Web Design, but make it fun.

I first started using Squarespace under another Photographer, whom I was managing their studio and day to day "to-do's". I took over her website maintenance and blog, to which was surprisingly easy to navigate. I loved how I was able to read analytics and see what content was working and what was not. The sleek layouts made a few easy clicks look like I spent 4 years in web design. So it was really a no brainer when I decided to start my own business; I knew I would be showing my work to the world through Squarespace. There is just something about the designs of these Squarespace websites that look stunningly polished and exceptionally functional.

Pros

As a former user of Wordpress, I found Squarespace to be a breath of fresh air. I've be using it since 2014 and have never looked back. It actually made designing my website and grabbing analytics fun! When navigating the software, it felt like I had been here before. It was so easy to find the tools and customize the fonts and sizing to my preferences. Adding pictures in where I need them is easy and the layouts they offer display my work in such a beautiful fashion that even I'm blown away. All in all, I love this software because it offers so many different themes and customizations without being confusing. It's actually fun and I love that a blog is included with my site. It's like a whole other site to customize and tweak to your taste. I was never a blogger before but now I don't have a choice, Squarespace makes it too easy to make excuses now.

Cons

There are very few things that come to mind when talking about disliking this software. I do wish there was a larger library of fonts readily available for each area of customization, across all themes.

You get what you pay for

After trying multiple free website building options, I finally relented and tried out the demo version on Squarespace to see what the learning curve would be like, and if it would be worthwhile ot go the paid route for a website. The answer was a resounding yes, and I've subsequently built 3 more sites with them since our first one. I tell every new business owner starting out, check out squarespace, save yourself the headace of the free platforms that limit creativity, and watch your business grow by the day.

Pros

Ease of use Easing learning curve layout options customizations options sleek templates quick onboarding

Cons

Towards the beginning of my experience with Squarespace, I needed some customer sesrvice and the process to find where I could go for help was not easy. This was back in 2017 however, so I'm not sure if that process has improved since then (I'd like to think so!)

SquareSpace is a let-down. It's hard to use and is missing basic features. The marketing fooled me!

Overall, I hated using SquareSpace and I was so disappointed because I switched away from WordPress + Divi to give SquareSpace a whirl based on SquareSpace's amazing marketing. What a let down. I will never use SquareSpace again. My client wanted both of his sites designed in SquareSpace because he was also duped by the ads. I made one site and it took forever because I was constantly googling how to do something with code to get the site how we wanted it. If you use SquareSpace be prepared to be frustrated or to hire a developer. Basic functionality is missing and you can't copy anything you've done to use elsewhere. I wanted to duplicate the first site and modify it for the second. You can't do that. I had to make both sites from scratch. Support was absolutely terrible. Zero help compared to the awesome Divi support staff that has made my designing life so great for so many years (I'm not an affiliate, just a fan). Oh! And SquareSpace is expensive! You have to pay for each and every site. With WordPress, you pay for hosting somewhere, like Siteground, and you can add as many sites to that account as you like no charge. Squarespace has pretty templates that you can't modify pretty much at all, and it's expensive with terrible support. Do not choose SquareSpace as your CMS unless you are a developer. Awful.

Pros

SquareSpace has beautiful templates. They are truly gorgeous. SquareSpace also has an easy-to-use sidebar of options that puts everything that you can do on the left side. The interface is as clean as the templates. Hosting of your site is done through Squarespace. That's it when it comes to pros. There are a ton of Cons to using SquareSpace.

Cons

As a WordPress user (who has also designed with Wix), SquareSpace falls short almost everywhere. You can't import your brand font—essential. You have to use code or a back-door solution with AdobeFonts. If you want 5 items in a row, no can do. You get 4 or 6. You can't drag the amount of padding around items and sections. You must use spacer blocks (time consuming and such a bad way to do things). There's no media storage! If you upload your photo it isn't stored anywhere for easy selection later. You must upload the same image multiple times whenever you need it—frustrating. Changes can't be made on individual copy styles. Squarespace sets up its CMS as a global system so if you want to change the way your font looks in just one place, you need to insert code (markdown block). You should be able to select it and change the size or colour. But no. It's CRAZY! So time-consuming. Missing basic word-processing functionality. Squarespace has no plugin options. You can't duplicate a page of your site and you can't duplicate your site! Everything is done from scratch! In WordPress, you download a .JSON file and upload it somewhere else and you're flying. Not with SquareSpace. You can't make your overlays look different per section. Everything applies globally. You can't add borders to images. The biggest CON? There's no undo! No revision history. If you delete something accidentally, it's gone forever. Support is terrible. Every answer is "you can't do that" or "try to find code.

Squarespace is my favorite web design platform as a boutique web designer

I love Squarespace. I've been using it for over 3 years and have been able to quickly produce several websites with it. I'm a little disappointed by how much Squarespace is limited on design, but the tradeoff is worth it with how easy their platform integrates e-commerce, email marketing, scheduling, and inventory management all-in-one.

Pros

Squarespace is clean, sophisticated, modern, easy to use, and has built-in features such as domain purchasing, email marketing, scheduling, and e-commerce that make it easy to run a business. With Squarespace, I can trust that my clients will be able to manage their website 100% by themselves once I finish designing it for them. With other platforms (like Wordpress), I cannot guarantee the same. I also like how transparent Squarespace's pricing and plans are. It's so easy to upgrade or downgrade as your needs change. In Squarespace, I can design a high-quality website extremely fast and share the draft with my clients easily.

Cons

Squarespace is the least flexible of all the web design platforms that I work with in terms of design customization. There are a lot of different types of widgets and ways to display content that simply aren't available on Squarespace because the platform limits what you can change in the design (probably to prevent websites from turning out bad). I've also noticed that Squarespace websites typically load slower than some of the websites I've built on other platforms like Webflow and Duda.

Squarespace Review

Overall I love Squarespace. My site runs smoothly I have not had any complaints from customers of card sales not going through of the site not working properly. I do use this app on a daily bases updating inventory, changing images and checking analytics for my social post to see the increase of traffic.

Pros

What I like most about Squarespace software is that it is very user friendly. It has up to date functions and accessibility for you to use other apps in combination with this app. I also like that there is a scheduling feature to take appointments. As a Cosmetologist this was very important to me as a buyer.

Cons

A feature that I like the least would be the shipping page on the features within the website. I feel that it could be more simplified or more automated to link with shipping rates based on the weight and measurements of the product. I figured it out eventually but honestly that part of setting up my site was a headache.