Squarespace is a complete website creation tool available for anyone who wants to create a website presence for themselves or their business.
The service lets you create almost any type of website, from simple personal blogs to complex online store solutions with shopping cart.
Everything needed to manage your website is included across 4 pricing plans ranging from $25 to $72 per month (or less if you choose annual billing), depending on your website needs.
You can also buy and manage your domains with Squarespace and use built-in tools such as email marketing to build your business.
While you can develop any type of website with Squarespace, there are two distinct offerings – build an online store where you’ll need to start with the Commerce plan to have store tools or just build a business or personal website.
Squarespace gives you a free 14-day trial to work on your website and decide if they’re the right website creation service for you. You do not need a credit card to get started although you can subscribe to a plan at any time.
Below I’m going to show you how easy it is to sign up for a Squarespace free trial and get started.
Starting Your Squarespace Free Trial
Squarespace has everything you need to build a website to provide you an online presence. It doesn’t matter if you just want to blog, sell your services or open an online store.
To start your 14-day free trial, you don’t need a credit card. Just click on the “Get Started” button and try out their website creation tool with no obligation.
Below, I’ve including the steps you’ll need to take to sign up for the Squarespace free trial.
1. Pick your website type
After clicking “Get Started” on the home page, the first thing you’ll be asked to do is pick which type of website you want to start.
This step will filter the templates so that you can choose from the best ones for the type of website you need. So if you choose to start an online store, you’ll be shown the best online store templates to get started with.
2. Pick a template
On the same page as the first step, you’ll get to pick a template to start with. You can always change this whenever you like from your dashboard.
I started with Crosby which is an online store template because I chose to start an online store in Step 1. You can also preview the template before choosing it to see if it’s something you like.
You can also choose to use the Squarespace Blueprint AI template builder which will build a template that’s unique to you.
3. Create your account
In this step, you will choose how to create an account. There are two default options – sign up using your Google account or use your email to sign in with an email address and password.
You can also click the “More options” link to toggle additional choices.
4. Name your site
The start of the site building process begins after you’ve created your account in the previous step.
This step lets you choose a title for your website. You can also choose to skip this step and do it later.
The next three pages after you click “Continue” are onboarding steps that show you how to edit your site, create pages and design your site. On the last page, click “Get Started” to begin editing your website.
5. Your trial begins
You now have access to your dashboard where you can begin editing your website.
The number of days left in your trial is displayed to the bottom of the screen. You’ll also see the “Assistant” box to the right. This shows you your next steps and how to get things done inside Squarespace.
How Much Does Squarespace Cost?
Squarespace has four plans to choose from after you’ve completed your free trial.
The four plans depends on your needs and how complex your website is. For example, a simple blog or personal website will probably only need to use the basic stuff like SSL, mobile optimization and so on. The Personal plan would be enough for this.
Business websites such as restaurant websites or a dentist website would need to integrate schedulers and reservation blocks and even take orders and payments. These types of websites would go on the Business plan.
Squarespace also lets you do ecommerce. They provide selling tools and shopping cart capability making them a viable alternative to sites like Shopify and Volusion. For ecommerce solutions on Squarespace there are two pricing plans.
The four plans are priced as:
These prices are for customers who choose monthly billing. The prices work out cheaper when you choose annual billing, starting at $16/month on the Personal plan for instance.
During your trial, you’ll be able to go through all the available features and see what you’ll need to effectively run your website. Some features are labeled with the pricing plan with which they are available on.
Use your Squarespace free trial to work on your website and get it ready for launch over the next two weeks or to just see how it measures up to other solutions you may also be trying.
