I’ve Tested and Reviewed BigCommerce vs Squarespace

When comparing website builders and e-commerce platforms Squarespace and BigCommerce always come up. I’ve done the testing and comparison so you can see which one wins in each category.

Squarespace is known for its beautiful high res themes and ease of customization so if design is your top priority. BigCommerce has big inventory and international sales support and a ton of payment gateways and no extra transaction fees.

BigCommerce is best for:
Large and growing businesses needing advanced eCommerce tools and scalability.

Squarespace is best for:
Smaller businesses focused on design and ease of use with simpler online stores.

How to Decide Between Squarespace and BigCommerce for an Ecommerce Site?

Here are the criteria to consider:

• Business Size and Growth: BigCommerce is for bigger businesses with high sales volume, Squarespace for smaller businesses or service oriented/digital product based businesses.
• Ease of Use: Squarespace has more intuitive design interface, good for those without technical skills.
• Feature Requirements: Do you need advanced inventory management, multi-channel selling and SEO? BigCommerce excels in those.
• Budget: Consider the cost of each platform, BigCommerce can be more expensive but more scalable.
• Customer Support: How much support do you need? Both platforms have customer support but the level of support may vary based on business complexity.

Here’s a quick comparison to summarize the considerations:

BigCommerce vs Squarespace: Core Features

BigCommerce Features

For me, BigCommerce stands out because it’s built specifically for eCommerce. One thing I love is the multichannel selling feature, which lets you sell across platforms like Amazon, Facebook, and eBay—huge if you’re looking to expand your reach.

Plus, there’s no limit on the number of products you can sell, which is great for businesses planning to scale. Their inventory management is top-notch, helping you track stock across channels, and the SEO tools are more advanced than most, which helps you rank higher in search results.

Another thing that makes BigCommerce a winner in my eyes is the variety of payment gateways it supports without charging extra transaction fees. And the real-time analytics give you a clear view of your business performance, which I find super helpful for making quick decisions.

Advanced shipping options with real-time quotes are also a bonus, as it streamlines logistics. If you need custom features, the API integrations make it easy to build out exactly what you need. Overall, BigCommerce is ideal if you’re serious about growing your eCommerce business.

Squarespace Features

I appreciate Squarespace for its ease of use and beautiful designs. If you’re like me and value aesthetics, their templates are some of the best around—stunning, high-res, and super modern. The drag-and-drop builder is also a breeze to use, so you don’t need technical skills to make a professional-looking site.

While it’s not as feature-packed as BigCommerce, you can still sell unlimited products, and their basic SEO tools are decent enough for smaller stores. Squarespace also integrates with platforms like Instagram and Facebook, but it’s not as versatile in multichannel selling as BigCommerce. One area where Squarespace shines is in its built-in promotional tools, which help with discounts, gift cards, and running sales.

For smaller businesses or those focused more on design, Squarespace is a great option, but if you’re planning for serious growth, I still think BigCommerce has the edge.

Best for Pricing: BigCommerce

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace has four plans. The Personal plan is $16/month but does not include eCommerce. For basic online selling the Business plan is $23/month. For more eCommerce heavy users the Basic Commerce plan is $27/month or the Advanced Commerce plan is $49/month.

BigCommerce Pricing

BigCommerce also has four plans. The Standard plan is $29.95/month. More features in the Plus plan for $79.95/month. For higher tier needs the Pro Plan is $299.95/month. Enterprise plan is custom pricing for large scale eCommerce.

Winner: BigCommerce

I chose BigCommerce as the winner for pricing because, while it’s a bit more expensive than Squarespace upfront, it offers far more value for growing businesses. With no transaction fees and advanced features like multichannel selling and robust SEO, it’s worth the investment for businesses that plan to scale.

The higher-tier plans offer even more functionality, making BigCommerce a better long-term option for serious eCommerce growth.

Best for Design: Squarespace

Squarespace Design

Squarespace has great theme design. Themes are refined and beautiful. The platform is known for easy to use, photo centric design with high res images and modern design principles.

Squarespace has over 56 Ecommerce themes, constantly updated to reflect current design trends. While there are many other themes available, the Ecommerce themes are the best for online stores.

