Squarespace vs GoDaddy – similarities and differences in 2025
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Squarespace vs GoDaddy website builder: overview
Choosing the right website builder can feel overwhelming, especially with so many options available. If you're torn between GoDaddy and Squarespace, you're not alone. They both promise ease of use and good results, but which one is better?
To help you make an informed decision, our research team and I have meticulously tested and evaluated websites built with Squarespace and GoDaddy.
In this article, I present a comprehensive comparison of these website builders, equipping you with the knowledge to choose the perfect solution for your specific needs.
| Top Choice | |||
| Wix | Squarespace | GoDaddy website builder | |
| ⭐ Rating: | |||
| 🥇 Overall rank: | #1 out of #33 | #6 out of #33 | #20 out of #33 |
| 💵 Price: | From $10.50/month | From $16.00/month | From $9.99/month |
| 🪄 Ease of use: | Powerful interface, pretty easy to use | Perfect for beginners | Very simple to use, a bit limiting |
| 🎨 Templates: | 2000 | 186 | 240 |
| 🏢 Business features: | Massive array of various business features | Solid in-house eCommerce and marketing | In-house features, suited for beginners |
| 👨💻 24/7 live support: | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ✂️ Free domain (first year): | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 🔒 Free SSL certificate: | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 🔥 Coupons: | Wix coupon 50% OFF | Squarespace coupon 36% OFF | Cybernews Website Builder Coupons |
| Visit Wix |
| Who should choose Squarespace? | Who should choose GoDaddy? |
| Small businesses that need built-in marketing tools, seamless social media integration, and email campaigns. | Students who are looking for an affordable website builder with drag-and-drop functionality. |
| Bloggers and artists who want beautiful, customizable, modern-looking templates and easy-to-use tools. Its built-in SEO features will also help boost visibility. | Beginner users looking for a straightforward website creation process with minimal technical knowledge |
| LIMITED OFFER: Save up to 36% OFF today! | LIMITED OFFER: Save 50% OFF today! |
Comparing Squarespace and GoDaddy pricing
Squarespace and GoDaddy both offer competitive features. However, one of them provides its services at a cheaper price. Here are the pricing details of both providers:
| Squarespace | GoDaddy | |
| Free plan | ❌ No | ❌ No (exception: if you build a site on a godaddysites.com domain, you can create an online store, and use basic marketing tools for free) |
| Free trial | ✅ Yes, 14 days | ✅ Yes, 7 days |
| Starting price | $16.00/month | $9.99/month |
| Most expensive plan | $139.00/month | $29.99/month |
| Domain cost | 1 year free, then standard TLD rate (usually $20.00-70.00/year) | $0.01 for the 1st year (with a 3-year plan), then from $6.00/year (depending on the TLD rate and extension) |
Generally speaking, both Squarespace and GoDaddy are great options. GoDaddy is way cheaper and has a great selection of subscriptions and plans. Plus, it focuses on simplicity and cost-effectiveness and provides essential tools, including custom domains, SSL security, and social media integration.
Meanwhile, according to our Squarespace pricing review, it is a more expensive provider. However, it also provides more advanced features, particularly for eCommerce. It also offers robust customization options, great business tools, and a lot of add-ons.
When it comes to domain prices, after the free period (1 year), Squarespace domains typically renew at $20.00 to $70.00 per year, depending on the TLD (top-level domain), while GoDaddy offers a promotional domain rate of $0.01 for the first year with a 3-year purchase commitment. After the first year, domain renewal prices vary but commonly start around $4.00 per year, depending on the TLD, domain extension, and any additional services selected.
So, while GoDaddy wins the price comparison, Squarespace is not far behind – for the price difference, you get extra value.
Ease of use – testing both platforms
When choosing a website builder, ease of use is key, as these tools are meant to make website creation simple for everyone. Here's what you can expect from Squarespace and GoDaddy:
- Both builders focus heavily on ease of use – they’re incredibly straightforward.
- Squarespace offers a variety of website-building tools, along with a basic grid system for design. The setup menu is beginner-friendly, intuitive, and easy to use. Squarespace also integrates AI-powered design suggestions, helping users easily personalize their sites.
- GoDaddy website builder offers less customization – it has a strict grid to follow. The setup process is simple, with a few questions you need to answer, and it has guides to point the user in the right direction. Additionally, GoDaddy uses AI to generate website layouts and content, making it a faster option for users who want a quick start.
In this section, I go through the signing up, editing, and website building processes. I also explain how they work as well as illustrate how they actually look.
Using Squarespace
Setting up your website with Squarespace is super easy – it guides you through the entire process step by step.
- With Squarespace, you’re first prompted to answer a few questions about your site, such as its purpose or focus, before choosing how to start building. You can then select either an AI-generated design or pick from ready-made templates. While this still involves a short setup process, users can skip the questions and go straight to choosing a template or using the AI builder, offering a bit more flexibility compared to GoDaddy’s approach.
- After that, you’re asked to name your site, and then you receive a quick tutorial explaining how the Squarespace editor works.
