what's better squarespace or shopify

so shopify and squarespace are two,absolutely dominant players in the,website building space but,that doesn't mean they're both great,choices for you in fact they're both,very different and they're really good,at really different things but it's not,especially obvious,for most people which one you should be,getting so in this video we're going to,compare the two head-to-head and see,which one's actually the better builder,for your needs whether you are a,personal brand selling stuff,drop shipping a fundraiser it doesn't,matter what you're looking for,we're going to talk about that in this,video and help you decide which of these,is actually the right one to choose so,before we get into the first category i,want to start off with a little bit of a,background,with both of these builders and i think,this is really going to kind of explain,the intent of both of them and that'll,foreshadow and explain a lot throughout,the rest of this video so,let's start off with squarespace,squarespace was founded in 2003,and originally it was really just to,help people make,general websites and it's kind of,expanded from there now you're able to,host podcasts on here,it's fantastic for blogging single page,websites,multi-page websites and of course,e-commerce as well and so,because it's kind of well-rounded there,it's really been our go-to,recommendation,just as a blanket recommendation if,somebody just says hey mike i want to,make a website,and they don't say anything else i'm,just going to say have you tried,squarespace,and that's really a go-to for that one,but,because they're kind of so well-rounded,they're not hyper-focused in any one,category now on the flip side,we're seeing shopify was founded in 2006,and they are,hyper focused they're extremely focused,on one particular client and that is,the e-commerce user the e-commerce,merchant anybody looking to sell online,that is really exclusively what shopify,does now,that doesn't mean that they're always,better because like i said squarespace,has a lot of those peripheral tools,so for example if you are somebody,looking to have an online store,but you also want to have a podcast a,couple about me pages,and you really want a well-rounded,website but you still want to sell stuff,squarespace might be your better option,there and we'll talk more about that in,a minute but,just keep in mind that the main intent,of shopify is absolutely to be selling,to clients so that's going to be why,it's more scalable in general,you're going to see a lot of big,e-commerce-based stuff around them a lot,more payments,being accepted and things of that nature,and with that being said,that kind of brings us into the very,first category of this video,i want to talk about the pricing options,now pricing with these as i've mentioned,before,is really where you can again see where,these two are really oriented so,starting with shopify,being that they're so oriented for,e-commerce their base one is actually 29,per month and their most expensive one,is 299 dollars per month so,really widespread there and it's going,to make sense i mean of course i'll link,down below so you guys can check the,latest prices see if they have any sales,and read more about what the different,tiers actually offer,but it's going to essentially make sense,as you go to the higher tiers,you're seeing lower fees on there when,you're selling stuff and of course,more features as well now on the flip,side remember how i said squarespace was,really geared towards,anybody and everybody out there that's,looking to make a website and that's,exactly what we're seeing here,with their pricing as well so their,cheapest option is not really meant for,e-commerce it's going to just be,if you want to make a website in general,i believe you can sell stuff on there,but you have some pretty high fees and,stuff like that so it's really not meant,for e-commerce but it's about,uh 12 per month and their most expensive,one,is not quite as premium as the shopify,one it actually only goes up to 40,a month and the first one that they,actually call an e-commerce,tier though is actually 26 dollars a,month so when you're looking at the,cheapest e-commerce plan for both of,these,when you're kind of you know going a,head-to-head comparison here you're,looking at 26,versus 29 but that's not the only thing,you need to consider,when you're looking at the price of,course the price per month is very,important,but with e-commerce you also have a,price per sale,anytime you're selling stuff you might,be looking at fees on here,and this is also really important to,consider so with shopify,they actually charge 30 cents plus,anywhere from 2.4 to 2.9,and a point five to two percent fee uh,for non-shopify payments transactions so,they really want you to be using shopify,payments,unfortunately they're not accepted,everywhere in the world just yet,so there are situations where you,wouldn't be using shopify payments,and you would still be required to pay,that extra fee there like i said,so that's a little bit of a drawback,with shopify but the good news is,they do have plenty of different ways to,accept payments as well,anything from amazon payments to paypal,to to,stripe and squarely you really have a,lot of options out there,now on the flip side squarespace has,fewer fees and so squarespace actually,only accepts stripe paypal and square,all of which are going to have their own,fees on there but regardless,you generally will be seeing slightly,lower fees,with squarespace so really comparing,these two head to head in the pricing,category,i kind of have to say that these are,really kind of tied here i'll put links,below in the description,so you guys can go down and check out,really what each tier offers you can,figure out for your own needs,like for example squarespace is going to,come with a domain for the first year,you might have