Is Squarespace Good for Ecommerce? A Guide for Makers & Small Product Businesses
Maybe you’ve been selling on Etsy for a while and you are tired of the fees adding up, the algorithm working against you, of having little to no control over how your shop looks . Rationally, you know that having your own space online is better. But you are unsure whether building one is going to be worth the effort, and whether Squarespace is good for ecommerce and thus the platform to do it on.
This post looks at Squarespace specifically through the lens of artisans, makers, and small product businesses: what it does well, where its limits are, how it compares on price and features, and whether it’s the right fit for the kind of business you’re running.
A quick note before we begin: I’m a web designer who works with artisans , makers and small product-based businesses, and I build exclusively on Squarespace. As such, this is not a neutral platform review. What it is, I hope, is an honest guide, written for the kind of business owner who is more interested in getting back to her studio than in learning the finer points of ecommerce infrastructure.
Table of Contents
Is Squarespace good for ecommerce? The short answer
Yes, Squarespace is a good choice for ecommerce but it’s not the right fit for everyone. Its all-in-one platform, ease of use and design-led aesthetic is particularly suited to small businesses who sell an artisanal or curated product range, work on bespoke or commission-based pieces alongside ready-made stock or offer things beyond just physical products (for example: workshops, studio visits, digital prints, etc.).
If you run a product-based business with an extensive catalogue, very high volume of sales and have complex logistic needs, then Squarespace is likely not the right choice for you.
Why the question calls for an in-depth answer for makers
Squarespace is not trying to be the most powerful ecommerce engine on the internet. In my view, it is trying to be the best platform for businesses where design, story, and product (or services) are inseparable.
That is the space most makers occupy. You sell work that is unique, often limited, sometimes made-to-order or bespoke, and always rooted in craft and personal story.
A ceramicist’s shop is not just a product catalogue. It is an argument for why these bowls, made this way, by this person, are worth choosing over something mass-produced. Squarespace serves this kind of business really well. The features follow from that orientation, as does, I’d argue, most of what makes it easier to work with than the alternatives.
What Squarespace's ecommerce actually includes (the essentials)
Solid, adaptable product pages. You can add physical, digital or service products, multiple images, track inventory, run a waitlist for restocks, offer subscriptions for things like seasonal boxes and more. And additional content sections on each product page give you ample space to tell the story behind what you make and help forge that connection between object and customer. When I rebuilt the online shop for my own clothing brand on Squarespace’s newer version, the product pages were one of the things I was most relieved by. Add in your images, your copy, your variants, and you have a well-presented, easy to navigate product page, without touching a line of code. The mobile version works well out of the box too, which matters enormously when a significant portion of customers will be browsing on their phones. I did end up adding a little custom code to tweak a few details but we could have launched without it.
Pricing that makes sense for small businesses. Compared to platforms that charge separately for every added feature, Squarespace bundles a lot into its plans. For a maker who doesn’t need enterprise-level tools, it’s a cost-effective starting point (more on pricing in the comparison section below.)
Shipping and fulfilment options that are easy to set up. These are the parts of running an online shop that tend to cause a lot of anxiety. Shipping profiles, discount codes, sale prices…they can sound like a significant technical undertaking. In practice, Squarespace makes them straightforward enough that clients who come in worried about this side of things, are consistently surprised and relieved to find it quite easy to handle. One thing to know if you ship internationally: carrier-calculated rates are only available for domestic shipments within supported countries, so international rates are set manually.
Automated tax calculation. Squarespace can automatically apply US sales tax, VAT, and GST based on your location and your customer’s shipping address. If your location isn’t covered, you can set rates manually. Depending on the complexity of regulations where you're based, a conversation with a tax advisor about your specific situation may be a good idea.
Payment methods. Squarespace supports Stripe, PayPal, and Squarespace Payments (where available), plus Afterpay, Clearpay, and Klarna depending on your location, covering the most common ways customers expect to pay.
Order and customer management. Squarespace has a clean, straightforward dashboard for tracking orders, managing fulfilment, abandoned cart recovery and keeping an eye on customer details without the complexity of a system built for warehouses and large teams.
