Squarespace vs Godaddy Website Builder – Which Is Better For Your Needs?

Squarespace and GoDaddy are well-known web service companies, Squarespace is a fully-fledged platform to build beautiful websites, and Godaddy is one of the famous domain providers and also a hosting & website building platform. We here at Websitebuilderly built multiple sites on each platform to know about the features and functions of the platforms, we tested both platforms and compared their important features in this blog.

#Quick Summary

Below are a quick summary of Squarespace and Godaddy Site Builder platforms.

#7 Main Differences

1. Pricing

Godaddy plans are cheaper than Squarespace, their hosting price ranges from $9.99 – $29.99 Whereas Squarespace Price ranges from $16-$49. Godaddy domain cost just $1 for the first year, and Squarespace provides a free domain for annual plans.
Winner: Godaddy

2. Domain and Hosting

Both of the platforms provide domain, hosting, and security. Godaddy is famous for domains & not for a website builder or hosting. We tested the server response time. Squarespace websites load faster than GoDaddy & Godaddy’s websites are often going down.
Winner: For domain: Godaddy, For Hosting: Squarespace

3. Editor

Godaddy and Squarespace are good editors, but GoDaddy doesn’t have a drag and drop feature whereas in Squarespace you can move the content, and rearrange them by the drag and drop feature.
Winner: Squarespace

4. E-commerce Features

Squarespace has better e-commerce features from basic to advanced & all plans have unlimited resources for storage, bandwidth, products & everything, whereas GoDaddy has a lot of limitations & their renewal fees are double.
Winner: Squarespace

5. Small Business

Godaddy and Squarespace offer various plans for small businesses like appointments, bookings, events, and a small store functionality you can access these features in GoDaddy’s ($9.99) plan whereas Squarespace offers them from a business plan($23). But Godaddy has a lot of limitations also Godaddy’s monthly plan is double. Squarespace has no limitations for all plans and also has dedicated applications for small businesses.
Winner: Squarespace

6. Portfolio & Photography

Both GoDaddy and Squarespace provide good portfolio themes, but Squarespace has better portfolio templates and customizing features than GoDaddy. Squarespace has client galleries for photographers. Prebuilt & custom portfolios for artists.
Winner: Squarespace

7. Support

Godaddy offers 24*7 phone, and live chat but no email support. Whereas Squarespace offers 24*7 Email support, and Live chat support on weekdays
Winner: Tie

FAQ: Squarespace vs Godaddy

Features	Winner	Squarespace	GoDaddy
1. Ease Of Use	Godaddy	4.2	4.5
2. Domain and Hosting	Squarespace	4.5	4
3. Pricing and Plans	Godaddy	4.3	4.6
4. Themes and Editor	Squarespace	4.5	2.0
5. Small Business	Squarespace	4.6	4.2
6. Portfolio & Photography	Squarespace	4.7	3.5
7. Ecommerce Features	Squarespace	4.6	4.4
8. Blog & News	Squarespace	4.7	4.1
9. SEO	Tie	4.5	4.5
10. Marketing Features	Godaddy	4.7	4.4
11. Apps & Integrations	Squarespace	4.5	2.8
12. Analytics & Report	Squarespace	4.7	3.6
13. Support and Resources	Squarespace	4.5	4.6

1. Ease Of Use

#Squarespace

Squarespace is easy to set up but while you are getting started you might need to go through some themes and templates to learn how they can be customized, as all themes are different in what they offer. After that, you will find lots of ways of customizing and designing the store. You need to go through different dashboards to access the theme Editor, eCommerce, and scheduling features.

#Godaddy

Although GoDaddy website builder might not provide much of options in the editor, if you try it out to build a simple and good-looking site it will be easy to build. GoDaddy has over 100+ built-in themes for all kinds of websites, just pick a theme and play with the layouts and colors and you will create a really good website. It has a single dashboard where you can access the settings, theme editor, and website add-on features like blog, store, SEO, etc.

Key take-aways: Both Squarespace and GoDaddy are easy to use, but GoDaddy has fewer features. it is easy to navigate and its learning curve is minimal as compared to Squarespace.

