.

Do I need coding knowledge?

Squarespace requires zero coding knowledge. Webflow technically doesn't require coding, but understanding HTML/CSS concepts helps significantly. You can use Webflow without writing code, but you're manipulating visual representations of code concepts, so some technical understanding makes the learning process much smoother.

Which has better templates?

Squarespace templates are more consistently polished and professionally designed. Webflow has a mix of quality since many templates are community-created. However, Webflow templates are more customizable-you can change every detail, while Squarespace templates have more constraints.

Can I build membership sites?

Both platforms support membership functionality, but with different approaches. Squarespace offers member areas with gated content on higher-tier plans. Webflow's membership features are newer and require the Business plan or higher, with more customization possible but more setup required.

How long does it take to build a site?

With Squarespace, you can build a basic site in a few hours or a weekend. With Webflow, expect at least several days for a basic site if you're experienced, or weeks if you're learning. The complexity of your requirements matters more than the platform-simple sites are quick on either, complex sites take time on both.

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