- Choose the platform around the role your shop plays in your business: is it the main event, a growing sales channel, or a little shop attached to the rest of your website?
- Squarespace is a good fit when you want a beautiful, manageable website and selling a small handful of products is just a small part of the picture.
- Shopify makes more sense when you’re building a product-based business and expect that the store might grow in complexity over time (which looks anything like more products, ways to sell, or integrations).
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You CAN move platforms later, but some parts of the shop won’t come with you without a bit of legwork. If you migrate, reviews, blog posts, customer history, and URLs all need to be carefully considered.
The Shopify vs. Squarespace decision is usually easier than it looks: can you picture this becoming more than a 5–10-product shop with fairly simple marketing and merchandising? If you’ve got bigger plans for it, Shopify is usually the best call.
If it's physical products, I'd pick Shopify almost every time.
Squarespace is the better pick when you're a service-based business or a brand selling 5-10 simple products (perhaps something like digital courses, or prints of your work) that wants a beautiful website first and a small shop snuggled up inside it.
Here's how I break it down it to clients (my good design friend Kadie from Drop Cap Design first said it like this):
Squarespace eCommerce is kind of like a mom-and-pop shop...and in comparison Shopify is basically Amazon.
The mom-and-pop shop is lovely (a handful of things on the shelf, the owner knows your name, no warehouse required).
Shopify gives your shop the back office it’ll need once “a few products on the website” turns into something...bigger than that.
This back office might be overkill for some shops, but is the only legitimate option for a lot of them.
Quick comparison: Shopify vs Squarespace for a small business in 2026
Everything here is USD and current as of October 2026, from both pricing pages and help centers.
Squarespace's $25 Basic plan charges 2% on every order and doesn't offer discounts and automated tax (like what?!), so Core is the plan I'm putting side by side with Shopify Basic.
| Feature | Squarespace | Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | Core $39/mo ($29/mo billed annually) | Basic $39/mo ($29/mo billed annually) |
| Platform transaction fee | 0% on Core and up (2% on Basic) | 0% with Shopify Payments (2% on Basic with another gateway) |
| Variants per product | 250 total variants, images, and SKUs per product | Up to 2,048 variants per product, across 3 options (like size, color, and material). Images and SKUs do not count towards this number. |
| Currencies | One per store |
Shows local pricing to international shoppers (all plans) |
| Apps and extensions | Around 50 extensions | Over 16,000 apps |
| Themes | Templates included, no marketplace | 1,324 in the Theme Store, 24 of which are free. Paid themes are one-time purchases that run around $170-$500. |
| Theme code access |
You can change the styling via CSS and add code snippets on Core and up, but Squarespace locks down the code that builds each page’s layout |
Full code access on every plan allows for more custom layouts and features. |
| Checkout | Colors, header and a few custom fields; no code; button and field text locked | Standard customizations on every plan; checkout-step apps Plus only—has the world’s highest-converting checkout, according to its published research, converting 15% better on average than competing platforms. |
| Automated sales tax | Core and up, plus a per-order fee (0.15% on Core, capped at $0.99) | Every plan |
| Product reviews | Built in on every plan, but basic functionality | Needs an app (Judge.me, Loox, Okendo, Yotpo), but very in-depth functionality |
| Staff accounts | 2 on Basic, unlimited Core and up | None on Basic (though collaborator access is free for your designer), 5 on Grow, 15 on Advanced |
| Wholesale (B2B) | Not built in | Every plan (up to 3 catalogs on Basic) |
💡 At $39 a month either way, I’d choose the platform you want to be running in 3 years. Moving an established shop is a much bigger project than switching to a higher plan or starting from scratch.
Key limitations of Squarespace eCommerce
Fewer ways to add features and connect your tools
Squarespace has a much smaller selection of extensions, which limits your options when you need something beyond its built-in features.
Before you take the plunge and build your storefront on Squarespace, double check whether the tools you rely on can connect to the store (and exactly what that connection lets them do).
For example, when Meta introduced a new checkout-link requirement in 2025, Squarespace sellers reported problems getting shoppers from Instagram and Facebook into their store’s checkout with the selected products.
