I Compare BigCommerce vs Squarespace in 2024: Which Is Our Winner?

Squarespace’s pricing is much more affordable than BigCommerce’s – it offers three ecommerce plans: Business, Commerce Basic, and Commerce Advanced, priced at $23, $28, and $52 per month respectively, when billed annually. The builder also offers a $16 per month Personal plan, but you won’t be able to sell online with this.

BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees on any of its plans, but Squarespace only offers this benefit on its two Commerce plans. However, BigCommerce’s price range is considerably higher. It has three core plans – Standard, Plus, and Pro – ranging from $29 to $299 per month when billed annually, as well as a custom priced Enterprise plan geared towards huge stores that earn an annual revenue of at least one million dollars.

Value for Money

Squarespace is best for smaller ecommerce ventures whereas BigCommerce is geared towards larger stores doing a higher volume of selling, which is a big reason for the price difference. Still, when you compare the features each builder provides for its intended audience, Squarespace offers better value.

Both builders come with free trials; Squarespace’s 14 days and BigCommerce’s 15 days are both generous compared to other website builders. But with Squarespace, you’ll also get a free domain name for the first year of your plan. You won’t get this perk with BigCommerce – domain name pricing will cost you between $10 and $20 annually.

Squarespace’s Commerce Basic and Commerce Advanced plans will offer you the best value for money, as they won’t take any transaction fees, whereas you’ll be paying an expensive 3% per transaction rate on the Business plan. For BigCommerce, the Plus plan is a great deal because of its scalable growth features.

The Winner

Squarespace Has the Best Value For Money

Both builders offer reasonably priced ecommerce plans, but Squarespace gives you more all-in-one convenience for the cost.

This one is a clear win for Squarespace, which is the easiest website builder we’ve used in 2024. 

Squarespace’s setup was simple – I was asked three questions about the site I wanted to make, and then given a choice between setting up with its AI builder – Squarespace Blueprint – or a template. BigCommerce also offers a quick AI setup, but in comparison, it lacked the personalization needed to build a unique store. Because of this, Squarespace’s setup is much easier, especially for beginners who lack confidence in designing websites.

Both builders present you with an easy four-step setup guide to complete your store. Since Squarespace is design orientated, its instructions related to aesthetics and readability, whereas BigCommerce recommended setting up products and shipping first. Both are necessary for a successful ecommerce site, but customers won’t buy from a site that isn’t functional and visually appealing, which Squarespace understands.

In its editor, Squarespace provides a helpful walkthrough to make the process smoother. BigCommerce, on the other hand, lacked guidance and felt difficult to get to grips with. While both editors are section-based, meaning you can add and reorder different blocks of content and media within a page layout, BigCommerce gives you less control over the formatting within each block.

The Winner

Squarespace’s Setup is Fast and Packed With Helpful Guidance

When it comes to designing your online store, Squarespace is much more beginner-friendly.

After testing both ecommerce platforms, we’re highly impressed by the sales features they offer for their respective target audiences. But because BigCommerce is geared towards larger stores, it has more to offer than Squarespace in terms of scalable ecommerce features. Below, I’ll explain why BigCommerce is so impressive in this area:

Payment Methods

BigCommerce supports over 65 payment gateways with no transaction fees, meaning you’ll have room to shop around for the most suitable platform for you.

On the other hand, Squarespace only lets you choose between five providers: Stripe, PayPal, Square, Afterpay, and its in-house payment gateway – Squarespace Payments. You can benefit from no transaction fees on the Commerce Basic and Commerce Advanced plans, otherwise you’ll be charged 3% on the Business plan.

While Squarespace offers less choice in providers, its native payment gateway – Squarespace Payments – provides a streamlined way to accept and manage payments from one dashboard. It charges a processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, which is on par with most third-party providers. Squarespace Payments currently available to merchants in the US, UK, and Canada.

Inventory Management

BigCommerce really excels in inventory management. You can sell physical, digital, and service-based products on BigCommerce and Squarespace, but BigCommerce is better equipped to handle large inventories.

If you’re selling variations of the same product – like different sizes and colors – BigCommerce and Squarespace can automatically generate “stock-keeping units” (SKUs) to help you identify and organize each variant.

However, BigCommerce goes the extra mile by allowing you to sell on multiple channels, including ad platforms, social media, and marketplaces. You’ll be able to keep track of these sales from one dashboard that’s updated in real-time, meaning you’ll always have ample notice before you run out of stock!

Security

It’s important that your store is secure – especially when you’re taking transactions. Both Squarespace and BigCommerce include free SSL certificates on all of their plans, which will keep your payment information and other data secure.

