Question 1

How does Squarespace compare to the other platforms on this hub?

Accepted Answer

It is the best looking option here by a distance and one of the cheapest. Shopify is the specialist and prices by revenue band. Wix meters the site itself, down to whether its cheapest paid plan may sell at all. Squarespace does neither of those. It takes a percentage of the sale, and the percentage depends on what kind of thing the sale was.

Question 2

Does Squarespace publish its pricing?

Accepted Answer

The feature comparison, yes, in full and in detail, and every percentage on this page is lifted straight out of it. The plan prices are a different matter. They are not in the page as it is delivered; they arrive from a script your browser runs, so we did not read them and we have not quoted one. Open their pricing page and read the number in front of you.

Question 3

What does the entry plan actually cost you per order?

Accepted Answer

Two percent of every online store order, on top of payment processing, and seven percent of anything sold as digital content or a membership. On the next tier up the store fee is zero and the digital fee is five. It falls to one after that, and to zero at the top.

Question 4

Which Squarespace costs sit outside the subscription?

Accepted Answer

Payment processing, as with any platform. The online store transaction fee on the entry plan. The digital content and memberships fee on every plan except the top one. Automated global tax rate calculation, charged at 0.15, 0.10 or 0.05 percent per transaction by tier and capped per transaction. None of those are hidden. They are simply easy to add up wrongly.

Question 5

What does no plan on either platform cover?

Accepted Answer

Judgement is the gap. Whether your product data is fit to sell from. Which fields you will regret not having in two years. How tax ought to behave the first time you ship somewhere new. What happens to an order after it has been paid for. Software decides none of that and neither platform claims to.

Question 6

We are already on Squarespace. Why would we pay you seven hundred a month?

Accepted Answer

Probably you should not, and that is the answer we give more often than not. The case only exists once the store has stopped being the whole business. If your orders still land in a spreadsheet that somebody reconciles by hand on a Friday afternoon, and the fee lines have started to look like a real number rather than a rounding error, it is worth an hour. Otherwise stay where you are.

Question 7

At what point does seven hundred a month stop looking absurd?

Accepted Answer

We cannot give you a revenue crossover, because the fee that matters depends on your mix rather than your turnover. So do the sum instead. Take a year of orders, split them into physical and digital, apply your tier's two rates, and add the tax calculation percentage. If that total is a meaningful fraction of seven hundred a month, the conversation is worth having. If it is a rounding error, it is not, and we would rather you found that out here than on a call.

Question 8

Is there a size where Squarespace stops making sense?

Accepted Answer

Shape decides this, not size. A single line of physical goods can sit on Squarespace at real volume and be served perfectly well. A business selling courses, memberships and boxes at the same time has three different rates running through one checkout, and that is the shape that eventually needs a different answer.

Question 9

Is Squarespace a better product than Zoho Commerce?

Accepted Answer

Better website builder, yes, and by a wide margin. The templates and the editor are ahead of anything Zoho ships and we are not going to argue about it. That is the wrong comparison though. We are not selling you a website. We are selling the thing the website writes into.

Question 10

Does Zoho Commerce connect to the rest of Zoho?

Accepted Answer

That is the single strongest reason to pick it. Commerce writes into Books, CRM and Inventory as a first class citizen rather than through a connector that somebody has to keep alive. If you already run Zoho, this is less a migration than a completion.

Question 11

What exactly are we buying for seven hundred a month?

Accepted Answer

Catalogue structure and product data come first, then the storefront on top of them, then tax and shipping rules set against real fulfilment costs, then a month of live trading with somebody watching it. After that, continuing work on whatever the store turns out to need rather than whatever we guessed it would.

Question 12

Who holds the Zoho Commerce licence, you or us?

Accepted Answer

Yours, in your name, billed to you. We work inside it. If you decide to stop working with us, the store, the data and the licence stay exactly where they are and there is nothing to hand back.

Question 13

Can you move us off Squarespace?

Accepted Answer

We can, and there is a caveat that belongs up here rather than at the end. Your product data and your customer records come across cleanly. Your Squarespace design does not, because it is theirs. Expect the new storefront to be a rebuild, and budget the time for it honestly instead of hoping.

Question 14

Is there a minimum term on either side?

Accepted Answer

None on ours. The figure is monthly, the billing is monthly, and you can stop at the end of any month. Your Zoho licence runs on whatever term you agreed with Zoho, which is a separate arrangement that we do not sit inside.

Question 15

We are a two person business doing well. Which way does this go?

Accepted Answer

Squarespace, almost certainly, and saying so costs us a sale we would rather not make badly. Two people selling physical goods on a tier with a zero percent store fee are being served properly and cheaply. Come back if the digital side grows, or if the accounts start needing a second pair of hands.

Question 16

What happens if we outgrow Zoho Commerce?

Accepted Answer

It happens, and nothing has gone wrong when it does. Zoho suits a business up to a point. Past that point the answer is usually Frappe or ERPNext, which we run as well, and we will tell you when you are approaching that line rather than waiting for you to work it out.

A Squarespace Alternative for Sellers Paying a Different Rate on Every Kind of Sale

The entry plan takes two percent of every order

Digital goods and memberships are charged at their own rate

Even the tax calculation is a percentage

Cascadia

Without Cascadia

A catalogue modelled on how your stock actually behaves, rather than fitted to a template product schema

One flat monthly fee, with no percentage taken on any order, physical or digital

Every order landing in Zoho Books as a real accounting entry, with no export step in between

Stock levels, customer records and invoices in one database instead of three that have to be reconciled

Whoever built the checkout is the same person who picks up when it stops working

Shipping rules and tax settings set against what fulfilment actually costs you, and revisited when that changes

Export rights, retention periods and who may read an order set out in a signed agreement

A refund, a stock movement and a ledger entry handled as one event rather than three

A straight answer on the first call about whether your volume justifies any of this

A person whose job is your storefront and whose other job is not packing boxes

Where Squarespace fits

Where the percentage starts costing more than the platform

Where Squarespace is strong

What seven hundred a month buys that a percentage cannot

The first sixty days, and the parts of them nobody enjoys

We read the rate card against your actual order mix

The catalogue is modelled in Zoho before a storefront exists

Tax, shipping, permissions and retention are written down and agreed

Live orders run through it while somebody is still watching

Don't Take Our Word For It

The margin was fine until the courses started selling

The upgrade paid for itself, and then the ceiling arrived

Dollars a month for the organisation, whatever you sell and however much of it

Exports, connectors or nightly syncs between the store and the accounts

Weeks from the first conversation to real orders running on it

Squarespace alternative and managed Zoho Commerce FAQs

Ask Us Anything