Squarespace vs BigCommerce: Which is Best for Your Online Store?

A website builder is a great tool to design and create a website from scratch, as it does not require you to have any coding knowledge or web development skills. If you are reading this blog, you have already come across the two leaders of the website-building industry, i.e., BigCommerce and Squarespace.

While BigCommerce was established in 2009 as a platform for creating online stores, Squarespace began in 2003 as a solution for creating and maintaining content-based websites. However, owing to several advancements made later, both of these platforms have evolved to become technically and functionally similar.

With their amazing features and services, they have made website building extremely convenient for their customers, gaining huge popularity amongst users who often get confused about which platform to use for building their websites.

If you, too, have been struggling with the same question, we are here to help. In this blog, we will discuss all the details about both of these platforms and assist you in choosing the most suitable option for you.

BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Ease of Use
BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Payment Options & Transaction Fees
BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Help and Support
BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Performance and Security
BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Strategic Acquisitions and Partnerships

BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Ease of Use

When comparing BigCommerce and Squarespace, one of the key factors to consider is their ease of use. Let's explore how these platforms differ in terms of user-friendliness and intuitive design.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is one of the leading eCommerce platforms. It is NASDAQ-listed and provides SaaS services to retailers. It is a fully hosted platform, i.e., it completely runs on its servers, and the user does not have to purchase any other web hosting service or install any software.

Their website offers all the tools required for website building, including online store creation, hosting, search engine optimization, marketing, security, and payment options.

A few pros and cons of this platform are listed below:

Pros:

• It offers real-time shipping quotes.
• It is capable of handling large-scale inventories.
• It does not charge any transaction fees for its plans.
• It provides the option to sell in multiple currencies.
• Suited for any eCommerce store, whether simple or sophisticated.
• Their social media and online marketplace integrations help save time.

Cons:

• A lot of features can only be added through the BigCommerce app store.
• Templates are basic and not well designed.
• The template editor is clunky, and the setup is confusing.
• It is hard to find various sections to make changes in content.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a content management system that helps eCommerce merchants design their websites or online stores. It offers several features, especially for small business owners. It has features such as search engine optimization solutions, social media integrations, email marketing tools, etc.

It is also a fully hosted platform, so you don't have to pay for any other services but their plan. The pros and cons of Squarespace are listed below:

Pros:

• Squarespace has affordable plans rich in features.
• In-built marketing features such as blog page creation, performance monitoring, etc.
• Great template designs that are both professional and stunning.
• It offers a well-sorted and easy-to-use setup.
• Its brilliant customer care services even help with requests like coded integrations.

Cons:

• A limited number of payment options.
• Less suitable for large-scale businesses.
• Small app store with a narrow range of features.
• It is difficult to undo a mistake; it requires a lot of work.

BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Payment Options & Transaction Fees

Both BigCommerce and Squarespace are popular eCommerce platforms that enable merchants to innovate and grow their online businesses. Even if you do not have any knowledge or experience in coding, these platforms provide you with the opportunity to build your websites from scratch.

Both of them allow multi-channel sales options for online stores and also integrate with several relevant software products in the field of eCommerce, making the work much easier for the user. They offer themes and templates to customize your online store as per your preferences. You can also add plugins or other applications as per your requirements.

However, there are several points at which these two platforms are quite different from each other. These include pricing, ease of use, apps and integrations, customer support, payment options, etc. In the next section, we will discuss all these points in detail.

Pricing: BigCommerce is more on the expensive side than Squarespace with a difference of $10 in their base price.

BigCommerce Pricing Plans

BigCommerce offers four different pricing plans which are as follows:

Besides this, although BigCommerce does not charge any transaction fees for its plans, it charges credit card fees, making plans more costly. This fee varies per plan as listed below:

Squarespace Pricing Plans

On the other hand, the plans and prices offered by Squarespace are more affordable:

Ease of Use: Although both the platforms are fully hosted and are well equipped to provide a great experience to users, Squarespace editor provides easy interference to customize the webpage making it more convenient to use. BigCommerce, on the other hand, offers advanced features that may be difficult to use for a newbie.

Moreover, Squarespace has a greater number of templates available in both stylish and professional designs, with 50+ free online store themes designed for categories like food, baby care, health & nutrition, etc. There are prebuilt sections that offer you the opportunity for sitewide styling by customizing fonts, styles, colors, etc.

BigCommerce also offers a variety of themes and templates available in different categories just like Squarespace. However, they only offer 12 free themes. Other than this, they have 100+ paid themes within a price range of $50 to $300. Also, the customization process is comparatively complicated.

Payment options: While there are only limited payment options available on Squarespace, i.e., PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, and Afterpay (Afterpay is available in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), BigCommerce offers 65+ payment gateways, including Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Paypal, Chase, etc. to choose from.

Moreover, Squarespace does not provide the option to display multi-currency at checkout, you are only allowed to add the option in the store. BigCommerce does not just offer multi-currency checkout but several other options like accelerated checkout, single click checkout, etc.

Furthermore, BigCommerce does not charge any transaction fees on its plans while this option is only available on Squarespace if you are using their expensive plans i.e. basic and advanced. Apart from this, a 3% transaction fee is charged on every store transaction.

BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Help and Support

When it comes to seeking help and support for your eCommerce platform, both BigCommerce and Squarespace have got you covered. Let's take a closer look at the available support options and resources provided by each platform to assist you in making an informed decision.

Customer support

Both platforms have an active forum and an excellent support system to help resolve the queries of their customers. They also provide their customers access to their knowledge base or help center which is loaded with useful guides and step-by-step video tutorials to answer common queries.

