Squarespace vs Godaddy – Which Web Builder Should You Choose?

Introduction

Among current website builders, Squarespace vs GoDaddy is perhaps the most popular comparison. They are both common, user-friendly softwares, with many competitive advantages over each other.  Squarespace has the lead in being an all-rounded web builder, while GoDaddy is great for people with limited time or technical skills.

There are clear give-and-takes between these platforms, so the ultimate decision will depend on your personal needs and preferences. In this article on Squarespace vs GoDaddy, we will compare the key differences and help you find which will be the better fit for you.

Key aspects that we’ll cover:

• An overview of both these web builders
• Detailed analysis of Squarespace vs Godaddy differences
• A comprehensive comparing table
• Final thoughts and FAQs

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Quick Overview of Squarespace vs GoDaddy

With the surge in online shopping within recent years, brands are required to have a strong online presence more than ever. Owning a well-performed, user-focused website can be a huge advantage against other competitors.

There can be many complex steps in creating your own eCommerce store. However, with recent technology, building a website from scratch is easier than ever. You only have to fill in required information and need little to no coding experience.

Both GoDaddy and Squarespace can assist you in this aspect. But first, let’s take a look at some general information about the two softwares:

What is GoDaddy? GoDaddy’s pros & cons

GoDaddy is widely known as the most popular domain registrar and web hosting company. However, they also develop and provide other services including eCommerce solutions and email marketing. GoDaddy has also become one of the most used web builders software on the market. This platform is perfect for users who wish to have an online presence as soon as possible.

• Pros: Building your site with GoDaddy is pretty simple. With the help of their ADI – Artificial Design Intelligence, you can expect an extremely speedy web setup. By asking a few questions about your web preferences, GoDaddy can generate a pre-built design based on those requirements. After that, you may continue to edit and finish the setup process.
• Cons: However, with such simplicity, GoDaddy might fall behind on the number of themes and features available. Customizing options are also more limited, so you have less control over the style and look of your site. This is also the main reason why many users switch to other platforms such as Godaddy to Shopify, Godaddy to WooCommerce,…

Take a look at our detailed reviews on GoDaddy and its features: Is GoDaddy Suitable For Ecommerce Beginners?

What is Squarespace? Squarespace’s pros & cons

Squarespace is the website builder for people who appreciate creativity and beautiful web designs. You can build an impressive site that includes various features without much effort, time or coding knowledge required.

Squarespace provides you with a custom domain name, eCommerce shopping cart, not to mention a SSL certificate protection. All you need to do is create an account, choose a template, and you’re ready to edit the website to your preference.

• Pros: The high-quality Squarespace templates are one of the reasons people love this web builder so much. There are many stunning options available for you to choose from. What’s more, you can click on any part of the website’s interface and customize it.
• Cons: Since Squarespace offers an abundance of features, you have to take a while to get used to the platform. What’s more, with the amount of functions available, Squarespace pricing can be a bit high compared to other web builders.

Need more info about Squarespace? Read our Honest Squarespace review!

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Squarespace vs GoDaddy: Main Differences Analyzed

Now that you’ve got the general idea, here is a more detailed analysis of Squarespace vs GoDaddy:

#1 – Pricing Plans

GoDaddy Pricing

Right when you start, GoDaddy will automatically give you a free web building package. This plan includes some great features: hosting, access to all available GoDaddy themes, analytics and customer support. However, you won’t be able to create a custom domain.

Apart from their free plan, GoDaddy also offers its users 4 pricing tiers if you feel the need to upgrade, starting from $6.99/month.

When you pay for any of these subscription tiers, GoDaddy will provide you with your custom domain – which is important for website trust. Also, if you own a business, it’s best to pay for the Premium/Commerce tier. These GoDaddy plans can cover most of the necessary features for you to sell and market products with your website.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace pricing plan also includes 4 tiers. However, unlike GoDaddy, Squarespace doesn’t offer a free plan. You have to pay a subscription fee of at least $14 per month to get access to basic Squarespace features. This means you will automatically get a custom Squarespace domain once you sign up.