When you sign up Squarespace takes you to the dashboard where you have a live preview of your site. The dashboard has quick access to:

• Pages
• Design
• Commerce
• Marketing
• Scheduling
• Analytics
• Profiles
• Settings

To edit your site click the Edit button. The Squarespace editor has a header builder, many drag-and-drop blocks, movable sections and a true drag-and-drop interface to edit almost anything on your site.

BigCommerce Design

BigCommerce is only for online stores, not like Squarespace which supports multiple types of websites. So their entire theme library is ecommerce focused. They have over 300 themes. More than Squarespace. But BigCommerce themes don’t look as good as Squarespace and many of them cost $200-$300. There are 12 free themes for those who want simpler designs.

To start designing BigCommerce requires you to choose a theme. The platform gives you a visual preview of your store where you can choose from a range of modules to add to your design.

Headers and footers are somewhat customizable but design flexibility is limited compared to Squarespace. You can’t move elements wherever you want, you can only place modules in the designated areas of the theme.

Top Pick: Squarespace

Squarespace is better in design with better theme quality and true drag-and-drop. BigCommerce has more themes but Squarespace’s theme quality and design flexibility wins.

If you’re curious to see how these templates look in real-world online stores, check out our eCommerce design gallery, where we showcase hundreds of BigCommerce stores and Squarespace websites with fantastic design.

Best for Marketing: BigCommerce

Squarespace Marketing

Squarespace has several built-in marketing tools to help promote your website. The Marketing tab in Squarespace has:

• Email Campaigns: Automations, beautiful templates, list segmentation.
• Customer Profiles: Collect and manage customer info.
• SEO: Optimization tools for search engine ranking.
• Location Management: Tools for physical store locations.
• Promotional Pop-ups: Customizable pop-up promotions.
• Announcement Bars: Header messages.
• Instagram Stories: Integration for Instagram.
• Facebook Pixel and Ads: Tracking and ads for Facebook.
• Pinterest Save Buttons: Allow users to save to Pinterest.
• URL Builders: Custom URLs for tracking campaigns.

For ecommerce marketing Squarespace has:

• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Help customers complete their purchase.
• Customer Notifications: Order update email notifications.
• Product Reviews: Allow customers to review.
• Related Products: Show related items to upsell.
• Waitlists: Allow customers to sign up for out-of-stock items.
• Facebook and Instagram Selling: Sell products directly on social media.
• Discounts, Gift Cards, and Coupons: Promote to attract and retain customers.
• Email Signups: Collect email addresses.
• Blogs: Share content.

BigCommerce Marketing

BigCommerce has a marketing panel with features for ecommerce merchants. These tools help you maximize your marketing with:

• Banners: Design and display promo banners.
• Promotions: Various promotional tools to drive sales.
• Abandoned Cart Emails: Automated emails to recover lost sales.
• Transactional Emails: Automated order related emails.
• Google Customer Reviews: Collect and showcase customer feedback.
• Coupon Codes: Create and distribute discount codes.
• Email Marketing: Built-in email campaign tools.
• Gift Certificates: Sell and manage gift certificates.
• eBay Selling: Integration to list products on eBay.

Other marketing tools not in the Marketing tab:

• Social Media Links and Selling: Social platform integration.
• Blogs: Create blogs to engage visitors.
• Free Shipping Promotions: Offer free shipping.
• Sale and Out-of-Stock Banners: Promote sales and stock status.
• Customer Profiles: Manage customer info.
• Wishlists: Allow visitors to save for later.
• Multichannel Selling: Sell on Amazon, Facebook, Walmart etc.
• Ads for Google, TikTok, Instagram, etc: Advertise on various platforms.
• Gift Wrapping: Offer gift wrapping.
• Shopper Comments: Collect and display customer feedback.

Winner: BigCommerce

BigCommerce wins with its ecommerce specific marketing tools and ability to add functionality through apps. BigCommerce has more features tailored for online sellers so it’s the better choice for ecommerce marketing. Squarespace has a lot of tools but lacks BigCommerce in terms of integrations and omnichannel selling options.

