Squarespace versus Webflow

Squarespace is well known for templates that look considered and well-designed even with minimal customisation, because the platform constrains the choices available in ways that tend to produce a tasteful result. Webflow removes most of those constraints and gives a designer near-complete control over layout, spacing and interaction, which produces better results in a skilled designer’s hands and worse results in the hands of someone without design training attempting the same freedom.

Disclosure, before the opinions start

This site carries no affiliate links, no sponsored placements and no referral arrangement with either platform named on this page — the full position is at commercial relationships. Nobody bought a position in this comparison. There is no neutral scoring process behind it, and what follows is one practitioner’s opinion, exposed so you can reject it.

No measurable Google search volume was recorded for this pairing in the 3 August 2026 pull behind research/comparison-candidates.json.

What the actual difference between Squarespace and Webflow is

Squarespace’s templates are opinionated by design — font pairings, spacing and layout options are curated rather than fully open, and that curation is precisely why a non-designer using Squarespace tends to produce a more polished result than the same person given a blank canvas. Webflow removes the curation in favour of granular control, on the premise that the person using it already has the design judgement Squarespace’s templates are substituting for. Both are marketed as no-code website builders, and both are, in the sense that neither requires writing code to publish — but Webflow’s version of “no-code” exposes near-designer-level customisation controls, while Squarespace’s exposes a curated, deliberately narrower set. Templates versus control is the whole comparison; everything else follows from it.

Who Squarespace and Webflow are each genuinely for

Squarespace suits a business owner without design training who wants a good-looking result quickly, is comfortable working within a template’s structure rather than against it, and values simplicity in ongoing maintenance over the ability to customise every detail.

Webflow suits a business working with a professional designer who wants to execute a specific visual concept precisely, where a template’s constraints would work against the brand rather than for it, and where the client is comfortable handing ongoing content updates to Webflow’s CMS-editing view rather than the design itself.

Cost shape for Squarespace and Webflow plans

Both charge a recurring subscription plan, with ecommerce available at a higher tier on either. Check current pricing directly, since it changes.

Squarespace’s cost is comparatively predictable and contained: the subscription plus occasional paid extensions, with less of an active third-party app marketplace than Wix’s, so costs tend to stay closer to the base subscription over time.

Webflow’s cost is more front-loaded into design labour, because its value depends on someone skilled actually using its controls — an unskilled attempt at a Webflow build can produce a worse result than a good Squarespace template, at a higher cost, which is the platform’s core risk for a business without access to genuine design talent. Webflow’s more advanced plans also open up native integrations and third-party connections through a tool such as Zapier for routing form submissions into a CRM or email list — a genuine capability Squarespace offers a narrower version of through its own, more limited set of connected apps.

Ownership and exit

This is the section nobody else writes.

Squarespace does not offer a full-site export that rebuilds your design elsewhere. Blog content and some structured data can be exported, but layout, custom styling and anything built through Squarespace-specific features generally cannot be recreated on another platform without a rebuild.

Webflow exports the site’s actual HTML and CSS, a materially more portable position than Squarespace’s, though the generated code is Webflow’s own output and needs review by a new developer before being treated as a clean starting point rather than assumed to be hand-written quality. CMS content exports separately from the design.

Both require a password-reset communication to any customer accounts on migration, since neither exports stored passwords. Register your own .com.au domain through an auDA-accredited Australian registrar, in your own account, regardless of which platform you choose — under the eligibility rules on Australian domain eligibility — so a future platform change is a DNS update rather than a negotiation.

Australian specifics

Both handle GST-inclusive pricing once correctly configured, and neither lets you select a hosting country, so customer data sits offshore either way — state that plainly in your privacy policy. Confirm current local payment method support directly with each platform rather than assuming either has a specific Australian advantage over the other.

Who should choose Squarespace and who should choose Webflow

Choose Squarespace if you are building it yourself without a designer, want a good result quickly within a template’s structure, and prefer predictable, contained ongoing costs.

Choose Webflow if you are commissioning a skilled designer for a distinctive result a template cannot express, and you are comfortable with content updates after launch happening through a simpler CMS view rather than by touching the design itself.

If Squarespace is the direction, what a commissioned build on it actually involves as a purchase is set out on Squarespace website design.

What would change this Squarespace vs Webflow answer

A confirmed, skilled designer already engaged for the project shifts this firmly toward Webflow, because the platform’s main risk — an unskilled user given too much control — is removed. A DIY build with no design background pulls the other way regardless of ambition, because Squarespace’s curation is doing real, protective work in that scenario that Webflow’s freedom does not replace.

An in-house team that includes someone with genuine design capability, but not a dedicated web designer, sits in the middle and is worth naming explicitly: that team can often get real value from Webflow’s control without needing to outsource the design entirely, provided someone on the team is willing to learn the platform’s editor properly rather than treating it as a faster Squarespace. Where that capability does not exist in-house, the honest comparison collapses back to the simpler version above — a template with good defaults against a blank canvas that rewards skill and punishes its absence.