Webflow vs Squarespace: which should you choose in 2026?

The quick verdict

Pick Squarespace if you want a polished site with the least fuss. You start from a template, and hosting, a built-in store and a free first-year domain come in one bill. Basic is $19 a month billed yearly, and from Core up every team member is included. It is the easier tool for a small business owner doing it alone.

Pick Webflow if you have a designer or marketing team that wants full design control and a real content system. Premium holds 20,000 CMS items in 40 collections, and paid workspaces can export the site’s code. It has more to learn and separate charges for seats. On our exit score the two are close: Webflow 6 out of 10, Squarespace 5.

Side by side

Every plan is covered in our Webflow review and our Squarespace review.

Cost over 3 years

The example: a service business with a 20-page site, a blog, a contact form, a .com domain and one business email inbox. One person edits it, and all plans are billed yearly. Webflow needs Premium here, because its Basic plan has no CMS for a blog.

• Domain. Webflow doesn’t list a free domain, so we priced a .com at Namecheap: $11.28 the first year, then $18.48 a year. Squarespace includes a free first-year domain on yearly plans but doesn’t publish the renewal price, so we budgeted Namecheap’s $18.48 for years two and three.
• Email. Google Workspace Business Starter is $7 per user a month on the annual plan. Squarespace Core includes one account free for the first year; Squarespace doesn’t show the price after that, so we used Google’s own $7.
• No blog? A brochure site on Webflow Basic comes to $840.24 over three years.
• Monthly billing costs more on both: Webflow Premium is $35 a month, Squarespace Basic $25 and Core $39.

For a solo owner, Squarespace Basic is the cheapest. Add people and the gap widens. Two more Webflow Full seats at $39 a month add $2,808 over three years, while Squarespace Core includes unlimited contributors.

If you also sell online

Say you sell $20,000 a year online. Webflow’s Ecommerce Standard plan is $29 a month billed yearly ($1,044 over three years) plus a 2% Webflow transaction fee: $400 a year, or $1,200 over three years. That is $2,244 before payment processing. Squarespace Core costs the same $29 a month billed yearly with a 0% store fee, so $1,044 before card processing (2.9% + $0.30 per sale). Webflow’s Plus plan removes the 2% fee but costs $74 a month billed yearly ($2,664 over three years).

Squarespace publishes its card processing rates on its pricing page. Webflow’s payments run through third-party processors such as Stripe and PayPal, whose fees come on top.

Design and ease of use

Squarespace is template-led. You pick a designer-made template and adjust it, which is why it suits creatives and service businesses without a designer. Basic includes a CSS editor and a basic code block; JavaScript and the advanced code block need Core or higher.

Webflow is design-first. You style every element on a canvas, which means more control and more to learn. Webflow is aimed at designers, agencies and marketing teams, not beginners who want a simple drag-and-drop editor. Code components, which let developers add custom building blocks, come with Premium and above.

If you will build the site yourself and have no design background, Squarespace is the safer start. If a designer is building it, Webflow lets them build exactly what they drew.

Store, blog and SEO

Store. Both have native stores. Squarespace charges 2% on Basic and 0% from Core up, and digital content and memberships carry their own fees (7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus, 0% on Advanced). Webflow’s Ecommerce plans cap catalog size at 500, 5,000 and 15,000 items. Squarespace Plus ($49 a month billed yearly) adds reserved cart and advanced merchandising.

Blog and content. Squarespace has built-in blog pages with comments, and a site can have more than one blog. Webflow’s CMS goes further: you build your own content types (collections) such as case studies, locations or team members. Premium holds 20,000 items in 40 collections. If your plan involves lots of structured pages, Webflow is the stronger fit.

SEO. Both have built-in SEO controls. Squarespace adds an AI SEO Scanner that suggests titles, descriptions and image alt text. Webflow’s Team and Enterprise plans add AEO agents, tools meant to help your brand show up in AI search answers.

Languages. Webflow sells Localize as an add-on: $9 a month for 1 to 3 locales, or $29 a month for up to 10 (annual prices). A locale is a version of your site for one language or region.

AI features

Squarespace has Blueprint AI, which builds a starting site from designer-made templates, and Beacon AI, a business assistant across the platform. AI composers write product descriptions, discounts and FAQs, and an AIO Scanner tracks mentions of your brand on AI platforms like ChatGPT. AI credits: 10 one time on Basic, then 20, 40 and 120 a month on Core, Plus and Advanced.

Webflow includes Webflow AI on every plan, even the free one. Workspace plans come with 200, 300 or 400 credits a month, and 2,000 extra credits cost $20 a month (annual price). It also has an AI site builder and an MCP server, a connector that lets outside AI agents work with your site. In September 2026 Webflow announced Campaigns (beta) and AEO content agents.

Squarespace’s AI leans toward running a small business. Webflow’s leans toward design and marketing teams.

Leaving later

Our exit score rates how much of your site you can take with you, out of 10. The totals are close, but the two lose different things.

Webflow. On a paid workspace plan (Core is $19 a month billed yearly), Webflow’s help center says you get a ZIP of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images. Outside Webflow the CMS, forms, site search, store and localized pages stop working. CMS and store data leave as CSV files.

Squarespace. Squarespace’s help center says the export is a WordPress-format XML file with layout pages, one blog, text and image blocks, and gallery pages. Store, portfolio and index pages, video and product blocks, drafts, styles and custom CSS stay behind. Images download one at a time. Products, orders and contacts export as CSV.

In short, Webflow lets the look of the site leave as static code. Squarespace lets more of your business data leave. Our guide to leaving your website builder covers both moves.

Who maintains it

Both are hosted, so neither asks you to install plugins or run software updates. What you manage is people, limits and the bill.

• Webflow automatically upgrades a site that goes over its bandwidth limit two months in a row. Its plans also changed in 2026, when Premium replaced the old CMS and Business site plans.
• Squarespace caps video hosting by plan: 30 minutes on Basic, 5 hours on Core, 50 hours on Plus and unlimited on Advanced.

If an agency builds your Webflow site, agree on whose workspace it lives in and who pays the site plan. On either platform, keep the domain registered in your name.

Who should pick which

Pick Squarespace if you…

• Are building the site yourself and want a template to keep it polished
• Want hosting, store, domain and a first-year inbox in one bill
• Have several people editing and want them included in the price
• Sell products, memberships or digital content on a small scale

Pick Webflow if you…

• Have a designer or agency building a custom site
• Need structured content: many collections and thousands of entries
• Want a static code export as a fallback
• Need several languages through Webflow’s Localize add-on

Neither one fits? Look at these

• Framer if you want design freedom like Webflow at a lower price. See Webflow vs Framer.
• Wix if you want another all-in-one builder to compare. See Wix vs Webflow.
• Shopify if selling is the main job of the site. See Squarespace vs Shopify.
• Self-hosted WordPress if you want to own everything (10/10 on exit). See Squarespace vs WordPress.

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