Squarespace Commerce vs Shopify: The Point Where a Store Should Move
Most comparisons of these two are written by people who build on one of them. We build on both, and the honest version is short: Squarespace is the better site with a shop attached, Shopify is the better shop with a site attached, and the question is which of those two things you're running.
Below are the specific thresholds where we tell a client to switch, and a few where people switch and shouldn't have.
Where Squarespace Commerce is the right choice
A store is a good fit for Squarespace when the products are the point of a visit but not the point of the business. A studio that sells prints. A consultancy that sells a course and two books. A café with merch and gift cards. A photographer selling sessions and albums. A brand with twenty products where the story around them matters more than filters and faceted search.
In those cases Squarespace gives you a nicer site, editing that anyone on your team can do, one bill, and a checkout that's good enough. Digital products, gift cards, subscriptions, discount codes, abandoned cart emails, Instagram and Facebook product sync, and tax by region are all there. Squarespace's own processor (in supported countries), Stripe and PayPal cover payments.
And it's cheaper. Core at USD 29 per month on annual billing has no transaction fee, versus Shopify Basic at USD 29 plus, in practice, USD 50 to 200 a month in apps for anything a real store needs.
The thresholds where we say Shopify
We've moved a good number of stores from Squarespace to Shopify, and the reasons cluster.
More than a few hundred products, or you're adding products every week. Squarespace's product management is a page editor, not an inventory system. Bulk editing is limited, CSV import is basic, and there's no product-level workflow. At 300 SKUs it's tolerable; at 1,000 it costs someone a day a week.
Variants beyond what the editor was built for. Squarespace supports six variant attributes and up to 250 combinations per product, which sounds like a lot until you sell garments in eight sizes and twelve colours with two fits. Shopify handles large variant sets and, more importantly, has apps that handle them well.
Wholesale, B2B or customer-specific pricing. Squarespace has one price per product. No customer groups, no tiered pricing, no net terms, no minimum order quantities. Shopify has native B2B on Plus and workable app-based B2B on lower plans.
Selling in more than one currency. Squarespace stores have one currency. If you sell to the US and to Europe and want each customer to see and pay in their own currency, that's Shopify Markets. This one comes up for nearly every Swiss client who exports.
Point of sale that's actually integrated. Squarespace's POS is a Square integration and is US-only. Shopify POS is a real retail system with hardware, inventory sync and staff accounts, in most countries. If you have a shop floor, this alone decides it.
Local payment methods. TWINT in Switzerland, iDEAL in the Netherlands, Bancontact in Belgium, Klarna as a first-class option. Squarespace's checkout exposes a short list. Shopify Payments and its third-party gateways expose far more, per country.
Apps you actually need. Reviews, loyalty, bundles, pre-orders, back-in-stock alerts, advanced shipping rules, subscription boxes, returns portals, marketplace feeds. Squarespace has a small extensions directory; Shopify has thousands of apps. You'll pay for them, but they exist.
Fulfilment and shipping complexity. Multiple warehouses, real-time carrier rates from more than the basic set, packing slips, 3PL integration. Squarespace covers flat rate, weight-based and a few carrier connections. Shopify covers everything else.
Checkout customisation. Squarespace's checkout can't be touched with code. Shopify's checkout is locked on lower plans too, but the extensibility on Plus and the app ecosystem around it are far ahead.
Reporting. Squarespace's commerce analytics are fine for a small store. Shopify's reporting and the analytics apps around it are what you'd expect from a platform whose whole business is stores.
If two or more of those apply to you today, or one applies and you're growing, move. If none do, stay, because the move costs money and you'd be paying for capacity you don't use.
The thresholds that aren't
Things people cite as reasons to leave Squarespace that usually aren't.
"Squarespace is slow." Sometimes, but usually because of what was put on the page. Shopify stores with twenty apps installed are slower than a clean Squarespace store. See our guide on fixing Squarespace's LCP problem before you blame the platform.
"Shopify is better for SEO." Both are fine. Shopify's URL structure (/products/, /collections/) is rigid and its blog is weak. Squarespace's blog and page editing are better. For a store where the content marketing matters, Squarespace can outperform.
"I need a nicer design." Both have templates and both can be customised. Shopify's theme editor (Online Store 2.0, Horizon) is capable; Squarespace's Fluid Engine is more flexible for page layout. Design is not the reason to switch.
"Squarespace transaction fees." Only the Basic plan charges them (2 percent). Core and above don't. Shopify charges a fee on every plan if you use a gateway other than Shopify Payments.
Cost comparison
For a store doing USD 10,000 a month in sales with 80 products:
Squarespace Core: USD 29 per month plus payment processing (2.9 percent plus 30 cents on Stripe). Around USD 330 a month all-in.
Shopify Basic: USD 29 per month plus processing (2.9 percent plus 30 cents on Shopify Payments), plus a reviews app, a shipping app and something for email, typically USD 60 to 120. Around USD 400 to 450 a month.
The difference is small. At USD 100,000 a month the calculation changes: Shopify's higher plans have lower processing rates, and the apps are a rounding error against the operational time they save.
The real cost difference is build and operation. A Squarespace store is cheaper to build because the site and the store are one system and the design tooling is simpler. A Shopify store costs more to build well, and a share of that goes into theme development in Liquid, which is developer work rather than designer work.
If you're starting from scratch
Ask yourself what you'll be doing on the site in year two. If the answer is "adding blog posts and updating the services page, and the shop ticks over", Squarespace. If the answer is "managing inventory, running promotions, adding channels", Shopify.
If you don't know, start on Squarespace. It's cheaper, it's faster to launch, and everything exports. The migration to Shopify, if you ever need it, is a solved problem, and we've written a separate guide on doing it without losing your search rankings.
How we decide with clients
In the first call we ask five questions: how many products now and in two years, whether you sell to businesses, which countries you ship to, whether you have or plan a physical shop, and which payment methods your customers ask for. The answers put you on one side or the other in about ten minutes. Then we build there.
Questions we get
Can I keep my Squarespace site and add a Shopify store? Yes, and it's a common pattern: the marketing site on Squarespace, the store on Shopify at shop.yourdomain.com, with matching header and footer. Two admins, but each platform does what it's good at. We build this for brands whose content matters as much as their catalogue.
Does Squarespace support subscriptions and memberships? Yes. Subscription products, member sites, courses and digital products are native. Shopify does subscriptions through apps.
Which is better for digital products? Squarespace, for a small catalogue of downloads or courses. Its digital products tooling is native and simple. Shopify needs an app.
Is Shopify harder to edit for a non-technical owner? The product and order admin is easy. The theme editor is fine for text and images. Anything structural in a Shopify theme is Liquid and needs a developer; on Squarespace an owner can restructure a page themselves.
We're on Squarespace Basic and paying 2 percent on sales. Should we switch platforms? Switch plans. Core removes the fee for USD 10 more a month. It's the most common mistake we see on small stores.
How long does a move take? Three to five weeks for a store under 200 products, including the new theme. Details in our migration guide.
