Website platform breakdown: Showit vs Squarespace

I often talk with our clients about using Showit vs Squarespace, and this is really a tough breakdown when it comes down to it! If you’re a wedding business looking to create a website either yourself or with a designer, you’ve probably heard of Squarespace and Showit. Both are popular website design platforms, but they have some key differences. 

At Emily Foster Creative, we work with a lot of photographers, wedding pros, and creative service providers. This blog is going to be focused on that sector of the market. 

Which website platform is right for your small business? In this blog, I review Showit vs Squarespace so that you can make the best decision for your website.

For clarity, when we talk about Showit vs Squarespace, I’m looking at both platforms through a lens specifically for these types of businesses:

• Photographers
• Videographers
• Wedding planners
• Rental companies
• Florists
• Venues
• Calligraphers
• Officiants
• Coaches
• Therapists
• Nutritionists
• Authors
• Marketing agencies
• Copywriters
• Social media managers

If you’re a creative service provider and small business owner, you’ve likely heard of Showit and unless you’ve lived under a rock for the last 7 or so years, you’ve probably heard of Squarespace (queue Squarespace and Dolly Parton’s 5-9 ad from 2021). For those who haven’t heard of Showit, I like to think of it as what would happen if Wix and WordPress had a baby. When it comes down to it, Squarespace and Showit are both powerful and useful website platforms. I have worked with both for websites creative businesses!

If your business sounds like it belongs in a similar category or industry, you’ll find this breakdown of Showit vs Squarespace to be helpful! However, if you’re an e-commerce business, or need specific support with features not common to these companies, you’ll likely want to look to a different platform.

Showit vs Squarespace compared to other platforms

If you want to learn more about Wix, check out my Showit vs Wix blog post here. I’ll update the blog as we add more content for other popular platforms!

Website templates: who does it better?

Because of Showit’s design flexibility without needing custom code, most Showit templates are more intuitive than Squarespace templates. As a website designer, I’ve worked with both Showit and Squarespace templates, and found that basic sections like Instagram grids in Squarespace had to be customized with at lease some knowledge of code. I worked on a Squarespace template during one of our VIP Days for a client, and quickly found that it would have been very difficult for the client to update her Squarespace site herself.

If you’re just starting out in business and deciding between Showit vs Squarespace, it may be best to start with a Showit template. You can shop our library of Showit templates here.

Let’s start with my biggest pro and con of Showit vs Squarespace: Coding

I’ve worked extensively with both Showit and Squarespace for my clients, and have even had my website on both platforms (along with Wix at one point). Over time, the con that I continue to find for Squarespace when it comes to wedding pros is the use of coding. Now before Squarespace designers get upset, there are many, many ways to get around using coding in Squarespace. It is an easy-to-use platform for many people, and a lot of my clients prefer it to Showit. However, when it comes down to it, you can do more in Showit vs Squarespace without code. 

I took detailed notes throughout the last year while I was actively working on both Showit and Squarespace websites for my clients, and there were a few details I noticed. If they frustrated me – a designer with a beginner level knowledge of code – I know that they would likely frustrate some of my clients who have absolutely no familiarity with coding.

Disclaimer: if you’re a coding whiz and you don’t mind adding code to your website, absolutely feel free to do so! We also have a couple developers we work with, so we are able to provide nearly any type of customization on almost any website design platform. Your website platform ultimately doesn’t have to limit the type of website design you end up with. 

However, for about 95% of our clients and wedding professionals in general, it’s very important to have a website that’s easy to update on their own. This is why we like to avoid coding on clients’ websites whenever possible, and we don’t want to sacrifice style either. 

Here are 7 things you can do in Showit that would require some beginner-level knowledge of coding in Squarespace:

1. Putting text directly over a gallery.

A lot of photographers love to have a stunning hero section with a logo or tagline layered over the gallery. This creates a nice, elegant intro to a page. For this example of K.S. Gray Photography’s website, we designed his website in Showit. He was already on the platform anyway, but Showit’s design flexibility allowed us to layer words over images.

This isn’t always a preference for photographers, but when it is, it’s very nice to be able to do this without needing coding!

2. Anchoring a button to somewhere further down in the page.

Let’s say that you have an About page and at the top of the page, you want to have a button that links to a section further down the page for Frequently Asked Questions. It’s a great way to limit your page count overall, but still keep your website easy and quick to navigate.

We use this feature for our Showit clients a lot, and for my last Squarespace client, I had to use some basic code to do the same thing.

3. Adjusting the width of the top navigation to exactly what you want it to be.

We love creating custom navigation for our clients, and it’s extensively more limited in Squarespace when you don’t want to use coding.

If you’re looking for a really unique website top navigation or footer, Showit may be a better choice for you to allow for that flexibility. 

4. Creating a testimonial carousel with custom font sizes and colors.

Many of our clients have 10+ testimonials that they want to include from clients. It’s great to have a variety of design options for these, because making them stand out is everything!

5. Updating the color of a line.

I know this sounds super basic and like something you should be able to do in any platform. But as of January 2024, you can’t do this in Squarespace without a little code. That’s totally ok for some people, as you can upload a line as an image, use code, or find another design alternative. But, it’s something small to keep in mind if you want lots and lots of design flexibility with your website platform.

