Squarespace and WordPress can both help you build a professional website, but they take different approaches to getting it online and keeping it running.
Squarespace combines website-building tools and hosting in one service. With self-hosted WordPress, you choose a hosting provider and run the open-source WordPress software on that hosting.
That difference affects more than setup. It influences how you edit your website, add features, arrange support and move to another provider later.
This guide compares Squarespace with self-hosted WordPress, rather than WordPress.com. We’ll look at the practical trade-offs so you can work out which approach suits your website, budget and level of technical involvement.
Squarespace vs WordPress: the key difference
Squarespace is a hosted website-building service. You create your website using Squarespace’s tools, and Squarespace provides the hosting environment as part of your website subscription.
WordPress is open-source software. You can install it with a hosting provider of your choice, then use themes, plugins and the WordPress editor to build and manage your website.
That does not mean every WordPress website is a do-it-yourself project. Some hosting providers and support companies handle installation, updates, backups and other maintenance tasks for their customers.
It also does not mean Squarespace is the only hosted way to use WordPress. WordPress.com offers a separate hosted WordPress service. If you want to understand how that differs from using your own hosting provider, see our guide to WordPress.com versus self-hosted WordPress.
For this comparison, the distinction is simple: Squarespace supplies a combined website and hosting service, while self-hosted WordPress lets you choose the organisations and tools involved in running your website.
Getting started and managing your website
Both platforms let you publish pages and blog posts without writing code. The setup and editing experiences differ, however.
Getting started with Squarespace
You start with a Squarespace account, select a design and build your website within its editing environment.
Hosting is part of the service, so you do not need to arrange a separate WordPress installation or configure a web server to begin building.
On Squarespace version 7.1 sites, Fluid Engine lets you arrange and resize blocks within supported page sections. You can also adjust mobile layouts separately. Some areas, including blog posts, use a different editor, so the editing experience is not identical across every part of a Squarespace site.
The main advantage of this approach is that the website-building tools and hosting are provided together. You still need to plan your content, navigation, design and any additional services your website requires.
Getting started with WordPress
With self-hosted WordPress, you first need suitable hosting and a domain name. Many hosting providers offer a WordPress installation process, and some provide WordPress pre-installed.
Once it is running, you can create pages and posts in the WordPress block editor. Blocks let you add and arrange text, images, headings, galleries and other content.
Your theme affects the available design tools. A block theme can let you edit broader parts of the website, such as templates and navigation, through the Site Editor. Other themes use different settings or editing approaches.
This gives you a choice of tools, but it also means two WordPress websites may feel quite different to manage.
What to consider: Try the actual editing workflow you expect to use. Building a homepage once is different from adding articles, changing opening hours or updating products every week.
Templates, themes and design control
Both platforms provide starting designs that you can adapt to your brand.
Design on Squarespace
Squarespace offers templates, page sections and visual styling tools. On version 7.1 sites, you can arrange supported content blocks with Fluid Engine and adjust their appearance for desktop and mobile layouts.
You can create a distinctive design within those tools, but you work inside Squarespace’s platform and the options it makes available.
Some changes may need custom CSS or other supported customisation features. Access to particular features can depend on your plan and site version.
It is worth testing a design requirement before committing, especially if you need an unusual layout or interaction.
Design on WordPress
WordPress separates website content from much of its visual presentation through themes.
You can start with a theme and adapt its available settings, use a block theme and the Site Editor, or commission a custom design.
Plugins and custom development can introduce further design and functionality options.
The trade-off is that flexibility does not guarantee a simple editing experience. A highly customised WordPress website can be straightforward for its owners to use when it is built carefully, or confusing when too many overlapping tools are added.
What to consider: Look beyond the initial template. Ask whether you will be able to make your most common changes yourself and what would be involved in making less common changes later.
Features and extending your website
Both Squarespace and WordPress support common website needs, including publishing content and selling products. How you add less common features is where their approaches diverge.
