How much does a Squarespace website cost?

Squarespace’s plan prices are the easy part: 4 plans, 2 billing terms. The rest of the bill sits in the choices around them: monthly or annual, the domain after its free year, email, the store fee on the cheapest plan, and the hours you spend in the editor. Every number below comes from Squarespace’s own pages, read on October 14, 2026, and the three-year total sits beside the other routes in what a small business website costs. For features side by side, see FreeWebGuy versus Squarespace, and for the same arithmetic on the other big builder, the Wix cost guide.

What are Squarespace’s plans and prices?

Squarespace sells four plans: Basic at $19 a month, Core at $29, Plus at $49 and Advanced at $99, billed annually; the same plans cost $25, $39, $65 and $139 billed monthly, per squarespace.com/pricing on October 14, 2026. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial with no credit card, and Squarespace’s pricing FAQ says it has no free plan.

Squarespace plans, as shown on squarespace.com/pricing on October 14, 2026

Plan	Per month, billed annually	Per month, billed monthly	Fee on online-store sales	Card rate	What it adds
Basic	$19 ($228 a year)	$25	2%	2.9% + $0.30	The website, templates, invoicing, selling products and services, 2 contributors
Core	$29 ($348 a year)	$39	0%	2.9% + $0.30	Advanced analytics, unlimited contributors, custom CSS and JavaScript, Google Workspace email free for the first year with conditions
Plus	$49 ($588 a year)	$65	0%	2.7% + $0.30	Lower card and membership fees, cart reservations and countdown timers
Advanced	$99 ($1,188 a year)	$139	0%	2.5% + $0.30	The lowest card rate, payment plans, a 0% membership fee

Every plan can sell memberships, courses and digital content, with a fee of 7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus and 0% on Advanced. The pricing page says “You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel your plan at any time”, and its FAQ adds that changes take effect at the end of the billing cycle.

How much more does monthly billing cost?

Monthly billing costs 32% to 40% more than annual over a year: Basic is $300 a year billed monthly against $228 annual, Core $468 against $348, Plus $780 against $588 and Advanced $1,668 against $1,188 (squarespace.com/pricing, October 14, 2026). Monthly billing also gives up the free domain, which Squarespace’s help center says is for annual plans only.

Monthly still makes sense in two cases: a seasonal business that will switch the site off for part of the year, and a site you expect to replace within a few months. Everyone else pays a third more for the right to leave early, and the refund rules below make that right worth less than it sounds.

What does a Squarespace domain cost?

A domain is free for the first year on an annual Squarespace plan, for any extension priced the same as a .com, and then, in Squarespace’s words, “your domain will renew at the annual TLD price” (Free Squarespace domain offer, checked October 14, 2026). Squarespace’s domains page advertises a domain “for only $10” without naming the extension or term; the renewal price for yours appears in your domains dashboard.

Squarespace does not publish a flat renewal figure for a .com, so plan with the registrar market: WebsiteSetup puts a .com at $12 to $25 a year (November 2025) and Ueni gives $10 to $50 for domains in general (September 2026). WHOIS privacy and an SSL certificate are included with Squarespace domains, per its domains page. The free domain also affects a refund: if you cancel an annual plan within the 14-day window, the domain’s cost is deducted from what comes back. Whichever way you register, keep the domain in your own name and your own login, so it moves with you if the site ever does.

What else do you pay for on Squarespace?

Beyond the plan, a Squarespace site adds business email, card processing and, on Basic, the 2% store fee. Google Workspace email is priced per user at Google’s list price of $7 a user a month for Business Starter, $84 a year (Google Workspace pricing, October 14, 2026); Core and above include the first year free with conditions. Card payments cost 2.9% plus $0.30 on Basic and Core.

• Email. One address is $84 a year at list price after the free year; three addresses are $252. The free year comes with Core and above, not Basic.
• Store fees on Basic. On $10,000 of online sales, the 2% fee is $200 on top of about $290 in card processing plus $0.30 a transaction. From Core up, the 2% goes away, which is why a shop doing more than about $6,000 a year online is better off paying the $120 difference for Core.
• Membership and digital-content fees. 7% on Basic down to 0% on Advanced, on top of card processing. A studio selling $8,000 of online classes a year pays $560 of it to Squarespace on Basic and $400 on Core.
• Your time. Ueni’s cost guide estimates 1 to 2 weeks to build a site yourself on a website builder (September 2026). Squarespace’s templates shorten the design decisions, not the writing, the photo editing or the mobile checks, and every later change is yours.