To reiterate, Squarespace is still a great platform to sell on, and its sales features are by no means inadequate – in fact, they’re perfect for small ecommerce businesses. Some of its standouts include:

• Related products and add-ons that give customers personalized recommendations
• Product reviews displayed on your website
• Waitlists that notify customers directly when an unavailable product is restocked
• abandoned cart recovery to remind customers to complete their orders
• Subscriptions

The Winner

BigCommerce Has Better Ecommerce Features

BigCommerce is built for large-volume sellers, so its sales features are more complex and scalable than Squarespace’s.

Squarespace’s marketing tools are outstanding, but when looking at other growth aspects like international selling, BigCommerce’s arsenal is more powerful. Plus, BigCommerce’s app store gives you a greater level of control over the functionality of your store.

Marketing Tools

Squarespace includes a powerful set of marketing tools on all of its plans, so you won’t have to shop around – or even leave the editor – in order to add new features to your site. Plus, its email marketing and blogging templates have more variety and unique designs.

Meanwhile, BigCommerce requires you to install third party apps to get some of the most basic functionalities that Squarespace offers. For example, you’ll have to install apps for AI text generation. While some are free, apps like FavSEO can cost up to $19 per month. On top of your monthly subscription, the extra costs of these apps could add up considerably.

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to gaining your site visibility and finding customers. While BigCommerce relies on apps to carry out a lot of its functions, it has some powerful native SEO tools, which will let you edit your meta descriptions, page titles, and headers, as well as create shorter URLs – all features that should help to boost your search engine ranking.

As well as this, BigCommerce will optimize your site and images for mobile devices, which means visitors will have a smooth experience on multiple devices. You don’t have quite as much control with Squarespace, but it offers important guidance for the areas you can edit.

App Marketplace

Still, if you’re after some serious growth and can accept the additional fees, the BigCommerce Marketplace is home to its most scalable features – with almost 1,200 apps covering everything from tax assistance to scheduling discounts in advance.

In comparison, Squarespace’s alternative – Squarespace Extensions – has 45 apps, but this is because it has extensive growth features built in, which makes it the perfect platform for beginners.

International Transactions

With any BigCommerce plan you’ll have access to multi-currency selling, meaning you can accept over 100 currencies and allow your international customers to browse your products in their local currency. With transparent prices from the start of their journey, your customers will have a more familiar and seamless site experience.

In contrast, you can only use one currency at a time with Squarespace, which means your customers will see their currencies converted at the checkout stage.

The Winner

BigCommerce Has The Best Growth Features

While it requires time, effort, and potential extra fees, BigCommerce will give you the opportunity to customize your store with powerful tools to achieve your individual goals – even as your business grows into international markets.

I found that Squarespace’s templates gave me more choice in terms of variety and design than BigCommerce’s. At the time of writing, Squarespace has 180 templates, all of which are free to use on any plan. I found them to be stylish and professional, and they come with plenty of useful features built in. You can also preview every Squarespace template before choosing one.

In Comparison, only 12 of BigCommerce’s themes are free. If you’re willing to pay, there are 193 premium designs that cost between $199 and $400 upfront, on top of your subscription price.

BigCommerce themes come with plenty of helpful sales features, from product slideshows to customizable checkout pages. But from a design perspective, they lack the uniqueness and personality of Squarespace’s.

The Winner

Squarespace Has Better Template Designs

BigCommerce’s templates cover the basics, but Squarespace has the most stylish, professional designs that I’ve seen.

As you can see above, BigCommerce and Squarespace both have a great amount of support available to use, each providing 24/7 support via email and AI chat bots.

The main difference is that BigCommerce offers phone support 24/7, whereas Squarespace doesn’t, which can be a dealbreaker for those who value a verbal conversation. That said, Squarespace’s customer service provides around the clock social media support as an alternative contact method.

Both builders also have knowledge bases that you can use to find answers and information whenever you like. I particularly liked Squarespace’s knowledge base, which uses plenty of video tutorials to guide you through the “visual process” of building a website.

The Winner

BigCommerce Has the Best Support Services

Both builders offer 24/7 help services, yet BigCommerce wins because it offers phone support.

Between the two builders, I’d recommend Squarespace for most small ecommerce businesses. It’s extremely easy to use, and provides great modern templates and strong marketing features – all for a fair price.

It might beat BigCommerce in these aspects, but if you’re looking to scale your business and sell internationally, BigCommerce’s sales functions and inventory size are unrivaled.