Building a website doesn’t have to be a pain in the neck. Neither does selling online.
Today we’ll review two incredibly easy-to-use website builders focused on selling products to prove so: Strikingly and Squarespace.
We’ll also compare their features and pricing to determine which one is better.
Strikingly vs Squarespace
Strikingly
Strikingly was created in 2012 by David Haisha Chen and Teng Bao. Since then, over 6 million people have used Strikingly to launch more than 12 million websites.
Strikingly specializes in single-page websites with multiple sections. These types of designs are now very popular because you get a great overview without having to navigate several pages.
Squarespace
Squarespace is an American company that was launched in 2004, meaning 18 years ago! Time has made it one of the most popular website builders there, with famous people like Winona Ryder using it to promote their businesses and sell their goods.
One of the things that make Squarespace stand out is its love of innovation. Currently, they show you all their new features and upcoming ones on Squarespace Refresh 2022.
Interface
Both Squarespace and Strikingly have drag-and-drop builders.
Squarespace is that sort of builder that is super user-friendly even from their landing page. You’ll see that from the start. For example, if you remain too long on their templates site, a pop-up will ask you how things are going and collect your feedback.
Squarespace has templates for online stores, portfolios, one-page sites, blogs and more.
Strikingly’s interface is very simple, they give you a very complete tour of the dashboard, so the start is quite smooth. If you want to see it in more detail, check out our review and tutorial on Strikingly.
Strikingly also has a list of quite a long of templates, from stores and businesses to creatives and blogs.
Squarespace is also developer-friendly. If you wish so, you can build your site from scratch. They have CDN and Git built-in.
SEO
Squarespace has SEO page titles and descriptions set by default. Your site also has automatic markup, SSL security, mobile optimization as well as clean and static URLs. Even site translations are optimized for search!
Squarespace also has a dedicated SEO panel so you have more control over the details that matter most. With the preview tool, you can see exactly how your sites will appear on search engines to users.
Strikingly, on the other hand, also has mobile optimization (see picture above) and it currently supports rich snippets. However, it’s not as complete as Squarespace.
Selling
Squarespace lets you sell in person thanks to its point of sale (POS) system. Using the Squarespace app with a supported Square Reader, sales you make in-person update your inventory. Sadly, Strikingly doesn’t have a similar feature.
What they do have, however, is flexible order management: you can fulfill orders on your desktop and on your iOS device. They also offer simple shipping and coupons to easily extend your customer base.
Like Squarespace, they also have local pickup, so local customers can save money.
Squarespace also has straightforward tax tools that make compliance easy.
Both tools contemplate the selling of services, besides physical and digital goods. That’s why you’ll find online bookings and calendars to schedule appointments.
There’s even the option to sell subscriptions. And Squarespace lets you easily embed maps to help customers find your business.
Email marketing
Strikingly has a newsletter feature that lets you send emails to your subscribers. They have a newsletter template you can customize and you can also set automation triggers so each time a subscriber performs a certain action, they receive an email.
Squarespace has multiple email layout designs to choose from and customize. Like Strikingly, they include automation options to save you some time. However, if you wish to access all of Squarespace’s features for email, you’ll have to sign up for a plan.
Email campaign pricing plans start at $7 per month. To get unlimited campaigns per month, you’ll have to pay $68 per month.
Payments
Strikingly lets you accept payments in any currency via Stripe, PayPal, Square or offline payments. Squarespace, on the other hand, also accepts Apple Pay and Afterpay.
Squarespace Commerce also includes automatic sales tax calculation from Tax Jar so you can easily charge customers taxes.
Integrations
Squarespace integrates with plenty of popular apps: Zapier, Instagram, Unsplash, Google Maps and more. You can easily embed videos from YouTube or music from Spotify. It also offers plenty of third-party extensions.
Strikingly has an App Store with a variety of free website widgets and plugins.
Languages
Squarespace currently supports 6 languages for both account and site languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Strikingly, on the contrary, it is available in 15 different languages including Italian, Norwegian, Romanian, and Czech.
Both builders, however, allow you to create multilingual sites.
Mobile app
Both platforms have apps available for Android and iOS. With them, you can build your site, manage inventory, fulfill orders and pretty much do anything.
Squarespace also has a Video Studio app for iOS users, where you can create pro-level videos easily. The app is free with a website subscription or trial.
Squarespace has other mobile apps such as Unfold, which is free for everyone and allows you to edit photos, videos and reels for social media.
Support and resources
All Squarespace plans come with award-winning 24/7 customer support via email and live chat. They have a Help Center, a blog, webinars and update videos to YouTube regularly.
They also have a special place for professionals called Squarespace Circle. This is a partner program anyone that has built or collaborated on three websites can join. You’ll receive weekly release notes and educational content to keep your web design skills and knowledge up-to-date and be able to participate in product betas.
Strikingly, on the other hand, has a knowledge base apart from a customer support chat available 24/7. You can start a chat from your dashboard and while you edit your website.
It also has a YouTube channel with several videos. However, it’s not updated and the last videos are from 2016.
Other features
Squarespace has a free logo maker you can use online and download once you create an account.
As to analytics, both platforms come with built-in analytics but they are quite different. Whereas Strikingly doesn’t have real-time data and shows you basic information like where your visitors are browsing from and which device they are using, Squarespace is more advanced.
Their analytics include what search keywords are leading visitors to your website and how many of your carts are being abandoned, among other very specific data.
Pricing
Squarespace lets you start building your website for free, no credit card required, for a trial period. After that, you’ll need to choose a plan:
- Personal: $23 per month. Includes SEO features for site visibility and curated templates.
- Business: $33 per month. You can have unlimited contributors to your website and completely customize templates with CSS and JavaScript.
- Commerce: $36 per month. Direct customers to a secure checkout with your domain and sell in person.
- Commerce: $65 per month. Includes advanced shipping, abandoned cart recovery, and commerce APIs.
Squarespace also has enterprise solutions and a 50% discount for students.
Strikingly has three paid tiers:
- Limited: $8 per month if billed annually. Comes with 50 GB of monthly bandwidth and lets you sell up to 5 products.
- Pro: $11.20 per month. Embed custom code, add up to 100 pages to a single site, create a members-only section, and more!
- VIP: $34. 30 per month. Create multilingual versions of your site, add live chat and have a dedicated account manager. This plan also lets you sell unlimited products.
Plus, they have several billing options: monthly, annually, every two years, for three years, or five.
Squarespace and Strikingly give you one custom domain for free in your first year.
Strikingly Pros and Cons
Pros
- Supports multiple languages.
- Email automation.
- Affordable pricing.
Cons
- Not many SEO features.
Squarespace Pros and Cons
Pros
- Use a drag-and-drop editor or build from scratch.
- Point of Sale system.
- Tons of learning resources.
Cons
- No free plan
Verdict
Although both website builders are incredible options to create your site, there’s one that’s significantly awesome. I’m talking about Squarespace.
Everything that has Strikingly, Squarespace has it and better. They also have an unbelievable amount of additional free tools such as a logo creator and social media tools. And all the time you’re using Squarespace, you’re doing it smoothly and effortlessly thanks to their user-friendly approach.
Of course, all these benefits come with a price, and Squarespace isn’t the cheapest option. So, it’s up to you to determine what is better for you.
Have you used any of these tools?
If so, tell us in the comments about your experience!
Do you agree with our verdict?
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