The winner of the Ease Of Use Feature: Godaddy

2. Domain and Hosting

We analyzed the Top 10 Websites of both platforms to check their server response and, we found that most of the Squarespace website’s avg server response time is 190-230 ms, Whereas the Godaddy website’s avg speed response time is 290-340ms. which means websites hosted on Squarespace load faster in comparison to GoDaddy

Key take-aways: Both Squarespace and GoDaddy have good domain and hosting features, but Squarespace has better hosting server response time and uptime. it also offers unlimited storage and bandwidth which is capped in GoDaddy. the domain and email hosting are offered free in the annual website plans of Squarespace but not in the case of GoDaddy.

The winner of Domain and Hosting Feature: For domain: Godaddy, For Hosting: Squarespace

3. Pricing & Plans

#Squarespace

Squarespace has four plans

• Personal:$23/m($16)
• Business:$33/m($23)
• Basic Commerce:$36/m($27)
• Advanced Commerce:$65/m($49)

(Prices in the Bracket are applicable when you buy a year plan)

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace also provides free custom domains and custom email domains free for one year.

#Godaddy

Godaddy offers four website builder plans, You can keep a website free forever or upgrade to any of the four plans to access more features. No credit card is required for the free plan, but there are limitations to the free plan.

Godaddy website builder has four plans

• Basic:$9.99/m($11.99)
• Standard:$14.99/m($21.99)
• Premium:$16.99/m($24.99)
• Ecommerce:$29.99/m($44.99)

(Prices in the bracket are renewable prices)

Godaddy Pricing

Key Take-aways: Even though Godaddy renewal & monthly fees are double, no free domain & lots of marketing gimmicks, overall Godaddy plans are cheaper in comparison to Squarespace if you carefully buy their plans without subscribing to their additional pre-checked services such as security, privacy, monitoring, etc. Also, they provide a forever-free plan with a subdomain that is not offered in Squarespace.

The winner of the Pricing & Plans Feature: Godaddy

4. Themes and Editor

#Squarespace

Squarespace is a website builder that has provided award-winning themes. they too have over 100+ free templates that are sorted by type (blog, portfolio,eCommerce, etc) and by topic(arts, design, business, event, etc). Once you choose the themes you can manually drag and drop prebuilt sections and edit sections for different styles as per the design requirements. Themes can be customized easily by the edit option, it has offered plenty of options to customize the themes and sections of themes. you can deploy custom CSS to produce the changes you demand, all themes look good on mobile and tablets.

Squarespace Themes

like Godaddy Squarespace too has various prebuilt sections and these sections can be customized for different styles, colors, fonts, etc. you can do sitewide styling for Squarespace as shown in the below video, to add a custom design or elements you need to perform manual customization through custom CSS, HTML, etc.

#Godaddy

Godaddy website builder templates have 150+ free templates, and they have organized themes such as an ( online store, home services, health & beauty, arts & design, etc). With GoDaddy’s free website builder, you can create blogs, shops, Portfolios, and more. Simply choose a theme and customize & edit it for different styles, colors, and fonts in the theme section. All of the themes are mobile responsive and you can cross-check the edits on the mobile by previewing them in the mobile view.

Godaddy Themes

In GoDaddy, we can get prebuilt sections, upon clicking on the add section options it will populate various prebuilt sections. These sections can be customized further for different layouts, colors, styles, etc.

Users can also manually customize the sections by injecting custom CSS, HTML, JS more.

Key takeaways: Both Godaddy and Squarespace are having over 100+ free themes but Squarespace offers lots of prebuilt templates and extensive customization features.

The winner of Themes and Editor Feature: Squarespace

5. Small Business

#Squarespace

Squarespace has themes for small businesses like restaurants, bookings, events, and more. it’s best for selling products as well as services to offer subscriptions and donations. Squarespace provides a booking system and syncing calendar in a basic version .for advanced booking and scheduling features which are paid and start from $14/month. Squarespace integrates with Square POS but it’s only available in the USA.

