Ecwid vs Squarespace (2024) – Which One Is Best For Small Businesses?

Trying to decide whether Ecwid or Squarespace is the best option for your online store?

Awesome because we’ve got you covered as we have done a deep-dive comparison between these two very popular ecommerce platforms to see which one is the best for building an online store, so let’s get started…

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Ecwid vs Squarespace: Quick Summary

Ecwid vs Squarespace – which one is the best? Even though both a great platforms, Squarespace does come out on top for a few reasons:

1. It has a much better website builder
2. It allows you to sell a wider variety of product types
3. It is the more cost-effective option

In terms of features, there is little to choose between the two but as an overall package, Squarespace offers all the tools you need to build a good-looking website that is easy to use as the website owner and would be the option we would choose for building an online store.

4.2/5

EcommerceGold Score

Try Ecwid

4.2/5

EcommerceGold Score

Try Squarespace

Pricing

• Venture $25/m
• Business $45/m
• Unlimited $105/m

Try Ecwid

• Business $33/m
• Basic Commerce $36/m
• Advanced Commerce $65/m

Try Squarespace

As you can see from the table above, there really isn’t much difference in the monthly prices between Ecwid and Squarespace but overall, Squarespace does work out the cheaper of the two.

It should be noted that these are the prices if you pay monthly, if you pay for your plan annually, both platforms offer discounts.

Ecwid

The primary difference between the Ecwid packages is the number of products you are allowed to sell:

• Venture Package – up to 100 products
• Business Package – up to 2,500 products
• Unlimited Package – unlimited products

Ecwid also limits the number of features that are available on each package, with only the Unlimited package giving you all the tools and features that Ecwid offers.

At this point, it is worth talking about the free Ecwid plan, which basically takes the place of a free trial and it lets you try the platform out with real customers before committing to a paid plan but it is limited to 5 products and you only get a very limited selection of tools and features, which is understandable on a free plan!

Ecwid also offers a discount equivalent to 2 months free if you pay for the plans annually, which is a big saving, especially on the Business and Unlimited packages!

Squarespace

Squarespace is somewhat simpler when it comes to pricing as they don’t:

• Have product limits
• Have annual turnover limits

And the only plan that charges a transaction fee is the Business plan but there are no transaction fees charged on the Basic or Advanced Commerce plans and the two larger plans do work out cheaper than Ecwid.

Free Trial

Ecwid and Squarespace take a different approach to letting you try out their platforms:

• Ecwid offers a Free Plan
• Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial

Features

As two of the biggest website builders in the world, you would expect them to both come with a good range of features, but what do you get exactly?

Features

Ecwid

The business plan from Ecwid comes loaded with a really good selection of features, which are all focused on ecommerce and helping your website start generating sales, including:

As you can see, there are lots of features available and there is a big focus on being able to sell your products via multiple platforms and using Ecwid as a central point to manage it all.

One of the main plus points of Ecwid is that you can use Ecwid to add ecommerce functionality to existing websites. So if you have a WordPress or Wix website and want to add all the advantages that come with a fully hosted shopping cart, you can easily integrate Ecwid into your website and start selling.

To see a complete breakdown of all the features that Ecwid has to offer, check out our full Ecwid Review.

Ecwid App Market

While Ecwid does come with a good selection of features, there are still some gaps that need to be filled and that is where the App Market comes into play. All of the apps within the market are made by third-party developers, which means that many of them do require you to pay for them.

Squarespace

To access all of the features that Squarespace offers, you do need to be on the Advanced Commerce plan and the Business and Basic Commerce plans are a little light when it comes to features, which is why we have summarised all of the features that are available on Squarespace:

Squarespace Extensions

Squarespace also offers a range of extensions that allow integrations with third-party platforms, such as:

• Printful
• Xero
• Quickbooks
• Shipstation

Website Builder

Ecwid

One of the areas where Ecwid isn’t very strong is its website builder as it is quite limited and while the updated New-Gen Instant Site dropped in 2024 and brought a lot of improvements to the website builder, it is still lacking when compared to Squarespace.

