Which is better for eCommerce Wix or Squarespace?

There are already loads of articles on the internet that discuss which platform is better: Wix or Squarespace. We aren’t going to discuss that here. Instead, we’re going to dive into the specifics of each platform’s eCommerce capabilities for multiple industries and ultimately declare a winner for each.

Wix or Squarespace for eCommerce

Before we dive into industry specifics, let’s talk about the basics of each platform’s eCommerce capabilities. Note that features are highly contingent upon the paid plan you choose, but we will get to that in a moment.

Wix and Squarespace: eCommerce Plans Compared

As mentioned, to take advantage of eCommerce features, you will need an eCommerce-ready plan. Wix, for example, has three Business and eCommerce plans: VIP, Unlimited, and Basic. Squarespace also has three: Business, Basic, and Advanced.

*If you’re wondering about the difference between Subscriptions and Recurring Payments, same. I spoke to a member of the Wix team to get clarification.

Recurring Payments: Wix has business and e-commerce apps that work with recurring payments or the option to charge customers on a recurring basis. For specifics, head here.

Subscriptions: On the other hand, Subscriptions is a feature of Wix Stores. The feature allows customers to purchase a product subscription from your online store, so long as you use a payment method that supports recurring payments, as linked above.

Best Web Builder: Wix or Squarespace? It’s a TIE

To create an online store, you need a website. Both Wix and Squarespace are block-based builders that make it easy to create a website using templates, which you can customize. Beyond that, there are subtle differences.

In addition to the features outlined in the chart above, I want to dig into two more related to using Wix and Squarespace to build a website: structured versus unstructured editing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Web Builder Bonus 1: Structured vs. Unstructured

It’s a bit misleading to say that Wix is a drag and drop builder where Squarespace is gridded. While true, you can technically drag and drop within Squarespace; a better description would be to call the difference structured versus unstructured.

Wix is a bit easier to navigate initially. It uses an “unstructured editor,” which allows you to drag and drop elements throughout the page wherever you want. While user-friendly, it can create frustrations as changes don’t always sync between the mobile and desktop versions of your site, as reported by SiteBuilderReport.com.

Using Squarespace, you can’t move elements anywhere, which can be frustrating, but you can still create a beautiful website without technical know-how. You can also drag and drop the different grids to rearrange the visual layout of individual pages easily.

I wouldn’t say structured is better than unstructured; they’re just different approaches.

Web Builder Bonus 2: SEO

Without SEO, your eCommerce store will fail before it takes off. If no one can find your site, no one will buy from your site.

As an SEO specialist, I know firsthand how frustrating it can be to feel limited by the web builder you choose. I find all of the block builders to be more limiting than WordPress, but Wix and Squarespace are better than some.

They both let you optimize page title, title tag, meta description, permalink, and headers. Here’s a screenshot shared with permission thanks to my awesome client, Good Times Rentals, whose site is built on Squarespace.

Finally, while Wix does allow the addition of H5 and H6 headers, I can say that I have never once used either header. This is the only SEO advantage Wix holds over Squarespace, so I’ll call this category a tie.

Wix or Squarespace: Comparing by Industry

Declaring an overall eCommerce winner between Wix and Squarespace just won’t cut it. Each industry has unique needs, and not all online businesses are cut from the same cloth. That said, below, we will dig into the best option for restaurants, ticketed events, service-based industries, selling physical products, selling digital products, and artists.

Best for Restaurants? It’s SQUARESPACE

Restaurant Friendly Templates

Both Squarespace and Wix offer restaurant-friendly templates.

Starting with Squarespace, one of my favorite website-friendly themes is Mercer. The Mercer demo is focused on apparel, but parachuterestaurant.com is an excellent example of a restaurant successfully using the Mercer theme. I also like Juniper. Juniper’s landing page is simple and clean, making it easy to quickly find the important details most people are looking for: address, phone number, hours, social media, and a way to make reservations.

Wix’s restaurant-ready templates include Wix Restaurant, a group of apps that add most of the features reviewed below. That said, you don’t have to choose a restaurant-ready template. You can add Wix Restaurant to any of Wix’s templates.

