Squarespace vs Showit: Which Website Platform is the Best in 2023?
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An up-to-date review of Showit and Squarespace. Which platform should you pick to design your small business website?
There are plenty of website platforms options out there. But among service-based business owners, Showit and Squarespace have emerged as the clear favorites.
Both platforms offer a drag-and-drop design interface that allows you to DIY visually stunning websites without extensive design expertise. Both have a wide range of professionally-designed templates that cater to a range of industries. And both prioritize responsive design — ensuring that websites look great and function well across devices for a seamless user experience.
So which platform is the best for your business — Showit or Squarepsace? Let’s Compare!
As far as DIY website design is concerned, Showit had a clear advantage with their drag-and-drop editor style. They were the clear winner, hands down. But with the rollout of Squarespace’s new version, Squarespace 7.1. Fluid Engine, Showit no longer has that advantage!
As of 2023, Squarespace is a powerhouse for DIY website design.
I’ll tell you right out of the gate that, as a Squarespace website designer, I have a clear bias. And I have plenty of reasons for that bias! But there’s nothing wrong with Showit. In fact, it’s an excellent DIY website platform. I just happen to think that Squarespace is even better.
Here are the key reasons why 👇
Squarespace prioritizes all-inclusive tools that save you time by letting you manage everything you need for your online business in one place.
I have a whole post just about this, because this is arguably THE reason why I love Squarespace so much. Squarespace has always focused on being an all-inclusive website builder. Here are some of the all-in-one tools that help me & my clients run our online businesses efficiently:
Squarespace has built-in analytics, so you don’t have to spend any time learning how to navigate Google Analytics
Showit offers no built-in analytics — meaning that you’re forced to set up & rely on your Google Analytics dashboard to get any kind of stats for your site. It’s a pain. And the Google Anayltics dashboard is much more confusing than Squarespace’s analytics dashboard!
You can manage online scheduling, purchase your domain, and set up your professional business email — all directly within Squarespace
Again, I love simplicity. You don’t need to hop between GoDaddy, Gmail, or third-party scheduling softwares. You can manage all of this without leaving your Squarepace account. Showit doesn’t offer any of these things.
Squarespace automatically syncs with Google Search Console
Showit offers no such integration, so you’ll need to log in to your Google Search Console dashboard every time you want to take a look at your SEO rankings.
You can handle all of your email marketing directly through Squarespace
And even if you’re using a third-party email platform like Flodesk (my favorite), embedding your email forms on your Squaresapce site is a breeze. You can embed your Flodesk forms on Showit as well — however, the Showit editor makes it more challenging to embed multiple forms across a single page.
✨ for even more details on Squarepace’s tools and capabilities, see this post. ✨
Creating a DIY website on Squarespace requires less of a learning curve than Showit
I’ve used both platforms, because at one point I thought about adding Showit design to my skillset as a website designer. And I pretty quickly abandoned that idea. Why? The Showit platform didn’t feel as intuitive as Squarespace.
It wasn’t as easy to navigate the site editor. It was difficult to truly customize sections. Blogging had to be set up separately through WordPress. And it was more difficult to optimize pages for SEO (in fact, one of my clients came to me specifically because switching to Showit had tanked her site’s organic search traffic — eek!)
All in all, I didn’t feel confident in the platform’s ease of use for my clients. I’m passionate about creating sites that my client’s feel confident managing — so they don’t feel confused, overwhelmed, or forced to email me every time they need to make a site update. I didn’t feel like Showit offers the same user friendly experience.
I will say, if you’re a photographer or a designer, you’ll probably find Showit’s editor intuitive. It was originally designed as a website platform for photographers, after all! If you’re comfy with Photoshop, Lightroom, or Illustrator, you’ll probably feel right at home.
Squarespace website templates tend to look more custom & unique than Showit templates
If you’re planning to design your website completely from scratch starting with a blank canvas, Showit is probably easier to use in order to get some beautiful-looking features without touching code. But if you’re planning to start with a designer-made template as your base, Squarespace has the edge because you can find some truly custom options.
This one is a bit of a hot take, but I stand by it. One of the qualms I have about Showit templates is that (although they’re beautiful!) they’ve all started to look kinda… the same.
As a service-based business owner trying to stand out in the crowd, the worst thing your website can be is cringy… but the second worst thing is forgettable.
If your beautiful site is indistinguishable from everyone else’s beautiful site, you’re lost in a sea of competitors.
One of the points Showit prides itself on is its drag-and-drop designs that remove the need for coding. Which is great for DIY design! However, it means that there are now a whole bunch of Showit templates that use eerily similar layouts and styles.
