Squarespace vs Shopify: How to Choose the Right Platform for Your Business
Choosing the right website platform is one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your business. It impacts not only how your site looks, but how easy it is to manage, how you sell, and how your business scales over time.
Two of the most commonly compared platforms are Squarespace and Shopify. At a glance, they may seem similar—both are hosted platforms, both offer templates, and both allow you to sell online. But once you start using them, it becomes clear that they are built for very different types of businesses.
At Station Seven, we specialize in Squarespace websites, but we also spend a significant amount of time working in Shopify for ecommerce-focused clients. That hands-on experience has given us a clear perspective on where each platform shines—and where it can start to feel limiting.
This post breaks down Squarespace vs Shopify in detail so you can decide which platform best fits your business, your goals, and the way you actually work.
The Core Difference: Website Platform vs Ecommerce Platform
The most important distinction between Squarespace and Shopify is this:
Squarespace is a website-building platform that offers ecommerce.
Shopify is an ecommerce platform that offers website building.
This single difference explains almost everything else about how these platforms function.
Squarespace was designed first and foremost to help businesses create content-rich, visually polished websites. Ecommerce is built into the platform, but it’s one part of a larger ecosystem that includes blogging, email marketing, scheduling, invoicing, and member areas.
Shopify, on the other hand, was built specifically to sell products online. Everything—from its dashboard layout to its features and reporting—is centered around managing inventory, processing orders, and scaling ecommerce operations. The website portion exists to support sales.
Neither approach is inherently better. The key is choosing the platform whose core purpose aligns with how your business actually makes money.
Ease of Use & Day-to-Day Management
Squarespace
Squarespace is known for its intuitive, visual interface. Most users can manage their entire site—from pages and blog posts to products, forms, email campaigns, and invoices—without needing outside tools or technical knowledge.
The editor is consistent across the platform, which means once you learn how to edit one part of your site, the rest feels familiar. This reduces friction and makes ongoing updates easier for business owners who don’t want to live inside their website dashboard.
Key benefits of Squarespace’s approach:
A clean, visual editor
Minimal setup decisions
One unified dashboard
Fewer moving parts to manage
This makes Squarespace especially appealing for service-based businesses, creatives, and small teams who want their website to feel manageable rather than overwhelming.
Shopify
Shopify is still user-friendly, but it comes with a steeper learning curve—largely because ecommerce itself is complex.
From the start, users are asked to make decisions about products, variants, shipping rules, taxes, and payment gateways. As your store grows, so does the complexity, especially once third-party apps are added to handle things like subscriptions, upsells, or advanced inventory logic.
For product-based businesses, this complexity is expected and often necessary. But for businesses that don’t rely heavily on ecommerce, Shopify can feel like more platform than they actually need.
Ease of use winner: Squarespace
Design & Visual Flexibility
Squarespace Design
Squarespace has long been associated with strong design, and for good reason. Its templates are clean, modern, and built with thoughtful typography and spacing right out of the box. Many users find that their site looks “designed” without requiring extensive customization.
Design controls are centralized, which helps maintain consistency across pages. Features like native animations, layout blocks, and global styling make it easier to create a polished experience without touching code.
For brands where visual presentation matters—designers, photographers, consultants, wellness brands—Squarespace makes it easier to launch something that feels intentional and cohesive.
Shopify Design (and One Notable Advantage)
Shopify themes can also look great, particularly premium themes. One area where Shopify does have an advantage is theme management. Shopify allows you to build, customize, and preview multiple themes within the same site, then publish a new theme without rebuilding the entire website.
Squarespace handles design changes differently. Major design shifts often require creating a new site and moving content or domains, which is doable but more involved.
That said, Shopify design customization often requires:
Paid themes
Custom code
Additional apps
Ongoing maintenance
Design quality winner: Squarespace
Theme versioning flexibility winner: Shopify
Ecommerce Capabilities (The Biggest Differentiator)
Squarespace Ecommerce
Squarespace ecommerce works best for businesses where selling products supports the business, rather than defines it. This includes:
Small to mid-size online shops
Digital products
Service-based offerings
Subscriptions and memberships
Limited physical inventory
Squarespace allows you to sell physical and digital products, offer subscriptions, manage basic inventory, apply discounts, and accept payments through Stripe and PayPal. Recent updates—like improved invoicing features—have made it even more flexible for service-based businesses.
