Squarespace vs WordPress: Which Is Better for Australian Small Businesses?

The Short Answer

Neither Squarespace nor WordPress is universally better. They suit different situations, and the right choice depends on your technical comfort, your budget, and what you actually need your website to do.

Here is the honest breakdown.

What Squarespace Does Well

Squarespace is a hosted, all-in-one platform. Your website, hosting, domain, and CMS all live in one place, managed by Squarespace.

Genuine strengths:

• Beautiful templates out of the box. Squarespace templates are genuinely well-designed compared to WordPress's free options.
• Zero maintenance burden. No updates to run, no plugins to patch, no server to manage. Squarespace handles all of it.
• Predictable pricing. From roughly $240 to $700/year depending on the plan, with no surprise hosting bills.
• Fast setup. A competent non-technical person can have a professional-looking site live in a week.
• Built-in e-commerce for small product catalogues.

Where Squarespace falls short:

• You cannot extend it beyond what Squarespace allows. No custom plugins, no complex integrations, no flexibility beyond the platform's built-in features.
• Performance is mediocre. Squarespace sites typically score 50 to 70 on Google PageSpeed on mobile, which hurts SEO rankings.
• You do not own the platform. Squarespace can change pricing, remove features, or shut down, and you have limited recourse.
• Migration away from Squarespace is painful. Your content is tied to their system.

Best for: Small service businesses, portfolios, restaurants, and anyone who needs a good-looking website quickly without any technical involvement.

What WordPress Does Well

WordPress is an open-source CMS that powers around 43% of all websites on the internet. It runs on hosting you pay for separately and is infinitely extensible through plugins.

Genuine strengths:

• Flexibility. There is a plugin for almost anything. Booking systems, membership portals, e-commerce, forums, LMS, you name it.
• Control. You own the software, the hosting, the data. No platform lock-in.
• Huge talent pool. Any developer in the world can work on a WordPress site.
• WooCommerce for e-commerce. If you need a proper online store, WooCommerce on WordPress is the most mature and flexible open-source option available.
• Strong blogging and content management tools.

Where WordPress falls short:

• Security is a genuine concern. WordPress is the most targeted CMS in the world. Keeping it secure requires regular core updates, plugin updates, and monitoring.
• Plugin bloat is real. It is very easy to install 20 plugins that collectively slow your site to a crawl and create compatibility headaches.
• The real cost is higher than it appears. Premium theme ($100 to $300), essential plugins ($200 to $800/year), managed hosting ($30 to $100/month), maintenance ($100 to $300/month). Over 3 years, this adds up.
• Non-technical users often find the block editor confusing. The learning curve is steeper than Squarespace.

Best for: Businesses that need genuine flexibility, e-commerce with complex product management, or websites that will need significant content updates from a non-technical team.

The Cost Comparison Over 3 Years

Cost item	Squarespace	WordPress
Platform / hosting	$720 to $2,100	$360 to $3,600
Premium themes / plugins	$0	$600 to $2,400
Maintenance	$0	$1,200 to $5,400
Developer help	Low	Medium to high
Total (3 years)	~$1,500 to $3,000	~$3,000 to $12,000

WordPress can be cheaper if you are highly technical. For most small businesses who hire someone to manage it, the 3-year total cost is significantly higher than Squarespace.

WordPress can be cheaper if you are highly technical. For most small businesses who hire someone to manage it, the 3-year cost is significantly higher than Squarespace.

What Neither of Them Does Particularly Well

Performance. Both platforms add overhead that custom-coded websites do not have. A SvelteKit or Astro site built from scratch will almost always outperform both on PageSpeed scores, which matters for SEO and conversion rates.

If performance and long-term cost of ownership are your primary concerns, a custom-coded website is worth the higher upfront investment. It costs more to build, but far less to run.

Our Recommendation

Choose Squarespace if:

• You want something up quickly with minimal ongoing effort
• Your site is primarily a brochure or portfolio
• You are not technical and do not want to be
• Budget is under $5,000 all-in

Choose WordPress if:

• You need WooCommerce or a large product catalogue
• You need specific plugins that have no Squarespace equivalent
• You have a developer relationship and someone to handle maintenance
• You need complex content management across a team

Consider a custom build if:

• Performance and SEO are business-critical
• You want something that stands out visually from templates
• You are thinking 5 years ahead, not 1 year ahead
• You are building something that will need custom functionality

---

Not sure which direction makes sense for your business? Book a free call and we will give you a straight recommendation.