My favorite Wix restaurant templates include Gelato. I particularly love the way the template has a well structured landing page. I also recommend this template. I appreciate its modern design and it’s beautifully styled, making your job of creating an aesthetically pleasing website even easier. Finally, this bar-friendly template also makes the list. The template includes a pre-loaded section for Google maps, which is great for local SEO.

Both platforms offer eCommerce-ready templates which you can use to sell merchandise and food. Squarespace has a slight leg up here as it supports restaurant gift cards, discounts, and coupons. Wix supports discounts and coupons only.

Restaurant Apps

When comparing Wix and Squarespace for restaurant use, there are two add-ons you need to know: Tock and Wix Restaurant.

Tock is an app that, as of March 2021, is owned by Squarespace. It’s an all-in-one app that manages reservations, orders, tables, and events. Pricing starts at $199 per month. You can also use OpenTable, which starts at $199 per month but is a little more expensive overall, thanks to a $1295 one-time setup fee.

Wix Restaurant is a group of apps that does everything from support menu creation to enabling online orders to managing reservations and beyond. At the time of writing, the apps average about 2.8 stars. One reason the apps are poorly rated is that before a recent update, they weren’t mobile-friendly. Wix is making strides, but there are still quirks here and there. The biggest benefit is that the only requirement to use all features within Wix Restaurant is that you subscribe to one of the Business Premium Plans, making Wix’s solution more affordable than Squarespace.

Online Menus

Both platforms support online menus, an option that is far superior to adding a PDF menu to your website. The built-in menus are user, mobile, and SEO-friendly. The platforms allow you to create multiple menus (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and sections (apps, entrees, dessert).

Squarespace menus are built using menu blocks, a feature compatible with all of the themes mentioned above.

Wix menus are built using the Wix Restaurants Menu app. One feature that sets Wix menus apart from Squarespace is that the editor allows you to add labels to your menu, like ‘v’ for vegetarian or ‘g’ for gluten-free, giving it a slight advantage over Squarespace in the menu category. However, the app isn’t very customizable and still has mobile-usability issues, giving Squarespace an edge.

Reservations

Squarespace partners with apps like OpenTable and Tock for reservations. You can also use Tock to manage tables and enable automated reservation reminders as well as automated waitlist notifications to help fill last-minute cancellations—a feature that sets Squarespace’s Tock app apart from both OpenTable and Wix Restaurant. If you want to compare OpenTable and Tock, getbento.com has a nice overview here.

Wix Restaurants is not a full ERB (Electronic Reservation Book) service. It lacks many of the features offered by Squarespace, including table management (Wix’s system will, in theory, accept thirty reservations even if you only have ten tables in your restaurant). Also, it doesn’t integrate with Wix Automations, which means that you can’t create automated open table notifications or send reservation reminders. You can, however, send an initial reservation confirmation via email or text that your future guest can add to their calendar. You can also set reservation rules (limited party size, hold limits). While Wix’s option is inexpensive compared to Squarespace, you give up a lot of functionality.

In this category, it’s Squarespace by a mile.

Online Ordering, Phone Orders, and Takeout

Once again, Wix relies on Wix Restaurants to manage online orders. You can customize settings like time until orders are ready, minimum order price, and availability from your dashboard. You can even create a curbside pickup option, delivery options, or set your restaurant’s location and customize a radius that designates your delivery area (see screenshot above). From there, you can set different costs and delivery times for each area. For example, delivery fees might be higher as you get farther away from your restaurant’s location.

Squarespace again relies on third-party apps to power restaurant services. Their app list includes Tock, DoorDash, Caviar, Chownow, and Seamless. The features offered will depend on the app you choose but in general, the features will be very much on par with Wix. Tock To Go, for example, adds takeout features for a flat 3% fee. Using Tock, you can create slot-based ordering, manage inventory and offerings in real-time, and more.