For many businesses, Squarespace ecommerce feels intentionally simple. It covers the essentials without forcing you to think about advanced ecommerce workflows you may never need.
Shopify Ecommerce
Shopify is built for ecommerce-first businesses. It excels when product sales are the core of your business model and operational complexity matters.
Shopify shines in areas like:
Large product catalogs
Complex product variants
Advanced inventory tracking
International selling
Multiple fulfillment locations
POS and omnichannel selling
Robust ecommerce analytics
If you’re managing dozens—or hundreds—of products, selling across multiple platforms, or planning for significant growth, Shopify’s depth becomes a major advantage.
When Does Shopify Make More Sense Than Squarespace?
This is often the most important question.
Shopify generally makes more sense when:
Ecommerce is your primary revenue stream
Inventory management is critical
You sell internationally or across multiple channels
Advanced shipping and fulfillment rules are required
Ecommerce operations outweigh design simplicity
If ecommerce complexity becomes more important than ease of use or design flexibility, Shopify is usually the better choice.
Should You Use Shopify Without Ecommerce?
In most cases, no.
Using Shopify without a meaningful ecommerce component often introduces unnecessary complexity. The platform is built around selling products, and without that focus, you may find yourself working around features rather than benefiting from them.
Squarespace, on the other hand, works equally well for businesses with or without ecommerce. It’s often the better choice for service-based businesses today—even if ecommerce might be added later.
Built-In Tools vs Third-Party Apps
Squarespace’s Built-In Ecosystem
Squarespace includes many tools natively, such as:
Email campaigns
Forms and pop-ups
Scheduling (Acuity)
Invoicing
Member areas
Blogging
Analytics
Because these tools are built into the platform, they share the same design language and work seamlessly together. This reduces the need for integrations, third-party subscriptions, and troubleshooting when something breaks.
For many businesses, this all-in-one approach simplifies workflows and keeps monthly costs predictable.
Shopify’s App-Based Model
Shopify relies heavily on third-party apps to extend functionality. While this provides flexibility, it also introduces trade-offs.
Apps often come with:
Additional monthly fees
Overlapping features
Performance considerations
Ongoing maintenance
For ecommerce-heavy businesses, this ecosystem can be incredibly powerful. For others, it can feel fragmented and expensive over time.
Built-in simplicity winner: Squarespace
Scalability and extensibility winner: Shopify
Pricing & Ongoing Costs
Squarespace Pricing
Business Plan: ~$23/month
Commerce Basic: ~$27/month
Commerce Advanced: ~$49/month
Most features are included, which makes Squarespace pricing more predictable and easier to budget for. See more details on Squarespace pricing.
Shopify Pricing
Basic Shopify: ~$39/month
Shopify: ~$105/month
Advanced Shopify: ~$399/month
Additional costs often include:
Premium themes
App subscriptions
Transaction fees
Over time, Shopify sites often cost significantly more than the base plan suggests. See more details on Shopify pricing.
SEO & Content Marketing
Squarespace performs well for content-driven SEO. Blogging, service pages, metadata, and clean URL structures are all easy to manage within the platform. This makes it a strong option for businesses relying on organic search, educational content, or long-term visibility.
Shopify excels at product SEO but can feel more rigid when it comes to blogging and content marketing. While content is possible, it’s not the platform’s primary focus.
Content-first SEO winner: Squarespace
Product-first SEO winner: Shopify
Final Thoughts
Squarespace and Shopify are both excellent platforms—but they serve different types of businesses.
If your business is content-driven, service-based, or selling a limited number of products, Squarespace is often the better choice. If ecommerce is the core of your business and operational complexity matters, Shopify may be worth the added cost and learning curve.
Understanding the difference between a website platform with ecommerce and an ecommerce platform with a website is the key to choosing the right tool for your business.
FAQs
Can Squarespace handle ecommerce for real businesses?
Yes. Many businesses successfully sell products, services, and subscriptions on Squarespace. It’s ideal for small to mid-size shops and service-based businesses.
Is Shopify better for large online stores?
Yes. Shopify is designed to support complex ecommerce operations and scales extremely well.
Which platform is better for beginners?
Squarespace is generally easier to learn and manage, especially for non-technical users.
Can I switch platforms later?
Yes, but switching platforms requires planning. It’s best to choose the platform that aligns with your long-term goals from the start.
Which platform is better for design-focused brands?
Squarespace tends to be the better fit for brands where visual presentation and content matter.