Features on Squarespace
Squarespace provides built-in tools for tasks such as creating pages, publishing blog posts and, on appropriate plans, selling products or services.
It also offers integrations and additional services. Some features are included in a website plan, while others have separate subscriptions or charges.
This gives you a defined set of tools to work with. Before choosing a plan, confirm that it includes the specific features your website needs rather than assuming that every Squarespace account has the same capabilities.
Features on WordPress
WordPress provides publishing and content-management tools in its core software. You can add further functionality through plugins or custom development.
For example, you might use plugins for contact forms, bookings, membership features or e-commerce. WooCommerce is one option for building an online shop with WordPress.
This approach can accommodate requirements that are difficult to meet with a fixed set of built-in tools. It also creates more decisions: which plugin to use, whether it works with the rest of your website, what it costs and who will maintain it.
Adding more plugins is not automatically better. Choose tools for a clear purpose and check their compatibility, support and ongoing maintenance requirements.
What to consider: Write down the features your website needs now and those you reasonably expect to need later. Check that each platform can meet those requirements in practice, including any plan, integration or development costs.
Hosting, security and ongoing maintenance
A website needs more than an initial build. Its hosting must remain available, its software and services need attention, and somebody needs to respond when things go wrong.
What Squarespace handles
Squarespace provides the hosting environment for websites built on its platform. You do not separately install or update a WordPress core installation, theme or collection of WordPress plugins.
That reduces the number of technical components you need to arrange and coordinate.
You are still responsible for important website tasks, including managing content, account access, relevant integrations and your own business processes.
Using a hosted service does not remove the need to review how your website is run.
What self-hosted WordPress requires
A self-hosted WordPress website needs suitable hosting and an arrangement for ongoing care.
That can include software updates, backups, security monitoring, testing changes and resolving faults. WordPress supports automatic updates for some components, but you should not assume that everything will update successfully or that a failed update will be resolved without intervention.
You do not necessarily have to perform these tasks yourself. Your hosting provider may include some of them, and a WordPress support provider can take responsibility for others.
The important question is who does what.
Before signing up for hosting or ongoing support, establish who handles backups, restores, updates, security issues and problems affecting the website. Check what is included rather than relying on labels such as “managed” or “WordPress hosting”.
What to consider: Compare the responsibilities you will actually retain, not just the advertised features of each service.
Squarespace vs WordPress costs
Comparing only a Squarespace subscription with a WordPress hosting bill is unlikely to give you a complete picture.
The cost of either approach depends on the website you are building and the services you need.
What to budget for with Squarespace
Start with the website plan that includes your required features.
Squarespace’s newer website plans are called Basic, Core, Plus and Advanced, although some existing customers may still use older plans. Check its current plan information for the features and prices available to you.
Also check whether you need to pay separately for a domain after any introductory period, professional email, email campaigns, scheduling or another additional service.
If you sell online, review the applicable transaction and payment-processing fees. Those vary by plan, payment method and location.
What to budget for with WordPress
The core WordPress software is free to use, but running a website still involves costs.
Depending on your setup, these may include hosting, a domain name, premium themes or plugins, design and development work, and ongoing maintenance or support.
You may be able to use free themes and plugins for some requirements. Other features may need paid tools, subscriptions or custom work.
A low initial hosting price is not necessarily the full cost of keeping a website reliable and maintained.
Compare the cost of the complete website
Build a realistic estimate for the first year and for a typical year afterwards.
Include the services each option needs to deliver the same requirements, such as an online shop, booking system or regular support.
Consider the time you or your team will spend maintaining the website, too. That time has a cost even when you are not paying an external provider.
Neither platform has a universal cost advantage. The useful comparison is the total cost of the website you actually need.
Support and troubleshooting
When you need help, it matters who is responsible for the problem and how you can contact them.
Squarespace support
Squarespace provides help documentation and customer-support channels for its service.
