Squarespace Pricing 2026: Every Plan and What It Actually Costs

If you’ve spent any time on Squarespace’s pricing page, you’ve probably ended up more confused than when you started. Four plans, three different billing options, transaction fees that change depending on what you’re selling, and a bunch of fine print about what’s actually included at each tier. I get asked about this constantly by store owners trying to figure out whether Squarespace can handle a real online business or if it’s better suited to a portfolio site.

I’ve been building and advising on ecommerce stores for 15+ years through Ecommerce Paradise, and pricing confusion is one of the most common reasons people either overpay for a plan they don’t need or pick the cheapest option and get burned by transaction fees eating into their margins. That second mistake matters even more once you understand the real math behind the full financial foundation a legitimate online store needs to run on.

In this guide I’m breaking down every Squarespace plan for 2026: what each one actually costs once you add domain renewal and payment processing, what you get at each tier that you don’t get at the one below it, and which plan makes sense depending on the kind of store you’re running. No guessing, just the real numbers.

Affiliate disclosure: some links in this article are affiliate links and I may earn a commission at no cost to you. It does not change which tools I recommend or what the research found.

Plan	Monthly Billing	Annual Billing	Store Transaction Fee	Video Hosting	Best For
Basic	$25/mo	$19/mo	2% (7% on memberships/courses)	30 minutes	Testing an idea or a portfolio site with light sales
Core	$39/mo	$29/mo	0% (5% on memberships/courses)	5 hours	Most growing online stores
Plus	$65/mo	$49/mo	0% (1% on memberships/courses)	50 hours	Drop and pre-order style launches
Advanced	$139/mo	$99/mo	0% across every category	Unlimited	High-volume or high-ticket stores

You can pull up current live pricing and run your own numbers on Squarespace’s plan page, but I’ll walk through what each of these numbers actually means for your bottom line below, because the sticker price is rarely the real price.

Want to see if Squarespace fits your store before you commit to a plan? Compare Squarespace plans and start your free trial →

How Squarespace’s Pricing Structure Actually Works

Squarespace runs on four tiers: Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced. Every plan comes in two flavors, monthly and annual, and the annual price is always shown as a per-month number even though you’re charged for the full year up front. That’s standard practice across the industry, but it trips people up when they compare the “$19/mo” headline against a competitor’s monthly rate.

Three things change as you move up the tiers: the store transaction fee (a percentage Squarespace takes on top of your normal card processing), the amount of video hosting bandwidth you get, and the features unlocked for running a serious store, things like advanced analytics, unlimited contributors, and better release tools. Understanding those three levers is really the whole game when picking a plan.

Every tier, including Basic, also includes unlimited bandwidth and 24/7 support, so you’re never paying extra just to keep the site online or get help at 2am. All four plans now ship with built-in AI tools for writing copy and generating layout suggestions, and the number of AI credits you get simply scales up with the tier you’re on. None of that shows up on the sticker price, but it’s worth knowing it’s not an upsell you’ll be pitched later.

Basic Plan: $19 to $25 a Month Breakdown

Basic is Squarespace’s entry point, and it’s genuinely fine for a portfolio, a simple service business site, or a store you’re still testing. On annual billing it runs $19/mo, and $25/mo if you pay monthly. You get custom templates, a free domain for the first year on annual plans, and basic ecommerce functionality.

Here’s the catch: Basic charges a 2% transaction fee on every store sale, and a steep 7% fee if you’re selling memberships or online courses. On a $2,000 high-ticket sale, that’s $40 gone before you even factor in card processing. You’re also capped at 2 contributors, which is thin the moment you bring on a VA or a business partner, and video hosting maxes out at 30 minutes total, which won’t cover more than a couple of product demo clips.

I tell people Basic makes sense if you’re validating a concept before committing real budget. The moment you’re consistently making sales, that 2% fee starts costing you more than the $10 to $20 a month you’d save versus Core.

Core Plan: $29 to $39 a Month Breakdown

Core is where I point most legitimate online stores, and it’s priced at $29/mo annually or $39/mo monthly. The headline change is the transaction fee: it drops to 0% on standard online store sales (still 5% on memberships and courses). That alone can be worth the upgrade if you’re doing any real volume.

Core also unlocks unlimited contributors, advanced analytics, a full year of free Google Workspace email, CSS and JavaScript customization for people who want to tweak the design beyond the built-in editor, and shipping labels included at checkout. Video hosting jumps to 5 hours, enough for a real product library.

