Squarespace Got Expensive — Here’s What to Do

Squarespace makes a beautiful marketing website. It also costs more than people realize once you add commerce, scheduling, email, and the inevitable third-party integrations. The current pricing — Business at $33/mo, Commerce Advanced at $65/mo, with most clients adding $15-$30 in extras — lands most small businesses in the $50-$100/mo range, billed annually.

That’s real money. Here’s what to do about it.

First: is Squarespace actually wrong for you?

Squarespace is a fine platform for:

• Photographers, designers, artists with portfolio-heavy sites
• Restaurants and small retail with simple commerce needs
• Bloggers who want a clean editor
• Service businesses where the site is just a brochure

It starts being the wrong tool when:

• You need lead-routing logic, custom forms, or workflow automation
• Your commerce volume is growing past 100+ products or you need real inventory management
• You’re running paid ads and the page-speed scores are killing your CPC
• Your SEO needs are more sophisticated than Squarespace’s built-ins
• The recurring cost is starting to dominate your marketing budget

Real alternatives, ranked by what kind of business you are

If you’re mostly informational (service business, no commerce)

A statically-built website on a modern stack (Astro, Next.js, etc.) hosted on S3 + CloudFront, AWS Amplify, Netlify, or Vercel. One-time build cost, hosting roughly $5-$20/month. You own the source code.

This is what we do at Coderize. Or for the lower-budget version, Coderize Express at $199-$399/month with everything included.

If you’re commerce-first

Shopify is the obvious answer. It’s more expensive at the surface ($39/mo for Basic) but the commerce features are deeper than Squarespace and the ecosystem is bigger. If you’re selling 50+ items, this is usually the right move.

If you’re a content business / publication

Ghost or a static-site-with-CMS setup. Ghost has the cleanest writing experience of any platform on the market right now and the pricing ($9-$31/mo) is honest.

If you’re a small ecommerce business and Shopify feels like overkill

WooCommerce on a managed WordPress host (e.g., WP Engine, Kinsta) is a viable middle ground. More moving parts than Shopify, less than a custom build.

The migration is the hard part, not the destination

Squarespace doesn’t make migration easy:

• It exports an XML file that’s structured for WordPress import only
• If you’re moving to anything else, the migration is mostly manual
• URLs will change, so 301 redirects are essential
• Page-speed and rankings should improve, but only if the new site is built well

What we charge for a Squarespace migration

• Coderize Express: $199-$399/month, $99 reservation deposit, live in 3-5 days. Replacement for an informational Squarespace site.
• Custom build: $2,500+ one-time, you own the code. Right call when Squarespace was constraining real business logic you couldn’t implement on it.

The order of operations

1. Audit current Squarespace site, content, and rankings
2. Build the replacement
3. Set up 301 redirects for any URL changes
4. Update DNS to point at the new site
5. Verify Google Search Console picks up the new URLs
6. Cancel Squarespace at the end of your billing cycle

Talk to us

Free 15-minute audit on your current Squarespace site. Reach out and we’ll look at it and tell you whether the migration math works for you.

Related: Moving Off Wix, Leaving GoDaddy, Custom vs Template.