Ecwid vs Squarespace 2024: Which Platform is Best for You?

Ecwid and Squarespace are two major names in the website development and ecommerce landscapes. Both platforms give entrepreneurs the tools they need to design and grow an online store, manage business operations, and even create comprehensive marketing campaigns.

However, while Squarespace and Ecwid have some overlapping functionality, there are big differences between the two platforms.

Squarespace is an all-in-one solution for website building, sales, and marketing, while Ecwid is more of a simple solution, designed to help smaller companies sell products and services anywhere.

We took a deep dive look at both solutions, testing the features and assessing the benefits for ourselves, to bring this comprehensive comparison of Ecwid, vs Squarespace.

Quick Summary: Is Ecwid or Squarespace Best?

Overall, we consider Squarespace to be the better of the two platforms, for a few reasons. Squarespace offers more advanced website design and customization tools, better marketing capabilities, and more built-in features than Ecwid overall. We’d recommend considering Ecwid if you want to add ecommerce functionality to an existing website, built with a platform like WordPress.

Ecwid is better if you…

Already have an existing website or marketplace storefront and want to expand your sales opportunities. Ecwid integrates with a range of sales platforms, and makes it easy to embrace omnichannel sales strategies, with point-of-sale solutions and mobile apps.

Squarespace is better if you…

Want a comprehensive website builder with attractive designs and templates, fantastic customization options, and a range of built-in marketing tools.

Squarespace also supports a wider range of business models, with solutions for selling courses, memberships, and digital products, as well as advanced store and business management features.

Ecwid vs Squarespace: Quick Comparison

	Squarespace	Ecwid
Ease of Use	Very straightforward platform with intuitive design tools, a robust website builder, and a range of tools for business process automation.	Extremely simple and beginner-friendly platform, ideal for adding ecommerce functionality to an existing website.
Design and themes	Wide selection of attractive templates for different industries and business models. Excellent design and customization tools.	Basic template options and limited customization features. However, Ecwid can integrate seamlessly with your existing website builder.
Sales features	Solutions for selling physical or digital products, services, courses, memberships and more. You can also access client invoicing tools, store management features, and commerce extensions.	Excellent omnichannel sales capabilities, so you can sell on marketplaces, social media channels, and in-person with point of sale integrations.
Plugins and integrations	Integrations with marketing, shipping, account, and fulfillment tools.	Extensive app market with integrations for various platforms and business management tools
Marketing tools and SEO	Comprehensive SEO tools, blogging capabilities, and integrations with social media and paid ad platforms.	Simple SEO features and integrations with email marketing and social media solutions.
Customer support	Extensive self-help resources, as well as email and live chat support on most plans	Email, chat, and phone support, (only email for the free plan), as well as a comprehensive help center.
Pricing	14-day trial with paid plans starting at $16 per month for a basic website, or $23 per month for a site with ecommerce functionality.	Free plan with paid plans starting at $19 per month.

Ecwid vs Squarespace: Ease of Use

If you’re looking for a user-friendly solution for building your online store, both Squarespace and Ecwid are excellent options.

We think both of these platforms are great for small businesses with limited technical knowledge. You don’t necessarily need any coding knowledge with either platform, although you will need to be familiar with CSS to make advanced customizations on Ecwid.

For the most part, getting started with Ecwid is a breeze, particularly if you choose to use the solution to add ecommerce functionality to an existing website. All you need to do is add a widget or plugin to your website’s backend, and you can start selling products in no time.

Ecwid even comes with convenient tools to help you automate processes like shipping and tax calculations, and inventory tracking. Plus, if you choose to build a website with Ecwid, you can design an “instant site” in a matter of minutes, with no need for any coding. There are even various free templates to get you started.

In the past, Squarespace hasn’t been as easy to use as alternatives like Wix, but the company has significantly improved its user interface in recent years. Squarespace has a very intuitive website builder and editor, that makes it easy customize every aspect of your site.