However, BigCommerce has the upper hand in this section as they offer 24X7 phone, email, and live chat support for their customers while the customer support for Squarespace is only confined to email and live chat.

Marketing

Although both platforms have great marketing features still the difference is considerable. Below we have mentioned different categories of their marketing strategies and the significant difference between them:

1. Email: Squarespace has an inbuilt email automation software that comes with readymade templates to use from. Also, it allows you to send up to three trial blast campaigns. After you reach the maximum limit you can easily upgrade to the basic plan costing around $5 per month. Moreover, Squarespace has integrated with other email software like Mailchimp.

BigCommerce, on the contrary, does not have an inbuilt email automation software. However, they have integrations with 30+ email automation software such as Mailchimp, Privy, etc. that may be paid or unpaid depending on the plan.

2. SEO: Although both platforms can handle the SEO functionalities well, BigCommerce has a competitive edge. It makes page optimization easier with its search engine-friendly themes, automated sitemaps, sitewide HTTPS, and editable robot.txt. Moreover, you can also tweak elements like meta descriptions, headings, page title tags, etc. for on-page SEO.

Alternatively, Squarespace provides automated markups, robot.txt, and sitemaps through its inbuilt SEO tools. You can also import a search console, to improve your SEO, in Squarespace analytics.

3. Multichannel selling: BigCommerce has integrations with different social media as well as eCommerce channels like eBay, Facebook, TikTok, etc. through which it allows multichannel selling.

Squarespace, however, has fewer integrations but, it allows you to use an open patch for multichannel selling.

4. Blogging: Although BigCommerce has a blogger-friendly dashboard that allows SEO, commenting, assigning multiple authors, as well as mention tags, Squarespace has better-inbuilt features for blogging. It has a variety of templates, extensions, and covers. Also, it allows blog archives, commenting, assigning multiple authors, enabling RSS feed, etc.

5. Tools: Both platforms offer great inbuilt marketing tools. BigCommerce has features like stock recovery, gift wrapping, etc. with help available from more than 100 marketing apps. It also has integrations with POS systems like Square, vend, clover, etc. that facilitate offline selling.

Squarespace also has great in-built features such as stock alerts, custom checkout, gift cards, customer profiles, etc. However, its integrations are limited to nine marketing apps that are available to assist its customers and Square for in-store selling.

Moreover, BigCommerce has more than 1,500 apps in its store to facilitate all types of eCommerce features and an app store to add new marketing features. Hence, it is a better platform in terms of marketing.

BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Performance and Security

BigCommerce has good loading speed and uptime. It also has multi-secure hosting servers and advanced SSL security features. However, Squarespace has been observed to have comparatively better performance and security features.

Squarespace has a powerful CDN for data backup as well as DDOS security to protect against threats. Also, it has inbuilt SSL security and shared hosting features and provides unlimited storage and bandwidth for your website.

BigCommerce vs Squarespace - Strategic Acquisitions and Partnerships

Squarespace has acquired Google Domains' assets, valued at approximately $180 million. This strategic move involves the transfer of over 10 million domains hosted on Google Domains. Squarespace's role as the trusted provider for these customers reinforces its commitment to offering a comprehensive solution for building and managing an online presence. This acquisition strengthens Squarespace's position as a leading website-building platform, empowering businesses and individuals to effortlessly create stunning websites.

BigCommerce has made significant progress in the industry by acquiring BundleB2B in April 2022, strengthening its position as a leading B2B e-commerce platform. This acquisition enhances BigCommerce's advanced B2B functionalities, including custom pricing and account management. In May 2023, they partnered with Oracle NetSuite to streamline operations and improve the customer experience. These strategic moves reflect BigCommerce's commitment to growth and comprehensive business solutions.

Conclusion

Both BigCommerce and Squarespace are excellent website builders loaded with amazing features and services. While choosing one option out of these, you will have to keep your website requirements in mind.

BigCommerce is a better option for sellers with large inventories who are experienced in website building, especially if they are looking for automation to handle their business. Also, its multi-currency and business scalability features make it a great option if you are looking forward to extensively scaling your business globally.

Squarespace is a better option for sellers on a budget with smaller catalogs, as it has cheaper plans. Also, it is a better choice if you are planning to offer services alongside selling products, as it offers service features to aid your business.

FAQs

What are the pros of BigCommerce?

Some pros of BigCommerce are:

• It offers real-time shipping quotes.
• Capable of handling large-scale inventories.
• It does not charge any transaction fees on its plans.
• It provides the option to sell in multiple currencies.
• Suited for any eCommerce store whether simple or sophisticated.
• Their social media and online marketplace integrations help save time.

What are the cons of BigCommerce?

Some cons of BigCommerce are:

• A lot of features can only be added through the BigCommerce app store.
• Templates are basic and not well designed.
• The template editor is clunky and the setup is confusing.
• It is hard to find various sections to make changes in content.

What are the pros of Squarespace?

Some of the pros of Squarespace are:

• They have affordable plans rich in features
• In-built marketing features such as blog page creation, performance monitoring, etc.
• Great template designs that are both professional and stunning.
• Sorted and easy-to-use setup.
• Brilliant customer care services even helping with requests like coded integrations.

What are the cons of Squarespace?

Some of the cons of Squarespace are:

• A limited number of payment options.
• Less suitable for large-scale businesses.
• Small app store with a narrow range of features.
• Difficult to undo a mistake - requires a lot of work.