Don’t get me wrong — these designs are beautiful! But they all borrow the same design “language” and appeal to the same demographic.
Because Squarespace makes custom CSS coding easy, there are a whole bunch of designer-made Squarespace templates that are beautiful and unique and user friendly — because they’ve been truly custom designed. They don’t look like a template — they look like a custom-designed site.
Flexibility as your business grows — Squarespace compared to Showit
If you have goals and plans to eventually create a course, sell any products, or expand your marketing efforts with blogging or email marketing, Squarespace makes it easy to do. Other website builders like Showit require more plugins, third-party softwares, and overall complexity as your business grows.
Let’s say you build your new coaching website on Showit.
It looks beautiful and outlines your services clearly. But you quickly realize that it would save you — and your clients — a whole bunch of time and headaches if they could schedule with you directly online. Well, you’ll have to find, set up, and embed a scheduling app on your site.
Fast forward a few years later and you want to host an online group program or self-paced workshop. You’ll have to set up, learn, and launch a course through Teachable or another platform and sync it with your website sales pages.
Now you’re learning three different platforms, managing three different systems, and paying three different subscription fees.
If you had built your site on Squarespace, you could manage all of this in one place — for a fraction of the cost and time.
Another example:
Let’s say you’re the owner of a service-based business — like a restaurant, hair stylist, or yoga instructor. What if you want to start selling merch, or simplify the way you sell your services? You can easily add products and services to your Squarespace website and start selling immediately. You can even link your Square POS to your Squarespace site to track in-store and online inventory.
Squarespace’s many options encourage you to grow your business, and make each new stage of growth easy to execute.
Blogging on Squarespace vs. Showit
Brainstorming and writing a blog is hard enough — formatting and publishing your posts should be as easy as possible.
Having worked with formatting WordPress blogs for past clients, I can say that it necessitates more effort and external integrations to achieve a well-optimized and aesthetically pleasing blog. The process can be time-consuming and overwhelming — especially for those who are new to both Showit & WordPress.
Showit relies on a WordPress integration for blogging, which — while powerful — can involve a steeper learning curve. This means that if you want to start a blog ( and you definitely should!! ) you’ll face a two-fold learning process: mastering Showit's design features + navigating the complexities of WordPress.
Setting up a blog on Squarespace is notably easier and more intuitive due to the user-friendly, all-in-one nature of the platform. No need to mess with WordPress formatting, plugins, or external SEO tools!
Squarespace’s interface streamlines the process of creating, formatting, and scheduling blog posts, and it even incorporates essential SEO features to help ensure that your content ranks well in search engines — which is the whole point of blogging to begin with!
All in all, Showit blogging capabilities compared to Squarespace are about the same, but Squarespace is definitely more user-friendly for those less tech savvy!
Is Showit or Squarespace better for search engine optimization (SEO)?
I’ve heard it said that Squarespace isn’t as good for SEO as other platforms like Showit or WordPress, so I dug into some research to figure out if this was accurate!
It turns out that seeing results from SEO is no different for Squarespace than it is for other web builders. The myth that “Squarespace isn’t good for SEO” stems less from Squarespace’s capabilities, and more from a lack of robust SEO tools & education — until now.
Thanks to a brand new free Squarespace SEO plugin called SEOSpace launched in 2022, it’s easier than ever to optimize your site with their easy-to-understand SEO checklist & keyword tools.
(&& for the full tea on this topic, check out their extensive research on whether Squarespace is good or bad for SEO.)
Squarespace has always made it easy to add image alt tags, meta descriptions, and appropriate header tags. But SEOSpace offers, for the first time, a built-in tool to measure your site’s SEO health.
WordPress is often touted as the “best” SEO-friendly platform, thanks to its Yoast plugin. SEOSpace is the Squarespace version of this plugin!
Squarespace pricing vs. Showit pricing
Both platforms offer a tiered subscription model.
But a quick note on template pricing — I’ve noticed that designer Showit templates tend to be much more expensive than Squarespace website templates.
A gorgeous Squarespace template will usually set you back around $300. Showit templates run from $600 and up — with some of the most comprehensive ones running upwards of $1,000.
So if you plan on taking the popular route of using a template to get started with your website, keep this investment in mind!
As far as subscriptions go, Showit offers a tiered pricing model, starting at $19 per month for a basic subscription. But that doesn’t include any blogging access (a free feature of Squarespace). If you plan to improve your SEO with blogging, you’ll need to sign up for the second tier. And if you plan to blog frequently, you’ll need to upgrade to the third tier.
On the other hand, Squarespace offers a competitive pricing structure, with plans beginning at $12 per month. There’s no difference in blogging capabilities between any of the plans — unlimited blogging no matter what.
