Choose Shopify when inventory, sales channels, and day-to-day commerce operations drive your business; choose Squarespace when website presentation and content lead the buying experience. Neither is the better choice for every store. For US merchants, product category and payment provider also change the cost: Squarespace charges separately for digital content, while Shopify Basic adds a platform fee when you use a third-party payment provider.
The subscription alone can be misleading. Under a matched physical-goods example—100 US domestic standard-card orders a month at $50 each—Shopify Basic and Squarespace Core each produce a modeled $204 monthly subscription-and-processing subtotal with annual billing. Digital-content sales produce a different result.
Shopify Basic vs. Squarespace Core: US costs
| Cost as of October 12, 2026 | Shopify Basic | Squarespace Core |
| Monthly equivalent with annual billing | $29 | $29 |
| Price with monthly billing | $39 per month | $39 per month |
| Standard online card processing | From 2.9% + $0.30 through Shopify Payments | 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic standard cards through Squarespace Payments |
| Platform transaction fee for physical online-store sales | 0% with Shopify Payments; 2% with a third-party payment provider | 0% |
Match the platform to the work your store does
The most useful starting point is your operating model: what customers buy, how you present it, and what happens after an order arrives.
Physical products and multiple sales channels: favor Shopify’s operating tools
Shopify’s US plan page lists 10 inventory locations on Basic, multichannel selling tools, and in-person selling. Those are concrete reasons to favor Shopify if stock moves between locations or sales happen through several channels.
For a merchant selling online and in person, the important question is how those activities fit into the same inventory and order workflow. Start with the locations and channels you actually use, then match their requirements to the plan. Optional POS Pro is listed at $89 a month on Shopify’s US pricing page, so a retail setup can carry costs beyond the website subscription.
A small catalog does not automatically make Squarespace the better choice. A seller with few products may still have demanding fulfillment or channel requirements. Conversely, a physical-product business centered on its website may place more value on presentation than on a broader commerce toolkit.
Content-led stores and portfolios: consider Squarespace first
Squarespace is worth considering when the website’s visual presentation is central to the sale—for example, an artist’s portfolio with a shop attached. Its official plan tutorial says all current plans include drag-and-drop editing, unlimited products, invoicing, and the ability to sell courses and memberships.
Website Builder Expert’s published comparison found more direct drag-and-drop customization controls in the Squarespace editor it evaluated than in Shopify’s editor. That observation belongs to that publisher’s interface evaluation; the practical choice is whether the editing workflow suits the pages you need to maintain.
For an artist, this creates two reasonable paths. A portfolio-first seller may prefer Squarespace’s presentation-focused workflow. An artist managing frequent stock changes, in-person sales, or several channels may find Shopify’s operational features more relevant. These are fit-based recommendations, rather than an artist-specific performance ranking.
Digital content: evaluate the fee category before the design
Courses and memberships have a different cost structure from ordinary online-store sales on Squarespace. Access to those selling features across plans gives creators flexibility, but the percentage charged on digital-content revenue varies substantially by tier.
For Shopify, include the digital-delivery app or service you select in the budget. A subscription-and-card-processing calculation covers only those charges; delivery, access management, and any associated app subscription belong in the complete workflow cost.
Appointments: budget for scheduling separately
Squarespace identifies Acuity Scheduling as a separate subscription, billed separately from the website plan, in its plan-selection guidance. Email Campaigns and domains also have separate billing, and each Squarespace site requires its own website plan.
Website Builder Expert’s comparison describes Shopify booking through scheduling apps. For a service business, therefore, evaluate the booking tool alongside the storefront: appointment setup is part of the purchase decision, not merely a website-design preference.
US plan prices and the fees behind them
The following US prices and rates are dated October 12, 2026. Annual-billing prices are monthly equivalents of an annually billed subscription; monthly billing uses a different price.
Shopify Basic costs $29 a month with annual billing or $39 with monthly billing. Its standard online card rate through Shopify Payments starts at 2.9% + $0.30. Basic’s separate 2% third-party transaction fee applies when you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments.
Squarespace’s US pricing page separates online-store transaction fees from digital-content and membership fees:
| Squarespace US plan | Monthly equivalent, billed annually | Price with monthly billing | Online-store transaction fee | Digital-content and membership fee |
| Basic | $19 | $25 | 2% | 7% |
| Core | $29 | $39 | 0% | 5% |
| Plus | $49 | $65 | 0% | 1% |
| Advanced | $99 | $139 | 0% | 0% |
Card processing is additional to the percentage-based platform fees in this table. Squarespace Payments is available in the United States; its listed standard domestic card rate is 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic and Core, and 2.5% + $0.30 on Advanced.
The charges have different triggers
A useful store budget separates the charges into distinct layers:
- Subscription: the recurring website or commerce-plan charge.
- Payment processing: the charge for handling the payment, commonly a percentage plus a fixed amount per order.
- Platform transaction fee: an additional charge triggered by the plan, payment route, or category of sale.
- Separate products and apps: scheduling, digital delivery, email services, or other tools added to the workflow.
For Shopify Basic, choosing a third-party provider triggers the listed 2% platform fee in addition to that provider’s processing charges. For Squarespace Core, online-store sales carry a 0% platform transaction fee, while digital content and memberships carry a separate 5% fee.
