Squarespace Pricing After the 2026 Increase: Which Plan a Business Actually Needs
In July 2026 Squarespace emailed customers about a price rise on annual plans. Basic went from USD 16 to 19 a month, Core from 23 to 29, Plus from 39 to 49, and Advanced stayed at 99. That's a 19 to 26 percent increase on the three plans most people are on.
It's still cheap for what it is. But the plan you pick matters more than it used to, and the one most people pick first is the wrong one for a business.
The four plans, current prices
Billed annually, per month: Basic USD 19, Core USD 29, Plus USD 49, Advanced USD 99.
Billed monthly: Basic USD 25, Core USD 39, Plus USD 65, Advanced USD 139. Monthly billing costs 30 to 40 percent more over a year. Unless you're testing something, pay annually.
All plans include hosting, SSL, unlimited bandwidth, the template library, the editor, blogging, forms, basic SEO tools, a free custom domain for the first year on annual billing, and, since Squarespace restructured its plans in 2025, selling products on every tier.
What actually differs
Squarespace's comparison page lists dozens of rows. Four of them decide it.
Transaction fees on sales. Basic charges 2 percent on every sale, on top of payment processing. Core and above charge nothing. If you sell more than about USD 500 a month, Core pays for itself on this alone.
Code injection and custom code. Basic does not allow code injection or JavaScript. Core and above do. This is the one that matters most for a professional site, because nearly everything an agency does to make a Squarespace site perform, from structured data to CRM embeds to performance fixes, goes through code injection. A site built for you by a professional almost certainly needs Core.
Contributors. Basic allows two. Core and above are unlimited. Two is fine for a solo business; a team with a designer, a copywriter and an owner needs three.
Payment processing rate. With Squarespace Payments (where available) the card rate is 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on Basic and Core, 2.7 percent on Plus, 2.5 percent on Advanced. At USD 20,000 a month in sales, the difference between Core and Plus in processing is about USD 40, roughly what Plus costs extra. At USD 50,000 a month, Plus saves money; at USD 100,000 or more, Advanced does.
Everything else is at the margins: video storage (30 minutes on Basic, 5 hours on Core, 50 on Plus, unlimited on Advanced), commerce analytics from Core up, some advanced shipping and discount features on Plus and Advanced, the Commerce API on Advanced.
The plan we put clients on
Core. Nearly always.
Basic is for a personal site or a test. It can't run custom code, and it taxes your sales. Plus and Advanced only make sense once monthly sales are high enough that the processing rate matters, or you need a specific feature (advanced shipping rules, the Commerce API, unlimited video).
If you're a service business with no shop: Core. A small shop: Core until you clear USD 30,000 to 50,000 a month, then Plus. A serious shop: Advanced, or more likely Shopify, and we've written about where that line is.
The costs that aren't on the pricing page
The subscription is the smallest line.
Domain renewal. Free the first year on annual plans; about USD 20 a year after. Cheaper at a registrar, and we register domains outside Squarespace anyway so they're not tied to the subscription.
Email. Google Workspace through Squarespace or direct, USD 7 to 22 per user per month depending on tier. For a team of four, this costs more than the site.
Acuity Scheduling. USD 16 to 49 a month if you take bookings.
Email Campaigns. USD 8 to 118 a month by volume if you use Squarespace's newsletter tool instead of Mailchimp or similar.
Weglot for a multilingual site: USD 17 to 87 a month depending on languages and words.
Zapier or Make for integrations: free at low volume, USD 10 to 20 a month otherwise.
Member Sites, Courses, Digital Products. If you sell access or courses, Squarespace takes a percentage on lower tiers of its digital products pricing; check the current cut on your plan.
Payment processing. Not a Squarespace fee, but 2.5 to 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on every transaction is the biggest cost most stores pay.
Design and build. Anywhere from zero (a template and your weekend) to USD 40,000 (a custom build with bespoke functionality). We've published our rates and project bands separately.
Maintenance. Optional, but a live business needs someone checking that forms work and the domain renewed. Our plans start with a quarterly check.
A realistic annual cost for a small service business on Core with a domain, two Google Workspace seats and Acuity: about USD 900 to 1,100 a year, before any design or support. For a small shop on Core with the same plus Zapier and processing on USD 5,000 a month of sales: about USD 3,000 a year, most of it processing.
Is Squarespace still worth it after the increase?
Against the alternatives: Wix's comparable plans are priced similarly and rose too. WordPress hosting from a decent managed host is USD 20 to 40 a month before plugins, themes and the time to maintain it. Webflow and Framer are USD 15 to 40 a month for a basic site with far less commerce. Shopify Basic is USD 29 a month before apps.
Squarespace at USD 29 for a plan that includes hosting, commerce without fees, custom code and unlimited contributors is not expensive. The increase moved it from clearly cheap to fairly priced. If your business makes money from its website, it isn't the line to optimise.