Checkout
The checkout is the limitation that sends people heading for the Shopify hills.
Shopify’s checkout has a lot going for it before you customize a thing: it’s the world’s highest-converting checkout according to Shopify’s published research, converting 15% better on average than competing platforms.
A Trustpilot reviewer running a local shop with pickup and delivery wrote in April 2026 that "Squarespace makes the fulfillment section header 'Shipping' (whether you offer shipping or not)" and that "All this adds up to customers abandoning check out". They moved their online sales elsewhere.
Say you sell birthday cakes. Your customer needs to be able to customize and preview the cake, choose a collection date, and you need enough notice to bake the thing. So don't fall into the trap of setting up an entire Squarespace shop and then realizing its systems can't support what you wanted to build.
Write down anything a customer needs to select, tell you, or upload when ordering. Then check how each platform would handle it, including any apps you’d need (and what they cost).
Currencies
Selling internationally gets a little awkward on Squarespace, because every shopper sees prices in the same currency.
A clothing store owner in Czechia put it this way on Trustpilot in June 2026: "You have to choose one and it will display that to every visitor".
With Squarespace Payments or Stripe, shoppers can pay in their own currency at checkout, but your prices and payouts stay in the one you picked.
The variant situation
Those 250 slots can fill up faster than you’d think (gotta love the power of exponential math).
Here's an example: if you have a T-shirt in 10 colors and 7 sizes, you're already at 70 variants.
If you add a SKU for each combination suddenly you’re at 140, with product photos still to come (😬).
Squarespace counts all three toward the same limit, so it’s a good idea to get clear on the math of your most complicated product before you commit (also, a pricier plan won’t buy you more room).
For a small shop with a handful of straightforward products, you’ll probably never have to think about this. It gets more relevant when one product comes in every color of the rainbow and 7 sizes (hello, clothing brands).
When Squarespace eCommerce DOES fit the bill (and Shopify would be overkill)
If you’re a photographer and most of your website’s job is to get you booked, adding a little print shop on Squarespace might be a solid option.
AKA if your eCommerce activities are the "cherry on top" of your existing good thing going, you might love the ease and simplicity of Squarespace eCommerce.
Even the critics conclude the same—a 2-star Trustpilot reviewer wrote in November 2025: "IF you need to sell 5-10 products max, it's probably great" (back to that mom-and-pop shop status).
Squarespace can also make sense if your blog brings in most of your sales. Say you write knitting tutorials and sell the patterns: you can pop a product into the post so someone can add it to their cart while they’re reading.
A seller on the Shopify Community wrote in March 2025 that on Squarespace "we would insert products directly into the blog and people could add to cart from there" and that since moving to Shopify "we've struggled to implement these same type of flow".
Shopify considerations
I recommend Shopify a lot, and there are still a few trade-offs that are worth knowing about before you sign up.
Apps: both a blessing and a curse
Apps add up: a Shopify Community member wrote in 2023 that "I would have to pay $5 to $15 a month to add some one small function that arguably should be built into the basic platform", and reviews and pre-orders are still apps.
Ease of design
Designing the store can take some getting used to, especially if you’re coming from Squarespace.
In Shopify, your theme determines which layouts and design settings you have to work with. When you want something it doesn’t offer, you may need an extra section, an app, or a developer to build it.
If you’re building it yourself, try setting up your most complicated page during the theme trial. You’ll get a much better feel for whether it gives you enough freedom, and where you might need help.
Pssst— The Section Studio is my library of custom Shopify sections. You can add them to a free theme to get more layout options without hiring a developer for each one.
Staff Accounts
Shopify Basic works best when you’re the only person running the store. If a co-owner or employee needs their own login to help manage orders, you’ll need Grow or above.
Grow includes 5 staff accounts; Advanced includes 15.
BUT—your designer can use free collaborator access, so hiring someone to work on the site won’t force a plan upgrade (thankfully).
Checkout Customization
Shopify gives you plenty of freedom to customize the storefront. Once a shopper reaches checkout, the options get more restricted.