Gift cards, subscriptions, and point of sale. Sell gift cards for your studio, offer subscription products, or — if you're based in the US — take payments in person at markets and fairs using Squarespace's built-in point of sale feature. If you’re based elsewhere, you’ll need a separate solution for in-person payments.
Built-in analytics. Traffic sources, popular products, sales trends, etc. are all viewable without needing a separate analytics tool (although I personally recommend to set up Google Analytics alongside it). If you’re just starting out or don’t need more in-depth insights, it provides enough data to make informed decisions about any improvements you need to make to your website or product set-up.
Email marketing and SEO tools. Squarespace Email Campaigns lets you stay in touch with your audience directly from the platform. It’s not the most advanced email marketing option out there, but if you are just starting out with an email list or sending a low volume of emails, it’s a sound choice (I use it in my own business). Likewise, its SEO tools are straightforward and cover the essentials: page titles, meta descriptions, alt text, clean URLs. Nothing groundbreaking, but solid and sufficient for most small businesses starting out.
Hosting and security included. SSL certificates, reliable hosting, and automatic updates are all handled by Squarespace. One less thing to manage, and one less bill to track.
The hybrid business model: selling products, services, and experiences in one place
One of the major advantages of Squarespace is that its all-in-one structure allows you to run a shop, let customers book studio visits via the scheduling tool, list your in-person workshops or offer an online course, accept custom commission enquiries via forms, and maintain a blog - all from a single platform, without having to connect third-party tools.
For example, if you are a weaver who sells finished pieces, teaches Saturday classes in your studio and takes custom orders, you can do and/or market all these things through your Squarespace website. And if you also run a physical store, you can use these tools alongside, and in compliment with, a traditional brick-and-mortar shop, combining your analog and digital world.
Made-to-order and bespoke: does Squarespace handle non-standard selling?
I think there is real power in small independent businesses to re-shape the (e)retail landscape, helping us rethink the way we consume, forging community and real human connection. And part of that is that a lot of artisans and solo makers follow a different business model to the standard big-box, instant add-to-cart behemoths out there.
That also means these tiny e-tailers have different needs when it comes to an ecommerce platform. They need something that can accommodate things like a shop being set-up for items that are not held in stock, require additional in-put from customers before purchase (like exact measurements or initials for monograms), or product pages that display lead time and order process details.
Squarespace is adaptable enough to handle these needs. Most can be solved with in-build features (think product waitlists, integrated customisation forms or specific product labels like “sold” or “available to order”) and some will require a little bit of code, creativity or thinking outside the box.
Even if you only offer fully bespoke products, you could use the shop page as your online catalogue and have interested customers contact you directly via a form or book an appointment for a consultation (online or in-person) if that is something you offer.
My own clothing label was made-to-order, and having everything in one place rather than patched together across several systems made a real difference to how much mental overhead the website required. Adding lead time information to product pages, creating a separate process page, managing orders without a third-party tool: Squarespace handled all of it without complicated workarounds.
Ease of use and what that's worth to a solo maker
Have you ever excitedly bought a gadget or appliance or similar, and when it came to using it, it took hours, every shred of your sanity and what felt like a degree in engineering to figure out how to get it to work? Yep, been there done that…
For a company of one, every hour spent wrestling with a website backend is an hour stolen from making the art, from working on the craft. Ease of use is not simply a convenience but a return on creative time.
This is another area where Squarespace shines. The learning curve is manageable and overall, the platform is incredibly intuitive to manage day-to-day.
Swapping out images, updating a product description, adding a new piece to your shop, or even setting up a new page: none of these require a developer or an hour of frantic Googling. The back-end is laid out logically and easy to navigate, which means you spend less time figuring out where things are and more time actually making things.
Owning your online store: the hidden benefit of ease of use
That ease of use is a great pull for another, maybe slightly less obvious but very important reason: it lowers the barrier for entry to build and manage your own online store.
Having autonomy over your website is something I feel very strongly about, especially in relation to small, independent businesses. Ease of use is one aspect of that, but I believe it goes further.
If you only build your business on social media channels, or giant platforms like Etsy, Amazon, etc., you are at the whim of their algorithm changes, fee increases, policy shifts, and aesthetic rules and often not getting much in return. Having your own website, owning the customer relationship and being able to confidentially manage it day-to-day (even if it takes a little time to learn), is part of taking your power and (intellectual) creative property back.
