Squarespace Review UK 2026: Is It Right for Your Small Business?

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Introduction

If you’re a UK small business owner or sole trader looking for a website that actually looks the part, Squarespace has probably caught your eye. It’s the builder known for beautiful, designer-quality templates — the one creatives, restaurants, and photographers tend to gravitate towards.

But good looks aren’t everything, and Squarespace’s pricing and plans changed in 2026, so a lot of the advice online is out of date. In this review, we give you a current, honest answer: what Squarespace costs in pounds in 2026, what you actually get, where it falls short, and whether it’s the right fit for your UK small business — especially compared with Wix. No fluff.

What Is Squarespace?

Squarespace is an all-in-one website builder that handles design, hosting, security, and the technical side for you. It’s best known for its award-winning templates and polished, design-led aesthetic — if visual presentation matters to your brand, Squarespace consistently produces some of the best-looking sites of any builder without needing a designer.

Beyond websites, it includes online stores, appointment scheduling (via Acuity), blogging, email campaigns, and an AI-assisted builder that helps you get a site started quickly. It’s a genuine competitor to Wix, but with a different philosophy: where Wix gives you near-unlimited flexibility (and the rope to make a mess), Squarespace guides you towards a clean, professional result.

One important thing to know up front: Squarespace has no free plan. You can build and test with a 14-day free trial, but to keep your site live you’ll need a paid plan.

Squarespace Pricing UK 2026

Squarespace renamed and restructured its plans in 2026. The old Personal, Business, and Commerce tiers are gone, replaced by four cleaner plans: Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced.

Squarespace displays native pricing in pounds for UK customers, and prices are inclusive of VAT. The figures below are for annual billing (paying monthly costs meaningfully more — roughly 13–41% depending on the plan; annual saves up to 36%). Every plan includes unlimited storage, built-in AI tools, and professional templates. Squarespace sometimes bundles a free first-year custom domain as a promotion, but it isn’t always included, so check what’s on offer at checkout. (At the time of writing, Squarespace is also running a 20%-off code for new plans.)

Basic — £12/month

• Website-only essentials: templates, hosting, unlimited storage, built-in AI tools
• Up to 2 contributors
• You can sell online (and send invoices for free), but Squarespace charges a 2% transaction fee on store sales at this tier
• Best for portfolios, brochure sites, and creatives who aren’t primarily selling

Core — £17/month

• Everything in Basic, plus full eCommerce and 0% Squarespace transaction fees on physical products
• Custom CSS/code injection
• Marketing tools (pop-ups, announcement bars) and sales analytics
• The entry point for anyone serious about selling — the 0% fee alone usually justifies the upgrade from Basic

Plus — £29/month

• Everything in Core, plus customer accounts and advanced analytics (including abandoned-cart data)
• Lower payment-processing card rates (1.7% + £0.25, versus 2% on Basic and Core) and a reduced 1% fee on digital content
• Best for growing online stores expecting a decent volume of sales

Advanced — £79/month

• Everything in Plus, plus advanced shipping, subscription selling, and more checkout customisation
• Aimed at higher-volume stores

(Squarespace regularly runs introductory promo codes, and the free first-year domain and any intro discount apply only to your first term — so budget for the standard renewal price. There’s a 14-day free trial, but no free-forever plan.)

A note on transaction fees

The 2% fee on the Basic plan is the thing that catches sellers out. If you’re taking any real volume of sales, Core (£17/month) removes the Squarespace store transaction fee entirely on physical products, which quickly pays for the upgrade. Note that payment-processing card fees still apply on every plan (via Squarespace Payments, Stripe, or PayPal), starting at 2% + £0.25 and dropping to 1.5% + £0.25 on Advanced — these are separate from Squarespace’s own store transaction fee. Digital content and memberships also carry their own fees (7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus, 0% on Advanced), so if you sell downloads or courses, the tier matters even more.

Key Features

Templates and Design

This is Squarespace’s headline strength. The templates are genuinely beautiful — clean, modern, and professionally designed — and they look polished with minimal effort. For any business where visual presentation matters (photographers, restaurants, designers, boutique brands), Squarespace tends to produce a better-looking result than Wix straight out of the box.

The trade-off is less raw flexibility: you have somewhat less freedom to place elements anywhere than you do in Wix. But for most businesses, the guardrails produce a cleaner, more professional site. Unlike Wix, Squarespace also lets you switch templates after publishing.

The Editor and AI

Squarespace’s editor (Fluid Engine) is intuitive, and its guided AI builder can generate a starter site from a few questions about your business — a useful head start. Most premium features, including the AI builder, are available during the 14-day trial so you can test properly before paying.

eCommerce

Squarespace’s online store tools are capable and, crucially, well-designed — product pages look great with little effort. From Core upwards you pay 0% Squarespace transaction fees on physical products. However, for serious, scaling eCommerce, Squarespace is weaker than Shopify: payment options are limited (Squarespace Payments, Stripe, and PayPal), there’s no true multi-currency checkout, and product-management tools are less advanced.