6. Updating the size of text on a mobile menu.

This is a big irk for me, as creating a customized mobile menu for clients is a great aesthetic add. You can update the text size on a mobile menu in Squarespace to a certain extent, but at some point, you’ll run into needing to use a little code.

7. Updating the specific size of just one H1, H2, or H3 headline.

For all of our clients, we add heading tags to your website so that you have just one H1 on each page, a few H2 headlines, and a few H3 headlines. This exact breakdown depends on your copywriting and SEO goals, but adding heading tags is an important detail for your on-page SEO.

In both Squarespace and Showit, you can apply heading tags fairly easily. However, in Showit you can tag any line as a heading tag, whereas in Squarespace your H1 is set to one style, your H2 is set to another style, and your H3 headlines are set to another, separate style. If you wish to change the style of one H1 heading, you’re going to have to change it on allll the H1 headings on your site, unless you want to use some coding. 

Here are 10 more pros and cons to consider when deciding between Showit vs Squarespace:

1. Ease of use (the winner is a toss-up):

Squarespace is known for its user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop design tools, making it easy for nearly anyone to create a website. Showit can have a steeper learning curve and requires some basic knowledge of web design.

At the end of the day, I think the ease of use for either platform depends on your personal preference. From conversations with other designers and clients, I find that this is really a toss-up. Some people feel like Squarespace is really clunky, while others feel like Showit is too overwhelming.

2. Design flexibility: Showit wins

Showit is known for its flexibility in website design, allowing users to customize every aspect of their website. Once you get the hang of the platform, it’s very easy to add in your branding and really customized details, which we love, since custom aesthetics are our speciality.

Squarespace offers some customization options, but it is more limited in terms of design freedom (at least without using code). Squarespace’s newer Fluid engine definitely allows for more design flexibility, and we love it too! However, it still hasn’t quite lived up to the same reputation as Showit’s design platform.

3. Mobile responsiveness: Showit wins

Both platforms offer mobile-responsive designs, but Showit’s designs are known for being more mobile-friendly and adaptable. The main reason for this is that you can fully customize the design of mobile on Showit, whereas it’s a little less customizable without code on Squarespace, even with their newer Fluid engine.

Another thing we really love about Showit’s design interface is that you can design mobile and desktop at the same time. This allows you to see everything at once and choose whether you want certain details to look the same or different. People used to complain that it was much slower to design on Showit because you have to design mobile and desktop individually, however Showit recently rolled out some updates that allow you to make the same update to mobile and desktop at once. It’s still not quite as perfect or quick as Squarespace, but it makes a big difference!

Both platforms are certainly more flexible than some (looking at you Beaver Builder in WordPress). And at the end of the day, you can still have a really nice desktop and mobile design on both platforms. But, Showit wins by a few points here.

4. Monthly or yearly subscription pricing (a toss-up):

Squarespace offers a range of pricing plans, starting at $16 per month if you pay annually (as of January 2024). You can view their current pricing here. Showit’s pricing starts at $19 per month if you pay annually, making it slightly more expensive.

(A minor complaint of mine is that it’s even slightly harder to find pricing on Squarespace’s website, as of January 2024). I couldn’t easily find it from their top navigation, so I had to Google “Squarespace pricing”. That’s certainly not a deal-breaker for most business owners, but a small gripe I felt the need to share.

5. E-commerce capabilities: Squarespace wins (kind of)

Squarespace has built-in e-commerce features, making it a good choice for wedding businesses looking to sell products or services online, who don’t want to integrate another platform.

Showit offers e-commerce capabilities but it requires integration with third-party platforms like Shopify, Thrivecart or WooCommerce.

We don’t typically recommend either Squarespace or Showit for businesses selling more than 10-30 products, or businesses whose primary income come from e-commerce sales. We prefer to use Shopify for those particular clients, as the capabilities are greater than Showit or Squarespace.

Ultimately, between these two platforms, Squarespace wins because it has more e-commerce capabilities. However, Showit has a number of integrations that make it possible to sell products on a Showit site. You can integrate the buy button from Shopify Lite or integrate with a shopping cart platform like Thrivecart.

We used Shopify Lite’s buy button to set up an internal rental system for one of our clients, The Heartland Lodge. This was a great way to allow her wedding couples to choose their free rental items but make it easy on the back-end for her to see which items she needed to pull from her inventory prior to the wedding.

At the end of the day, if your main goal with your website is to sell products, you should look into building your site on an e-commerce platform like Shopify.

6. SEO optimization for Showit vs Squarespace: it’s a toss-up

Both Squarespace and Showit are known for their SEO-friendly designs and built-in SEO tools, making it easier to optimize your website for search engines.

Showit offers some SEO features but may require more manual optimization. However, I find that you can customize many more SEO details without needing to code in custom design. See my earlier note about heading tags as an example.

