Until recently, GoDaddy was known only for web hosting and buying domain names. Now, the company has delved into the website building space, making it one of Squarespace’s direct competitors.
Squarespace has always been known as a visual website-building tool, but the platform continues to improve its services and now offers a comprehensive suite of robust eCommerce, SEO, and website promotion tools.
I’ve spent over 12 hours reviewing and writing each platform’s features to give you a better idea of their respective capabilities and limitations. I looked at things like ease of use, design functionality, eCommerce capabilities, blogging features, customer support, pricing, and more.
So, if you want to know which site builder is better, read the rest of this Squarespace vs. GoDaddy review so you can make an informed choice.
1. Ease of Use
Squarespace:
Squarespace has an intuitive interface, as well as a range of beautiful templates to choose from. They come pre-configured with beautiful layouts and elements such as stylized text, videos, buttons, forms, galleries, background images, and more.
All Squarespace templates are mobile responsive which means that they adapt to the window size of the browser on which they are being viewed. This makes them ideal for desktops, mobile, and tablets.
There’s also an AI-powered bot that walks you through setup. It provides a catered experience according to your answers to a few short questions. In a couple of minutes, the AI creates an entirely unique website for you.
You can then use the simple visual editor to replace the pre-configured copy with your own and customize other elements like colors and styles to match your brand.
Summary of Squarespace’s Ease of Use Features:
- All-in-one website-building platform with AI tools
- Free, unlimited website hosting
- Built-in website management tools, no plugins necessary
- In-depth tutorials for getting started
- Intuitive drag-and-drop design system
GoDaddy:
GoDaddy doesn’t offer as many features as Squarespace, but it compensates for the limited control by simplifying the process of website building for new users.
The platform has an AI-assisted setup process which is simple and fast. The intelligent tool guides you every step of the way from start to finish.
The site builder has a beginner-friendly editor that allows you to drag and drop different elements onto a page. You can then customize the colors, fonts, and styles to create the right look and feel for your new website.
Being the simpler site builder, GoDaddy is a lot easier to use and takes significantly less time to get set up compared to Squarespace.
All in all, GoDaddy is a basic yet effective website builder that makes it easy for you to build a website and add a blog and online shop. But, it’s important to note that the simplicity and ease come at a cost. The no-code site builder means you won’t have as much control over your website’s customization.
Summary of GoDaddy’s Ease of Use Features:
- Free, mobile-friendly website for your business
- Built-in marketing and sales features
- Dozens of industry-specific templates to choose from
- Easy online store and blog integration
- Automatic updates for continued safety and security
Winner: GoDaddy
In terms of ease of use, GoDaddy is the clear winner. Its interface is designed for beginners and the entire website-building process is quick and intuitive. This is the ideal site builder for anyone who wants to quickly build a basic yet professional-looking website without having to spend too much time learning the ropes.
2. Design and Customization
Squarespace:
Squarespace has a few dozen templates to give you a head start on building your new website. The templates are modern, stylish, and mobile responsive. They are also well designed and fully customizable which means you’ll have an easy time finding a beautiful template that you can customize to match your needs.
If you have advanced technical knowledge, the Squarespace website builder allows you to add custom CSS and JavaScript to your website, further enhancing your ability to create truly custom designs.
The editor has significantly more customization options compared to GoDaddy but this also means that there’s a steeper learning curve, as well.
With that said, the platform is still pretty easy to use and offers users the opportunity to create full-featured, and fully responsive websites, blogs, or eCommerce stores without ever having to deal with code.
Summary of Squarespace’s Design and Customization Features:
- Modern, clean website designs
- AI assistance for exceptional design
- Fully responsive, 100% customizable templates
- Simple, beginner-friendly drag-and-drop editor
- Free library of stock images and videos
GoDaddy:
GoDaddy has been around for more than two decades, but the GoDaddy website builder was only launched in 2017. This means that the platform is relatively new and thus not as sophisticated as the one on Squarespace.
The site builder has a solid selection of templates designed for specific industries, and it’s ideally suited to users who don’t mind giving up some design flexibility for more simplicity.
You’ll be able to pick a template and make a few tweaks to get the colors, fonts, images, and styles right, but you won’t be able to do much more than that.