For a small UK shop or a business where the store is part of a wider brand site, Squarespace is more than capable. For a large, complex, high-growth store, Shopify remains the specialist.

Scheduling, Blogging, and Marketing

Squarespace includes a strong blog, email campaign tools, and appointment scheduling via Acuity (though Acuity can be a separate add-on cost). Its built-in marketing tools — pop-ups, announcement bars, and analytics — are genuinely useful for a small business, and its SEO tools are solid.

Squarespace Pros and Cons for UK Small Businesses

Pros

• Best-in-class templates and design quality
• Clean, professional results with minimal effort
• Native GBP pricing, inclusive of VAT
• Unlimited storage on every plan
• 0% transaction fees on physical products from the Core plan
• You can switch templates after publishing (unlike Wix)
• Strong blogging and scheduling tools

Cons

• No free plan — only a 14-day trial (Wix has a free-forever option)
• 2% transaction fee on the Basic plan catches sellers out
• Less design flexibility than Wix (though many see this as a positive)
• Weaker than Shopify for serious eCommerce (limited gateways, no multi-currency checkout)
• Costs creep up with add-ons like Acuity Scheduling
• Renewal prices step up after the discounted first term
• No native accounting or Making Tax Digital features (see below)

Squarespace and HMRC / Making Tax Digital

As with any website builder, Squarespace is not accounting software. It won’t handle VAT returns, connect to HMRC, or help with Making Tax Digital. Even if you run a Squarespace store, you’ll need separate accounting software — such as QuickBooks, Xero, or FreeAgent — to manage your bookkeeping and stay MTD-compliant.

Squarespace can apply VAT rates at checkout and export your sales data, which you then feed into your accounting software — but the tax compliance side happens elsewhere. Don’t mistake your website platform for a financial tool.

Squarespace vs Wix: Which Should You Choose?

This is the comparison most UK small business owners are weighing up:

• Choose Squarespace if design quality is your priority, you want a polished, professional site with minimal fuss, and you value being able to switch templates later. It’s the stronger choice for creatives, restaurants, photographers, and brand-led businesses.
• Choose Wix if you want maximum design flexibility, a genuinely free plan to start, or the lowest entry price for a simple site. Wix’s Light plan (£9/month) undercuts Squarespace’s Basic (£12/month), and Wix has a free-forever tier where Squarespace doesn’t.

For serious eCommerce, it’s worth comparing both against Shopify before committing.

FAQ

Does Squarespace have a free plan?

No. Unlike Wix, Squarespace doesn’t offer a free-forever plan — only a 14-day free trial. During the trial you get access to most premium features (including the AI builder and templates), so you can build your site before paying, but you’ll need a paid plan to publish and keep it live.

How much does Squarespace cost in the UK?

On annual billing, Squarespace’s UK plans are Basic (£12/month), Core (£17/month), Plus (£29/month), and Advanced (£79/month), with prices shown in pounds and inclusive of VAT. Paying monthly costs more. The Core plan is the sensible starting point for most businesses that want to sell online, because it removes Squarespace’s transaction fee.

Does Squarespace charge transaction fees?

Yes, on the Basic plan — a 2% Squarespace transaction fee on store sales. From the Core plan upwards, that fee drops to 0% on physical products. Separately, payment-processing card fees apply on every plan (via Squarespace Payments, Stripe, or PayPal), and digital products carry small fees on the lower tiers.

Does Squarespace work with Making Tax Digital?

No. Squarespace is a website and eCommerce platform, not accounting software, so it doesn’t connect to HMRC or handle VAT returns and Making Tax Digital. You’ll need dedicated accounting software such as QuickBooks, Xero, or FreeAgent for that, though you can export your Squarespace sales data into it.

Conclusion: Is Squarespace Worth It in 2026?

For the right UK small business, Squarespace is genuinely excellent. If design and presentation matter to your brand — and for creatives, hospitality, and boutique businesses they usually do — few builders produce a more professional result with less effort. The templates are outstanding, the platform is polished, and the ability to switch templates later is a real advantage over Wix.

The caveats are worth weighing: there’s no free plan, the Basic tier’s 2% transaction fee catches sellers out, and for large-scale eCommerce Shopify is the stronger specialist. And, like any website builder, it won’t touch anything HMRC-related.

Our verdict: If you want a beautiful, professional website and you’re happy to pay for it, Squarespace is well worth it — start with the 14-day free trial, and pick Core (£17/month) if you’re selling online so you avoid the Basic plan’s transaction fee. If you want maximum flexibility or a free starting point, compare it against Wix first.

Pricing and features correct at time of writing. Plans and capabilities are subject to change — always confirm current details on the provider’s website before purchasing.