If it doesn't make money from its website, the problem isn't the USD 6 a month.
Switching plans and billing
You can upgrade any time; the difference is prorated. You can downgrade at renewal. Switching from monthly to annual billing takes effect immediately and locks the annual price for the year. Squarespace's price increases apply at your next renewal, not mid-term, so an annual plan bought before an increase keeps the old price until it renews.
Check your renewal date, and if it's soon, decide now whether Core is the right plan. It probably is.
Questions we get
I got the price increase email. Can I lock in the old price? If your annual plan renews after the increase date, the new price applies at renewal. Switching from monthly to annual before your renewal locks the current annual price for the year you buy. Beyond that, no.
Is there a discount for multiple sites? Squarespace Circle members (agencies and designers with several sites) get extended trials and some perks, not ongoing discounts. Clients pay the standard rate.
Do non-profits or students get a discount? Students get a discount on some plans with verification. Non-profits don't have a specific plan.
What happens if I stop paying? The site goes offline after a grace period. Content is retained for a while and you can reactivate. Export before letting it lapse.
Can I buy the domain elsewhere and still use the free first year? The free domain is a Squarespace-registered domain. You can register elsewhere and connect it; you just won't use the free-year offer.
Is Squarespace cheaper in Switzerland or the EU? Pricing is set per region and billed in local currency. Roughly equivalent to USD after conversion, plus local VAT.
| Acuity | Calendly | Self-hosted | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Service businesses, paid appointments | Meetings, sales, teams | Teams, branded flows, data-location needs |
| Monthly cost, 1 person | ~USD 16 | Free to USD 10 | Hosting only after set-up |
| Monthly cost, 6 people | ~USD 27 to 49 | ~USD 60 to 100 | Hosting only |
| Payments at booking | Yes, strong | Yes, basic | Yes, Stripe |
| Packages, gift cards | Yes | No | Buildable |
| Intake forms | Strong | Basic | Good |
| Calendar sync | Good | Best | Good |
| Embed on Squarespace | Native block | Iframe | Iframe or full page, unbranded |
| Looks like your site | Partly | No | Yes |
| Data location | US | US | Your choice |
| CRM connection | Zapier, some native | Native to major CRMs | Webhooks, Zapier |
| Who maintains it | Squarespace | Calendly | Us or you |
Embedding well, whichever you choose
Give the scheduler its own page. /book or /schedule, linked from the header button. Don't bury it in a popup.
Inline, not popup, on mobile. Popups on phones are miserable. An inline embed that scrolls with the page works.
Set the embed height. Squarespace code blocks default to whatever the iframe says, and schedulers often say too little, leaving a scrollbar inside a scrollbar. Set a fixed min-height in CSS and test on a phone.
Match fonts and colours where the tool allows it. Acuity and self-hosted let you; Calendly lets you set a colour.
Pre-fill from the site. If someone clicks "Book a consultation about SEO", pass the service into the booking link so they don't select it again. All three support URL parameters.
Send the booking to the CRM. Acuity and Calendly via Zapier or native; self-hosted via webhook. A booking that lives only in the scheduler is a lead nobody follows up.
Reminders. Turn them on. No-shows drop by a third with a 24-hour email and a 2-hour SMS, in our clients' experience.
What breaks
Calendar sync disconnects when a password changes; the scheduler keeps offering slots that are taken. Time zones: a Swiss client booking a US customer sees the wrong time unless the scheduler detects the visitor's zone, which all three do if you let them. Embeds that vanish when the vendor changes their script; we check every embed monthly on support plans. Staff who leave and keep receiving bookings.
Our recommendation
Solo service provider taking paid bookings: Acuity. Sales or consulting team booking calls: Calendly. Team of four or more, or a brand where the widget look isn't acceptable, or data that must stay in Europe: self-hosted, and we'll set it up.
And if bookings are the core of the business, at the scale of a multi-location clinic with dozens of staff, none of these; that's dedicated practice management software, and the website's job is to link to it.
Questions we get
Can I use Squarespace's built-in scheduling block without paying for Acuity? The block requires an Acuity subscription. There's no free built-in scheduler.
Does Acuity sync with Google Calendar and Outlook? Yes, two-way, and with iCloud. It's reliable; reconnect after password changes.
Which one handles multiple locations? Acuity, with calendars per location and location-specific availability. Calendly can do it with separate event types. Self-hosted handles it with teams and locations.
Can customers pay a deposit and the balance later? Acuity supports deposits natively. Calendly takes full payment or none. Self-hosted takes full or deposit via Stripe.
What about GDPR or Swiss data protection? Acuity and Calendly process data in the US under their respective frameworks; both publish DPAs. Self-hosted can run on a server in Switzerland or the EU, which is the reason some clients choose it.
Can bookings trigger automations? All three. Acuity and Calendly via Zapier and native integrations; self-hosted via webhooks. Typical: create the contact in the CRM, send a pre-appointment email, add to a mailing list.