Finally, both platforms support phone orders and product variants for online orders. One thing to note: While both allow you to mark a menu item as “sold out,” Wix doesn’t offer a way to mark variants as sold out. For example, if you have a specific topping that is sold out, you have to mark the entire dish as sold out.

Best for Ticketed Events? It’s SQUARESPACE

For ticketed events, Wix relies on Wix Events. The app provides event management, allows you to sell tickets online and collect RSVPs.

A free version of Wix Events lets you set up an event, but if you want to sell tickets, you will need a Wix Business Premium Plan. Also, online ticket sales are charged a 2.5% service fee and payment processing fees that vary based on the provider you choose. You can choose from all major credit cards or a payment provider like Wix Payments, PayPal, Stripe, etc. With payment processing in place, guests can purchase event tickets in advance or at the time of the event using Wix Mobile POS, Square, or SumUp.

Squarespace, again, relies on integrations with companies like Eventbrite, or you can use Tock, an app that Squarespace acquired in 2021.

To use Eventbrite, you will need to add a bit of custom code, which requires a premium Business and Commerce plan plus coding know-how. You will also need an Eventbrite account.

Eventbrite’s most basic plan is called “Essentials” (compare all of their plans here) and the 2% + $0.79 fee is paid by your customer while the 2.5% payment processing charge is paid by you. Their “sell on your website plan” is called Professional. Your guests will pay 3.5% + $1.59 beyond the ticketed price, and you will again pay the 2.5% payment processing fee. With the right plan, you can add lots of Eventbrite features like ticket sales, event countdowns, etc.

Ticketed Event Features

Let’s compare the ticketed event features of Wix and Squarespace:

1. Sell Tickets: Both
2. Unlimited Events: Both
3. Email Invites: Both
4. Guest List Management: Both
5. Discount Promotions: Both
6. Ticket Scanning via App: Both
7. Sales Reporting: Both
8. Host Virtual Events: Both
9. Digital or Printed Tickets: Both
10. Waitlist: Eventbrite (Wix does support waitlists for RSVP events, but not ticketed events.)
11. Attendee Check-In Via App: Eventbrite
12. Ticket Sales on Facebook: Eventbrite
13. Reserved Seating: Eventbrite Professional or Premium Plan

Finally, it’s worth noting that Wix allows you to create a complex event schedule. You can list out what’s happening at different times and even do this for multiple event locations. If you are running a conference-type event, this could be the advantage that tips Wix back into the winning category. Eventbrite’s solution is to create a ticket type for each date or time slot, which is sort of a complicated workaround.

That said, with Wix there is no way to have separate forms for different ticket types, and it’s one registration form per event, which is yet another advantage for Squarespace.

Best for Selling Physical Products? It’s a TIE

Online Store Templates

Both builders offer multiple online store templates specifically created for selling everything from fashion accessories to electronics. From Wix, some of my favorites include this beautiful theme which is perfect for a coffee roaster or tea company, this theme which was created for online home goods, and this one for all things kids.

Squarespace has it’s own arsenal of gorgeous online store themes including Crosby for plant stores, Vandam for merch slinging, and Maru for home accessories.

Shopping Features

I run an online store that sells a physical product. I know firsthand that there’s no way you can pre-plan for all the possible things you might want to do. While I’m certain I will miss some, I will try to run through the most popular features for online stores.

