Squarespace alternatives

Squarespace alternatives, from builders to a site you own

Squarespace alternatives come down to one question, who does the work every month. Builders such as Wix and WordPress.com let you keep building by yourself with other tools and other prices, while a site coded for your business and looked after by one developer is the third route, the one I offer in two plans. Essential costs €1 at the order then €39 a month, with the site designed and coded for you, hosting, daily backups, updates and your changes delivered within 48 working hours. Visibility costs €1 at the order then €79 a month and adds pages and articles for Google and AI search every month. The code and the domain are yours from day one.

What does Squarespace do well, and for which projects?

Squarespace makes clean sites, and its pricing page presents its templates as designer templates for every need, with a drag and drop editor that keeps the layout consistent because it limits what you can move. It's the builder I see most often with photographers, interior architects, holiday rentals and restaurants that want large images and little text. The pricing page announces a 14 day free trial with no card required, so you can form your own opinion before paying. For a polished brochure site that you feed yourself, it does the job it promises.

The French Squarespace pricing page, viewed on 27 August 2026, shows three main plans in euros. Basic at 14 € a month on monthly billing or 108 € a year, Core at 20 € a month or 168 € a year, Advanced at 30 € a month or 252 € a year, and the page promises savings of up to 36 % with annual billing. Viewed from Switzerland, the same page showed Basic at 15 CHF, Core at 21 CHF and Advanced at 27 CHF a month. The domain name is free for the first year on annual plans, and the commerce plans take a fee on sales that shrinks as you go up. My two plans display in your currency for the comparison.

Squarespace suits a project whose content moves little and whose strength is visual. A portfolio, a restaurant with a menu in PDF, a holiday flat, a practice that wants a home page, a team page and a contact form. The tool also holds up for a small shop, with the commerce fees to read on the pricing page before you sign. If you already have a Squarespace site you like, whose visitors become customers and which doesn't ask more time than you want to give it, keep it. The rest of this page is for people who feel the tool has started to decide for them.

Where does Squarespace hold back a growing business?

The site stays at Squarespace, and the export only returns content. Its help page on exporting lists what comes out, layout pages, one blog with its posts, text blocks and image blocks, and what doesn't, other page types including store pages, style settings and custom CSS. The same page states that it's not possible to export content from one Squarespace site and import it into another. So you get your texts and images back, and the rest is rebuilt elsewhere. The domain name is a different matter, it can move with you, and my guide to domain names explains why it must always be in your name.

The shared template sets the pace for your content. Every Squarespace template is offered to all subscribers, which means the structure of your pages and the order of the sections appear on many other sites. The editor protects consistency by limiting deviations, and that's exactly what gets in the way the day your business needs a page that doesn't fit the mould, a comparison of services, a season calendar, an online quote, one page per town to be found locally. A site coded for you starts with the list of what your customers search for, and the layout follows, never the other way round.

The speed of a Squarespace site depends on what the template loads for everyone before your content. An online builder delivers the editor's code, the fonts and the scripts planned for every feature of the template to each visitor, including the features you don't use. On a recent laptop the difference is small, on a phone in a car park it shows. I'm not claiming every Squarespace site is slow, I'm observing that a site coded for one specific business carries only what its pages need. Before going live, every site I deliver passes a check on speed, accessibility and technical SEO, and I send you the result.

The displayed price leaves out the hours you put in. Core at 168 € a year is 504 € over three years, plus your hours in the editor, plus paid extensions if a feature is missing. My Essential plan costs €1,405 over three years, and that amount covers design, code, hosting, backups, updates and your text changes delivered within 48 working hours. On subscription alone Squarespace stays cheaper. The difference buys not touching the site any more, and knowing someone checks every month that it holds. To see where that price comes from, read how much a website costs depending on how it's made.

Which Squarespace alternatives belong side by side?