Keep in mind that most Squarespace designer templates will require the purchase of a business plan (but it’s worth it for the extra features!)
And with e-commerce plans starting at only $27 per month, Squarespace is even competitive with Shopify.
Pros and cons of Squarespace vs. Showit
Showit Pros
✅ Customization: Showit allows for complete design freedom with its drag-and-drop editor. You can easily start with a blank slate to create your own custom website.
✅ Wordpress Blog Capabilities: If you’re already familiar with WordPress, Showit’s built-in integration for blogging offers extensive features for content creators and powerful SEO tools for blogging.
✅ Excellent community support: Showit’s support team and community resources are efficient and helpful.
✅ Similar to Adobe products: if you’re familiar with Photoshop or Ilustrator, Showit’s interface will feel comfortable and intuitive (Showit was originally designed to be a web platform for photographers, after all!)
Showit Cons
❌ Steeper Learning Curve: The flexibility in design can come at the cost of complexity, making it less beginner-friendly.
❌ Not an all-in-one website solution: domain hosting, blogging, analytics, and professional email will need to be set up and managed through separate platforms.
❌ Limited E-Commerce: Showit does not include built-in ecommerce — requiring a third-party subscription and integration for e-commerce businesses.
❌ Separate Mobile Site Design: A completely custom design interface means you’ll need to design your site twice — once for desktop, and then once again for your mobile site.
Squarespace Pros
✅ User-Friendly: Squarespace's user interface is intuitive, making it accessible for users with varying technical skills.
✅ Unique Templates: Squarespace offers a wide range of professionally designed templates that are perfect for service-based businesses.
✅ E-Commerce Features: Squarespace offers e-commerce capabilities, allowing you to easily sell products or services online.
✅ Scheduling Integration: Squarespace includes a built-in scheduling feature, ideal for service-based businesses that require appointment booking.
✅ Built-in site analytics: No need to look elsewhere to track your site traffic. Your stats are accesible with the click of a button in your Squarespace dashboard.
Squarespace Cons
❌ Less Customization for Beginners: While Squarespace provides design flexibility, it's not as extensive as Showit's if you’re starting with a basic template. You may find some limitations in achieving certain designs unless you purchase a customized designer template or add some CSS code.
❌ Limited Blogging Features: Although capable, Squarespace's blogging features may not be as extensive as WordPress.
The takeaway — Is Squarespace or Showit Better in 2023?
Generally speaking in the Squarespace vs. Showit debate, you can’t really go wrong.
Both platforms are an excellent choice for service based business owners, so you really can’t go wrong! I suggest doing your research, watching tutorials, and checking out different template offerings available for both.
( like my Squarespace website templates )
Research will help you decide which is the best fit for your particular needs. Keep in mind that choosing a website platform isn’t just based on how your website looks — it’s also important to consider how user-friendly it is and what features it provides for managing the admin tasks of your business. Which is why I spent a whole blog post talking about these things!
Showit has the edge for: the ability to create designer-looking websites from a blank canvas. And if you’re not planning to blog too much, their subscription plan is slightly more affordable!
You should design your website on Squarespace if: you want a website that can grow with your business, thanks to the time-saving benefits of managing your whole online business in one place. And if you want a site that looks truly unique, there are plenty of designer website templates for Squarespace that will help your business stand out.
Curious if a Squarespace site would be the right fit for you? Shoot me a DM on Instagram or send me an email!
Psst — speaking of all-in-one website solutions… hi, have we met? I’m Alana.
And just like Squarespace isn’t just a pretty website builder — I’m not just a website designer.
I’m a full-service creative director who can create everything you need for your brand’s digital home. Branding, website design, and website copywriting — I do it all.
Need some help designing your Squarespace website?
I would be delighted to lend a hand — and all of my expertise. 😇 Here’s how I can do just that:
Full-service website design, where I do every single thing for you. Consider everything on your to-do list checked off. Website design, brand messaging, even your branding. Done, done, and done.
DIY Squarespace website templates, designed to help you get your ( beautiful, strategic, unique, easy-to-use ) website launched ASAP with minimal effort and minimal investment.
Done-for-you copywriting services, where I make sure your website is selling for you, attracting customers you can’t wait to work with, and getting found on Google. You need this if your site already looks great, but you’re not reaching your sales goals.
& if you’re looking for more conversations about the stresses, trials, and tribulations of being a small business owner ( and all the tools, tricks, and tips I’ve learned to make it easier along the way ) —
I send out a newsletter every other week. Because sending one once a week felt too overwhelming. Relatable? Then you’re going to like it. Subscribe here.
