Squarespace Pricing Canada: A Comprehensive Guide To Plan Your Costs
Table of Contents
Squarespace Domain Name Prices
Squarespace Email Marketing Pricing
Squarespace Scheduling Pricing
Other Related Costs to Set Up A Website
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Are you a Canadian considering building a website on Squarespace?
If so, this article is the perfect place for you to plan your website budget. Having created multiple Squarespace websites for small businesses in Canada, I’ve got insider tips for you when it comes to Squarespace pricing.
To set up a new website, the only cost that is absolutely required is a Squarespace monthly plan. Squarespace has four pricing tiers:
Since Squarespace charges in USD, your exact payment in CAD will fluctuate based on the exchange rate at the time you pay.
Starting July 2021, Squarespace collects Canadian taxes (GST/HST) on all its products unless you have a tax exemption. Your tax location is determined by the billing address associated with your credit card information.
Does Squarespace have a free plan?
Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan, but they offer a 14-day free trial. You can also extend the trial for an extra week if you need more time experimenting with the tool.
TL;DR:
If you want a portfolio or resume site, the Personal plan is perfect.
If you need a business website or professional blog, the Business plan is best for you.
If you want to sell on the website, choose either the Basic Commerce plan or Advanced Commerce plan.
Personal vs Business Plan
With the Personal plan ($14/mo), you get access to all design templates, unlimited storage, SSL security, and basic site analytics. You can build a beautiful informational website that showcases your work and gets people to contact you.
The Personal plan won’t be adequate for most businesses because you can’t get users to take any action besides contacting you.
That’s where the Business plan ($23/mo) comes in. With the Business plan, you will have access to a full range of features a business website would need, such as:
Integration with tools for appointment booking, online ordering, email marketing, customer relationship management…
Display promotional pop-ups, announcement bars, and mobile information bars
Use coding to add front-end features and completely customize the site design
Track advanced site analytics
Sell products, gift cards, and accept donations (with a 3% transaction fee)
You also get some bonuses with the Business plan, including a free first year of professional email address to match your domain ($60 value) and a $100 Google Ads credit.
Ecommerce Pricing Plans
The cheapest Squarespace plan that allows you to sell online is the Business plan ($23/mo).
Squarespace Business plan’s low price makes it an attractive choice for businesses with low-volume sales or just beginning to set up their online store. For comparison, the cheapest plan to set up an online store in Shopify is $29/month (the Basic Shopify plan).
However, the Business plan has a 3% transaction fee. This means if you expect to make $1600 or more each year, it’s better to upgrade to a higher-tier plan to remove the transaction fees and access more ecommerce features.
The Basic Commerce plan ($27/mo) is good for small online shops. The benefits of this plan compared to the Business plan include:
No transaction fees
Better customer experience with features like customer accounts, checkout on your domain, browse related products, join product waitlists…
Better inventory management with features like spreadsheet bulk editing, integration with ShipStation…
Access to commerce analytics
The Advanced Commerce plan ($49/mo) is best for online stores with a high sales volume. It allows you to access advanced features to sell more, such as:
Automated email reminder for abandoned carts
Ability to sell subscriptions
Ability to apply discounts automatically
Custom integration through API for order fulfillment, inventory management, and more
It’s worth noting that while you may see the following features on the Squarespace pricing page, they aren’t available for Canadian users:
POS integration with Square (only works in the U.S)
Real-time shipping rates calculation (only works in the U.S)
Ready to give Squarespace a try?
All Squarespace sites on an annual billing plan get a free year of custom domain. Squarespace domains include free SSL certificates and WHOIS privacy, so you won’t need to worry about paying extra to have your site protected.
After the first year, your domain will renew at the standard annual rate (usually $20).
If your ideal domain name is not available in Squarespace, you can always purchase it from other vendors then either transfer or connect that domain to Squarespace.
There are more than a hundred free website templates in Squarespace built for various website types and industries.
You can preview Squarespace 7.1 templates and Squarespace 7.0 templates before purchasing a subscription. They are ready to use out-of-the-box and you can customize them further to make them unique to your site.
If you don’t like the free templates (cuz honestly, they all feel cookie-cutter after a while), you can get premium templates from third-party sellers.
Premium Squarespace templates are typically priced at $100 - $350. They come with instruction videos that you can follow to set up the exact styles for your website.
Did you know you can create campaigns and manage your subscribers directly inside Squarespace? Yep, with Squarespace Email Campaigns. It’s the perfect solution for Squarespace users who want to set up simple, beautiful email newsletters.
Squarespace Email Campaigns allow you to collect email addresses for free from day one of your website. You can also create email drafts and send the first three blast emails for free.
After the initial free trial, Squarespace Email Campaigns has four pricing plans, starting with $5/month and up to $48/month.
4 Squarespace Email Campaigns plans
If you sell services, you probably want to give customers the ability to book appointments online. Squarespace uses Acuity Scheduling as their built-in scheduling tool. It’s a breeze to set up and has robust scheduling features.
Squarespace scheduling tool has 3 pricing plans, starting from $14/month. If you have a large business that requires advanced features, you will need either the $23/month plan or the $45/month plan.
3 Squarespace Scheduling pricing plans
Two other costs you may want to consider are:
Legal documents (terms + policies)
Squarespace web designers
1) Terms + Policy
For legal purposes, your website will need a Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy. These will cost at least $1000 if you work with a lawyer (and no, you can’t just copy these from other people’s websites).
The best option is to get pre-written contracts drafted by lawyers and customize them for your own business, which will cost between $150 to $500.
For a long time I’ve recommended The Contract Shop (and I still do for US clients), but recently I found Contracts Market which focuses specifically on Canadian entrepreneurs. They have two packages for website terms:
If you have an ecommerce site, check out The Contract Shop’s legal bundle for e-commerce stores. This shop has a 14-day refund policy so you can feel confident buying, even if this is the first time you get a legal template.
2) Squarespace Web Designers Cost
You definitely can create the website by yourself without getting any professional help as Squarespace is very user-friendly. However, creating an effective website requires skills and lots of time.
If you’d rather let a professional handle the website for you, you can hire a Squarespace web designer. The average cost to design your site is $3200 for a basic website (more about Squarespace web designer cost here).
Shameless plug alert!
If you’re interested in getting a professional website, check out my website design services. As a bonus, you’ll get 20% off your first-year subscription with Squarespace when we work together!
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