Squarespace vs Wix – Why we champion Squarespace
Why This Matters
Imagine this: You've just launched your business. Maybe you’re a one-person band, maybe you’ve convinced a mate from college to lend a hand. The to-do list is dizzying. High up sits "Build A Website," because these days if you aren’t online you’re invisible. You type “best website builder” into Google and immediately lose half a day tangled in opinions, horror stories, and platforms with more buttons than sense.
Most rookies tumble into three traps straight away:
- They expect Wix or WordPress will let them wing it with easy results.
- They believe the shiniest template will hide a total lack of design or coding experience.
- They underestimate the long-term faff. An unstructured website might look fine at midnight on launch day, but come the first update, you’re back to square one, wrestling alignment issues and googling, “Why does my homepage look like a toddler made it?”
Time is precious, money even more so. Each hour fiddling with settings or restoring a broken layout is an hour you’re not building your business.
The right web platform is critical. At Pixelhaze, we plant our flag firmly on the Squarespace hill. This choice isn’t about a lack of coding ability, and it’s not because Wix is “bad.” Squarespace actually solves problems for real people, in real time, with real deadlines.
Common Pitfalls
In the great drag-and-drop gold rush, it’s tempting to believe more freedom means better control. Many first-timers fall for what I call the Blank Canvas Mirage: Wix’s super-flexible layout seems like a ticket to creative paradise.
Here's what usually happens:
- Over-customisation: Wix lets you drop things anywhere. This sounds brilliant until your site has the design coherence of a ransom note. The lack of a grid system, while liberating at first, quickly becomes a trap for beginners. Symmetry dies, and with it, your credibility.
- Maintenance nightmares: You manage to bodge together something passable. A month on, you need to change a line of text, and nothing lines up. Suddenly, every content tweak feels like defusing a bomb.
- Template overwhelm: Wix offers hundreds of templates, yet most lack consistency or polish. You pick one and instantly feel the urge to endlessly tweak, because even the best options can look outdated by next Christmas.
- Needless complexity: Both Wix and WordPress will bravely let you rewrite your site’s code. In reality, unless you enjoy the sport of scheduled headaches and panicked phone calls to “that friend who did a bit of web in uni,” it isn’t worth it.
In short, people underestimate structure, overestimate their design instincts, and pay the price in wasted hours. Sometimes days are lost chasing a site that looks, at best, “fine on my computer.”
Step-by-Step Fix
Here’s how we set up our clients (and ourselves) for success with Squarespace, wringing the most value out of every minute and avoiding the design doldrums that drag other platforms down.
1. Commit to the Grid
Some see the word “grid” and feel shackles tightening. As designers, we see structure, order, and a guarantee that whoever edits the site after us won’t instantly vandalise it by accident.
Squarespace’s grid system is your secret weapon. Every bit of content you add—images, blocks, text—slots neatly into place. Nothing ever wanders off the baseline during an edit. As a bonus, you don’t need to squint, nudge, or hand-measure margins.
Real-world example: We once built a portfolio site for a photographer in a single afternoon. Using Squarespace, everything sat perfectly first time. No tweaking was required. She now updates her own galleries without calling us, and the structure still holds.
2. Start with a Quality Template (and Leave It Alone)
Squarespace offers around 70 templates. Some will groan that Wix has ten times this number. Ignore the noise. Quantity isn’t the goal—taste is what matters.
Every Squarespace template is a solid starting point, designed with modern best practices built in. Bold headings, sensible whitespace, mobile ready. That means the template works with your content, not against it.
Real-world example: We built a local food shop’s site using the Brine template. Logo, brand colours, crisp product photography—done in a day. The client took over updates. Two years on, still sharp.
3. Use Custom CSS Intelligently
Here’s where we push the envelope. While Squarespace’s grid keeps everyone out of trouble, it doesn’t stop us nerds adding a dash of custom code for advanced tweaks.
Squarespace’s CSS Editor is both accessible and clever. Edit code page by page, not site-wide. This setup allows you to add a bespoke animation to your About page without affecting your homepage.
This is a far cry from the headache of CSS in Wix. Over there, code is global. A stray full stop can derail your entire site.
Real-world example: For our own site, we needed some text movement to add energy to a course page. We added just a snippet of CSS. The rest of the site stayed untouched, neat as you like.