Like Ecwid, it also comes with a variety of features that make running your business easier, such as store and inventory management tools, solutions for scheduling appointments, and an invoice generator. Youi can even use Squarespace to create a custom logo for your brand.

However, since Squarespace is a more comprehensive platform than Ecwid, it might have a slightly higher learning curve for complete beginners. The good news is you can always hire a Squarespace expert for extra guidance and support.

Design Options and Themes

If you’re looking for a platform that will help you design a visually impactful website and compelling brand, you really can’t beat Squarespace. We’ve used countless website builders in the past, from Shopify, to BigCommerce, and still consider Squarespace’s templates to be some of the best around.

Squarespace offers professional-looking and mobile responsive templates for virtually every industry and business need. The award-winning templates are also extremely easy to customize. You can edit sections and blocks to fit your brand, explore curated color palettes, and even change your layout and website structure at the click of a button.

We’re particularly impressed by Squarespace’s mobile app, which allows you to make basic changes to your templates on the move. Notably, Squarespace’s design tools aren’t just great for online stores, they’re ideal for creating portfolios, blogs, and membership sites too.

In comparison, Ecwid is pretty limited in terms of both templates and design options. If you choose to build an “instant site” with Ecwid, you’ll have a handful of basic templates to choose from. Plus, you can customize the layout and features with around 50 different “blocks and segments”.

It’s difficult to make granular changes to your site’s appearance with Ecwid, as all customizations come with predetermined options to choose from.

For instance, you can choose to make your product images large or small, but you can’t set specific sizes.

For extensive customization, you’ll need to use CSS to edit colors and themes. You can also use CSS to create a custom theme, but this can be complex if you’re not used to working with code.

Sales and Ecommerce Tools

Both Ecwid and Squarespace make it relatively easy to start selling products and services online. With both platforms, you can sell digital and physical products, with a custom shopping cart, and integrated payment processors like PayPal, Stripe and Square.

Ecwid comes with a number of valuable features for business leaders, including an abandoned cart recovery option, streamlined checkout solution, and promotion and discount creation tools. You can set shipping options for physical products, and use integrations with social media, marketplaces, and POS systems to unlock the benefits of omnichannel selling.

The ability to connect your Ecwid store to platforms like Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, and Instagram, and use your preferred payment gateways means scaling your business is easy.

However, while Ecwid offers basic business management tools for shipping, and product variants, it lacks robust inventory management and automation tools.

Squarespace is a little more versatile in its ecommerce and sales tools. You can use your Squarespace website to sell digital and physical products, book appointments, and deliver services to consumers. You can also create your own membership sites and sell subscription-based services.

Squarespace integrates with tools like Printful if you’re interested in print-on-demand selling. Plus, it supports in-person selling with POS tools.

Where Squarespace really stands out, however, is in its business management features. You can access everything from abandoned cart recovery tools to customizable invoices, and tax compliance tools.

There are even features for managing orders, inventory, shipping, and fulfillment in one unified environment. Plus, with certain advanced plans, you can automate sales tax filing and reporting, which can save you a lot of time, and financial headaches.

Plugins and Integrations

If you want to take your online store to the next level, plugins and integrations can be valuable resources. As mentioned above, both Squarespace and Ecwid integrate with a variety of payment gateways. However, Ecwid does offer a slightly wider range of integrations with other website builders, sales channels, and marketplaces.

The Ecwid app market also includes access to various tools for helping your business grow, such as LiveChat, and Advanced discount apps and plugins.

There are even entire “app collections” available for different use cases. Plus, since Ecwid integrates with WordPress and WooCommerce, it can work alongside a variety of tools used by WordPress users.

Squarespace has a smaller app marketplace than Ecwid overall. However, it is packed with dozens of useful tools for marketing, analytics, accounting, and more. Add-ons and extensions are available for everything from shipping tools like Shipstation, to dropshipping apps like Spocket.

Additionally, since Squarespace has more features built into the platform for Ecwid, it’s unlikely you’ll need to use quite as many integrations with this platform.

