Squarespace pricing: what each plan costs to sell online

Squarespace pricing: the four plans

Squarespace's pricing page lists four website plans, and all paid plans let you sell products or services. Billed monthly, Basic costs $25 a month, Core $39 a month, Plus $65 a month and Advanced $139 a month. Paying for a year up front lowers the monthly price of every plan, as the table shows.

The table adds the two per-sale costs that apply to most product sales. The online store transaction fee is charged only on Basic. The card rate with Squarespace Payments is the same on Basic and Core and falls on Plus and Advanced. Every plan has no limit on the number of products and services.

Squarespace has no free plan; every site starts with a free trial, and the trial lasts 14 days. The annual prices are the monthly equivalent of a yearly subscription. All prices are for a US seller in US dollars.

Squarespace's help center says these four plans are still rolling out in waves. Sites on older plans, such as Business, Commerce Basic and Commerce Advanced, pay different fees: on the older Business plan the online store transaction fee is 3%.

How to work out the fees on one $30 sale

Example: one $30 print sold on the Basic plan, paid online by a standard US card through Squarespace Payments, with free shipping and no sales tax.

1. Start with the transaction fee

   Basic charges 2% on online sales of physical products, download products, service products and donations. Core, Plus and Advanced charge 0%.

2. Add card processing

   Squarespace Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 on a standard card on Basic and Core, 2.7% + $0.30 on Plus and 2.5% + $0.30 on Advanced. An American Express card pays 3.2% + $0.30 on every plan.

3. Add any surcharges

   A card issued outside the US adds 1.5%, and a payment in another currency adds 1% for conversion. Neither applies in this example.

4. Total the fees

   On Basic the fees come to $1.77 on this $30 sale. On Core they come to $1.17. The monthly plan is paid on top, whether or not anything sells.

What one $30 sale costs on each Squarespace plan

The same $30 card sale on all four Squarespace plans, with Shopify Basic and Wix Core for scale, using each platform's own published rates. The Squarespace plans differ by cents per sale. The larger difference between them is the monthly price.

Squarespace Basic or Core: when the upgrade pays for itself

Basic's 2% fee grows with your sales, while the gap between the two plan prices stays fixed. Billed monthly, Core costs $39 a month against Basic's $25 a month. Core removes the transaction fee and keeps the same card rate, so it costs less in total once the fee on your monthly sales is larger than the gap between the plans.

Example: a shop with $700 of online sales a month pays $14 a month in Basic's transaction fee, the same as the difference between the two monthly prices. Below that, Basic costs less in total. Above it, Core does. Billed annually, Basic is $19 a month and Core is $29 a month, and the same point falls at $500 of online sales a month.

Core also adds tools that Basic leaves out, such as shipping labels, discount codes and automated tax rates. A shop that needs them may want Core before the fee alone would justify it.

Plus and Advanced lower the standard card rate instead. Plus charges 2.7% + $0.30 against Core's 2.9% + $0.30, at $65 a month billed monthly. Example: billed monthly, Plus costs $26 more than Core, and its lower rate saves that much at $13,000 of standard card sales a month. Advanced, at $139 a month, charges 2.5% + $0.30, and its saving over Plus covers the higher price at $37,000 of standard card sales a month. American Express pays 3.2% + $0.30 on every plan, so it does not count toward these savings.

These points come sooner if you sell courses or memberships, because the digital content fee also falls on the higher plans.

Squarespace Payments rates and other ways to get paid

Squarespace Payments is Squarespace's own payment processor. For a US seller most of its rates are the same on every plan. Standard cards cost less on Plus and Advanced, and ACH bank payments cost less from Core up. Buy now, pay later options and American Express cost more than a standard card, so a shop where many buyers use them pays more per sale than the worked example.

You can also connect Stripe, PayPal or Square instead of Squarespace Payments, though Square works only for point-of-sale payments in the Squarespace app. With a third-party processor, Stripe, PayPal or Square charge their own percentage of each sale. The lower Plus and Advanced card rates no longer apply, because Squarespace lists them as available only with Squarespace Payments. On Basic the Squarespace transaction fee is still charged with Stripe and PayPal: on Stripe orders the transaction fee appears as a Squarespace application fee, and on PayPal orders the transaction fee appears as a payment to Squarespace.

When you refund an order on a plan with a transaction fee, the transaction fee is refunded, and the Squarespace Payments rate is not. Squarespace says there are no transaction fees for invoices, so custom work billed by invoice avoids the Basic transaction fee. Squarespace also supports in-person sales through the Squarespace mobile app, with payments through Square.

Fees on courses, memberships and digital content

Squarespace charges a separate fee on courses, video pages and member sites. It is set apart from the online store transaction fee, and it is higher on the cheaper plans:

• Basic: 7%
• Core: 5%
• Plus: 1%
• Advanced: 0%

Downloads sold as store products, such as a PDF pattern, count as store sales instead: the online store fee covers physical products, download products, service products and donations. Card processing is charged on top in both cases.

Example: a coach selling $1,000 of course access a month pays $70 in digital content fees on Basic, $50 on Core, $10 on Plus and nothing on Advanced. With the plan price billed monthly added, Core comes to $89 a month and Plus to $75, so for a course seller Plus can cost less in total than Core.

What the Basic plan leaves out

Basic is the cheapest way to sell on Squarespace, but several selling tools start at Core. Check this list before you pick Basic to save money.

• Shipping labels: UPS and USPS shipping labels are not included on Basic and are included on Core and higher plans.
• Carrier-calculated shipping at checkout: not included on Basic; included on Core and higher plans.
• Discount codes: not included on Basic; included on Core and higher plans.
• Automated tax rates: not included on Basic. Core pays 0.15% per transaction, maximum $0.99; Plus pays 0.10% per transaction, maximum $0.99; Advanced pays 0.05% per transaction, maximum $0.99.
• Product listings in Google Shopping: not included on Basic; included on Core and higher plans.
• Ecommerce analytics: not included on Basic; included on Core and higher plans.
• Team access: 2 contributors on Basic, unlimited on Core and higher.
• Business email: one Gmail and Google Workspace account free for the first year on Core, Plus and Advanced when you register or connect a domain.

Other costs to budget for

Beyond the plan and the fees on each sale, a few other items can add to the bill.

Domain: annual plans include a free custom domain for one year; the free domain renews at the standard rate, plus taxes, after the first year.

Business email: the Google Workspace account included on Core and higher renews at the standard annual or monthly rate, plus taxes, after the first year.

Extensions: Squarespace Extensions are third-party tools built and managed by outside services. Squarespace says connecting one costs nothing extra through Squarespace, but some third-party services require their own subscriptions, so check each one's pricing before you build your shop around it.

Where Nation fits

Questions about Squarespace pricing