It’s a strategic and creative act of independence. Not just the practical autonomy of being able to update a product page without waiting for a developer, but the deeper point of your work in a space that is yours, that reflects who you are and what you make, shown through content that you own.
Small independent businesses have always had the potential to reshape the way we buy and sell things: to build something more considered, more human, more connected to the people behind the work. That potential is easier to realise when you have your own website.
Squarespace is by no means the only way to do that. But for a maker who wants a shop that is beautiful, manageable, and adaptable, it’s a fantastic place to start.
Design: why it matters more for artisan businesses
Visual identity is commercially essential for handmade and artisan businesses, where the product, the maker's story, and the brand are so interconnected. A beautiful, well-designed website is not just about aesthetic preference, it’s also a business argument.
Squarespace is a design-led platform, not just an ecommerce builder. Its design tools are fantastic, both for DIYers and web designers alike. Their Fluid Engine drag-and-drop editor allows for editorial, flexible layouts and with the newly released Finish Layer, it’s possible to add animations to your site with a few clicks without touching code. And with more granular control now over how your site looks on mobile, the all important responsiveness across devices is also much easier to take care of.
A common worry I want to address: that a website built on Squarespace will look generic and lack individuality. While this can certainly be true (not just for Squarespace but almost any website builder) if you simply plug in content without strategic thought and care, I found it to be truly flexible and adaptable aesthetically.
And for someone who chooses to DIY their website, it can really help reduce decision fatigue and the dreaded blank page to be able to pick from a selection of pre-designed - and free - templates (of which Squarespace has many) and then customize from there.
Where Squarespace has its limits
Squarespace is good for ecommerce in many respects but every platform has trade-offs. For most small makers selling 30–200 products with a personal fulfilment model, these are either manageable or simply don't apply. But, knowing about them before you commit is better than having to pivot later.
Some features are locked behind higher plans. Not everything is available on every Squarespace plan. Carrier-calculated shipping rates, advanced discount options, and certain commerce tools are only accessible on the mid-to-higher tier plans. If you're thinking of starting out on a lower plan, check the current plan comparison page before you build your shop around a feature you assume is included.
Product variants have a ceiling. Each product on Squarespace is capped at 250 variations, so if you sell something like a print in multiple sizes, finishes, and colourways, the combinations can add up faster than you'd expect. For most small businesses with a focused, curated range, this limit shouldn’t be a problem. I highly recommend mapping out your variants before working on your website though. Not only will it tell you whether Squarespace can handle your product catalogue, it will also help you be prepared for when you start building your store (or have a web designer help you with this). It’s easy to underestimate how much time the product setup can take and being ready with these details in advance will make the whole shop build a calmer, more enjoyable experience.
No native multi-currency or multi-language support. Your Squarespace shop will run in one currency and one language. There are third-party tools that can help bridge this gap, but they do add cost and complexity. For small product businesses selling primarily within one country or region, this rarely matters. For those with a genuinely international audience who expect to shop in their own currency and language, this gap could affect conversion and needs a workaround from the start.
Additional fees, depending on your plan. Squarespace charges a transaction fee on sales made on its lower plans, on top of the processing fee charged by your payment provider. On the higher commerce plans, Squarespace's own transaction fee drops to zero, but you'll still pay the payment processor's standard rate. This isn't unique to Squarespace, but factor it into your pricing from the start.
Navigation has its limits. Squarespace's built-in navigation works well for most small sites, but if you have a large number of collections or categories and want more complex menu structures (the kind of layered, multi-column menus you sometimes see on larger shops), those aren't natively supported. For someone with a tight product range, this is unlikely to matter but if you are a brand with a broad catalogue who relies on navigation to help customers find their way around, it's something to think about.
In-person selling is US-only for now. Squarespace's built-in point of sale feature is currently only available in the United States. If you're based in Europe, Australia, or elsewhere and sell at markets or fairs, you'll need a separate solution for taking in-person payments, as it won't connect directly to your Squarespace shop. Worth knowing if that side of your business is important to you.
Squarespace pricing: what does it actually cost to run your shop?