1. Low Stock Alerts: Squarespace offers low stock alerts. If you choose Wix, you will need the Low Stock Alerts App from the Wix App Market. The app is $2.69-$6.29 per month. Winner: Squarespace
2. Checkout: Squarespace’s checkout includes gift cards and promo code fields where Wix only supports a promo code field. Winner: Squarespace
3. Abandoned Cart Recovery: This is a feature offered by both. Winner: Tie
4. Checkout on Your Domain: With Squarespace, this is available with the basic and advanced plans only. Otherwise, your customers will be forwarded to the default https://secure.squarespace.com URL. I do not know the answer for Wix. Feel free to contribute by dropping a comment below.
5. Policies: Both platforms have fields for a return policy, terms of service, and a privacy policy. Winner: Tie
6. Minimum Order Amount: Squarespace will let you assign a minimum order amount for checkout, a feature not offered by Wix. Winner: Squarespace
7. Gift Messages: This is a feature I wish I had! With Squarespace, you can add a custom checkout form for customers to include a gift message. Wix does not have this feature. Winner: Squarespace
8. Support for Product Variants: Both Wix and Squarespace support this eCommerce-friendly feature. Your customers can choose their preferences using a drop-down menu. For example, they can pick a color or size. You can even add multiple variants. For example, customers buying a rug can pick both their desired size and color. Winner: Tie
9. Product Waitlist and Sold Out: Both platforms will let you display a “sold out” badge and have product waitlists that will notify your customers when the item is restocked. Winner: Tie
10. Cross Sell: Squarespace and Wix both have a related product feature. (Note: Wix does not yet offer this feature on Editor X.) Winner: Tie
11. Free Products: This is another feature that I envy! With Squarespace, you can offer a free physical, digital, or service product to anyone making a one-time purchase (it does not work on subscriptions). With Wix, you can create a buy 1 get 1 coupon, but it’s not the same. Winner: Squarespace

Mailing Lists

Finally, I think we all know that lists equal money. With Squarespace, you can connect Squarespace Email Campaigns or Mailchimp and ask customers to subscribe at checkout or add a subscription pop-up to your site. If you don’t want to double down on writing, there’s even a way to use your blog posts as newsletter content. Finally, beyond syncing email addresses, you can sync your orders, products, and customer information to Mailchimp.

While Wix has third-party apps, like MailMunch which helps to sync your Wix contacts to Mailchimp, it once again relies more on its own technology. What you will need is Wix Automations and Wix Email Marketing.

With Wix Automations, you can automate customer emails, newsletters, invoices, and more. Automations are created using an “If This Then That” style structure with a trigger and an action. For example, if someone fills out your Wix Form (trigger), then you can set Wix to send them an automated email message (action). You can create your automation or use Wix’s suggested automations.

Wix also has “Wix Email Marketing,” a feature that allows you to create, send and manage email marketing campaigns. Using the feature, you can customize your email templates which will serve as, well, emails, but also as standalone landing pages.

Best for Selling Digital or Downloadable Products? It’s WIX

Online Store Templates

Most of the templates offered by Wix and Squarespace will work for selling digital products; you just need to make sure you have the right monthly plan and the right apps, which we will discuss further below.

That said, Wix offers more diversity for digital makers. For example, the gorgeous “Calling Emma” template is great for selling books. It includes a section for eBook instant downloads and areas that make the awkward act of self-promotion a little bit easier. If you want to sell digital art, Sophie Chamberlain is set up and ready to go. Finally, the Alexa Hill template is a great start for musicians who want to promote their music and tours.

Squarespace templates might need a bit more customization, depending on what exactly you are selling. Vandam is a decent option for musicians as is Cruz but overall, Wix takes the cake in this category.

Shopping Features

While it’s easier to manage the inventory of a digital product than it is to manage a physical product, Wix understands that digital products are not limitless. Just like with physical products, you can set and manage an inventory. Products can be in stock or out of stock, and you can even create a product waitlist that will notify your customers when you restock your digital item. All of this assumes you’ve added Wix Stores. With Squarespace, you can’t limit the number of digital products.

File Types

When working with digital items, file type also matters, and there are differences.

Wix offers multiple file types, while Squarespace will let you upload any file type. Both set a limit of one file type per digital product. If you want to offer multiple file types per download, you will need to use a zip file.

Product Delivery

Both platforms deliver digital product purchases via email.

Through Wix, when a customer pays for the item (they can pay online, or you can enable offline payments), they are sent a confirmation email that contains a link to download the item. The link is valid for thirty days, and there is no option to extend or shorten this timeframe. You can, however, resend the download link to your buyer if needed, but even then, the link is active for 30 days from the date of purchase.

Through Squarespace, a link is also sent after your customer pays. The link expires 24 hours after purchase. If your customer tries to click an expired link, Squarespace will send them a new link to the same email address used for the purchase.