When it comes to theme selection, the New-Gen Instant Site includes over 30 well-designed, mobile-friendly templates that can work for a variety of different store types.

But the big changes have come in the customization options as users can build a custom homepage and site pages using blocks and these can be added, removed and rearranged easily and each block has its own settings but unfortunately, this is just limited to the homepage.

Outside of the customizer, there are also design settings for your product and category pages and this adds another level of customization to your store.

The lack of a built-in blog does hurt Ecwid from an SEO perspective as it really limits your ability to add high-quality content to your store, which is why Ecwid’s real strength lies in being a shopping cart for content-focused platforms like WordPress and Wix.

Squarespace

The Squarespace website builder is much better than Ecwid as it offers a full-site website builder that not only includes a lot of customization options but is also very easy to use.

One big change that Squarespace made recently was to basically scrap their theme selection and instead use a core template that can be easily customized using the selection of sections and content blocks that are available in the customizer.

You can start with a pre-built design but unfortunately can’t switch to any other designs, instead you have to customize your existing design to match the one you like.

The customizer also has a selection of site-wide options that includes fonts and colors.

The Squarespace website builder is one of the few website builders that not only allows for full site customization but also offers a good selection of design options and more importantly, is very easy to use and even someone brand new to building websites can build a beautiful site with Squarespace.

The one thing Squarespace does do better is when it comes to creating blog posts as you can use all of the sections and blocks to create truly custom posts.

Support

One of the reasons why people choose a hosted platform such as Ecwid or Squarespace is that they get help and support to run their website. But how good is either platforms offering?

Ecwid

The level of support available from Ecwid is dependent on the package you are on:

• Venture Package: Email & Live Chat
• Business Package: Email, Live Chat & Phone
• Unlimited Package: Priority Email, Live Chat & Phone

The only issue with the phone support is that it is only available between 2 pm and 10 pm pacific time, which makes it not ideal for people in time zones on the opposite side of the world.

Squarespace

Squarespace offers 24/7 support to all users but this is only available via email.

They do offer live chat support but this is only available 4 am – 8 pm EST, Monday to Friday and they don’t offer any phone support.

Hosting & Performance

Ecwid and Squarespace both offer ecommerce grade hosting, that includes:

• Unlimited Bandwidth
• Unlimited Storage
• PCI Compliant Servers
• Free SSL Certificate

The problem is that we can’t put Ecwid to the test as they don’t showcase any customer websites on their site, which means we can’t do our usual testing.

We were able to test Squarespace and they performed very well:

• Mobile Load Time: 1.91 Seconds
• Desktop Load Time: 2.27 Seconds
• PageSpeed Score Mobile: 23/100
• PageSpeed Score Desktop: 65/100

In terms of load time, Squarespace are one of the fastest ecommerce platforms but the PageSpeed scores could be better.

Ease of Use

Now I do know that ease of use is subjective to the person using the site so the following is just my opinion and should only be used as a guide.

Getting Started

Ecwid

Getting started with Ecwid is really easy and all you need is your name, email address and to create a password, which once completed will get you signed up to the free plan.

If you want to upgrade to one of the paid plans, this can easily be done in the My Profile section of your dashboard.

For users who are new to the Ecwid platform, they have created a short and simple to-do list to help you get up and running with the platform and even though they are pretty basic steps, it is still useful to have a prompt, the only one missing is to set up your terms and conditions and privacy policy.

The first step in the to-do list does show where Ecwid’s primary focus is as it is a prompt to add Ecwid to your website or social network, rather than building a website using their ‘instant builder’.

One thing that Ecwid has definitely done a good job on is its ease of use and this is not only our own testing but also from feedback we have had from existing users, it just works and it works well!

This is because the admin dashboard is really easy to navigate as the sidebar navigation menu is really well organized with clear headings and this makes learning about and moving around the dashboard very easy.

Squarespace

Getting started with Squarespace is also very simple as you only need an email address and to create a password.