The two basic tiers will be sufficient if you only want to design a pretty website for your brand. However, if you want to sell products on your site, you’ll need to pay for the Commerce or Advanced Commerce package.

Squarespace cost may be high, but you get what you paid for. The software gives you multiple business functions and ability to integrate with your other selling channels. What’s more, you get access to Squarespace’s large collection of themes and customization tools.

#2 – Templates and customization

GoDaddy Website Builder

GoDaddy’s editor and web building tool is a great choice for people who only want a simple website, and they want it quick. ADI is the difference that makes the GoDaddy website builder stand out from the rest.

GoDaddy will ask for your preference for the new site using a set of questions, then build a model of what it’d look like using Artificial Design Intelligence. From there, you can easily make changes and finalize the site based on the pre-built web, saving both your time and effort.

However, the simplicity of GoDaddy’s tool will limit what you can do to your website. There are only 22 GoDaddy themes available to choose from, and they don’t vary much from one another. Thus, most sites built by GoDaddy will feel similar, with the same header placements and CTA buttons positioned on their homepage.

Squarespace Website Builder

While GoDaddy focuses on making web building an uncomplicated process, Squarespace wants to put you in full control. You can manage anything that is happening on your user’s interface using the drag-and-drop editor.

Compared to GoDaddy, Squarespace also offers more templated and designing features. There are currently over 100 Squarespace templates available, all have high quality and cater to different intentions.

You can check out these beautiful Squarespace templates: 10 Best Squarespace Templates

However, having many different features means it may take you a little more time to fully make use of Squarespace’s editor. Moreover, if you don’t like your current template, you have to design again from the beginning. All previous edits will be changed with the new template, and having to start over will be very time consuming.

#3 – Ecommerce Features

For eCommerce use, we will first list some of the similar functions that both GoDaddy and Squarespace can provide you:

• SSL Certificate:  to ensure that customer’s payments are secured
• Payment method: PayPal, Square and Stripe supported
• Promotion and discount codes set up
• Product synchronization across multiple channels
• Abandon cart email notification
• Unlimited products and multiple product variations

It’s worth noting that compared to eCommerce-focused platforms such as Shopify or BigCommerce, these two web builders may lack some eCommerce features. Both Squarespace and GoDaddy will be more suitable for smaller, local businesses who only want to sell a few products. So if you don’t intend to go global or expand your online business too much, either of these platforms is already sufficient.

Take a look at our comparisons:

• Shopify vs Squarespace review
• Shopify vs GoDaddy review

GoDaddy eCommerce features

GoDaddy provides you with an eCommerce dashboard to help you manage all sales using just one interface. You can easily add new products and keep track of your stock with this simple dashboard. Data from your social media, reviews and other sales channels can also be monitored there.

If you want to sell on multiple channels, then Godaddy’s dashboard can manage orders from all platforms and synchronize your inventory. Look for GoDaddy’s Marketplaces feature, which will allow you to sell on large marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay.

For reports and analytics,  GoDaddy Insight is a new smart learning system that can give you detailed performance metrics to your store. It also provides Insight Score for your business, so you can see how you perform compared to competitors in the industry.

One advantage of selling on GoDaddy is that their eCommerce features are also as simple to use as their web editor. However, it would also mean that their functions are fairly limited and lack in depth.

If you love GoDaddy’s tools ease of use, check out these user-friendly platforms as well: 5 most user-friendly platforms for eCommerce

Squarespace eCommerce features

Like GoDaddy, Squarespace also lets you manage your products using a central management interface. However, this will only allow you to keep track of your inventory, and there are no performance analytics.

But Squarespace carries some amazing sales features that are worth considering. What makes Squarespace stand out is the ability to sell digital products. Other than physical merchandise, you can offer your customers online courses or set up fundraisers. With GoDaddy, you may only list and sell physical goods.