What does a Squarespace website cost over three years?

Three years of Squarespace billed annually costs $684 on Basic, $1,044 on Core, $1,764 on Plus and $3,564 on Advanced, before the domain’s two renewals and email; billed monthly, the same plans cost $900, $1,404, $2,340 and $5,004 (squarespace.com/pricing, October 14, 2026). Three years of FreeWebGuy hosting is $540 after a $0 build.

Three-year cost at prices read on October 14, 2026. Domain renewals and email not included.

Plan	Three years, billed annually	Three years, billed monthly	Still to add
Squarespace Basic	$684	$900	Domain renewals from year two; 2% of online-store sales
Squarespace Core	$1,044	$1,404	Domain renewals; email after year one at $84 a user a year
Squarespace Plus	$1,764	$2,340	Domain renewals; email after year one
Squarespace Advanced	$3,564	$5,004	Domain renewals; email after year one
FreeWebGuy	$540	Month to month, $15	A domain if you need one, about $10 to $25 a year

Two domain renewals add about $24 to $50 at the registrar range above. The website cost calculator runs the same arithmetic for your own plan, term and number of years.

What are Squarespace’s trial and refund terms?

Squarespace gives a 14-day free trial with no card, and once you pay, it refunds an annual website plan only if you cancel within 14 days of purchase; its refund policy lists monthly plans and renewal payments under “We don’t offer refunds for” (checked October 14, 2026). Cancel before the renewal date, because a renewal that has already been charged does not come back.

The refund window runs from the date you pay, so the 14-day trial and the 14-day refund window are two separate clocks. If a free domain was registered with the plan, its cost comes off the refund. Cancellation itself takes effect at the end of the billing cycle, per the pricing FAQ, so a monthly plan cancelled on day 3 runs to day 30.

When is Squarespace the right choice?

Squarespace is the right choice when design is the point and you want to run the site yourself: a photographer, a restaurant that changes its menu weekly, a studio selling classes or memberships, a writer with a blog, or anyone who enjoys the editor and has the hours. Its export is a WordPress-format .xml file that leaves out store, portfolio and several other page types (Squarespace Help Center, October 14, 2026), so choose it as a place to stay.

Squarespace is the better choice when:

• The look of the site is a large part of what you sell, and you want templates built around photography.
• You sell memberships, courses or digital downloads and want them on the same plan as the website, fees included.
• You send invoices and want that built in; Squarespace lists invoicing on every plan.
• You want a real refund window on an annual plan, which Squarespace gives for 14 days.

Squarespace costs more than the plan card when:

• You bill monthly, at a third more than annual, or you leave an annual plan after day 14 and the balance is gone.
• You run a store on Basic and pay 2% of every sale on top of card fees.
• You add email for a team at $84 a user a year after the free year.
• You are the designer, writer and maintainer, and your evenings are the labor budget.

What does a done-for-you site cost instead?

With FreeWebGuy the build is $0 and hosting is $15 a month, billed through SMBcrm from the day you approve the preview and go live. That is $180 in the first year and $540 over three years, plus a domain if you need one at about $10 to $25 a year, paid to the registrar in your name. There is no annual prepay: the plan is month to month, with no contract, and you cancel it any month in your SMBcrm account. FreeWebGuy charges no cancellation fee.

The $15 covers hosting with SSL, your domain connected, a layout built for phones first, SEO basics, a contact form that emails you, the AI builder for your own edits and the platform’s 24/7 chat support. Small online stores are included when we confirm they fit your plan; payment processors charge their own fees, as they do everywhere. The pricing page lists what is included and what is extra. We use AI to build fast, and a person checks every first version before you see it. The first version arrives within 48 hours of your brief; bigger sites, or briefs missing key details, take a few days more.

If you would rather approve a finished site than build one, send your brief. About 3 minutes, no credit card, and you pay nothing until you approve it.