Squarespace vs BigCommerce: Customer Support

Squarespace Customer Support

When using Squarespace I find that the first step to get support is to fill out a contact form questionnaire. This pushes users to troubleshoot on their own using online resources. A direct link to email the support team would be helpful especially since ecommerce businesses are time sensitive.

Squarespace has customer support through email ticketing and live chat, both 24/7. But they don’t have phone support. For ecommerce platforms sometimes a phone call is the fastest way to resolve urgent issues and Squarespace doesn’t have that.

Their online documentation is extensive with user and developer help centers that cover everything from outages to mobile app usage. These resources are often filled with videos and images.

Other resources from Squarespace:

• Blog
• Social Media Accounts
• Video Tutorial Page
• Webinars
• User Forum
• API Documentation

BigCommerce Customer Support

BigCommerce has a more comprehensive support system. Their customer support is 24/7 via email, live chat and phone. They have dedicated phone lines for multiple countries and a general line for all countries so it’s accessible to a lot of users.

BigCommerce pushes users to their help center first but they have an easily visible “Skip” button to go straight to live chat, phone or email support. Makes it easy and fast to get support.

BigCommerce also has great online documentation. Their help center has hundreds of articles on store setup, payment processing and app configuration. BigCommerce University also offers ecommerce training by experts.

Other resources from BigCommerce:

• Ecommerce Blog
• Social Media Channels
• Podcasts
• Webinars
• Community Forum
• Video Guide Page
• API Documentation

Winner: BigCommerce

BigCommerce wins big time because of phone support across multiple countries. That’s a huge advantage especially for ecommerce business owners.

Squarespace has online resources but no direct and immediate contact options so it’s not ideal for urgent issues of online businesses. BigCommerce University’s focus on online learning also adds to its charm with a lot of self-guided resources.

Squarespace vs BigCommerce: Which one?

So there you see, each has its own advantages depending on your business needs. You have to evaluate what’s most important for your ecommerce strategy before you decide.

MORE:

• Best Squarespace Ecommerce Website Examples
• Best BigCommerce Website Examples

Final Thoughts

I like Squarespace’s design focus. It’s easy to use and has a lot of built-in features that’s really useful. BigCommerce is all about ecommerce. It’s a beast for online selling, excels in point of sale, multichannel sales and multiple payment options.

Still unsure if you should go with Squarespace, BigCommerce or maybe another platform like Shopify? Leave a comment below and I’ll help.

FAQs

What are the main differences in features between Squarespace and BigCommerce?

BigCommerce has more advanced inventory management and sales tools. Squarespace has more design options and simpler tools to build websites fast. BigCommerce doesn’t have built-in booking and subscription features but is scalable for large product catalogs.

Squarespace is user-friendly with drag-and-drop interface while BigCommerce is geared towards big eCommerce operations.

How much does Squarespace cost compared to BigCommerce for an online store?

BigCommerce pricing plans range from $29 to $299 per month. Enterprise plan requires custom quote. These plans are annual and based on the annual gross merchandise value (GMV) of the store.

Squarespace might be more affordable for smaller businesses or service oriented or digital product based businesses. Squarespace has lower entry points but BigCommerce has more features for bigger businesses with higher sales volume.

Which one has better performance and customer support, Squarespace or BigCommerce?

Both have great performance but it depends on your business needs. BigCommerce is for bigger eCommerce operations and has features to manage large inventory and high sales volume.

For customer support, BigCommerce has 24/7 support through multiple channels (phone and chat). Squarespace has great performance and customer support but more focused on design and smaller eCommerce needs.

Why choose BigCommerce over other e-commerce platforms?

BigCommerce stands out with its scalable plans for growing businesses. Key benefits are advanced inventory management, comprehensive sales tools and robust SEO features. It also has multiple payment gateways and multi-channel selling so it’s a flexible option for businesses looking to expand online.

The many built-in features means you don’t need third-party apps for big volume sellers. All-in-one solution.

Is BigCommerce good for small businesses and startups?

BigCommerce can be an option for small businesses and startups especially those that will grow fast. Its $29 per month entry plan has enough features to get an online store up and running.

The platform is scalable so you won’t have to switch platforms as you grow. But for very small businesses or those with simple needs, the cost might be a consideration compared to more affordable options like Squarespace.