4. Nail Maintenance and Team Collaboration
You’ve launched. Now comes the real challenge: keeping the site up to date without wrecking it.
Squarespace was built so that non-designers can succeed. Whether you’re listing new products or scheduling blog posts, the backend is logical. Drag and drop, a few clicks, done.
Multiple team members can contribute to blogs or content. Roles and permissions mean nobody can delete the entire website by accident, even if they’re armed with a P45.
Real-world example: A charity came to us tired of WordPress plugin drama. Now, with Squarespace, anyone with five minutes and a photo can update the news page.
5. Keep E-commerce Simple
Selling online can be an anxiety rollercoaster for first-timers. Stock control, orders, payment gateways, and all the bits that make you want to lie down. Squarespace’s e-commerce tools are built in, not glued on, and focused on actual humans, not just accountants.
Add products, connect Stripe or PayPal, set delivery options, and you’re ready. The design quality holds up, whatever you sell.
Real-world example: We set up a local craft brewer with an online shop. Within a day, fizzy liquid happiness was flying out nationwide.
6. Let Clients Safely Edit Their Own Sites
The most effective Pixelhaze hack is that Squarepace makes it genuinely hard for a client to damage their own site. The grid, permission levels, and simple controls mean a quick handover is possible, even for technophobes.
Real-world example: A retired couple running a small art gallery wanted a website they could update after an hour’s tutorial. Now they manage everything: new exhibits, artist bios, and events, all with confidence.
What Most People Miss
Plenty of people still chase the myth that “more options” equals “better results.” You can always add complexity later, but recovering lost structure is almost impossible.
Squarespace doesn’t flood you with promises or gimmicks. The platform ensures websites look good, work well, and don’t become a second job. As a result, you can spend more energy where it matters: your business.
Designers enjoy control, while beginners work best with clear guardrails. Squarespace is a rare case—less rope leads to fewer missteps.
The Bigger Picture
Every business wants to look polished, stay up to date, and avoid wasting budget wrestling plugins or layouts. Squarespace lets you launch quickly, keep things tidy, and stop the never-ending spiral of fixing old mistakes.
With Wix and WordPress, you might get sleek on day one and chaos by day thirty. With Squarespace, your odds are better both short- and long-term.
Over the years, we’ve met dozens of stressed-out site owners who started with another platform, believing they could upgrade later. What they really needed was to start with a set of safe tools and a path to grow their site as their ambitions increase.
Websites should not be a constant hassle. Squarespace helps you avoid that fate.
Wrap-Up
Choosing a website builder isn’t a decision for day one only. You are making sure your site remains manageable, professional, and scalable over time, all without unwanted surprises or bills from that mate who “did your website four years ago and now charges £95 an hour.”
At Pixelhaze, we stick with Squarespace because it delivers strong structure, tasteful templates, and tools that non-techies actually use successfully. We can get you online in a day and leave you with something you feel good about updating.
Key Takeaways:
- Squarespace’s grid keeps your design standing, no matter who edits it next
- Templates are high quality and sometimes less is more
- Custom CSS is available and never gets in your way
- Maintenance and teamwork feel safe, not stressful
- E-commerce is beginner-proof and avoids complexity
If you only remember one thing, remember this: The less time you spend fighting your website, the more you can focus on what you actually care about.
Want helpful systems like this? Join Pixelhaze Academy for free at https://www.pixelhaze.academy/membership.
Jargon Buster
- CSS: Code language that changes how your site looks.
- Grid System: Hidden structure that snaps everything into place, for a clean design.
- Template: Ready-made website layout you can customise.
- E-commerce: Selling goods or services online.
- User-Friendly: You won’t need a twelve-year-old to show you what to click.
FAQs
Can Squarespace handle selling online?
Yes. The tools are built in. Set up shop, add products, and you’re away.
Is custom code possible?
Yes. Use Squarespace’s CSS editor for specific tweaks, page by page.
How many templates can I choose from?
About 70 top-quality templates, all fully customisable.
What if I want to move from Wix or WordPress?
Most people find the switch easier than expected. Content transfers easily, and structure actually improves.
Why not use Wix if it has more options?
All the options available cannot fix a site with no structure or plan. Quality before quantity, always.
Related Reading
- The Website Blueprint: The Pixelhaze Process
- Design Trends for 2021 & How to Do Them in Squarespace
- Creating Your Own Animated Video Banners
- Evolution of the Pixelhaze Brand