The images included with each website are free to use, but you can change them out for your own with a single click, just like the placeholder text.
Each website template comes with built-in tools for SEO, email, and social media marketing, which means you won’t have to integrate additional apps to help you grow and engage your audience.
Summary of GoDaddy’s Design and Customization Features:
- Choose from industry-specific templates
- Mobile-friendly templates look great on all devices
- Free professional images available for use
- Built-in SEO, email, and social media tools
- Switch between templates without losing your content
Winner: Squarespace
Squarespace is a true drag-and-drop site builder with content blocks and hundreds of customizable templates, as well as access to CSS and JavaScript.
With all of these and other design and customization tools on the platform, you’ll be able to create stunning websites that look and function exactly the way you want.
3. eCommerce Capabilities
Squarespace:
Squarespace has robust eCommerce features to help you create a professional online store. You can choose from a wide range of modern store templates – all of which are fully customizable for a truly custom design.
There are templates to sell physical products, digital products, services, subscriptions, and more. You get built-in payment tools, email forms, and product galleries, as well as a range of other eCommerce features that are designed to help you connect with customers and sell more products.
Squarespace also has an advanced system for managing inventory, tax, and shipping. With all these eCommerce tools on offer, it’s easy to see why Squarespace is considered by so many to be one of the best eCommerce website builders out there.
Summary of Squarespace’s eCommerce Features:
- High-quality digital storefront templates
- Access CSS via a dedicated CSS editor
- Industry-leading web store infrastructure and security
- Faster speed for an enhanced online shopping experience
- Scalable eCommerce store platform
GoDaddy:
In terms of eCommerce, GoDaddy is better suited for small-budget startups rather than larger eCommerce sites. The site builder focuses on easy and flexible store setup so you can sell online like a pro even if you are just getting started in eCommerce.
You get access to basic eCommerce features that allow you to set up easy payments via credit card, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal. You also get flexible shipping options, including free and paid shipping, curbside pickup, and more.
You can add discounts and coupons to entice more sales. The site builder even allows you to create banners to highlight products and sales on your website.
These tools are more than enough to get started with your online store, and you can unlock additional resources on the higher-tier plans.
Summary of GoDaddy’s eCommerce Capabilities:
- Free online store setup
- Mobile-optimized store templates
- Built-in SSL protection to keep your website secure
- Integrated store SEO, social media, and email marketing tools
- Appointment scheduling calendar
Winner: Squarespace
Although both platforms have a lot to offer, Squarespace wins the eCommerce contest because it allows you to build a full online store complete with tools like SSL certificates, payment processing, subscriptions, social selling, and Commerce API.
4. Blogging Tools
Squarespace:
Squarespace has endless design options which make it a good choice for a blog builder. You can choose from a range of flexible blog designs and custom color palettes to create a stylish blog that appeals to your readers.
You get robust blogging features, as well as blog SEO tools (more on that below) to ensure that your content is seen by your target audience online.
Integrated social sharing tools to make it easy for you to share your blog content with a single click. There’s also a member area feature that you can use to generate revenue from your premium content. Use it to monetize your blog with podcasts, video series, paid newsletters, and any other content on your blog.
Summary of Squarespace’s Blogging Tools:
- User-friendly blogging and content management system
- Ideal for small to medium-sized blogs
- Built-in SEO features for online visibility
- Easy social media sharing tools
- Members’ area for monetizing content
GoDaddy:
Like Squarespace, GoDaddy has built-in blogging functionality. You can quickly post new content on your blog to build authority, engage visitors, and promote your products or services.
Once you’ve created a blog post, you can publish it right away or schedule it for some time in the future. You can also set it so snippets of the post are automatically sent to your blog audience so that they will never miss an update.
GoDaddy has affordable web hosting plans, which makes it a popular choice for a lot of bloggers. Each plan comes with tons of storage which means you won’t have to worry about additional hosting fees if your blog contains a lot of photos and video content.
There’s also a video embed feature that you can use to easily add videos to your blog pages. All you have to do is paste a video URL rather than embed video code in your post. This makes things a lot easier for novices and non-technical users.