Run the math on a store doing $15,000 a month in sales: Basic’s 2% fee costs you $300 a month. Core costs $10 more a month than Basic on annual billing and eliminates that fee entirely. That’s not a close call.

Plus Plan: $49 to $65 a Month Breakdown

Plus sits at $49/mo annually or $65/mo monthly, and it keeps the 0% transaction fee on store sales while dropping the memberships and courses fee down to just 1%. The real differentiator here is release-selling: cart reservations and countdown timers built into checkout, which matter a lot if you run limited drops, pre-orders, or timed launches.

Video hosting jumps to 50 hours on Plus, which is a serious upgrade if your product pages lean heavily on demo footage or unboxing content. For most straightforward stores, though, Plus is paying for features you won’t touch. I’d only recommend it if release mechanics are actually part of how you sell.

Advanced Plan: $99 to $139 a Month Breakdown

Advanced tops out the lineup at $99/mo annually or $139/mo monthly, and it’s built for stores doing real volume. Every transaction fee category drops to 0%, including memberships and courses, and you get unlimited video hosting. The part people miss is that Squarespace Payments processing rates actually get cheaper on this tier too, roughly 2.5% plus $0.30 per transaction versus roughly 2.9% plus $0.30 on the lower tiers.

On a store doing $50,000 a month in card sales, that 0.4% difference in processing rate alone saves you around $200 a month, on top of whatever store transaction fees you were already avoiding on Core or Plus. For a high-ticket business moving a handful of $2,000 to $5,000 orders a month, that processing rate cut matters more than it looks like on paper.

Transaction Fees and Payment Processing Costs Explained

People conflate two separate charges, so let’s split them apart. The first is Squarespace’s own store transaction fee, the percentage that only exists on Basic (2%) and, at a smaller rate, on memberships and courses across every tier except Advanced. The second is standard card processing through Squarespace Payments, which runs on every plan and every sale no matter what tier you’re on.

Card processing on Basic, Core, and Plus runs about 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. On a $2,000 sale, that’s $58.30 in processing alone, plus whatever store fee your plan adds on top. On Advanced, the same $2,000 sale processes at roughly 2.5% plus $0.30, or $50.30, and there’s no store fee stacked on it. For businesses running consistent volume, that combination is the single biggest reason to upgrade past Core.

If you want the plain-English version of how interchange and card network fees actually work behind the scenes, Investopedia’s breakdown of interchange fees is a solid primer. The short version for our purposes: Squarespace Payments bundles that interchange cost, the card network’s cut, and its own margin into one flat rate per tier, so the number on the pricing page is the number you actually pay, no separate statement full of line items to decode.

The Real Total Cost: Domain, Email, and Extensions

The plan price is never the whole bill. On annual billing, Squarespace throws in a free domain for the first year, which is a real $20 to $30 value. After year one, that domain renews at standard rates, typically $20 to $30 a year depending on the extension. If you’d rather manage your domain separately and shop for the cheapest renewal rate, a registrar like Namecheap is worth comparing before you auto-renew through Squarespace.

Email is another line item people forget. Core, Plus, and Advanced all include a full year of Google Workspace email free, which is a legitimate perk since Workspace normally runs $6 to $18 per user per month on its own. After that first year, you’re paying Google directly if you keep using it. And if you add third-party extensions (inventory tools, upsell apps, review widgets), those stack on top of your plan price the same way Shopify apps do.

Monthly vs Annual Billing: How Much You Actually Save

Annual billing consistently saves 25% to 35% versus paying month to month, and the gap widens as you move up the tiers. On Basic, monthly billing costs $300 a year ($25 x 12) versus $228 a year on annual ($19 x 12), a 24% savings. On Advanced, monthly billing runs $1,668 a year versus $1,188 a year annually, a savings of nearly 29%, or $480.

The tradeoff is cash flow. Annual billing means writing one larger check up front instead of spreading the cost out, which can matter for a brand-new store that hasn’t proven itself yet. I generally tell people to start monthly for the first 60 to 90 days while you validate the store, then switch to annual once you know you’re staying on the platform.

Not sure whether to build your store yourself or have it handled for you? See how the EP turnkey build service works →

Which Squarespace Plan Should You Choose for Your Store

If you’re still validating a niche and haven’t committed to a product line, Basic is fine as a temporary home while you figure out what you’re building, and it pairs well with the research phase covered in our high-ticket niches list. The 2% fee stings less when you’re doing $500 a month than when you’re doing $50,000. Once you’re actually running a store with consistent sales, Core is the plan I point almost everyone toward. The 0% transaction fee, unlimited contributors, and included shipping labels cover what 90% of stores need. If your business model leans on drops or scheduled releases, Plus earns its higher price with the countdown and reservation tools.

