GoDaddy vs. Squarespace: Which Platform Should You Use to Build Your Website?

If you want to set up a new website quickly, you may be considering a website builder. GoDaddy and Squarespace are two of the most popular options. However, you might not know which one will best suit your website’s needs.

Fortunately, there are some key differences between these website builders that make them ideal for different users, budgets, and purposes. For instance, GoDaddy offers the cheaper option, but Squarespace offers more powerful features for an online store.

In this post, we’ll introduce you to GoDaddy vs Squarespace. Then we’ll see how these website builders compare in key areas. Let’s get started!

An Introduction To the GoDaddy Website Builder and Squarespace

GoDaddy is primarily a web hosting provider and domain registrar. However, GoDaddy offers a website builder on certain hosting plans:

This enables you to get your web hosting and site builder in the same place. Plus, it offers you some choice when it comes to your hosting plan.

On the other hand, Squarespace is first and foremost a website builder:

While Squarespace has established itself as a domain registrar recently, you can only access its hosting as part of a monthly subscription. Typically, Squarespace customers choose the platform for its flexible site builder, which offers lots of features and website templates.

GoDaddy vs Squarespace: Ease of Use and Website Builders

To get started with GoDaddy, you’ll enter some details about your website’s needs. Then you’ll be redirected to the GoDaddy editor, where you can move, delete, or add new items:

You can also swap out layouts for your website, edit theme colors, and manage services like online appointments. Plus, you can view your content in different themes before settling on a website template:

However, while there are enough options for basic websites, Squarespace does a better job of providing a variety of modern designs. Additionally, this editor isn’t as responsive as the Squarespace website builder, and you can’t add individual content blocks like you can with other website builders. Instead, you have to insert pre-made section blocks.

With Squarespace, you get a library of over 150 modern templates:

These aesthetically pleasing templates are organized by website type and industry, so you can find designs for your online store, personal website, blog, and more.

The Squarespace editor is very beginner-friendly, and enables you to add, rearrange, and customize elements as needed:

You’ll also get built-in tools such as calendars, video conferencing, invoices, and social selling. Ultimately, Squarespace wins when it comes to both ease of use and number of options.

GoDaddy vs Squarespace: Website Hosting

Squarespace offers hosting for websites built with its platform. It provides fully managed cloud hosting, a flexible option that makes it easy to scale your website over time.

Managed hosting is a great choice for beginners, since your web host will take care of many maintenance tasks for you. You’ll also get a free SSL certificate, a domain, and 24/7 support.

As a web host that’s platform-agnostic, GoDaddy offers plenty of options. You’ll find shared hosting, WordPress-specific plans, VPS hosting, and more. However, note that the website builder only comes bundled with certain hosting plans.

GoDaddy also provides the other basics you’d expect from a reputable web host, such as a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Depending on your plan, you can also get free SSL certificates, free domains, regular backups, and malware scans.

GoDaddy vs Squarespace: Online Store Features

If you want to create an online store, it’s important to consider the ecommerce features available with each platform. Squarespace offers built-in online store functionality with many of its templates:

Customers can browse your merchandise, add items to their carts, leave product reviews, and check out efficiently. You can also configure advanced shipping options, schedule appointments, sell subscriptions, and manage your online inventory, plus access SEO and marketing features.

While Squarespace’s cheaper plans come with ecommerce functionality integrated, you’ll be charged a 3% transaction fee. You can avoid these fees by upgrading to the Commerce plan.

With GoDaddy you can add up to 5,000 products, and it supports many popular payment gateways:

Like Squarespace, GoDaddy allows customers to schedule appointments in online stores, and provides other basic ecommerce features. It stands out when it comes to marketing features, though, providing social media promotion options, email marketing tools, and more on higher-tier plans.

GoDaddy vs Squarespace: Pricing

Squarespace enables you to trial its website builder on a free plan for 14 days. Then there are four premium plans available (all come with a free custom domain). The Personal Squarespace plan is the cheapest option, but to access ecommerce features, you’ll need the Business plan (starting at $23 per month):

To avoid the additional fee for transactions, you’ll need to upgrade to the Commerce Basic or Commerce Advanced Squarespace plans, which start at $27 and $49 per month respectively.

GoDaddy’s website builder plans start at $9.99 per month with an annual contract (there’s no free plan):

GoDaddy’s basic plan includes core features like a free SSL certificate, analytics, social posts, and a professional email account. You can unlock more features with a Commerce plan, starting at $20.99 per month. Just note that your costs will rise significantly after the first year.

An Alternative to GoDaddy vs Squarespace

Although both GoDaddy vs Squarespace can be useful options for small businesses, you might be looking for an alternative solution. These platforms are fairly limited and restrictive. They’re great for building small personal and static sites, but aren’t the best fit for more complex websites or online stores.

If you need more than either of these platforms can offer, you may want to check out WordPress:

This Content Management System (CMS) started life as a blogging platform, but is now a full-featured solution for creating any type of website you can imagine. It’s a framework you can add to and customize to your heart’s content.

Plus, WordPress is simple and affordable to get started with. The software itself is free, so all you need is a domain name and a hosting plan. Both can be found for low prices at a quality provider like SirsteveHQ.

At SirsteveHQ, we offer many different types of hosting plans. This means you can choose exactly what you want, rather than being forced into a limited set of options like you are with both GoDaddy and Squarespace.

If you’re building a WordPress website, we offer plans designed for that platform. You’ll get all the basic features (unlimited storage, free email, free SSL, etc.), plus WordPress installation, managed WordPress backups and updates, and more.

A managed WordPress hosting plan means that key technical tasks are taken care of for you. That way, you can get your website online quickly, and focus on building and running your site.

Building Your Website With WordPress and SirsteveHQ

There are many ways to build a WordPress website. Your approach will depend on your goals, budget, and technical abilities.

If you opt for WordPress hosting with SirsteveHQ, you’ll have your website ready to go in minutes. However, you may be curious about the website building process. After all, platforms like GoDaddy and Squarespace are appealing for their beginner-friendly page building tools, and you may be looking for something comparable.

Fortunately, these days WordPress comes with a user-friendly page building tool built right in. It’s called the Block Editor, and this drag and drop editor enables you to create pages and posts by inserting pre-built elements called blocks:

You can use these blocks to add text and media, along with more advanced features like buttons and image galleries. Plus, each block comes with its own set of customization options. It’s a very simple and intuitive website building process, and you don’t need any technical knowledge to create unique pages.

If you want a tool that’s a little more complex, there are also plenty of WordPress plugins called page builders. These plugins add advanced site building capabilities to your website.

Plenty of popular page builders, such as Beaver Builder and Elementor, rival or surpass GoDaddy and Squarespace in terms of features, ease of use, and customizability. Some of them are even free to use!

With the combination of WordPress, SirsteveHQ, and a page builder plugin, you have a complete website building kit. You’ll get far more control over your website’s design and functionality than you would with a platform like GoDaddy and Squarespace, and you won’t have to pay high fees for the privilege.

Conclusion

The best website builders provide a quick and easy way to create simple sites. Platforms like GoDaddy and Squarespace can be perfect for beginners looking to build personal websites or blogs. They can even suffice for some small businesses and online stores.

However, these website builders can also be restrictive, and they force you to get your web hosting and website-building platform from the same place. If you want total control over your website and a beginner-friendly site building process, WordPress paired with a quality host like SirsteveHQ (and potentially a page builder plugin) can be a more effective solution.

Do you have any questions about how to start building your new website with WordPress and SirsteveHQ? Let us know in the comments below!