Another significant feature is that Squarespace lets you manage offline sales. They partnered with Square to provide and integrate Point of Sale (POS). Sell your products, take card payments and synchronize your stock using the Squarespace Commerce app. You will also need a Square card reader which will cost $49.

There’s one final thing to keep in mind. While Squarespace takes pride in their large collection of beautiful templates, eCommerce ones are more limited and minimal-looking.

#4 – Marketing Features

Email marketing

Both GoDaddy and Squarespace can help you set up your email marketing campaigns using built-in email marketing solutions.

Depending on your subscription, GoDaddy webmail will allow up to 25,000 emails per month for free. But if you wish to increase this number or use a business email, you may have to pay for GoDaddy’s business email service. There are quite a few templates for you to choose from to build your custom marketing email.

For Squarespace, if you sign up for the Commerce plan, you’ll automatically receive a Mailchimp integration. This lets you design email to your liking and customize your subscriber list. If you don’t like using Mailchimp, there are other email marketing apps on the Squarespace Extension store to choose from.

Social media integration

When it comes to social media integration, Squarespace and Godaddy will give you very similar support. As you connect these platforms with social media, the content you post on the site can be pushed onto your social channels immediately. Both platforms let you display a live social feed on your site as well.

GoDaddy developed GoDaddy Social integration in order to help you manage your business’ social media more efficiently. You can publish and schedule posts directly onto Instagram and keep track of any reaction or comment.

For Squarespace, you can find   – a unique social media integration from their app market. This app will help create beautiful Instagram/Facebook stories and posts to match with your branded designs.

Blogging

GoDaddy blogging feature

If you only need a basic blog on your website without much demand, then GoDaddy will provide just enough functions.

Pros:

• Track blog performance with analytics
• RSS feed for newsletter

Cons:

• Too simplistic
• Very limited text formatting options, cannot embed video into blog post

Squarespace blogging feature

Compared to Godaddy, Squarespace is definitely a better platform for blogging.

Pros:

• Stylish blocks design
• Flexible content presentation (by tag or by category)
• Quick loading speed
• RSS feed

Cons:

• No autosave or version history
• Existing blog posts can’t be edited and saved as draft (have to update the live version)

#5 – SEO Capability

If you want your page to have a significant online presence, then SEO is definitely an important aspect to consider. The higher your web page rank in search engines’ result pages, the better the chance of people coming across your site. As a result, you earn more traffic since more people are likely to click on your link. Should proper SEO tools be provided, they can definitely help increase your potential user or customer group.

Some of our tips for best use of SEO: Effective SEO strategy for your eCommerce website

Regarding this service, both GoDaddy and Squarespace carry similar useful internal SEO functions such as:

• Edit your meta title and meta description: optimize how your site title and description will appear on search result page
• Add image alt text: alt text describes your picture in case viewers can’t see it for some reason
• Edit URL slugs: make your URL more identifiable
• Keyword analytics
• Responsive themes: improve the way website users view your content on different displays

For GoDaddy, however, that’s just about it. This web builder lacks many essential SEO capacities such as heading tags  and schema. At the same time, edits are sometimes limited to only what GoDaddy’s suggested. This means you don’t really have full control of how your website will appear on search result pages.

Squarespace is once again the clear winner in this aspect as it lets you work with more flexibility. Even if you have to implement a few features manually, Squarespace still gives you the option to add custom codes. Moreover, the platform provides a SEO checklist and better site mapping.

Read more: Best website builders for SEO

#6 – Website Performance

When it comes to technical factors, there’s no doubt that users prefer a smooth and quick website. Nobody likes to wait too long for pages to load, and this makes people more likely to click away from your site. Thus, site performance is something you should think about before choosing a web builder.

So how are Squarespace vs GoDaddy squaring up in terms of website speed?