different features on,shopify,so go down and check those out i have a,link in the description so you can see,the latest prices on both of them,and compare the tiers to figure out,which one's right for you the next,category we talk about is actually the,design so when you're making a website,you want something that looks fantastic,and both of these do a great job of that,but they do it in a very different way,so at first glance you might say that,the clear winner is squarespace as they,have,over 110 different uh themes or,templates i'm going to use,themes and templates kind of,interchangeably here so as you can see,here squarespace has,tons and tons of different templates you,can choose from and they have a really,nice tool on the top where you can sort,them,and just look at the online store ones,and even within this category there are,tons of amazing templates to choose from,all of them look fantastic and the good,thing is they're included in your,subscription you don't have to pay any,extra for these,you can pick whichever one you like and,just add it to your site now,shopify has uh only nine free themes so,you're much more limited on the free,themes,but they do have 72 other paid themes,so when you're looking at paid themes,i'm talking about about 150,but if you want to save that cash and,you want to have a theme uh,that's kind of just you know included,with your subscription which i mean,honestly i think is very appealing,then squarespace is a great option here,as well and so honestly,between the two of them the number of,themes is important but actually looking,at how they appear,is a little bit more subjective and in,my opinion i think squarespace does look,a little bit better,so in general i do lean towards,squarespace with the design aspect,across all the website builders though,squarespace has always been,kind of one of my favorites with regards,to how they look they're generally clean,they're easy to build with,so of course design and aesthetics are,very important for a website,but equally important are the apps and,the features essentially the,functionality of your website,and when you're talking about this one,huge benefit of shopify,is that they have a massive library of,apps now on the flip side,squarespace as of maybe a year or two,ago didn't have any integrations at all,but they added a new feature and now you,do have some integrations,it's a growing aspect of squarespace so,depending on when you're watching this,video,it might be more they might have more,than they have right now but as of right,now it is,relatively limited you're not going to,have a ton of different integrations,that you can use,but the good news is a lot of what you,need with squarespace is already built,in natively,to the builder itself so for example a,lot of the marketing tools a lot of the,cart tools a lot of stuff like that,already comes built into squarespace,whereas shopify is a little bit more,bare bones it doesn't come with as many,things but there are a ton of different,apps and this is really where,shopify excels for any merchants that,are looking to,be larger or do more stuff there's so,many different options out there,for drop shipping for sending text,messages as receipts for 10 days sending,updates,for doing shipping stuff managing all,this different stuff,shopify really excels with functionality,because they have that massive library,of different apps and plugins,of course a lot of them are paid they're,not mostly free but with that being said,you have a large selection of the,function of different functionalities,you can add to customize and really make,your website more powerful,with shopify so that's definitely a huge,plus right there,of course going back to a couple other,smaller things in this category right,here,one of them is that they both have great,customer support i really didn't have,any issue with either of them i've seen,really great reviews across the board,for both shopify and squarespace they're,very responsive,i mean relatively speaking there are,some really bad ones out there,but these two generally do a pretty good,job squarespace,kind of has a cleaner urls so from an,seo standpoint,i do lean towards squarespace where on,the urls like for example,if it's like domain.com just the name of,your product rather than like shopify,likes to add a couple other things on,there so it might be like slash product,slash,new slash whatever that actual product,name is so,that's something that i kind of don't,like about shopify but again it might be,something that they're changing in the,near future anyway i mentioned that,squarespace has a lot of native,functionality as well so for example you,can host podcasts on here it's fantastic,for blogging,it's also great for really any other,basic stuff you'd want to do with the,website,but it's hard to argue that you can't do,that on shopify because,there's so many different apps out there,i'm sure there's a great app to host,podcasts on your website,but you'll just have to go and look for,it so as far as ease of use goes and,we'll talk about that in the next,category,i mean the extra apps definitely give,you a lot of extra functionality,but a lot of times you have to go and,find them making them slightly less easy,to use so in general,as far as features and apps go i think,the absolute winner an absolute,landslide here,sends it over to shopify they do a much,better job because they have that,massive app store,that allows you to have so many,different apps on your website now the,next category as i mentioned just a,second ago,is the ease of use and i think this one,is definitely a winner for squarespace,as i've been saying throughout this,video they're generally easy to use,they're very robust it's hard to make a,website that doesn't look good and it is,very,responsive as well meaning if you make,it on the desktop it's almost,definitely going to look good on