- Moreover, Squarespace editor is focused on simplicity. Tools are displayed on the left side of your screen. The editor highlights the possible editing options and lets you quickly add and remove digital content on the website.
- Squarespace also offers intuitive drag-and-drop functionality, allowing users to easily customize page layouts by moving elements around without needing any coding skills. This ease of use places it among the best options on the market for drag-and-drop website builders, especially for users who want creative control without writing code.
- You also have to follow a grid, and you can add sections and blocks to fill with content. In contrast, GoDaddy does not offer blocks like that, and by using their website builder, you’re left to your own devices. It is also possible to choose from several premade sections. These sections fit the template of your choice nicely, taking overall style, fonts, and colors into consideration. Because of that, Squarespace is also one of the best website builders for small businesses. It lets you get your website up and running fast.
- It’s possible to add extra elements to those premade sections, since sometimes they don’t have everything you might need. This really lets your creativity shine, and the customization options are almost endless.
In conclusion, design-wise, Squarespace is beautiful. You don’t have to think much when designing your website, and it comes together nicely. Additionally, if you’re an artist or a photographer and want full customization power, Squarespace will be perfect for you. It offers all the tools to manually tailor your site and stands out as one of the best website builders for photographers.
Using GoDaddy
GoDaddy offers an incredibly simple and quick "sign up and go" interface. And the process is definitely fast. All you have to do is press the Start for Free button, and you’re ready to go.
- After signing up with either an email or a social media account, GoDaddy walks you through a a guided setup process. First, you choose a category from a preselected list and specify the type of website you’re creating, for example, an online store, a booking-focused site, or something else. Then, you may be asked to provide a business address (if applicable) and write a short description of your desired website. This description is used by GoGaddy’s Airo assistant to generate a website draft. Once complete, the AI quickly builds the initial version, which you can then customize further.
- It’s really straightforward, and all the decisions you make in the beginning can be changed later when editing. After that, you’re taken to your site’s editor – only now can you choose a template and try out the website’s editing tools using the menu on the right. At this stage, GoDaddy also provides a brief guide to help you get familiar with the web builder editor, making it easier for first-time users to navigate and customize.
- The menu also lets you add and edit sections, such as restaurant reservations or social media streams. That makes GoDaddy an excellent option for restaurants, event planners, or any business looking for an easy-to-use platform that doesn’t require complex customization.
- GoDaddy’s editor is made for beginners. It follows a simple grid pattern and doesn’t allow you to move elements freely. However, the grid pattern looks pretty good and gives your site a nice, sleek look. What’s more, despite the limitations, you can fully customize it. And once your site is built, GoDaddy’s Airo offers helpful suggestions for the next steps, like adding content, optimizing for search engines, or setting up marketing tools.
All in all, GoDaddy is simple and a little constricting, but the limitations are helpful if you do not have any prior design experience, because they can lead you to a great-looking website. That’s why it's ideal for beginners who need to quickly create a website and promote their business. However, if you value design more, Squarespace should be your go-to.
GoDaddy vs Squarespace website builder templates
When comparing website builders like Squarespace and GoDaddy, one crucial factor to consider is the variety and functionality of their templates. Let's delve into the key differences between the two platforms in terms of their template offerings:
- GoDaddy website builder offers over 240 templates, each allowing you to use the same content with a different layout.
- Squarespace offers over 186 templates, each crafted specifically for different types of websites.
- Both website builders offer beautiful options; however, the level of functionality between them differs.
- Both platforms include AI-powered tools that generate a site design based on user input, making it easier for beginners to get started with a tailored look.
A good template is a great starting point for a user with no design experience. Let’s take a look at how these website builders compare.
The major difference between GoDaddy vs Squarespace is the way templates work. The templates on GoDaddy are pretty basic and nothing out of the ordinary. You can choose from over 240 options that mainly differ in structure rather than style. They will simply take your existing content and change how it looks and behaves.
I liked how easy it is to swap themes and see your content presented afresh. It's a simple way to edit the website's style and feel at the press of a button.
Moving on to Squarespace, there are over 186+ templates to choose from, and unlike GoDaddy, they’re visually diverse. Instead of having different layouts, you'll be given example sites that differ in style, visuals, and even niches. Squarespace did their homework and made the user’s job easier by dividing the templates into topics to choose from. This way, you can find the best one for your business. That said, Squarespace does have a recognizable, signature aesthetic across many templates – sleek, minimal, modern – which may not appeal to everyone.
A standout point is that you can add templates to a My Favorites tab to quickly find the ones that caught your attention before. As for the templates themselves, they’re modern-looking and polished. They focus heavily on visuals, making your site extremely appealing to the eye.
GoDaddy and Squarespace both offer AI-powered features and rank well among other best AI web builders. GoDaddy's Airo helps users create a website without any coding knowledge. It asks users a few questions about their business and then generates a website template tailored to their needs.
Squarespace also incorporates artificial intelligence through its Squarespace AI tool and Design Intelligence, which helps users generate websites based on their business type, goals, and tone. It creates an initial site layout and provides content suggestions to kickstart the process. Users can then further customize their site manually using Squarespace’s design tools.