You will then be taken through the onboarding process, which includes some questions about the type of site you are creating, what type of products you will be selling and if you want to choose a pre-built design or do your own from scratch.

Once you have completed this, you will be taken through to your admin dashboard and initially it doesn’t seem like there is much help to get you started but if you click on the selling heading in the sidebar, you will be taken to a short setup guide to help you get your store configured.

The Squarespace dashboard is very well-designed and easy to use, this is mainly down to the sidebar navigation menu being well-labeled and easy to navigate, with any options not labeled being available in the settings such as payment and shipping options.

Adding and Managing Stock

Being able to manage your stock efficiently and effectively is a hugely important part of running an online store and there are three main areas to this, which are:

• Adding products
• Organizing your Products
• Managing your inventory

Ecwid

Adding a new product in Ecwid is a simple process and they have gone for a tabbed layout, which gives you lots of options for adding different types of products but it is not over complicated.

The one negative about creating a new product in Ecwid is that you cannot edit the URL and while the auto-generated product URLs are pretty good, they do include a random number sequence at the end, which means they aren’t the cleanest from an SEO perspective.

Organizing your products is also very simple and Ecwid has gone for the tried and tested category model. It is also very easy to create parent and sub-categories as there are separate tabs in the category management page, which is very useful for organizing a large inventory.

To manage your inventory, Ecwid includes a full bulk editor, which allows you to quickly and easily change the:

• Product titles
• SKU codes
• Price
• Stock Quantity

There are also other options that can be added/remove using the filter system.

Squarespace

One thing that is very noticeable with Squarespace is the number of different product types that you can sell when it comes to adding a new product, this is because when you click to add a new product, you are presented with eight different options.

And the add new product page is slightly different for all of these product types, for example, when adding a physical product there are fulfillment (shipping) options and for digital downloads there is a field for uploading your file.

The design of the add new product pages are very well done and easy to use with a good workflow between all the different sections and it is all done on a single page.

Organizing your products isn’t quite as good as the category system feels like a bit of an afterthought as there isn’t an option to manage your categories from the main navigation menu, they have to be done through the product add/edit page or through the website customizer, which isn’t ideal.

Squarespace also doesn’t have the option to create sub-categories, which makes creating a product hierarchy a bit difficult.

When it comes to managing your inventory, Squarespace has one of the best systems we have come across as you can update titles, prices and stock quantity directly from the product overview page, which removes the need for a separate bulk editor and this can save a lot of time when it comes to inventory management.

Another nice inventory management feature is that all of the product types are listed under different tabs, which makes finding your products a lot easier than a single list of all of your products.

Managing Orders

Ecwid’s order management system is very good and allows quick and easy processing of orders, including:

• Printing Orders Invoices
• Export Orders via CSV or Google Sheet
• Update Payment Status
• Update Fulfilment Status

This can be done in bulk or on individual orders and this complete process is very simple and easy to use.

Squarespace has made order management very simple as you can easily:

• Print invoices
• Update order statuses
• Export orders

This can be done to orders in bulk or individual orders, which makes order management very easy to do with Squarespace.

Summary

Conclusion

Ecwid vs Squarespace – Which one is better for an Ecommerce Website?

Even though both platforms are very good options, Squarespace does come out on top for a few reasons:

• It has a much better and more complete website builder
• It allows you to sell a much wider variety of product types
• It is the more cost-effective option of the two

In terms of features, both platforms are pretty similar but Eciwd does offer more payment gateways, which is something that is limited with Squarespace.

But as an overall package, Squarespace is just the more complete option as it includes everything you need to build a good-looking and easy to use store without breaking the bank and it would be the platform we would choose.

4.2/5

EcommerceGold Score

Try Ecwid

4.2/5

EcommerceGold Score

Try Squarespace

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Paul Haywood

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Hi, I'm Paul, the Owner and Founder of EcommerceGold.
I ran my own Ecommerce Business for over 7 years and now help others start their own online retail empires!

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