Squarespace vs Wix: Which Fits an Interior Design Studio or Landscaping Company

Squarespace vs Wix comes down to how much layout freedom you want and what the site has to do besides look good. Squarespace keeps every site on one shared design system with fewer, tighter controls. Wix gives you more templates and more built-in business tools, but you can't swap templates once a site exists. Neither lets you pack up the whole site and move it to another platform, so the choice matters more than the monthly fee suggests.

We pick a platform together with each client, based on who will run the site after launch. Below is the comparison we'd want a studio owner to read first. Prices and plan details were verified on the official pages in October 2026.

Squarespace vs Wix pricing in October 2026

Squarespace publishes four website plans. On its pricing page, as of October 2026, Basic is $19 a month and Advanced is $99 a month when paid annually, with Core at $29 and Plus at $49. Paying month to month raises those to $25, $39, $65, and $139. The Basic plan charges a 2% fee on online store sales. Core and above drop that fee to 0%.

Wix lists five tiers on its plans page: Free, Light, Core, Business, and Business Elite. When we checked in October 2026, the page showed prices adjusted to our location and stated that "prices and currency vary by location," so we're not quoting a dollar figure here. Check current pricing on that page from your own address. What the page does show clearly: the Light plan doesn't list payments or scheduling, while Core, Business, and Business Elite include "Scheduling and services" and accept payments.

For a studio, the plan question is usually simple. A portfolio site with a contact form fits the entry paid tier on either platform. You move up when you need online payments, a client booking calendar, or more storage for project video.

Templates and design control

Squarespace version 7.1 treats all templates as one family. Squarespace's own help center says every 7.1 site has the same features and style options, so a template is a starting look, not a locked set of features. You restyle the site instead of switching templates.

Wix advertises 2000+ website templates. The catch is permanent: Wix states that it's not possible to switch to a different template for a site you already created. If you outgrow the look, you build a new site and copy content across.

Here's what that means in practice. Say you run a three-person interior design studio and plan a rebrand in two years. On Squarespace, you change fonts, colors, and section layouts in place. On Wix, a big visual change can mean starting a fresh site, then moving pages and reassigning your plan and domain.

Wix's freer editor also cuts both ways. You can place elements almost anywhere, which suits owners who like to tinker. It also makes it easier to end up with a mobile layout that drifts from the desktop one, so check every page on a phone before you publish.

Portfolio galleries for interior and landscape projects

Both platforms handle image galleries well enough for a project portfolio. The difference is in how a project page gets built, not in whether photos look sharp.

For an interior designer, a good project page holds a short brief, the room list, a before-and-after pair, and 10 to 20 finished photos. For a landscaping company, it might be a front-yard plan, the plant list, and photos from install day and the following spring. Neither platform builds that page for you. You assemble it from sections and gallery blocks on both.

A few checks we'd run on either platform before committing:

• Can you add a caption or credit (photographer, location) under each image?
• Does the gallery let visitors swipe through on a phone without tiny thumbnails?
• Can you reuse one project layout for every new project, so the portfolio stays consistent?
• Do large galleries load acceptably on a phone over mobile data?

We cover how to structure the projects themselves in our guide to an interior design portfolio website.

Contact forms and booking consultations

Both platforms include contact forms on paid plans. Booking is where they differ in setup.

On Wix, scheduling is part of the higher plans. The plans page lists "Scheduling and services" on Core, Business, and Business Elite. A landscaping company could let homeowners pick an on-site estimate slot without adding another service.

Squarespace runs scheduling as a separate product. Its scheduling page presents it as standalone ("No website or credit card required") with three tiers based on the number of bookable calendars, from one up to 36. Embedding the scheduler on your site is included with all website plans, but the scheduling subscription itself is separate. When we checked in October 2026, that page didn't show dollar prices, so check current pricing there.

Do you even need online booking? A design studio that qualifies every lead by budget and scope often does better with a detailed inquiry form than a calendar. A lawn care company booking 20 estimates a week probably wants the calendar.

SEO basics on both platforms

On SEO basics, the two are close. Both let you edit page titles, descriptions, URL slugs, and image alt text, and both support 301 redirects.

Squarespace's SEO checklist covers unique page descriptions, readable URLs, and alt text. Redirects are added by hand in URL mappings, one line per old address.

Wix creates a redirect automatically for most page types when you change a URL slug, but not for blog posts, and it allows up to 5,000 redirects per site. The same article notes that redirects only work with a custom domain.

The platform rarely decides whether a studio ranks. What decides it is whether you have a separate page for each service and each area you work in, real project pages, and copy that says what you do and where. Our pages on SEO for interior designers and SEO for landscapers go through that work.

Blogging

Both platforms offer a blog. For most studios the blog is a side channel, so the editor matters less than the export question in the next section. If you plan to publish a lot, note that Wix says blog posts can't currently be exported to other platforms. Squarespace exports one blog page with its posts, as described below.

Ecommerce, if you sell anything

Most interior designers and landscapers don't need a store. The exceptions: a designer selling a small furniture or decor line, paid design consultations, or gift cards for a garden center side business.

On Squarespace, the Basic plan adds a 2% fee on store sales, and Core removes it. Higher plans add features like advanced tax calculation and sales analytics, per the pricing page. On Wix, the plans page labels ecommerce as Basic, Standard, or Advanced by tier, and the Light plan doesn't list payments at all. If you'll sell, compare transaction fees and card rates on both official pages before choosing.

Ownership and migration: can you export your site?

This is the section most comparisons skip, and it matters most if you might change platforms or hire someone else later. Short answer: neither platform lets you take the full site with you.

Wix says plainly that a site needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers. You can connect or transfer your domain, but the design and pages stay on Wix.

Squarespace offers an export to a WordPress-format .xml file, with clear limits. It exports layout pages, one blog page with its posts, text and image blocks, and some gallery pages. It doesn't export portfolio, store, or index pages, style settings, or custom CSS.

So a move off either platform is a rebuild. What you can protect:

1. Own your domain in an account under your name, not the builder's or a freelancer's.
2. Keep original, full-size project photos in your own storage.
3. Keep your page copy in a document outside the platform.
4. Keep a list of every page URL, so redirects are easy if you ever move.

Whatever you pick, a planned redesign later goes faster with these four in hand. Our website redesign checklist covers the rest.

Squarespace or Wix for small business: decision by situation

There's no winner in general. There is a better fit for your situation.

• Choose Squarespace if you want a consistent, restrained design that's hard to break, you might restyle the site later without rebuilding, and you're fine with scheduling as a separate add-on.
• Choose Wix if you want booking and payments inside the website plan, you like placing elements freely, and you're comfortable that a major redesign may mean a new site.
• Look at a third option if you need a large structured project database with filters, or a developer will maintain the site. Our Squarespace vs Webflow comparison covers that case.

The bigger question is often who updates the site after launch. If the owner adds a project every month, pick the editor that person finds easiest. A short trial on each platform answers that faster than any review.

The platform is one decision among many. Most of a good studio site is structure, copy, photos, and a clear path to an inquiry. That's the part we focus on in our websites for interior designers, where projects start from $1,000.