a,mobile device everything's kind of baked,in it's an all-in-one like a one-stop,shop,and so that's why for a while i think,they didn't even have integrations,because they were really aiming to have,everything you needed just right there,now,shopify has far more functionality and,ability but,because of that it's a little bit more,complicated to use it's a little bit,less easy,and you know in general i have to say,the clear winner here,is going to be squarespace although i,don't want to discourage you from,shopify based on this category alone,because,i do have a full tutorial on either one,of these shopify and squarespace,and i'll link those below in the,description as well so whichever one you,choose,i'll show you step by step exactly how,to make your website,and so you really don't have to worry as,much about this category now i'm going,to make the assumption that you really,only clicked on this video if you plan,to,sell things online otherwise you really,probably wouldn't be considering shopify,in the first place,so the next category is actually sales,features which is something that,might not be the first thing you think,about but it's definitely really,important,when you start selling things on the,internet obviously having extra,functionality,in this aspect is going to be very,helpful so looking at these the first,thing,i want to talk about what payments are,accepted i know i mentioned this before,but squarespace only accepts stripe,paypal and square as of right now,i believe square's a recent addition it,used to just be stripe and paypal,so with that in mind you're a little bit,more limited here but in general those,are pretty wide reaching,programs or pretty global so you really,shouldn't have too much limitation,globally especially not in the us you,should definitely be fine with these but,shopify definitely has an advantage here,of using of course shopify payments,which they really want and,and actually charge you a fee if you,don't use that but they also have like,amazon pay,stripe paypal and a ton of other payment,options as well,kind of giving you more options to get,paid with,shopify but again this is really kind of,a subtle one depending on your region,and and which ones are actually,available for you now shopify does have,more powerful ecommerce features for,sure like i said uh so it's a little,bit easier to sell across multiple,channels like instagram facebook,uh pinterest like wherever else you,might be selling it is a little bit,easier to do with shopify,but both definitely let you define like,shipping zones uh you could factor in,like the weight for shipping,the cost of things for shipping and,things like that they also both offer,label printing so a lot of different,functionality,with both of these but keep in mind the,price is going to be different a lot of,these features are a little bit more,expensive with shopify they either come,with paid plugins,or a higher more expensive tier of the,plan,versus on squarespace it's going to,generally be included,with that standard 26 plan or even the,40 plan if you want to really go all out,and so dollar for dollar you're getting,more features out of squarespace,so i think in the sales feature category,the clear winner is shopify as they just,have more features and functionality and,are really geared more in that direction,now with that being said that kind of,ties us into the final conclusion here,which one is the right one for you for,your online store for your business your,brand,your fundraiser whatever it is you might,be doing i think it comes down to this,if you are looking to make a an online,store first like that's your main,objective is to sell things,then shopify is going to be more,scalable they're going to have more,functionality on there,and in general it's definitely going to,be the better route for,for drop shipping and anything of that,nature and i know right now you might be,thinking mike that sounds like,everything,in online store why would you ever want,squarespace and i think squarespace has,a really good option,for anybody who is either like an,influencer or a personal brand,or really anybody who is not just,selling but also you want a well-rounded,website,squarespace is going to be a better,option especially if you're only selling,anywhere under,maybe 20 or 30 different items if you,have less than 20 or 30 items,squarespace is a fantastic choice so i,think a great example here would be,maybe like an instagram influencer you,probably want a great about me page,you might want a blog on here you might,want a podcast hosted on here,and then you might have some merchandise,as well maybe 10 or 15 different items,and you can have a shop page on,squarespace so i think that's where,squarespace really shines if you want a,nice well-rounded website,that looks really good is really easy to,make and then on the flip side,if your main goal is to sell things then,shopify is going to be your better one,but i know a lot of people right now,might be thinking but mike what if i,want a lot of powerful shopping features,but also well-rounded websites,well the good news is the option there,is one that i've actually just made in a,full tutorial,you'll probably be wanting to use,wordpress and woocommerce it's generally,very affordable,i have a link below to my full tutorial,on that and it is a fantastic option for,anybody looking to put in a little extra,work but get way more functionality,and a fantastic selling experience for a,relatively low,cost now with that being said guys i,hope this video was helpful,leave a comment below and let me know,which of these two you think is going to,be the right option for you,squarespace or shopify as always if you,enjoyed this video please consider,liking and subscribing,i'm mike o'brien from santral media,thanks for watching and i'll see you,next time

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