Marketing Tools and SEO

Ecwid and Squarespace take a slightly different approach to marketing and SEO. Both platforms are designed to be search-engine friendly, with fast-loading themes, and customizable URLs. However, Squarespace takes SEO a step further, with options to customize meta descriptions and image alt tags.

It also offers a more robust blogging solution. With Squarespace, you can create comprehensive blog posts to boost your position on the search engine result pages for certain keywords and phrases.

With Ecwid, you’ll need to use an integration with a solution like WordPress to get the same results.

Both Ecwid and Squarespace offer access to email marketing tools, but Ecwid delivers this functionality primarily though integrations. Squarespace has an integration with Mailchimp, and offers access to a pre-built email marketing toolkit.

For omnichannel marketing, both Ecwid and Squarespace support social media integrations, and can integrate with tools like Google Ads for paid campaigns. They also both offer abandoned cart recovery tools, which can boost your chances of earning conversions.

One point worth noting is that Squarespace offers a greater variety of branding tools, such as a logo maker. It also provides fantastic insights into your target audience, to help you segment your customers into different groups, and create more personalized campaigns.

Customer Support and Service

We were reasonably impressed by both Squarespace and Ecwid’s approaches to customer support. Both platforms offer beginners plenty of self-help resources to get them started, such as video guides, community forums, FAQs, and help center articles.

If you need direct access from a customer service team, Squarespace offers live chat, and email support 24/7, with expert assistance available at an extra cost. Ecwid offers live chat, phone, and email support. However, live chat and phone support are only available for premium users.

Additionally, priority support is only available for Ecwid if you pay for the most expensive plan. If you’re on the free plan, you’ll be limited to the Ecwid help center and email.

Ecwid vs Squarespace: Pricing Plans

Ecwid and Squarespace are relatively affordable for smaller businesses. However, Ecwid may be the better option if you’re running a smaller company, as it does offer a free plan.

Notably, the free plan only allows you to access basic features. You can only sell up to 5 products, and you won’t be able to use more advanced marketing tools.

The premium plans for Ecwid include:

• The Venture plan: $19 per month: The features of the free plan plus support for up to 100 products (including digital products). You also get gift cards, discount tools, omnichannel selling, app integrations, mobile app management, and inventory tracking.
• The Business Plan: $39 per month for the features of the Venture plan, plus support for up to 2,500 products, marketplace integrations, abandoned cart emails, advanced product filters and variations, and free customization services.
• The Unlimited Plan: $99 per month for all the features of the Business plan, plus priority support, unlimited products, POS integrations, branded app options, marketing automations, and unlimited staff accounts.

Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan, but it does allow users to test the platform for no cost for up to 14 days. After that, you can choose from four premium plans, all of which have a discount if you choose to pay annually instead of monthly.

Plans include:

• Personal: $16 per month: Advanced website builder with integrated SEO tools, templates to fit every need, a free custom domain, and marketing tools.
• Business: $23 per month: All the features of Personal, plus ecommerce tools (with a 3% transaction fee), checkouts for your own domain, advanced website analytics, and unlimited admin accounts. You’ll also get access to options for selling courses, video on demand, and memberships.
• Commerce: $27 per month: All the features of Business, plus ecommerce with no transaction fees, powerful merchandising tools, options for selling on Facebook and Instagram, Point of Sale integrations, product reviews, and more.
• Commerce Advanced: $49 per month: All the features of the Basic Commerce plan, plus advanced shipping options, subscription sales, advanced discount rules, commerce APIs, abandoned cart recovery, and more.

Notably, you won’t be able to sell products or services using the Personal plan. This package is intended more for standard websites and blogs.

Ecwid vs Squarespace: Which one should you choose?

For us, Squarespace stands out as the most valuable option for ecommerce vendors. It comes with a wider range of business management tools, more advanced templates and design capabilities, and more options for selling different kinds of products and services.

Though Ecwid is a great option for beginners, it lacks some of the advanced functionality you might need to build a more scalable online store and brand. We’d generally recommend only using Ecwid if you want to add ecommerce functionality to an existing website.

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