Wix is the builder most often compared with Squarespace, with more freedom in the editor and therefore more ways to break a page. Its US pricing page, viewed on 27 August 2026, shows Light at $19 a month, Core at $29, Business at $39 and Business Elite at $159 billed yearly. The French page didn't display its prices that day, so I quote nothing in euros. Its help center states that the site has to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers to work, which settles the export question. Its templates page announces 2000+ of them. I wrote a dedicated page, Wix alternatives, with the same table and the same questions.

I often meet business owners who confuse the WordPress.com service with the free WordPress software you install at a hosting company, while the former is a hosted service with its own rules. Its pricing page, viewed from Switzerland on 27 August 2026, shows prices in Swiss francs billed yearly, one price for the first year and then a renewal price. Personnel at 5 CHF the first year a month, Premium at 10 CHF the first year, Business at 30 CHF the first year, Commerce at 54 CHF the first year. The export guide states that the file contains posts, pages and comments, but not the theme design or plugins. It's more open than Squarespace, and it asks you to follow the updates yourself.

The third route is a site coded for your business, without a shared template or a page builder, looked after every month by the person who designed it. I start from your services and your customers to draw the pages, I code them, I host them, I back them up daily, I watch security and I deliver your text and image changes within 48 working hours, with a monthly report on traffic and uptime. The code belongs to you from day one, the domain is in your name, and a full export of the site is possible at any time, free, even during the commitment. My website subscription page details how it works, and the table below sums up the three routes.

Solution	Price seen on 27 August 2026	Who owns the site	Who does the work
Squarespace (French page, in euros)	Basic 14 €, Core 20 €, Advanced 30 € a month on monthly billing, or 108 €, 168 € and 252 € a year	The site stays at Squarespace, the export returns pages and blog, not the design	You
Wix (US site, in dollars)	Light $19, Core $29, Business $39, Business Elite $159 a month billed yearly	The site has to stay on Wix's servers, the domain can be yours	You
WordPress.com (page viewed from Switzerland, in Swiss francs)	Personnel 5 CHF the first year, Premium 10 CHF the first year, Business 30 CHF the first year a month, billed yearly	Posts and pages export, the theme and plugins don't	You
Essential	€1 at the order then €39 a month	You, code and domain in your name from day one	Me
Visibility	€1 at the order then €79 a month	You, code and domain in your name from day one	Me, pages and articles included

05 The plans

What does the Squarespace alternative with a site coded for you cost?

01 Essential

Essential

The website, the hosting and the updates, with nothing else to manage on your side.

€1

at the order

then €39 a month

Your site online in less than 48 hours after the order
A unique website, designed and coded for your business
Hosting, daily backups and security monitoring
Technical fixes and updates included in the plan
Text and image changes delivered within 48 working hours
Monthly report on traffic and uptime

That is €469 excluding tax for the first year, then €39 a month, cancellable any month with one month's notice.

Choose Essential

02 Visibility Most complete

Visibility

Everything in Essential, plus the content that puts your site on your trade's keywords and brings you customers.

€1

at the order

then €79 a month

Everything in the Essential plan
4 pages and 4 articles a month, written on verified keywords for Google and AI search engines
Each page targets one more keyword, so after a year your site answers close to a hundred searches in your trade
Monthly report on your positions for local searches

That is €949 excluding tax for the first year, then €79 a month, cancellable any month with one month's notice.

Choose Visibility

Monthly plan excluding tax, 12 months minimum, then cancellable with one month's notice. The domain name and the source code belong to you from day one, with a full export of the site within 15 days on request, free of charge, even during the commitment.

Card payment, secured by Stripe. You pay the order and the first monthly payment, then each monthly payment is charged on the same date. Would you rather get a quote and talk first? Write to me.

When should you keep Squarespace, and when move to a coded site?

Keep Squarespace if the site does what you ask of it and you don't think about it. A portfolio where you change three images a quarter, a restaurant menu updated each season, an association posting its dates, a practice whose clients come by referral. In those cases Basic at 14 € a month or Core at 20 € a month is a fair price for a tool you already master. Keep it too if you like opening the editor, if you insist on picking every photo and if no page is missing. A change of site always costs attention, and I'd rather lose a sale than make you change for nothing.