The fixed processing amount also matters. Two stores with the same gross sales can pay different processing totals if one takes many small orders and the other takes fewer large orders. An estimate needs both sales volume and order count.
Hosting is included in both platforms’ plans; Shopify also lists SSL as included. Keep optional tools separate when estimating the ongoing cost of running the store.
Physical goods: the same sales can produce the same subtotal
For an apples-to-apples US physical-product example, use Shopify Basic with Shopify Payments and Squarespace Core with Squarespace Payments. Both subscriptions are $29 a month on an annual-billing basis, and the calculation uses 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic standard-card payments. Shopify lists that rate as a starting rate.
The assumptions are:
- 100 orders per month.
- $50 average order value.
- $5,000 gross monthly card sales.
- No refunds.
- Annual billing for the platform subscription.
The monthly processing calculation is:
($5,000 × 2.9%) + (100 × $0.30) = $145 + $30 = $175.
Adding the $29 monthly-equivalent subscription produces $204 a month for either specified plan. Shopify Payments avoids Basic’s third-party-provider platform fee, while Squarespace Core has a 0% online-store transaction fee.
This is a modeled subtotal, rather than an observed merchant invoice. It excludes taxes, optional apps and extensions, domain renewals, chargebacks, and payment methods other than the stated domestic standard-card route.
The consequence is practical: for this store, the listed subscription and processing costs do not favor either platform. Inventory handling, editing workflow, sales channels, and separately billed tools become the deciding factors.
When Squarespace Core offsets Basic’s lower subscription
For physical online-store sales, Squarespace Basic saves $10 a month in subscription cost compared with Core under annual billing, but adds a 2% online-store transaction fee. Both list the same standard domestic card rate.
At $500 in monthly online-store sales, Basic’s 2% fee equals the $10 subscription difference. Above that sales level, Core’s subscription plus online-store transaction fee is lower under these assumptions. This calculation applies to annual billing and the online-store fee category; digital content follows its own fee schedule.
Digital content: a higher Squarespace plan can cost less overall
Squarespace Core’s 0% online-store fee sits alongside a 5% digital-content and membership fee. As digital revenue rises, that percentage can outweigh a lower subscription price.
Using the same 100 monthly US domestic standard-card orders at $50 each, compare Core and Advanced:
| Modeled monthly digital-content cost | Squarespace Core | Squarespace Advanced |
| Subscription, annual-billing monthly equivalent | $29 | $99 |
| Card processing | $175 | $155 |
| Digital-content and membership fee | $250 at 5% | $0 at 0% |
| Modeled subtotal | $454 | $254 |
Core’s digital fee is $5,000 × 5% = $250. Add $175 in processing and the $29 subscription to reach $454.
Advanced’s listed 2.5% + $0.30 card rate produces ($5,000 × 2.5%) + (100 × $0.30) = $155 in processing. Its $99 subscription and 0% digital-content fee bring the modeled subtotal to $254—$200 less than Core in this scenario.
These calculations assume no refunds and exclude taxes, optional apps, other payment methods, and product-delivery expenses. They show why the cheaper subscription can produce the higher overall charge for a digital-content business.
Plus deserves consideration between those tiers because its digital-content fee is 1%. Compare the subscription, processing rate, and digital fee together for your expected sales, rather than selecting a tier on the percentage alone.
For Shopify Basic, the corresponding subscription-and-card-processing subtotal remains $204 under the stated payment assumptions, before any digital-delivery app or service charge. Use the price and requirements of your chosen delivery setup when building a complete digital-sales budget.
Current Squarespace plans replaced new legacy digital-plan subscriptions
Squarespace says new subscriptions to its standalone legacy Digital Products plan ended on July 23, 2026. For new subscribers on the current website plans, the Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced tiers set the digital-content fee schedule shown in the pricing table.
International selling: check the buyer’s payment experience
Shopify lists Shopify Markets, local currencies, local payment methods, storefront translation, and regional customization among its US plan features. Those capabilities make it worth evaluating for a US merchant whose operating requirements extend across markets.
Build that evaluation around the buyer’s country, currency, and required payment method. The domestic standard-card examples here model one US payment route; an international sales budget needs the rates and conditions attached to its own transactions.
Make the final choice with a working store checklist
Before committing to annual billing, turn the comparison into a short operating exercise. Use the same products, pages, and sales assumptions for both candidates.
- Classify the revenue. Separate physical online-store sales, digital content or memberships, and appointments. Apply the relevant fee category to each.
- Map the stock and channels. List inventory locations, online channels, and in-person selling requirements. For Shopify, compare them with the plan’s listed tools and any optional POS subscription.
- Build a representative page. Use a real product, portfolio project, or content offer to assess the editing work your team will repeat.
- Price the complete workflow. Add the subscription, payment processing, applicable platform fees, and the scheduling or delivery tools your business needs.
- Calculate with orders as well as revenue. Multiply gross card sales by the percentage rate, then add the fixed processing charge for every order.
Choose Shopify if your main challenge is coordinating commerce operations. Choose Squarespace if a presentation-led website is central to the offer and its plan-specific selling costs fit your revenue model. For a digital-content business, the decisive budget line may be the percentage charged on sales rather than the monthly subscription.
