How much does Squarespace cost per month?
Squarespace costs $19 a month for Basic, $29 for Core, $49 for Plus and $99 for Advanced when you pay for a year at a time, and $25, $39, $65 or $139 when you pay month by month. The gap between the two columns is the first number to notice: Basic billed monthly costs $300 a year, $72 more than the $228 annual price for the same plan.
On October 14, 2026 every plan on the pricing page carried a 20% off badge, and the headline read "Pay annually to save up to 36%." The page did not say whether the displayed prices already reflected the badge, so treat $19 as the annual price Squarespace was showing that day and check the page before you buy.
FreeWebGuy has one price: $15 a month, billed month to month, once you approve the preview. There is no annual column because there is nothing to prepay, and no build fee because the build is $0. What the $15 includes, and the short list of what it does not, is on the pricing page.
What fees does Squarespace add on top of the plan?
Squarespace adds a 2% transaction fee on online-store sales on the Basic plan, and 0% on Core, Plus and Advanced. That fee is Squarespace's own cut; the card processor's fee is separate and applies on every plan. A business selling $1,000 a month on Basic pays Squarespace $20 a month on top of the $19 plan, which is why the pricing page suggests upgrading for 0%.
The domain is the other recurring line. Annual plans include one year of free registration for an available domain, and the pricing page says domains registered that way 'will renew at our standard rate, plus applicable taxes, after the first year.' On monthly billing the free domain is not offered. The guide to what a Squarespace website costs over three years adds the plan, domain, email and store fee together.
On FreeWebGuy, small online stores are included when we confirm they fit your plan, payment processors charge their own fees, and large catalogs are quoted before any work starts. A new domain costs about $10 to $25 a year, paid to the registrar, in your name, and a domain you already own is connected at no charge.
Is there a free version of Squarespace?
There is no free Squarespace plan, only a 14-day free trial that needs no credit card. You can build during the trial and upgrade when you are ready; the help center notes that you cannot export from a trial site. After 14 days the site needs a paid plan to stay up.
FreeWebGuy's equivalent is the preview. We build the complete site from your brief and send you a private link. You read every page, tell us what to change, and decide. The $15 a month starts only when you approve the site and set up your SMBcrm plan. Sending a brief charges nothing and commits you to nothing.
Can you export a Squarespace site?
Partly. Squarespace's help center says you can export 'certain content' into a WordPress-format .xml file, and it lists what comes along: layout pages, one blog page with its posts, text blocks, image blocks, and gallery pages on version 7.0 sites. It also lists what stays behind: album, cover, index, info, calendar, portfolio and store pages, content in headers, footers and sidebars, any second blog, product, video and audio blocks, drafts, style settings and custom CSS.
In practice that means the words and photos from your main pages travel, and the design, the store and most special page types do not. Plan on rebuilding the look wherever you go next.
FreeWebGuy does not export a site as a file at all. Your site runs on SMBcrm hosting, the design and platform are licensed to you while the $15 plan is active, and the site goes offline if you cancel. Your domain, logo, photos and text stay yours. Ask us and we can help you gather them, and SMBcrm keeps account data for about 30 days after a plan ends.
Who does the work, and how long does it take?
On Squarespace, you do the work, and Squarespace does not publish how long it takes because that depends on you. A five-page service site means choosing a template, writing every page, sourcing photos, setting up the contact form, filling in SEO titles, connecting the domain and checking it all on a phone. If you like design work, that list is a pleasant week. If you run a business all day, it tends to stay half finished.
On FreeWebGuy, we do the work. The brief takes about 3 minutes, the first version arrives within 48 hours of it, and bigger sites or briefs missing key details take a few days more. We use AI to build fast, and a person checks every first version before you see it. Reasonable revisions before launch are included; we revise the preview with you until it matches your brief.
If you want to put a dollar figure on your own hours, the website cost calculator adds them to the DIY total at whatever rate you enter. It sets no default.
Is Squarespace worth it for a small business?
Squarespace is worth it for a small business whose owner wants a design-led site and will build and maintain it. Squarespace is built around its templates, and a photographer, a studio or a restaurant with strong images gets a lot from them. The 0% store fee from Core up makes it a reasonable home for a modest shop too.
It is a harder case for an owner who needs a site this week and will not open the editor afterward. Then the $19 or $25 buys the software, and the website still has to be made.
That is the owner we build for. The team behind FreeWebGuy has built 1,000+ websites, the first version is ready within 48 hours of your brief, and you pay nothing until you approve it. Browse the website examples to see what the finished work looks like before you send a brief.