Move to a coded site when Squarespace starts deciding for you. You need one page per service or per town and the template pushes you to pile everything onto the home page. Your texts have been ready for weeks but the layout discourages you from adding them. Your site loads slowly on phones and you can't remove what weighs it down. Or your business has changed and the site still tells the old story. At that point Essential at €39 a month replaces the subscription and your hours, and Visibility at €79 a month adds pages and articles written on verified keywords every month.

The migration starts with the Squarespace export, which gives me your pages and blog posts in one file, then I collect by hand what the export leaves out, the images placed in headers, the store pages, the forms, the style settings. I rebuild each page with a structure designed for your customers, you review a complete first version, we adjust, then we go live after your approval, less than 48 hours after the order depending on how fast you review. Your Squarespace site stays online until then. For the domain, I transfer it or simply change where it points, and in both cases it stays registered in your name.

06 The price

Why this price does not lower the quality

The price comes from how the site is built and maintained, not from a sacrifice on the design or the code.

A site designed and coded, not a template

No purchased theme, no page builder. The layout, the copy and the code are written for your business, after research on what your competitors do and on what your customers type into Google. Two clients never receive the same site.

Performance and security are measured

Before going live, every site passes a check on speed, accessibility and technical SEO, and it does not ship until the score is where it should be. A fast, clean site costs less to host and maintain, and that saving is in the price.

Automation pays the difference

Hosting, backups, monitoring and the monthly report are automated, and I have spent sixteen years building this kind of tooling. Human time goes to the design, the copy and your change requests, not to the repetitive tasks others bill you for every month.

No financing, no hidden clause

You pay €1 or €1 at the order, then a monthly plan for twelve months, with no credit company and no lease contract. The first year total sits at the top of the quote, and the domain and the code stay yours, with an export of the site within 15 days on request.

What questions come up about Squarespace alternatives?

Which Squarespace alternative should you pick when you no longer want to build it yourself?

A site coded for your business and looked after every month by a developer, which is the route I offer. Essential costs €1 at the order then €39 a month and includes the site, hosting, backups, security, updates and your changes. You no longer touch an editor, you write to me and the change is live within 48 working hours.

What does a Squarespace export really contain?

According to the Squarespace help page, the export contains layout pages, one blog with its posts, text blocks and image blocks. It doesn't contain other page types, including store pages, nor style settings or custom CSS. The file is in the XML format designed for WordPress. In practice you get your texts and a list of images back, and the site itself is rebuilt elsewhere.

How much does a Squarespace alternative coded for me cost a year?

Essential costs €469 excluding tax for the first year, that is €1 at the order then €39 a month. Visibility costs €949 for the first year, €1 at the order then €79 a month, with pages and articles written on verified keywords every month. That total sits at the top of every quote, and an online shop or a client area gets a separate quote.

What happens to a domain name bought through Squarespace?

It stays yours and it follows you. I check with you where the domain is registered, then either I transfer it to a registrar in your name or I change the address it points to. At the end the domain is registered in your name, never in mine, and your visitors see no interruption while the address changes.

How long does moving from Squarespace to a coded site take?

Usually less than 48 hours between the order and going live, and the delay depends mostly on how fast you review the first version. Your Squarespace site stays online during the build, then the domain switches to the new site once every page is approved. The Squarespace subscription is cancelled afterwards, once everything works.

What happens to my site if I want to stop after twelve months?

You keep the whole site, code included. The commitment is twelve months, then the plan can be cancelled any month with one month's notice. Since the code has belonged to you from day one and the domain is in your name, I hand you the full export of the site within fifteen days, at no cost, and you host it wherever you want or give it to another developer.

08 Compare before you sign

A site coded for you, at the price of a kit site

01 The code and the domain name are yours from day one, with an export of the site within 15 days
02 No WordPress and no page builder, every page is designed and written for your business
03 Speed, accessibility and technical SEO are measured before the site goes live

Among the French offers under 100 € a month we reviewed in August 2026, none displayed these three commitments together.

See both plans Start my website