These days, there’s no shortage of great platforms out there for creating ecommerce websites, but choosing between two heavy hitters like BigCommerce and Squarespace is still challenging.
Both solutions have an excellent reputation, but if you want my quick opinion, based on more than 10 years testing ecommerce platforms, there’s a big difference between the tools.
Squarespace, for me, stands out as one of the best website builders out there, with exceptional themes, and great tools for booking appointments and selling subscriptions.
BigCommerce has more advanced features tailored to the needs of online sellers. It’s great for increasing conversions, managing complex inventories, and experimenting with AI capabilities.
After thoroughly testing both platforms, I created this comparison guide to help you make the right choice for your store.
Quick Verdict
If you’re looking for a quick recommendation, Squarespace is the better platform overall for beginners in search of a convenient, easy-to-use platform, with basic e commerce and features. Squarespace offers simple website creation, but it lacks some of the scalable features offered by BigCommerce for ecommerce.
BigCommerce is better for selling, but it has a steeper learning curve, and the templates aren’t nearly as attractive or impressive. However, if you’re looking for a scalable solution that supports omnichannel selling, BigCommerce will give you more freedom.
BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Pros and Cons
Squarespace Pros and Cons
Pros 👍
Cons 👎
Pros 👍
Excellent value for money
Highly attractive and customizable templates
Effective built-in marketing features
Excellent subscription, course, and booking features
Easy-to-use dashboard and interface
Cons 👎
Limited scalability and integrations
Ecommerce features are relatively basic
No transaction fees on any plan
BigCommerce Pros and Cons
Pros 👍
Cons 👎
Pros 👍
Exceptional ecommerce capabilities
Fantastic inventory and business management
Omnichannel selling capabilities
Great AI features (new to the platform)
Powerful ecommerce features
Cons 👎
Limitations on how much you can sell on each plan
Fewer marketing tools
Higher learning curve overall
BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Quick Summary
FeatureBigCommerceSquarespacePricingStarts at $29/monthStarts at $16/month (ecommerce plans from $27/month)Transaction FeesNo transaction fees on any plan3% on Business plan, none on higher plansTarget AudienceMore advanced sellers, scalable businessesBeginners, small businessesWebsite BuildingMore templates, but less visually appealingFewer but stunning, responsive templatesEase of UseSteeper learning curveVery user-friendly, intuitiveE-commerce FeaturesAdvanced, tailored for online sellingBasic, good for small storesInventory ManagementExcellent for complex inventoriesDecent for smaller inventoriesPayment GatewaysNumerous optionsLimited (mainly Stripe and PayPal)Marketing ToolsFewer built-in, relies more on integrationsMore built-in marketing featuresAI CapabilitiesAdvanced AI toolkit (BigAI)Basic AI content generationSEO ToolsStrong built-in SEO featuresGood SEO tools includedPerformanceExcellent core web vitalsFast loading, good server response timesSecurityFree SSL, premium SSL optionsFree SSLScalabilityHighly scalable for growing businessesLess scalable for large inventoriesCustomer Support24/7 phone, live chat, emailLive chat, social media, email (no phone)
BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Pricing and Fees
One of the biggest differences between Squarespace and BigCommerce is their approach to pricing. Personally, I think both platforms offer great value for money, when you consider all the features you get. However, the platform that offers the best “bang for your buck”, really depends on what you need.
For instance, Squarespace pricing starts at $16 per month, but there are only two plans designed for ecommerce (Basic Commerce for $27 per month, and Advanced Commerce for $49).
You can’t sell anything on the Personal plan (the cheapest plan), and there are transaction fees on the Business plan (which costs $23 per month).
However, Squarespace plans do come with a free domain name for the first year, and it’s less reliant on apps for things like subscription selling and booking appointments. You’ll need integrations to add these features to your BigCommerce store.
BigCommerce pricing starts at $29 per month, and ranges to $299 per month for the Pro plan. There’s also an enterprise plan with custom pricing. The great thing about BigCommerce is there are no transaction fees on any plan.
However, you do have limitations on how much revenue you can earn on each plan. While BigCommerce doesn’t have booking and subscription features built-in, it does offer more advanced inventory management and sales tools.
Squarespace plans might be more cost-effective if you’re selling services and digital products, whereas BigCommerce offers more scalable plans for everyday retailers.