You can add your logo and change the colors and fonts on Basic, but adding an app for something like a custom field during checkout requires Shopify Shopify Plus.
That said, you can still totally customize the cart, it's just the actual checkout step that's pretty locked down (but is probably why Shopify's checkout is so highly converting).
I’ve spent enough time elbow-deep in Shopify to have a few minor complaints. But I’d still choose it over and over again for a shop I wanted to grow, even a little bit.
There’s a LOT you can build on it, and I’d happily budget for a few apps to avoid rebuilding the whole thing later (and sell my products better).
What to think about if you end up starting on Squarespace now but migrating to Shopify later
Past Orders
Past orders need a paid app like EZ Importer (from $25) or Matrixify ($20 for 30 days), because Shopify's free Store Migration app doesn't list Squarespace as a source.
For a small shop I'd keep the Squarespace orders CSV as the archive and start Shopify clean.
Products
You can export your products as a CSV Squarespace, though you’ll have some filling in to do afterward.
The Squarespace products export suspiciously doesn't include things like additional info blocks, featured images, variant images, and alt text.
Also keep in mind that Shopify allows up to 3 types of product options, like size, color, and material. If your Squarespace products have a fourth—say, sleeve length—you’ll need another way for customers to make that selection.
Reviews
Starting on Squarespace to see if an idea has legs is fair enough. I’d just want you to know the details of what “we’ll move to Shopify later” involves before you get too comfy.
Your reviews deserve particular attention (hey, you worked hard for those stars!). Squarespace doesn’t let you export them, so you’ll need to copy them into a Shopify review app by hand—or get Claude to do it.
Gift cards and Subscriptions
Gift cards and recurring subscriptions deserve their own migration checklist—you'll want to figure out how you’ll honor unused balances and whether subscribers will need to sign up again (something you want to get right if it's bringing in money every month).
Blogs
Your blog needs some attention, too. Squarespace exports posts in a format made for WordPress, which Shopify can’t import directly.
If you’re moving them yourself, plan for some copying, pasting, and checking that the formatting survived the trip.
Customer Details
Customer details can come across, though their old passwords won’t. Shopify’s current customer accounts use a login code sent by email, so customers can sign in with the same email address they’ve always used.
Domain + URLs
I’d move your domain registration out of Squarespace while you’re at it. You can keep the same web address, though you may need to wait if the domain’s still within its 60-day transfer lock.
The individual page links need more attention. Shopify structures its URLs differently, so you’ll need redirects to send visitors from the old links to the right new pages (including anyone clicking your somehow still viral Pinterest post from 3 years ago).
Order of operations for the move
You can build your Shopify store behind a password while customers carry on shopping on Squarespace. Use that time to bring everything across and check that it’s working, with the old site still there to refer back to.
Once the new store’s ready, connect your domain and put your redirects in place. Give everything another check on the live site before canceling Squarespace (including placing a real life order).
Decided to move? Read 7 things to know before starting your Shopify store first.
Frequently Asked Questions
As of October 2026, Squarespace Core and Shopify Basic both cost $39 a month ($29 billed annually), with the same standard US online card rate of 2.9% + 30¢ through their own payment processors.
Your Shopify bill can creep up once you add paid apps, so I’d price out the features your shop actually needs before comparing totals.
Yes, Squarespace can work well if you want to add a small shop to a website you already use for your main business. A photographer selling a few prints could find it does everything they need, with an editor they’re already comfortable using.
I’d be more cautious if you’re hoping product sales will become a bigger part of the business. Check how Squarespace would handle the ideas you have for the shop, because working around its limitations can become a project of its own.
Yes. Shopify’s Buy Button lets you add products to a Squarespace page and send customers through Shopify’s checkout, though some app features won’t work with that setup.
I also build hybrid Squarespace–Shopify sites, where the shop lives on a separate Shopify site that extends the existing Squarespace website. I style them to feel like one connected experience, so customers can move between the two without feeling like they’ve wandered into a different business. You’ll pay for both platforms, so that’s something to factor into the budget.