Example1: Squarespace appointment website

Example2: Squarespace appointment website

Example3: Squarespace appointment website

To increase the leads & conversation rate, you can make an awesome website on Squarespace, also the editor is flexible and drag & drop, which is not possible with Godaddy

Both platforms don’t charge anything extra for sales.

You can insert Squarespace products inside the blogs also.

#Godaddy

Godaddy has provided themes for small businesses like restaurants, home services, health & fitness services, etc thems, in addition to that they have features for appointment feature online booking, appointments, online events, Scheduling, etc. GoDaddy offers a digital marketing suite through which you can grow and brand your website among customers. Godaddy even offers a POS system with special credit card rates for offline stores.

Key take-aways: Squarespace has bookkeeping, branded tracking, wholesale drop shipping, and lots of shipping & fulfillment inbuilt apps. You can sell on social media, multichannel unlimited on Squarespace while Godaddy has only 50 orders/month limitation & also a limitation for the total number of the product listing. Squarespace has a dedicated appointment booking & scheduling application that is much better than Godaddy. You can sell services, subscriptions, products & memberships together on Squarespace. But Squarespace plans are $6 -$15 costlier than Godaddy.

The winner of Small Business Feature: Squarespace

6. Portfolio & Photography

#Squarespace

Squarespace has separate a section for Artists, Photographers, and Wedding websites. Users can showcase your work or portfolio beautifully as well as systematically. It has good portfolio themes, gallery templates, Photo storage, and extensive design features. It is also good for building photography websites as it has Client management, proofing, and photo sharing services features.

Squarespace gallery templates

#Godaddy

Godaddy too has a collection of beautiful portfolio themes, it has photo gallery widgets to add multiple images to the site and also enables links to galleries. They have provided different layouts for each of the galleries like horizontal, vertical, slideshow, etc. you can change its design, crop images, change frames, etc. Godaddy has more than 5+ photography themes and basic photography features.

Godaddy gallery customization

Key take-aways: Squarespace provides a beautiful inbuilt gallery also the freedom to customize, also client management features for photographers. but Godaddy has limitations in customization and has fewer photography features.

The winner of Portfolio & Photography Feature: Squarespace

7. Ecommerce Features

Squarespace Fashion eCommerce website example

Key Take-aways: Godaddy has Ecommerce features at a cheaper price, but their monthly plan & renewal plans are double. Squarespace Ecommerce system developed with taste. You can create, update, and sell in a systematic manner. Godaddy has a lot of limitations for all plans, But Squarespace has no limitations for all plans & has many inbuilt eCommerce Integrations such as shipping-fulfillment, print on demand, order management, financial, etc.

The winner of Ecommerce Features: Squarespace

8. Blogging & News

#Squarespace

Squarespace has beautiful themes and templates for blogs, it’s filled with too many options as you click the plus icons you can insert over 40+ widgets as shown below images. In Squarespace, you can categorize, schedule blogs, allow commenting, and social sharing, enable RSS feed, email signups, assign multiple authors, etc.

Squarespace blog editor

#Godaddy

Godaddy has a blogging option as an add-on that lets you create and manage blogs. it has limitations upon clicking the plus icon users can only insert images, videos, and spacer to the blog. videos need to be embedded from youtube or Vimeo etc .once the blog is published you can receive email signups and provide a social sharing option to customers. you can categorize. blogs and also can schedule the blog publishing

Godaddy blog editor

Key Takeaways: Squarespace provides blogging customizable templates and more widgets features than Godaddy hence Squarespace is the winner.