BigCommerce vs Squarespace: The Core Features
Now that we’ve covered pricing, let’s dive into the features. I will note that since both of these tools offer a website builder and ecommerce features, there are some overlapping capabilities. However, there are also some significant differences into the types of sellers each company targets.
Website Building and Design
Both BigCommerce and Squarespace support businesses with attractive templates designed for mobile optimization.
Squarespace has some of the best themes and design tools in the ecommerce landscape, by far. Although there’s just over 100 Squarespace templates to choose from, they’re all stunning, responsive, and professionally designed. Editing a Squarespace template is easy too.
BigCommerce offers more templates overall, but a lot of them look and feel very similar in my opinion. They’re also designed more for ecommerce than anything else, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but with Squarespace you can create more “types” of sites.
While Squarespace templates feature options for things like contact forms and booking calendars, many of the BigCommerce themes come with things like customizable checkout pages and product slideshows. So, really, the best option once again depends on the type of site you want to create.
Online store Editing
The biggest difference, based on my experience, comes when you start to edit your online store. Customizing templates on Squarespace is extremely straightforward. You even get step-by-step guidance to walk you through the process.
BigCommerce has upgraded its editing tools in recent years to make them more intuitive, but there’s still a much higher learning curve. Adding products to your BigCommerce store is simple enough, but adjusting the modern templates to suit your needs takes a lot of time and work.
On the plus side, you can dive into HTML and CSS to make more granular changes to your design (if you have the technical knowledge). Still, it’s much easier to create a stunning storefront with Squarespace, even if you have no experience.
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Ecommerce and Payment Processing
Where Squarespace excels with website design, BigCommerce takes the crown as a comprehensive e-commerce solution. This is a platform specifically geared towards ecommerce, with a lot more functionality and power.
With Squarespace, you can sell physical and digital products, as well as courses, memberships and subscriptions. There are tools for customer accounts, checkouts on your domain, and selling via social channels like Instagram. However, there are fewer payment processing options.
You can use tools like Stripe and PayPal with Squarespace, but there’s a hefty transaction fees (3%) on the Business plan.
BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees on any plan, and BigCommerce offers endless payment gateway integrations and currency options. It even has a partnership with PayPal which can save you money on processing fees.
Plus, BigCommerce goes above and beyond with advanced sales features. As well as being able to sell physical and digital products on a range of channels, you can integrate with point of sale systems, leverage real-time shipping quotes, and use product ratings and reviews to increase conversions.
I particularly love features like the Google customer reviews widget, product filtering app, and abandoned cart saver tool, which all come with the BigCommerce Pro plan. These help you elevate your online store, and attract new visitors with advanced commerce solutions.
Inventory and Business Management
I often consider BigCommerce to be one of the best online store options around for companies with evolving or complex inventories. The inventory management tools are excellent, giving you plenty of options to create variations, collections, and product tags.
As mentioned above, you can sell physical, digital, and service-based products, and you get tons of tools for helping you manage your organization too. For instance, there are some great user and account controls for staff members, where you can set different permissions for each employee.
BigCommerce even generates stock-keeping units automatically if you’re selling variations of the same product, which makes it much easier to keep track of everything.
Squarespace does have a decent inventory management system, but it’s more tuned to the needs of smaller online stores and solo sellers. With your Squarespace site, you can also create organizational tags, and products in different sizes and colors.
However, there are fewer tools for managing your business operations. That’s one of the reasons I think Squarespace is less scalable than BigCommerce
BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Marketing Tools and Analytics
Marketing features are important to consider with any website builder. Fortunately, both Squarespace and BigCommerce make it reasonably easy to promote your online store. The biggest difference is Squarespace includes a bunch of marketing features in all of its plans.
For instance, you can create unique subscription services in a few clicks, design a blog for content marketing purposes, and even tag your products on Instagram. You can also add labels to your store, such as “limited availability”, to cultivate “FOMO” in your customers.
BigCommerce has some excellent built-in solutions for search engine optimization, such as the ability to customize title tags and meta descriptions.
Pages also load very quickly, which is great for your core web vitals. However, outside of SEO optimization, there are fewer marketing tools built into BigCommerce. You can create basic emails, and use abandoned cart recovery on some plans.