Apps

If you choose Wix, you will need Wix Stores. With Wix Stores, you can sell digital products and access e-commerce features. If you want to sell music, Wix Stores will work, but you might also want to look at the Wix Music app.

Squarespace uses the Squarespace Store, a feature pre-loaded to their e-commerce templates. (Tip: You can add commerce features to any Squarespace template, but choosing one that is made for e-commerce makes things a tad easier.) Finally, you will need to connect to a payment processor. Squarespace works with Stripe, Apple Pay, and PayPal for online sales and Square for in-person sales.

Wix and Sellfy

If you prefer Sellfy, Wix has a Sellfy app called Sell Downloads. It’s important to note that Sell Downloads by Sellfy is exclusive to Wix and differs from what you get from Sellfy directly. Sellfy for Wix and Sellfy are not cross-compatible. The Wix specific plan is $9.99 per month post a 14-day free trial. The Sell Download app includes:

• Payment processing with PayPal and/or Stripe
• Automated download delivery to your customer’s email
• Product size of up to 5GB in total
• Up to 25 product files per product
• PDF stamping
• Pay what you want product pricing

Best for Artists? It’s WIX

Art-Friendly Templates

If you want to sell art on Wix or Squarespace, you need a “portfolio template.” Portfolio templates on both Wix and Squarespace are optimized for mobile and visual galleries.

Wix has several templates that are perfect for artists including Nitido, Elias Cole, a gorgeous theme for illustrators, and Darius Antonov for 3D designers and art directors.

Squarespace also has several art-focused templates which you can explore using their handy template selector. The selector lets you choose your niche: art, fashion, interior design, jewelry, photography, etc., and then suggests the best template for your business.

My favorite Squarespace portfolio templates are Nevins and Kester. Finally, Avenue. RfAlvarez.com is built on Avenue and it’s a visually pleasing and functional site.

Speed

While you want to share your art with the world, it’s important to note that images can slow down a website, which will impact SEO. The Elias Cole landing page, for example, takes almost 5 seconds to load, which makes the website a touch slow.

That said, Wix is faster than Squarespace. RfAlvarez.com clocks in at a 20 on Google PageSpeed Insight, Kester’s at 16, and Nevin’s at 23. I also found this gorgeous Squarespace art store and tested its speed at 15. For those not familiar, anything under a 49 is considered slow.

To compare using the same speed test tool, Wix’s Nitido is a 57, Elias Cole a 56, and Darius a 47.

While Wix’s speeds still fall into the red and yellow zones, they are significantly better than Squarespace’s speeds, a massive advantage for Wix users. After all, if your store is slow, it will be a lot harder to rank, and if you don’t rank, you lose the opportunity to drive new clientele to your online store organically.

Galleries and Image Protection

Wix offers Wix Pro Gallery. The feature lets you customize your layout, offers built-in image protection, social sharing, downloadable videos and photos, and hover effects. The feature is free; you simply have to add it to your site.

Wix also has a “Right Click Protect” plug-in that is also free.

Squarespace relies on its built-in image gallery feature. Your gallery options will depend on which version of Squarespace you are using but for the most part, you will find either grid or slideshow layouts.

Squarespace does not offer built-in image protection. Instead, it relies on workarounds to protect your images like password-protected pages or the poster block tip, as reported by Justin Mabee in the video below.

Squarespace also lacks right-click protection, and though you can add custom code to make this work, I prefer Wix’s offer. Wix lets you pick and choose which images to protect, giving you more control over your content.

Self-Fulfill or Print-on-Demand

I added the “best for artists” category under “selling digital products” for a reason. All of the information in the above category is still highly relevant for photographers and digital artists, especially the chart that outlines formats and file size limitations, which will impact your online art store.

That said, there are a couple of extra items to discuss including Wix Art Store. If you choose Wix to sell your art, you will need to decide between Wix Art Store and Wix Store.

Wix Art Store is a free app that runs on a third-party service called “Order a Print.” Choose this option if you don’t want to print and ship your images yourself.