In recent years, GoDaddy sites show both promising load speeds and server response time, even with a high number of visitors. They also maintain a very consistent uptime – a metric that ensures your site will always be up and available for users to visit. Having lightweight designs and less excessive features, it’s easy to see why GoDaddy is gradually improving their site efficiency.

Meanwhile, Squarespace users may experience slower loading time due to the heavy designs and added features. This has been one of the long running problems that many said to have encountered. Squarespace’s uptime is also slightly less effective.

#7 – Customer support

Finally, let’s take a look at the support quality of Squarespace vs GoDaddy. A responsive customer support and help center would be very useful to users who are new to creating websites.

With GoDaddy, you may receive 24/7 phone support as well as live chat in most regions. At the same time, GoDaddy has a How-To section with video tutorials on most common problems. Or you can definitely contact GoDaddy through their Twitter support account.

So easy to set up. 24/7 helpline is fantastic. All the staff I’ve dealt with have been very friendly and efficient. Great service.  – Customer review for GoDaddy, TrustPilot.

However, the biggest drawback is the lack of email support from GoDaddy. This can be pretty troublesome for people who are used to receiving support through email. The information in their Help Center is also quite outdated and not revised regularly.

Squarespace gives you 24/7 support over email and Twitter. But their live chat is only available from 4AM to 8P Eastern Time, and on weekdays (Mon to Fri). This is because Squarespace wants customers to experience talking to real and friendly human staff instead of AI. Unlike GoDaddy, phone support and video tutorials are not provided, but you can find relevant info in Squarespace Help Center.

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GoDaddy vs Squarespace: Side-by-side Comparison

For your easy comparison of the key differences between GoDaddy and Squarespace, we’ve summarized them into this comprehensive table below.

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FAQs: Squarespace vs GoDaddy 

●      Is Shopify a competitor to Squarespace and GoDaddy?

Shopify is currently one of the biggest eCommerce hosted platforms. Compared to Squarespace and GoDaddy, Shopify excels in eCommerce features such as reports, analytics, sales management, etc. With the ability to help you expand your business even globally, they are undoubtedly a large competitor in this aspect.

However, Shopify focuses solely on providing eCommerce service, and they lack the ability to customize website designs. If you’re not planning to set up a website for sales purposes, GoDaddy or Squarespace should be better options.

●      Are there any other web builders similar to Squarespace and GoDaddy?

If you need to diversify your options in web builder, there are a few platforms other than Squarespace and GoDaddy you can take a look at. Some examples of similarly popular website builders are Weebly and Wix. Read the detailed information about some alternatives to Squarespace (including Wix and Weebly) here: Top 7 Alternatives to Squarespace.

●      Do I have ownership over my Squarespace domain?

Yes. When you sign up for a subscription with Squarespace, they will automatically help you register the domain. You have ownership over the domain name.

●      Can I use Squarespace with a GoDaddy domain?

You can, actually. This is very helpful for people who already acquired a GoDaddy domain and want to continue their hosting service, but want to make use of Squarespace’s features. You can connect the two sites using this guide by Squarespace.

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Final Thoughts

GoDaddy is a cheaper and faster option to set up a website. This platform is especially helpful to people who don’t have a lot of time, and don’t mind giving up a bit of creativity for an exchange in speed. On the other hand, Squarespace is the go-to choice for artistic souls who want to create their one-of-a-kind online presence. Setting up and designing may take more time, but the final result will not disappoint.

 We hope that this article on Squarespace vs Godaddy will help you in deciding the right web builder for you. If you’re interested in knowing more about eCommerce, join us in one of the most active eCommerce communities here!

 You may also want to check out these relevant blog posts from us:

• How to migrate your store to Squarespace
• Squarespace Tutorial: How to set up your website using Squarespace
• Wix vs. Godaddy: Which platform should you choose?
• How To Transfer Domain From GoDaddy to Squarespace With Ease