However, you can’t add things like Instagram feeds or subscription plans to your store without third-party apps. You can allow customers to checkout on Instagram, however, and create vouchers and gift cards to boost your chances of sales.
I also think BigCommerce offers slightly better reporting and analytical tools, which can help you to track important metrics about your online business, sales and customer preferences. Still, for most marketing capabilities, you’ll rely more on integrations than you would with your Squarespace website.
BigCommerce vs Squarespace: AI Capabilities
It’s 2024, and AI is everywhere, so I wanted to make sure I drew attention to the intelligent features offered by both BigCommerce and Squarespace. The good news is that both platforms allow you to generate content with AI. This makes it much simpler to come up with eye-catching product descriptions and ads for your Squarespace or BigCommerce site.
Both tools also allow you to leverage AI when you’re editing your templates and website designs. However, BigCommerce has a much stronger AI portfolio overall. With the “BigAI” toolkit, you can add AI-powered search to your website, to help customers find the products they want.
There are also AI tools for predictive analytics, and you can use AI to send personalized recommendations to customers based on their previous purchases. Plus, BigCommerce works with partners to give you numerous AI-powered integrations for your online store.
So, if you want to bring the power of AI to your ecommerce platform, Squarespace does have a slight edge over BigCommerce, at least for now, since you can use AI to generate a website from scratch.
Still, you may be able to find Squarespace extensions and apps that include AI, like AI SEO tools or AI tools for website security.
BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Performance and Security
Both BigCommerce and Squarespace take performance and security seriously, which is great for an online business. From a speed perspective, Squarespace’s stunning templates and pages do seem to load slightly quicker, and the platform has excellent server response times.
However, BigCommerce does perform better from a Google “core web vitals” perspective, with integrated image optimization and excellent loading times on all of it’s paid and free templates.
If you’re looking for a secure site (which you probably should be), both BigCommerce and Squarespace include free SSL certificates on all plans.
BigCommerce supports “premium SSL certificates” too, which can take your security standard to the next level.
What I do prefer about BigCommerce, however, is that it also ensures all of the payment options you offer your customers are as secure as possible. The company is committed to securing and encrypting every payment gateway.
With your Squarespace store, you’re more reliant on the security features your payment processors have already built into heir own services.
BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Ease of Use
As I mentioned above, Squarespace is definitely an easier website builder for beginners to use. Although its not as robust as some ecommerce platforms, you can build a Squarespace store in a few minutes, with no technical knowledge.
Everything is extremely well-designed, with no complicated sections for small businesses to figure out on their own.
BigCommerce is reasonably intuitive, but creating BigCommerce stores takes a lot more time and effort. Where Squarespace makes everything simple and convenient, BigCommerce expects you to dive a little deeper into each section and feature on the platform.
Creating your online stores can take days, particularly if you’re designing a big enough ecommerce store or site, and you have a lot of different products to sell.
Customer Support
On the plus side, both BigCommerce and Squarespace take a similar approach to customer support. Neither of these website builders offer the best support I’ve ever seen, but they do both offer access to some brilliant self-help resources like FAQs and guides on how to run your online store.
Squarespace offers support via live chat, social media, and email, but there are no phone support. BigCommerce offers 24/7 service via phone, live chat, and email, but you’ll struggle to reach a member of the team on social media.
I do think Squarespace offers slightly better videos and tutorials than BigCommerce, however, if you want to build and troubleshoot issues with your ecommerce site yourself.
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BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Final Verdict
So, which is best, Squarespace or BigCommerce?
If you’re focused on-ecommerce, and you want to scale your business with powerful selling tools, and various payment options, BigCommerce is the better choice. BigCommerce helps companies increase online sales with a robust e-commerce platform, and support for countless payment gateways.
However, while you can build a great online store, you’re going to have a higher learning curve, more basic templates, and bigger monthly fees.
Squarespace is better for small businesses and beginner online retailers who want stunning design templates, convenient SEO tools, and subscription selling options. If you avoid the transaction fees on the Business plan, Squarespace offers a more affordable online store solution overall too.
However, you won’t get the most advanced ecommerce platform, particularly if you’re selling physical products, and there are fewer payment gateways available.
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These days, there’s no shortage of great platforms out there for creating ecommerce websites, but choosing between two heavy hitters like BigCommerce and Squarespace is still challenging. Both solutions have an excellent reputation, but if you want my quick opinion,…
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