Using Order a Print (Wix Art Store), you can quickly sell digital art and prints online. You can also create custom licenses for your art, protect and brand your images with watermarks, and integrate your store with Order a Print’s packaging, shopping, and payment processing. The biggest pro is that this is a simple option. The biggest con is that it can be limiting. You can’t add discount codes, there are limited payment options, and again, you can’t self-fulfill orders.

If you want to ship your orders and have more control, you will want to use Wix Store. Also, where Wix Art Store is limited to digital files, licenses, and physical prints, with Wix Store, you can sell any art medium. You can also set prices, add coupons, and control shipping and tax rules.

Squarespace also has a print-on-demand service. You can connect with Printful for selling prints and embroidery products online, Printique for selling art and photo prints on acrylic, canvas, metal, etc., or Art of Where for adding your designs to physical items like leggings, silk scarves, t-shirts, and handbags. Like Wix Art Store, these extensions include drop shipping and streamline the online selling process.

If you want more control like the option of shipping your product yourself, you can add products to Squarespace directly. All of the commerce plans mentioned on this page will allow you to sell digital or physical art.

Best for Selling Services and Appointments? It’s WIX

Services sold online are divided into two categories: fixed services and appointment-based services. For example, a fixed service might be an online class that occurs every week or during a scheduled event. Appointments, on the other hand, work well for…appointments! Hairdressers, gardeners, and accountants all come to mind, basically any service that requires a block of your time that does not occur on a reoccurring basis. In this section, we’re going to review both.

Selling Services

Selling services works much like selling a physical product. You can create pricing, sales, set an inventory, create product variants, and even offer subscriptions. The difference is that if you want customers to schedule appointments, you will need to add Squarespace Scheduling or Wix Booking.

Wix Booking is included in Wix’s commerce plans, while Squarespace Scheduling requires an additional monthly or yearly fee. There are three Squarespace Scheduling plans: Emerging, Growing, and Powerhouse.

Squarespace: Services, Appointments, and Scheduling

Squarespace Scheduling is an Acuity product. Every Squarespace site includes a free trial. After that, you will need to subscribe to one of the scheduling plans in the chart above.

Using Squarespace Scheduling, you can set your availability for appointments using a regular weekly schedule with the option to override set hours. You can then have the system sync your schedule to your calendar. Squarespace syncs with iCloud, Outlook, and Google Calendar. However, keep in mind that you may need more than one Squarespace calendar for the scheduling feature to work.

According to Squarespace, “Each calendar is a set of times that clients can book with you. Some businesses have one set of hours and can use one calendar. Others need calendars for each employee, location, or another resource.”

Wix: Services, Appointments, and Scheduling

Wix Bookings require that you have a Business Premium Plan.

Appointments are straightforward. You set your availability and add a service. Your available hours will be based on your default work hours and the hours of the staff members you add as service providers.

Classes are recurring services. For example, your customers can sign up for your weekly yoga class or a monthly training group.

Finally, courses are used when you want to sell either a multi-session meeting (e.g., client pays once for an art class that meets weekly for a month) or when you want to sell a one-time group service like a one-time dating workshop.

In general, I feel like Wix has a slight advantage over Squarespace when managing the schedules of multiple staff members. First of all, you can add up to 99 staff members, no matter which Wix booking plan you have. Second, you can assign your staffers the role of Bookings Staff Member, which allows them to manage their own appointments, classes, and calendars. Of course, if you are all working the same hours, you can simply set default hours that apply to all staff members. You can also apply the default to only some staff members or set different hours for each staff member.

Best Templates for Service-Based Businesses

Wix once again delivers highly specialized templates. They have one ready for your future eyebrow business, barbershop, virtual yoga studio, virtual assistance services, and beyond.

Squarespace isn’t that far behind. The Myhra theme is perfect for online health coaches, Alignflow is geared toward yoga and meditation studios, and Passero is perfect for virtual cooking classes.

Final Thoughts

While we’ve organized this review by industry, you can also hit control F to search the page for keywords related to the feature you want to know about. If we’ve missed something, feel free to drop a comment below, and we will do our best to help you out!