Pricing for any ecommerce platform is rarely just about the monthly subscription. To get the full picture, you need to factor in transaction fees, payment processing costs and, in some casse, the apps/integrations you'll likely need to add over time. Here's a simple breakdown.
Squarespace
Monthly
(billed annually)Transaction fee
(physical products)Key ecommerce features
Basic
$19
2%
Sell physical & digital products and services; basic ecommerce tools
Core
$29
0%
Full ecommerce suite; professional shipping and tax services; advanced analytics; promotional pop-ups and announcement bars; real-time carrier shipping quotes; premium integrations like Mailchimp and Zapier
Plus
$49
0%
Full ecommerce suite; lower payment processing fees
Advanced
$99
0%
Full ecommerce suite; lowest payment processing fees
Shopify pricing, for comparison
Monthly
(billed annually)Transaction fee
(non-Shopify Payments)Key ecommerce features
Basic
$29
2%
Full online store; unlimited products; basic reports
Grow
$95
1%
Professional reports; better processing rates
Advanced
$360
0.6%
Advanced reporting; third-party calculated shipping rates
Plus
from $2’300/month
0.2%
Fully customisable check-out; 20 Point-of sale locations included
*(Prices correct at the time of writing. Always check the official Squarespace and Shopify pricing pages for the most up-to-date figures.)
Who Squarespace ecommerce is good for (and who it isn't)
Squarespace is likely a great fit if you:
Are a solo maker, artisan or small creative brands
Sell a small to medium, curated product range
Work on bespoke or commission-based pieces alongside ready-made stock
Want a design-forward website that is easy to customise out-of-the-box
Have a hybrid shop/services/experience business that benefits from having everything in one place
Want to manage your own site confidently after handover, without ongoing developer support
Squarespace is probably not for you if you:
Have a large product catalogue or complex variant structures
Need advanced inventory management across multiple locations or channels
Sell internationally and need robust multi-currency and multi-language support natively
Are building a high-volume store where deeper commerce infrastructure will really be used
Ready to get started on your own Squarespace ecommerce project?
If you're a maker who's ready to build a Squarespace shop that actually looks and works the way your products deserve, but you'd rather hand the build to someone who gets it, I’d be honoured to support you.
I know the Squarespace platform not just as a web designer, but also from the perspective of a small made-to-order clothing brand. That experience is part of why I structured my web design service the way I did: with guidance on content gathering built in, lots of support and the ability to see the design beforehand.
Let’s collaborate on a calm, intentional and stunning online space to truly call your own.
Frequently asked questions about whether Squarespace is good for ecommerce
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Squarespace is good for ecommerce, particularly for small creative businesses, makers, and artisans. It handles physical products, digital downloads, services, subscriptions, and bookings all from one platform, with strong design tools and an intuitive backend that's genuinely manageable for a solo business owner. It's not built for high-volume stores with complex logistics, but for a focused, craft-based business, it's one of the most well-rounded options available.
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Yes, Squarespace does have ecommerce built in across all its plans. You can sell physical and digital products, offer services, run a waitlist, accept custom orders via forms, set up discount codes, manage shipping profiles, and track orders — all without third-party tools. Higher-tier plans unlock additional features like lower transaction fees, advanced shipping, and subscriptions.
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The main limitations to be aware of are: some commerce features are only available on higher-priced plans; there's no native multi-currency or multi-language support, which can be a hurdle for businesses with an international audience; product variants are capped at 250 per product; and the built-in point-of-sale feature is currently only available in the US. For most small makers with a focused product range, these won't be dealbreakers but it's worth checking the plan details before you build.
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The difference between Squarespace and Shopify comes down to what your business actually needs. Shopify is the stronger choice for high-volume stores with complex inventory, multiple sales channels, or advanced logistics requirements. Squarespace is the better fit for small creative businesses where design, storytelling, and selling go hand in hand, and where you want one platform to handle your shop, your blog, your bookings, and your content without a stack of paid apps.
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For the right kind of small business, yes. If you sell a curated product range, work with made-to-order or bespoke models, or run a hybrid business that combines selling with services or experiences, Squarespace offers strong value for money. The all-in-one structure means fewer tools to manage and pay for, and the platform is intuitive enough that you can run your site day-to-day without developer support which, for a one-person business, is worth a great deal.
