Wix vs Squarespace: which is right for a US small business?
Choose Wix if you want to be live for nothing today, pick from a large template library and keep Velo backend code in reserve, and you can pay a year up front when you want your own domain. Choose Squarespace if you want a design-led site finished fast and would rather pay month to month with no contract.
The AI does not separate them: both generate a templated starter site from a prompt and hand you an editor. What separates them is the billing term, the free plan, how editor seats climb the ladder, and whether you are building a page or a program.
Plans and pricing checked October 2026. Every figure on this page is read live from our pricing database and checked against each vendor's own pricing page. The full table and buyer's guide rank on published prices only, and we may earn a commission if you buy through our links, which never changes the order.
Pricing: what you actually pay
Start with the billing basis, because the entry figures in the table are not on the same one. Wix's entry plan is $17/mo (Light) (billing basis: Annual only; contract: Annual, paid in full up front), so the monthly figure is an annual equivalent and the real charge is a year's fee on day one. Squarespace's entry plan is $25/mo (Basic) (billing basis: True monthly; contract: None, monthly or annual), so you can leave after a month, and its annual term is priced below its monthly one.
Both price natively in US dollars (Wix: Yes, native USD; Squarespace: Yes, native USD), and both are a flat plan price with no AI meter attached (pricing model: Flat plan price for Wix, Flat plan price for Squarespace). Hosting is included on both.
Editor seats are capped differently, selling is gated differently, and only Wix has a free rung. Set Websites, Users, Own domain and Sell online? in the calculator above and it picks the plan on each builder that covers them; that is the figure to compare. Software subscriptions are taxed differently from state to state, so the charge on your card may carry sales tax the vendor's page does not show.
A page or a program: Velo against a content system
Wix's backend row reads Yes, via Velo (database, auth, backend code): a database, authentication and server code you control, inside the same subscription. Squarespace's reads No, CMS and member areas (no app backend): a content system and member areas, not an application platform.
A brochure site can sit untouched for a year and still be correct, and either builder will make one. An application holds state: customers log in, records accumulate, and someone has to care where they go if you stop paying. If your site never needs to remember anything about the person using it, this row does not matter. If it needs more than a gated member area, Wix covers it without a separate product.
Who is each one built for
Wix is built for the owner who wants to start without paying and keep options open. Its free plan is a plan, not a trial: Yes, publishes live on a wixsite.com subdomain with Wix branding. Its integrations (App Market (500+), Stripe, APIs) fill most feature gaps from inside the platform, and Velo is the escape hatch when an app does not exist. For a generated site with a CRM and invoicing attached, see Durable vs Wix.
Squarespace is built for the business whose site is a few well-designed pages, a blog and an inquiry form, run by someone who wants to pay monthly and stop thinking about it. Its free plan row reads No, 14-day trial only, and trial sites are private and not indexed, so you build behind a password and pay to be found. Its integrations (Stripe, extensions) keep the platform simple, so a niche feature may need a workaround.
If a contractor, an agency and whoever keeps your books all need a login, the editor cap decides. Wix's is 2 (Light) to 100 (Business Elite), hard caps, a hard limit per plan, so seats push you up the ladder. Squarespace's (2 (Basic), unlimited from Core) applies to the entry plan only. Entry-plan support is 24/7 chat and callback on Wix and 24/7 email, live chat on business hours on Squarespace.
Templates, design import and storage
Wix's templates: 900+. Squarespace's: 150+, design-led. Wix gives you breadth and a free-form editor, Squarespace a curated set built around design. One Wix caveat: you cannot change the template after publishing, so pick it as if you will keep it.
Wix has the only design import of the two (Figma import (Wix Studio)), against Squarespace's No. If a designer has already laid out your site in Figma, that settles it; if you are starting from a prompt and a logo, it is irrelevant.
Storage is measured in different units by the two (Wix's entry plan: 2GB (Light); Squarespace's: Unlimited pages, 30 min video (Basic)), so a photographer or a video-led brand should check which limit bites first.
AI credits and the model behind the builder
Both make the same kind of thing (Wix: Generates a templated site from a prompt; Squarespace: Blueprint AI generates a starter site from prompts): a templated starter you then edit by hand. Neither is a chat-driven app builder, and neither lets you pick the model: the Choose your AI row reads No, fixed AI for Wix and No, fixed AI for Squarespace. Wix names OpenAI (ChatGPT) + DALL-E as its model and Squarespace names Proprietary (uses OpenAI for copy).
The allowance is where they part. Squarespace publishes credits per plan, a one-time allowance on the entry plan and a monthly one above it: 10 one-time (Basic), 20/mo (Core), 120/mo (Advanced). Wix's AI usage limits row reads Not published as a numeric limit, and an unstated ceiling is one you cannot budget against. Neither plan price carries an AI meter; ask each vendor what happens when an allowance runs out before you rely on the generator.
Free plan, your domain and a second site
Your own domain is where Wix's free plan ends (custom domain: Wix Paid plans only (Light and above), Squarespace All paid plans). A .com means paying on both, and on Wix it means an annual plan paid up front. If the builder registers it, confirm you are the registrant of record and can get the transfer authorization code, because the domain is the only part that moves with you: Wix's export row reads No and Squarespace's reads No.
A second site is a second subscription on either (Wix: 1 per plan; Squarespace: 1 per subscription), so a main site plus a separate landing page for one product pays twice on both. Set Websites to 2 in the calculator and watch both figures move.
Selling online and sales tax
This page is about a business website that may also sell, not a store; if the store is the business, read Wix vs Shopify or Shopify vs Squarespace instead. On that footing, Wix's store row reads Core and above, so selling moves you off the entry plan, with no platform commission on sales. Squarespace's reads All plans, commission-free from Core: you can sell from the entry plan but pay a platform commission until the next rung. Set Sell online? to Yes in the calculator and each moves to the plan that covers it.
Card processing is separate on both: each connects Stripe, and the rate you pay on a sale depends on the payment option you choose. Sales tax is the American question. The right rate depends on where the buyer is, not where you are, and we hold no field on tax handling. Wix lists an Avalara sales-tax integration and Squarespace a TaxJar one, but confirm with each vendor whether destination-based tax is calculated at checkout on your plan or needs a separate paid service.
ADA accessibility on a generated site
American small businesses receive demand letters alleging their websites cannot be used by disabled visitors, and the complaints cluster on a short list: images with no alternative text, text without enough contrast, form fields with no real label, controls a keyboard cannot operate, and video with no captions. The standard people build to is WCAG; what a private business website is legally obliged to do is less settled, shaped by how courts have read Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Generated markup is a live risk, because the AI wrote it and nobody asked for accessibility in the prompt, and an overlay is not a fix. We hold no accessibility field for either builder, so verify vendor claims yourself, and since neither exports the code, the fix happens inside the editor. Before launch, work through the whole site from the keyboard alone: can Tab reach every link, button and form field, does every image carry a description, do your color pairs pass a contrast checker, does each field have a real label, and is any video captioned? The site publishes under your name.
The verdict
Decide on two questions. First, is this a page or a program? If the site may ever need its own database, logins or server code, Wix is the one whose backend covers that; if it will only ever describe your business, Squarespace does the job with nothing to manage behind it. Second, how do you want to pay? A year up front, with a free rung to prototype on, points to Wix; monthly with no contract and nothing free points to Squarespace. If the two answers disagree, let the billing term win: you live with it at every renewal, and the backend only matters once you build on it.