CentriWebSquarespace vs WordPress is a choice between ease and room to grow. Squarespace is a hosted website builder where one subscription covers hosting, security certificates and the editor, so an owner can have a tidy site live quickly, while WordPress is free, open-source software you run on hosting you choose, which gives you more control and the freedom to move but means someone has to keep it updated.
A disclosure first: CentriWeb builds websites on WordPress, so weigh our view with that in mind. Facts about each product below come from the vendor’s own pages as at November 2026. Check their page for current prices.
Squarespace vs WordPress at a glance
| Squarespace | WordPress (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A hosted website builder with designed templates | Open-source software you install on a web host |
| How it charges | A monthly or annual plan, with transaction fees on the entry plan’s online store sales | The software is free; you pay for hosting, a domain, any paid themes or plugins, and upkeep |
| Who maintains it | Squarespace runs the hosting and platform; you look after content | You, your host or a web company keeps the software, theme and plugins updated |
| Who it suits | An owner who wants to build and run a straightforward site themselves | A business expecting to grow the site, connect it to other systems or hand it to someone to look after |
“WordPress” here means the self-hosted software from WordPress.org. WordPress.com is a separate hosted service running the same software, which sits somewhere between the two. Our Wix vs WordPress comparison explains the difference in more detail.
What Squarespace does well
Squarespace’s strength is that the hard parts are done for you. According to its pricing page, all plans include secure hosting and unlimited bandwidth, and the FAQ describes the hosting as fully managed. Its help centre says every domain correctly pointed at a Squarespace site gets a free SSL certificate automatically.
That means no server to choose, no software updates to apply and no plugins to check for security problems. The templates are designed as a set, so a site tends to look consistent even when an owner without design training builds it.
It suits a business that needs a handful of pages, a gallery, a contact form and perhaps a small shop, and an owner with a few evenings to spare who would rather not think about hosting at all.
What WordPress does well
WordPress’s strength is freedom. Its about page says it is open-source software licensed under the GPLv2 or later, which gives you the freedom to run it for any purpose, study and change it, and redistribute it. In practice, you can move the whole site to any compatible host, hire any developer and change anything.
That freedom is what gives a site room to grow. A business can add hundreds of service or location pages, build booking or quoting tools, connect forms to a CRM, run a members area or add a full shop through plugins or custom code, without changing platforms.
It suits a business that expects the website to do more each year, wants to own its setup outright, or would rather pay someone to build and look after it.
How each charges
Squarespace
When we opened Squarespace’s pricing page from New Zealand in November 2026, it showed four plans, Basic, Core, Plus and Advanced, in New Zealand dollars. The Basic plan was NZ$19 a month with annual billing, and the page says paying annually saves up to 36%. It also showed a 14 day free trial. Squarespace may show a different currency where you are, so check the page yourself.
Two details matter if you sell online:
- The page listed a 2% transaction fee on online store sales on the Basic plan, and 0% on Core and above. Card processing is charged separately.
- The free custom domain applies to annual plans for the first year only, then renews at the standard rate.
WordPress
The software costs nothing. Your costs are hosting, the domain, any premium theme or plugins, and someone’s time for updates and backups, whether that is yours or a care plan. WordPress lists its hosting requirements: PHP 8.3 or greater, MySQL 8.4 or greater or MariaDB 10.11 or greater, and HTTPS support. Ask any host you consider to confirm it meets them.
Compare the two over three years rather than one month, and put a fair hourly rate on your own time. Our guide to WordPress care plans lists what upkeep should include.
Who keeps it running
This is the difference that matters most a year after launch.
On Squarespace, the platform is maintained for you. Your job is content: keeping prices, photos, opening hours and team details current.
On WordPress, someone has to own upkeep. The WordPress documentation says minor core updates, the maintenance and security releases, install automatically by default, but plugins and themes only update automatically in special cases unless you turn that on. The security hardening guide says every plugin and theme adds code that can contain vulnerabilities, recommends removing the ones you do not use, and stresses regular, tested backups.
None of that is hard for a host or web company that does it every week. It is a problem when nobody has been given the job and the site quietly falls behind.
Moving later: the room to grow question
If there is a chance you will outgrow your first site, look at how you would leave.
Squarespace’s export guide says you can export a WordPress-format XML file. It includes layout pages, one blog with its posts, text and image blocks, and gallery pages. It does not include store pages, product, video or audio blocks, more than one blog, headers and footers, style settings or custom CSS, and images may not come across into a self-hosted WordPress site. In practice, moving off Squarespace means rebuilding the design and checking every page.
A self-hosted WordPress site moves as a whole: files and database together, to any host that meets the requirements.
Whichever you choose, register the domain in your business’s name with logins you control. That keeps your web address, email and search listings yours if you change platform. Our guide on who owns your website covers the rest.
A three-year sum you can do yourself
Use your own numbers for this rather than anyone’s averages, including ours. Write both columns down side by side.
- Squarespace: the plan price in your currency for three years, the domain renewal after the first year, transaction and card fees on the online sales you expect, and your own hours keeping content current.
- WordPress: three years of hosting, the domain, any premium theme or plugin licences (many renew yearly), the build if someone else does it, and either a care plan or your own hours for updates and backups.
Then add one more line: the cost of rebuilding if you outgrow the site within those three years. For a business planning to add a shop, online bookings or dozens of location pages, that rebuild can be the largest number on the Squarespace side. For a five-page site that will barely change, the upkeep line can be the largest on the WordPress side. The answer comes from your plans for the site, so write those down first.
Which suits your business?
- Choose Squarespace if you will build and update the site yourself, need a modest number of pages, want no technical upkeep and are comfortable rebuilding if you outgrow it.
- Choose WordPress if you plan many pages, want the site connected to a CRM, booking or quoting tool, may change providers, or want someone else to look after it.
When a site built and looked after for you fits better
A website earns its keep when it brings in enquiries and passes them on without anyone copying details by hand. That usually means forms that go straight to your CRM, pages written for what customers search, and a site that stays fast and updated.
Our website design and build service does that on WordPress, and we keep looking after the site once it is live.
It does not suit everyone. If you get a few enquiries a month, enjoy building the site yourself, or a standard Squarespace plan already covers what you need, stay with that and put the money elsewhere.