According to its current support information, email support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. English-language live chat operates during specified weekday hours rather than around the clock.
Those opening hours do not amount to a guaranteed resolution or response time for every issue.
You may also need to contact a separate provider if a problem concerns something outside Squarespace’s service, such as an independently purchased domain or an external integration.
WordPress support
Self-hosted WordPress does not come with one support contract covering every possible website problem.
You can use WordPress.org documentation and support forums, but help for your particular website may also come from your host, theme developer, plugin provider or an independent WordPress specialist.
The right contact depends on the issue.
For example, a server outage may fall under your hosting provider, while a problem with a paid plugin may be covered by its developer’s support terms.
You can also arrange ongoing professional support so that you have a defined point of contact for website maintenance and troubleshooting.
What to consider: Ask who will investigate a problem that crosses several services. Check support hours, what work is covered and whether help with urgent issues is included.
Ownership, flexibility and moving platforms
It is worth considering what happens if your website outgrows its current setup or you decide to change providers.
Moving away from Squarespace
Squarespace provides a WordPress-format XML export for certain types of website content. Its documentation says that not everything transfers, because some features depend on Squarespace’s own platform.
For example, the export can include supported page and blog content, but it does not export every page type, design setting or store component. Squarespace also documents separate export options for certain information, such as products and contacts.
Moving to another platform may therefore involve rebuilding the design, recreating features and checking content and images after import.
The existence of an export tool does not mean the entire website can be moved unchanged.
Moving a self-hosted WordPress website
With self-hosted WordPress, you can generally move your website to another compatible hosting provider.
A migration may involve transferring the site’s files and database, updating configuration and testing the result.
WordPress also provides a built-in content export tool, but a content export is not the same as a complete copy of the website, including every file, plugin and setting.
Complex WordPress websites can still require specialist migration work, particularly when they use custom code, an online shop or connected services.
What do you actually control?
Keep the different parts of your website in mind: your content, domain registration, hosting account, design, software and third-party services can involve separate rights and agreements.
WordPress being open-source gives you access to its software under its licence. It does not automatically grant rights to every premium plugin, photograph or service used on your site.
Squarespace providing a combined service does not automatically mean it owns original content that you create. Review the relevant terms and any third-party licences rather than treating all parts of a website as one asset.
What to consider: If moving platforms might matter later, find out what you can export, what you would need to rebuild and who controls your domain and important accounts.
Questions to ask before choosing
Rather than comparing every advertised feature, start with the requirements that matter to your website.
- What are you building? A small information website, a regularly updated publication and a complex online shop may have very different needs.
- Who will update it? Consider what routine editing will involve for the people actually doing the work.
- Which features are essential? Verify that they work on the plan or setup you intend to use.
- Who will handle maintenance? Identify responsibility for updates, backups, security and troubleshooting.
- What is the complete cost? Include additional services and ongoing work, not just the starting subscription or hosting price.
- How much control will you need? Think about future integrations, design changes and whether you may want to change providers.
- What happens if something breaks? Establish who you will contact and what their support agreement covers.
Where possible, test a realistic task in each platform. Try updating a page, publishing a post or managing a product rather than judging the experience from a demonstration alone.
If you are new to self-hosted WordPress, our beginner’s guide to managing a WordPress website explains the dashboard and common day-to-day tasks.
Squarespace vs WordPress: final thoughts
Squarespace and self-hosted WordPress can both support a business website, blog or online shop, but they package the work differently.
Squarespace provides a hosted service with integrated website-building tools. Self-hosted WordPress lets you select your hosting and combine open-source software with themes, plugins and other services.
The differences become clearer when you look at your actual requirements: who will edit the website, which features you need, how maintenance will be handled, what you will pay over time and how important changing providers may be.
Compare those practical details before committing. The right decision is the one that meets your needs with responsibilities, costs and limitations you understand.