Summary of GoDaddy’s Blogging Tools:
- Wide range of personal and business blog templates
- Intuitive blog creation and optimization process
- Huge library of free stock images and videos
- Automatically send blog post snippets to your audience
- Use “Categories” to create multiple blogs on your website
Winner: Squarespace
The blogging interface on Squarespace is a lot more sophisticated compared to GoDaddy. You might consider using GoDaddy if all you require is a personal blog or website, but if you want to build a content-rich business website, then Squarespace is the better option.
5. Search Engine Optimization Tools
Squarespace:
Squarespace comes with basic SEO tools to help you optimize your website easily. You can customize the URL structure, meta-titles, image alt text, and various other basic SEO settings.
The SEO tab on your dashboard gives you access to these and other built-in tools for improving your website’s search engine rankings. For the most part, these settings are enough to get your site indexed but if you want advanced settings to further optimize your SEO, you’ll need to use off-page resources.
Every Squarespace website comes with a built-in SSL certificate. This is a digital document that allows encrypted connections to safeguard your visitors’ information.
Squarespace also takes care of all your maintenance needs, including backups and updates to keep your site secure. These auto-updates are great for SEO and ensure that you won’t have to worry about losing your website if something goes wrong or you get hacked.
Summary of Squarespace’s Search Engine Optimization Tools:
- Powerful built-in SEO features for pages and items
- Social image-sharing control
- Settings to hide pages from search engines
- Built-in mobile optimization
- Google search console integration for valuable visitor data
GoDaddy:
GoDaddy has a range of built-in and pre-configured SEO features to help you improve your website’s search visibility. You can use these tools on your website, pages, and images to ensure that each piece of content you publish is optimized fully.
There’s an intuitive tool that walks you through the entire process of improving your on-site SEO, including adding relevant keywords to each page, updating images to include alt tags and more. The smart SEO tool guides you in adding all relevant information about your website to help you rank higher on Google and other search engines.
You also get a ranking dashboard that shows you at a glance how your site is doing overall.
A stellar feature of GoDaddy is that it provides suggestions to help you get the most from the SEO tools. For example, if your business has a local presence, the built-in SEO tool prompts you to list your business on Google and Yelp. You can complete the off-site SEO optimization from right within your dashboard.
Summary of GoDaddy’s SEO Features:
- Built-in website optimizer
- Intuitive SEO wizard for easy setup and settings configuration
- Simplified page, image, and blog post optimization process
- Done-for-you SEO optimization services
- Easy-to-read ranking and reporting dashboard
Winner: GoDaddy
GoDaddy’s SEO capabilities are simple to implement and super easy to use which is why the platform edges out Squarespace. Whatever you need to do to get found by your target customer, GoDaddy will help you do it. This means you don’t have to try and come up with the process yourself. Just follow the prompts from the SEO tool and you’ll get it all done one time.
6. Community and Support
Squarespace:
Squarespace invests heavily in providing high-quality support to all its users. Its support is tons better than that of most other site builders out there.
As a Squarespace user, you get 24/7 support through dedicated email support and live chat support. Whenever you need assistance during setup or if you need help managing your website, you can contact support and you’ll receive immediate help.
The website also has a detailed knowledge base on the website packed full of how-to guides and video tutorials to help you build and maintain your website.
You can sign up for free live webinar sessions and join the platform’s community forum to connect with like-minded users who are on the same journey as you. Ask questions and get specific advice from successful creators who have already been where you want to go.
GoDaddy:
GoDaddy focuses on making the website-building process as simple and free from web wizardry as possible. But, if you still need help, the support team is always on hand to assist.
You can get in touch with them in a number of ways, including the following:
- Phone
- Text
- 24/7 Live Chat
- Help Center
- How-to Videos
- GoDaddy Blog
Whether you just want someone to help you reset your password or if you want a team to help you build your entire web presence, you’ll get the help you need, when you need it.
There’s also a massive community of users where you can ask questions, get advice, and connect with other GoDaddy users to share your experience.
Winner: GoDaddy
Both site builders offer reliable 24/7 customer support to help you build and maintain your website. But, GoDaddy has more support channels and offers users the same level of support regardless of the cost of their plan.