The winner of Blogging & News Features: Squarespace

9. SEO

Key Takeaways: Both Squarespace and Godaddy provide good Seo features hence it’s a Tie

The winner of SEO Features: Tie, (Godaddy -1, Squarespace – 1)

10. Marketing Features

1. Social Media

1. Squarespace
2. Squarespace with Unfold free mobile app to create social media automation
3. Inbuilt Customizable templates for story/posts
4. Schedule/publish posts for social media
5. Share social media stories on the web
6. Create customizable bio links for social media

1. Godaddy Website Builder
2. Free Social media marketing Features
3. Inbuilt social media templates
4. Publish or Schedule posts for social media
5. Post on social(Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
6. Boost social posts within the GoDaddy dashboard
7. Create and launch ads within the GoDaddy dashboard
8. Shoppable posts from the Godaddy dashboard

2. Email marketing

Squarespace

1. Ready-made Email Templates
2. Customizable email templates
3. Email subscriber sign form
4. Custom email audience segmentation
5. Three free campaigns up to 50000 emails/month, to access more campaigns upgrade to a basic plan that starts at $7/month
6. Integrate with third-party email software like MailChimp
7. Mobile responsive design and editor

Godaddy Website Builder

1. Email Marketing Features and Templates
2. Email marketing templates can be customized and styled as per the brand
3. Email subscriber sign-up form
4. Email list segmentation
5. Free Email Marketing sends/mo
   • 100 emails/mo – (Basic plan)
   • 25,000 emails/mo – (Premium & Commerce plan)
   • 100,000emails/mo -(Commerce Plus)

Key Takeaways: Both Squarespace and Godaddy have marketing features but Godaddy has better social media features and email marketing features.

The winner of Marketing Features: Godaddy

11. Apps & Integration

Squarespace has excellent inbuilt features and also have 30+ third-party extension to facilitate marketing, shipping, accounting, etc. Whereas Godaddy has no extensions.

Squarespace extension

Key Takeaways: Squarespace is a clear winner as it has more integration than Godaddy.

The winner of Apps & Integration Features: Squarespace

12. Analytics & Report

#Squarespace

Squarespace has really good analytics and reports for commerce, blogs, site content, etc. In the commerce section, you can track sales, purchase funnels, abandoned carts, traffic sources, etc. it also lets you track engagements for form, email, and RSS feed subscribers, and more. By connecting the search console with Squarespace you can track searched keywords on google.

Squarespace analytics

#Godaddy

Godaddy has a basic dashboard that provides data on traffic, sales, orders, social engagements, etc, It’s very basic reports if you want to check more insights and details you need to connect google analytics to your site.

Godaddy analytics dashboard

Key Takeaways: Squarespace is a clear winner as it provides better insights of analytics and reports of the site, and provides data around plenty of site campaigns whereas Godaddy has basic reporting.

The winner of Analytics & Report Features: Squarespace

13. Support and Resources

#Squarespace

Squarespace has a good support team, they offer live chat and email support, but no phone support. Their help centers provide video tutorials on using and managing Squarespace, you can join their webinars and active forum to get advice and get help from fellow Squarespace users.

Squarespace support

Both of the platforms are similarly good at providing support both of them provide live chat, but GoDaddy provides phone support but not email support whereas Squarespace provides email but not phone support.

#Godaddy

Godaddy website builder support focuses on providing fast technical support to their customers. They offer 24/7 live chat and phone support, no email support is provided. They provided a knowledge base on setting up and managing the platform, you can also join their active community to discuss your queries with fellow users.

Godaddy Support

The winner of Support and Resources Features: Squarespace

Top Stories

Pros and Cons: Squarespace vs Godaddy

Conclusion: Squarespace vs Godaddy

Use Squarespace over Godaddy,

• If you want a platform that has more features then Squarespace is better than GoDaddy
• If you want to create an awesome website
• If you want a drag & drop editor with design freedom
• Modern & highly professional templates
• Fast-loading website & without downtime
• Great eCommerce & Booking features
• Extension & Integration to expand your website capabilities.

Use Godaddy over Squarespace,

• If you want a platform to set up a website easily and fast for cheaper pricing then GoDaddy is a comparably better option than Squarespace

Declan Kingston

Declan Kingston mainly works around strong Data to create powerful visuals, complex graphs to make the right decision for companies. He has been working in this field for over 8 years, has a strong knowledge of eCommerce platforms and website builders. He has worked with Ethereum and Looker Data Sciences, Inc. (now part of Google Cloud).