One detail, as of January 2024, that might make a wedding business choose Squarespace over Showit, is that Showit recently stopped working with Semrush for their Basic Starter Blog plan. For larger companies who can afford to work with an SEO expert or have a monthly subscription to Semrush, this could be a deterrent, however you can always upgrade to their Advanced Blog plan to be able to use Semrush. This might be something you want to consider if using Semrush will matter to your business down the road. You can view more details about Semrush with Showit here. That said, there are other SEO platforms that you can still use with Showit, so you can certainly have a high-ranking website on either platform.

Even though I’m a big fan of Showit, I really can’t be biased with this one. Showit and Squarespace both allow for yourself or your website designer to easily customize your Page Titles, metadescriptions, alt text on images, and more. They also both have great blogging capabilities, however Showit has the WordPress blog, which allows you to install Yoast SEO, and that’s one perk that leads me to…

7. Blogging capabilities: Showit wins

Showit is unique in the fact that you get to design your website on showit.co and write your blog posts on WordPress. So, you get the easy design capabilities of Showit and the fantastic blogging capabilities of WordPress. When you work with us at Emily Foster Creative, we’ll set up your blog for you, transfer your old blog posts, and install Yoast SEO on your WordPress blog. Yoast SEO helps you to write blog posts that are optimized to rank higher on Google.

In fact, I’m using Yoast SEO to optimize this blog post as I write it!

Squarespace includes a built-in blogging platform, while Showit requires integration with WordPress for blogging, but it essentially works the same. The WordPress blog allows for a lot of blogging capabilities, which we love.

The ultimate details that make Showit win this category are WordPress’s Yoast SEO plug-in, and the design customization capabilities of the blog interface. Squarespace blogs can look a little boxy without custom code, and it can take a little more time and knowledge to optimize a blog post for SEO in Squarespace.

If you want to learn more about Showit’s WordPress blog, check out my blog post on it here. 

8. Support: Showit wins (kind of)

Both Showit and Squarespace offer customer support, but Squarespace currently has a larger support team and more comprehensive resources. While Showit’s team is more intimate, I’ve found them to be a lot more helpful. Even though the majority of Showit’s team works around PST/MST business hours, I find that they still respond more quickly to my requests than Squarespace.

When I chat with web designer friends, customer service experiences seem to vary. I personally have had better customer support with Wix, Shopify, and Showit vs Squarespace. However, I have web designer friends who are Squarespace Circle members, so they get access to a higher quality level of customer support that I don’t.

Keep in mind: this is coming from my perspective as a designer who is not part of Squarespace’s Circle membership. I have been invited to be a part of it and have yet to join. My designer friends who are Circle designers seem to get pretty quick access to customer service. I feel that it’s important to reference each platform’s customer support through the lens of a regular creative business owner, who likely isn’t a Squarespace Circle member or a Showit Design Partner. For that reason, in my experience, Showit wins in the support category.

Showit offers excellent customer support with access to dedicated support staff, live chat, and knowledge-based resources. Similarly to Squarespace, there are also plenty of resources on YouTube and Google for how to make updates to your Showit website. When you work with us at Emily Foster Creative, we’ll leave you with tutorials on how to update your Squarespace or Showit website, so that you’re never lost on how to make tiny tweaks.

9. Integrations: Squarespace wins

Squarespace has a wide range of integrations with third-party tools and platforms, making it easy to connect your website to other business tools such as email marketing or their newer course platform. Showit offers fewer integrations but does have some great options.

One example is the course platform specifically. If you want to add in a coaching program or online course to your website, you’ll need to integrate a platform like Thrivecart or Kajabi if you’re on Showit. This isn’t fully necessary on Squarespace, however we do find that most course creators want to use a platform like one of these anyway. Squarespace’s course abilities are gaining popularity, but don’t seem to be as effective or commonly used as Kajabi, Thrivecart, Teachable, Podia, or comparable platforms.

10. Community: Showit wins

Showit has a strong community of users and designers, making it a good choice for those looking for a supportive community to help them build their website. Squarespace also has this community, but I’ve found Showit’s community to be much more intimate, with a Facebook group for all Showit users, a Circle group for designers, and a conference in Phoenix, AZ where designers and copywriters can meet up and learn from each other in order to create better experiences for their clients.

I did some research and Squarespace does have Circle Day (the last one was held in August 2023), so resources for a community are comparable. All in all, however, I’ve found that my Showit designers seem to personally know more of Showit’s team members and their founder than Squarespace.

In summary, Squarespace and Showit both have their share of strengths and weaknesses. Squarespace is a good choice for those looking for a user-friendly platform with built-in e-commerce and SEO features. Showit offers more design flexibility and a strong community, but requires more knowledge of web design and may be slightly more expensive depending on what you need. Ultimately, the choice depends on your specific business needs and preferences, but for photographers and most creative business owners, we really love Showit more. 

What platform sounds better to you?

Ready to work on your Showit or Squarespace website?

Still confused about which website platform is best for your business? Book a free consultation call with us, and we’ll help you determine what the next best step is for your creative business.

For those who love to DIY their own website or are looking to invest less at the moment, we have Showit website templates available for purchase. If you’d like to have a designer build your website for you, we design on both Showit and Squarespace! Reach out for a custom quote, or check out our services here.