7. Pricing
Squarespace:
Squarespace has four growth-focused plans to choose from. Squarespace plans are as follows:
- Free Trial: $0/Month: You can sign up for a free trial to test out the platform’s core features. No credit card is required, and you’ll be able to publish a website on a subdomain. However, this free trial is limited in the number of features you have access to, which is why it’s a good idea to upgrade to one of the premium plans if you want to build a professional website.
- Personal Plan: $16/Month: If you opt for the annual website plan, you get a free custom domain for the year. This plan also comes with SSL security, unlimited bandwidth, and built-in SEO features for website visibility.
- Business Plan: $23/Month: The “Business” plan includes everything in the “Personal” plan + unlimited contributors, professional email from Google, premium integrations, and promotional pop-ups and banners. You also get access to Squarespace Video Studio App to help you create and share engaging videos.
- Basic eCommerce: $27/Month: This plan includes everything in the “Business” plan + 0% transaction fees, although it’s important to note that your payment processor may still apply its own transaction fees. This plan also includes product reviews, customer accounts, products on Instagram, and point-of-sale which allows you to sell in person using the Commerce app.
- Advanced Commerce: $49/Month: The Advanced Commerce plan has everything in the “Basic eCommerce” plan + abandoned cart recovery features, and the ability to sell subscriptions. You also get advanced discounts, advanced shipping, and commerce APIs.
GoDaddy:
GoDaddy has pocket-friendly options that come with no strings attached. Unlike Squarespace, which only offers a free trial, GoDaddy has a free plan that you can use for as long as you want.
- Free Plan: $0/Month: This plan allows you to build a free, mobile-friendly website with built-in marketing features and 24/7 support. Keep your free website forever or upgrade to one of the premium plans to unlock more features.
- Basic Plan: $11.99/Month: This plan has all the core features of the platform, including a website builder, custom domain connection, and website security (SSL). It also comes with a website and marketing analytics dashboard, built-in website chat, and a unified inbox that lets you view all your customer messages in one convenient place.
- Premium Plan: $21.99/Month: This plan has all the features in the Basic plan + eCommerce features to list your products, take online appointments, accept payments, offer discounts, and more.
- Commerce Plan: $24.99/Month: In addition to Premium features, you also get the ability to list up to 5,000 products in your online store. The Commerce plan also comes with marketplace and social selling features, gift cards, discounted shipping, and real-time shipping rates for both domestic and international shipping services.
- Commerce Plus: $44.99/Month: This plan has all the features in the Commerce plan + automated tools to expand your selling and save time. You can list unlimited products in your store and sell up to 1,000 orders/month on social marketplaces. You also get automatic sales tax calculations and auto-populated tax forms.
Winner: GoDaddy
If looking at price only, GoDaddy is the winner. It’s cheaper than Squarespace and has a free forever plan. However, in terms of value-added features, Squarespace has the edge. Your choice will ultimately depend on the type of website you want to build and the features you need to do so.
Final Thoughts
As GoDaddy vs Squarespace review has shown, both website builders have amazing options. Whether it’s ease of use, eCommerce tools, or pricing, both platforms have their own unique offerings, making each one ideal for a different segment of users. The truth is, the best website builder for you may not be the same for someone else.
Choose Squarespace if: You want a website builder that gives you creative, clean-looking results with very little effort. Squarespace has powerful features to run your business or personal website, blog, or online store. All the tools are built-in, making it that much easier to manage everything from one place. A single monthly subscription will pay for everything you need to get your website online, including the website builder, SEO tools, eCommerce templates, marketing tools, and automatic website maintenance.
Alternatively, check out my Squarespace vs. Strikingly, Squarespace vs. SquareUp, Squarespace vs. HostGator, Squarespace vs. Format, Squarespace vs. SmugMug, and Squarespace vs. Big Cartel comparisons to see how it compares to other website builders.
Choose GoDaddy if: You want a fast, easy, and cheap option to get your website online. GoDaddy’s Basic plan is rookie-friendly and provides a lot of bang for your buck. If you’re building a small, simple site, then this no-code website builder is a good choice. You can get started for free and you won’t have to pay for any features you don’t need. You can always upgrade later to unlock more functionality as your site grows.
Or, check out my GoDaddy vs. Weebly comparison to learn more.