Art Storefronts vs Squarespace: Which is Best for Artists?

Art Storefronts vs Squarespace: Which is best? Ultimately, it all depends on the type of business you want to run. Squarespace is a straightforward website builder, with beautiful templates, and plenty of handy tools if you want to sell things like courses, memberships, and subscriptions. However, while Squarespace advertises itself as a website builder intended for creators it’s not focused exclusively on artists.

It’s also not the most robust ecommerce platform I’ve ever used. In fact, when you dive in and actually set up an account with Squarespace, you’ll find a lot of missing ecommerce capabilities. There’s no “wish list” feature, the inventory management tools are very basic, and Squarespace doesn’t even have its own dedicated payment processor (though it integrates with others).

Art Storefronts is the only ecommerce solution I’ve seen so far actually designed to help artists promote and sell their products. It’s a specialized solution, combining website design with ecommerce, print-on-demand, and specialized services.

Let’s dive into the comparison.

Art Storefronts Pros and Cons

Squarespace Pros and Cons

Art Storefronts vs Squarespace: Feature Comparison

Both Art Storefronts and Squarespace offer access to website building and ecommerce tools, but they’re very different beneath the surface.

Art Storefronts is a comprehensive solution designed specifically to address the needs of artists. Squarespace is more of a catch-all platform that allows you to sell virtually anything, but gives you very few advanced tools.

Website Design Features

Squarespace has an excellent reputation as one of the best website design platforms, and its easy to see why. Not only can you choose from a huge range of professionally-designed templates for your Squarespace store, but you can customize those templates however you like.

Squarespace’s design tools are extremely easy to use, and don’t impose any limitations on how many pages, blogs, or galleries you can create. Plus, if you’re having a hard time building the perfect store, Squarespace allows you to use AI to create a template instead.

However, even though I love Squarespace’s templates and design tools, I do think Art Storefronts is a better website builder overall. It gives you all of the same features as Squarespace, including beautiful, responsive templates you can customize based on your needs.

Beyond that, though, Art Storefronts comes with a few extra features that really take your web design capabilities to the next level. You can create pop-up lead capture tools with marketing automation and user targeting built-in. You can also design augmented reality experiences for customers that allow them to view what your products will look like on their walls.

Although the platform is a little trickier to navigate, Art Storefronts does give you the option to have a team design your store for you. You’d need to upgrade to the Enterprise version of Squarespace, or hire a designer to get the same experience from them.

Ecommerce and Art Selling Features

As I mentioned before, Squarespace is a decent ecommerce platform. It integrates with a range of payment processing solutions. Plus, it allows you to sell virtually any kind of product, from physical and digital products, to subscriptions, memberships, and courses.

If you’re a service-focused business, Squarespace is definitely a good choice, with it’s integrated appointment booking tools. You can also take advantage of some omnichannel sales features, such as the ability to sell on social media, or through a point-of-sale system (with Square).

However, when it comes to actually selling art, Art Storefronts gives you so much more functionality. First, Art Storefronts will actually create your art for you.

While you can integrate with Printful to get a similar experience using SquareSpace, Art Storefront’s print on demand services are much more advanced. They can create framed pieces, canvases, and prints in a wider range of sizes than most POD companies, and even design catalogs for you.

On top of that, you get a bunch of tools from Art Storefronts that help you increase sales, such as:

• Art Buyer AI: An intelligent tool that offers insights into your customers.
• Unique merchandizing options: Such as live 3D and augmented reality previews, and 360-degree merchandising videos.
• Upselling and cross–selling tools: Like automatically suggested bundles, recently viewed product carousels, automated art upsells, and dynamic merch positioning.

In simple terms, Squarespace might be better for selling courses and subscriptions, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Art Storefronts in terms of art selling features.

Marketing and Business Growth

When it comes to marketing and growing your business, Squarespace is a bit of a letdown. It does give you access to a great blogging functionality, so you can invest in content marketing. Plus, the templates you’ll access on Squarespace are optimized for technical SEO.

However, there are no particularly advanced marketing tools. You can create email campaigns (though I’d recommend using a third-party app for this), design trackable links for social media campaigns, and use pop-up and announcement bars on your website. That’s about it.

The best feature Squarespace gives you to grow your business, in my opinion, is the ability to sell subscriptions and memberships to customers.

Again, Art Storefronts is a lot more advanced. It allows you to earn the trust of your customers with 3^rd party badges from recommended art associations. There’s an integrated pop-up lead capture tool included on all websites, and you get a SEO-ready blog for content marketing.

There are AI tools like the Art Copilot to help you create personalized marketing campaigns, and an integrated CRM system for tracking customer relationships. Plus, the Art Storefronts team will build entire marketing campaigns for you, as well as providing you with art-selling best practice guides, webinars, courses, and playbooks.

Plus, Art Storefronts allows customers to create favorites lists, share pages with friends via email with a single click, and view products in augmented reality. On top of that, you get access to email marketing tools and integrations with social media platforms.

Art Storefronts vs Squarespace: Pricing and Fees

While Art Storefronts is the more advanced ecommerce solution for artists overall, Squarespace does have an edge from a pricing perspective. The platform follows a simple subscription model, with prices ranging from around $16 to $49 per month.

Notably, you will need at least a “Business” plan to sell through Squarespace, which starts at $23 per month, with transaction fees of 3%. If you want to avoid transaction fees, you’ll need the Commerce Basic ($36 per month) or Advanced ($65 per month) plan.

This pricing does make Squarespace a bit more expensive than some of the other ecommerce platforms I’ve used in the past, but it’s still relatively affordable, particularly for those who would need to access add-ons for other platforms (like Shopify) to sell courses and subscriptions.

The main problem with Art Storefronts is that there aren’t any direct pricing plans to choose from. You can only get a price for the platform when you contact the team and request a demo. They’ll ask you specifically what services and support you’re going to need, and give you a custom quote.

From what I can tell reading other user reviews online, you’ll spend around $3,000+ to set your store up initially, then there are extra monthly fees to pay for hosting and support. There are also hefty fees for a lot of the services you might want to access.

I should note, however, that while the pricing for Art Storefronts might be high, you are getting an enterprise-level experience. If you really want to scale and grow your art business, it could be worth paying a little extra.

Art Storefronts vs Squarespace: The Verdict

Ultimately, if you’re looking for the best ecommerce platform for artists, and you’re not worried about pricing, Art Storefronts is the better choice, hands down. It’s the far more advanced platform, packed with unique tools that will help you to promote, create, and sell more art.

It’s also the better option in terms of customer service and support, offering end-to-end assistance with everything from web design to marketing.

Alternatively, if you’re just looking for an affordable, relatively versatile, and easy-to-use ecommerce platform, without the extra bells and whistles, Squarespace is still a good choice. Personally, though, I’d recommend it more to people selling courses and subscriptions than established artists.