For stores built around high-ticket dropshipping, where average order values sit in the $500 to $5,000 range and every basis point on processing rates compounds fast, Advanced is usually worth the jump. Between the 0% fees across every category and the cheaper Squarespace Payments rate, the math tends to favor Advanced once you’re clearing $20,000 to $30,000 a month.

Squarespace Pricing vs Shopify and Wix

At the mid tier, the numbers land closer than you’d expect. Shopify’s Basic plan runs $39/mo with no annual discount that dramatic. I break down the full picture in our Shopify Website Builder Review. Squarespace’s Core plan matches that $39/mo figure on monthly billing but drops to $29/mo annually, undercutting Shopify’s equivalent tier once you commit to the year.

Wix’s Core ecommerce plan runs about $29/mo on annual billing too, putting it roughly on par with Squarespace Core. The two platforms diverge a lot on design flexibility and app ecosystem, which I cover in our full Wix Review.

If you’re weighing these two head to head on ecommerce features rather than just price, our Squarespace vs Wix comparison goes deeper into which one actually fits your build. And for a side by side against the platform most high-ticket sellers eventually consider, check out our dedicated Squarespace vs Shopify breakdown.

Hidden Costs and Things That Catch People Off Guard

Video hosting limits are the one people run into without realizing it. Basic’s 30-minute cap fills up fast if you’re uploading product demos, and once you hit the limit, uploads simply fail until you upgrade or delete older files. The 2-contributor limit on Basic is the other silent trap: the moment you hire a VA or bring on a co-founder, you’re forced up to Core regardless of your sales volume.

Third-party extensions and apps add up the same way they do on any platform, and if you ever decide to migrate off Squarespace later, moving product data and design work to a new platform isn’t free or instant. It’s worth reading through the full Squarespace Review before you commit if you want the complete picture beyond just pricing, including how the builder handles as your catalog grows.

Annual billing is also the one people forget to plan around when they’re deciding whether to stay. Once you’re locked into a yearly term, canceling mid-cycle doesn’t get you a prorated refund past the initial trial window, so read the cancellation terms before you commit a full year of budget. The FTC’s guidance on recurring subscriptions is a useful general reference if you want to understand your rights around auto-renewal before signing up for any annual software plan, not just Squarespace.

Is Squarespace Worth the Price in 2026

For the right kind of store, yes. Squarespace’s pricing has gotten more competitive over the past couple of years, especially with the 0% transaction fee now standard from Core on up. If your business is design-heavy and you value a clean, opinionated editor over the sprawling app ecosystem Shopify offers, the value case is strong, particularly on annual billing.

If you’re weighing every platform option before deciding, our roundup of Squarespace alternatives is worth a look. And it’s always smart to check whether a current promo is running before you sign up, since our Squarespace coupon guide tracks active discounts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Squarespace free to use?
No. Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial but no permanent free plan. After the trial you’ll need to choose a paid tier starting at $19/mo on annual billing or $25/mo month to month, and you can compare current Squarespace plans here.

What’s the cheapest way to sell products on Squarespace?
Technically Basic lets you sell products at $19 to $25/mo, but the 2% transaction fee makes it expensive once sales pick up. Most sellers come out ahead moving to Core as soon as they’re doing consistent volume, since the 0% fee usually saves more than the extra $10/mo costs.

Does Squarespace charge transaction fees like Shopify?
Only on the Basic plan, and only 2% on standard store sales. Core, Plus, and Advanced all drop that store fee to 0%, though a smaller fee still applies to memberships and courses until Advanced. For a direct comparison, our Squarespace vs Shopify guide breaks down how the two platforms’ fee structures stack up.

Can I get a Squarespace discount or promo code in 2026?
Squarespace runs promotional discounts periodically, usually a percentage off the first billing cycle. Check our Squarespace coupon roundup for whatever’s currently active before you check out.

Is Squarespace cheaper than Shopify or Wix?
It depends on the tier and billing cycle. Squarespace Core at $29/mo annually undercuts Shopify Basic at $39/mo, and lands close to Wix’s Core ecommerce plan at roughly $29/mo annually. Our Best Ecommerce Website Builders 2026 guide compares all three on more than just price.

Ready to see the real numbers for your own store? Compare Squarespace plans and get started →

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Trevor Fenner

Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.