All in all, I really enjoyed Squarespace’s templates because of their heavy focus on visuals and overall customization. The designs are modern and very pleasing to the eye. Moreover, it’s virtually impossible to mess up the site’s look. GoDaddy’s templates are more like a guide – you have to decide what would look nice and work with your content.
I liked how easy it is to swap themes and see your content presented afresh. It's a simple way to edit the website's style and feel at the press of a button.
Features
The key difference between these providers is the third-party support. Squarespace allows you to add third-party integrations, while GoDaddy doesn't. That's especially crucial when you need a feature that isn't included natively.
However, both Squarespace and GoDaddy still include many extensions natively. I tested both with the help of our research team, and below, I review their eCommerce, SEO, and marketing tools in detail.
eCommerce
Squarespace lets you choose from various shipping options, including flat-rate, calculated, and free shipping. You can even set up shipping rules based on location or product weight. GoDaddy automatically calculates taxes for customers based on their location and lets you set up custom tax rules. Also, you can set up your website to offer various discounts.
I found it easy to set up an eCommerce website with GoDaddy. First, it asks you what features your website will need, and you get to choose them.
After that, you can also pick from a variety of shipping options, including flat-rate, calculated, and free shipping. Moreover, GoDaddy offers local delivery and in-person pickup. It also lets you offer discounts, including a percentage off and free shipping.
While the two providers are similar, Squarespace wins this eCommerce comparison. It’s one of the best eCommerce website builders, offers more discount options and better appointment scheduling.
Marketing
From a marketing perspective, Squarespace and GoDaddy are similar. However, I found GoDaddy to be more user-friendly because of its intuitive interface and the support of its Airo assistant, which offers personalized suggestions and simplifies tasks like content creation and marketing.
At the same time, when you open Squarespace’s marketing settings, many options come up. Here, you can set up email campaigns and manage social media integrations to track social media analytics.
Additionally, since Squarespace is one of the best affiliate marketing web builders, there's an affiliate marketing program. It lets you earn commissions by referring customers to Squarespace’s services.
Meanwhile, with GoDaddy, you get many of the same features. You can set up email campaigns, manage social media integrations on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and do affiliate marketing as well. I did find GoDaddy’s interface more beginner-friendly, especially with its checklist-style layout that clearly shows what still needs to be done. However, overall, Squarespace’s broader and more refined feature set gives it the edge.
SEO features
When it comes to SEO features, both Squarespace and GoDaddy offer similar tools. However, GoDaddy has an advantage because of its ease of use.
On both platforms, you can easily edit meta titles, descriptions, and URL slugs. Also, they both give you special keyword search tools. GoDaddy has a dedicated tool, and Squarespace offers a search keywords panel to show which keywords are driving traffic to your site. Additionally, both platforms automatically generate sitemaps, which help search engines crawl your site more efficiently. They also integrate with Google Analytics to track your site's performance.
GoDaddy has the edge with its SEO section. It helps you manage site-wide SEO settings, which deal with site-wide matters.
Performance results
In this section, I analyze the performance results of both GoDaddy and Squarespace, highlighting their strengths based on website loading speed. A fast-loading website is crucial for ensuring customer satisfaction, as nobody likes waiting long for the content to load. Let's dive into my findings:
- In performance tests (overall speed, loading time, full-page load), GoDaddy surpasses Squarespace.
- Both Squarespace and GoDaddy offer satisfactory performance results.
For the last side-by-side comparison, we put both websites we built through GTMetrix. If you’re unfamiliar with this platform, it measures the page’s or platform’s optimization and overall speed. Here are the results for GoDaddy:
| Overall performance: | 99% |
| Largest contentful paint: | 1.42s |
| Test server location: | Virginia, USA |
And here are the results for Squarespace:
| Overall performance: | 76% |
| Largest contentful paint: | 2.17s |
| Test server location: | Dulles, Virginia USA |
GoDaddy’s website builder is astonishingly fast. According to Cybernews’ GoDaddy review, its largest contentful paint loads in just 1.42 seconds. For Squarespace, it takes 2.17 seconds to load fully, which is still an excellent result.
You have to agree that both website builders are actually quite fast. They load fully in less than 3 seconds, so your visitors won’t have to sit around and get bored.
Customer support
Both Squarespace and GoDaddy offer a range of customer support options:
| Squarespace | GoDaddy | |
| Live chat | ✅ Yes, specific hours: Monday-Friday 4 AM-8 PM ET (English) Monday-Friday: 10 AM-4 PM CET (French and German) | ✅ Yes, 24/7 |
| Phone support | ❌ No | ✅ Yes, 9 AM-7 PM MT |
| Email support | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Help center | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Community forum | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Social media support | ✅ Yes, 24/7 | ❌ No info |
Squarespace and GoDaddy both provide solid customer support, but GoDaddy stands out with 24/7 live chat and additional phone support, making it more accessible for real-time help. Conversely, Squarespace offers live chat during specific hours and leans more on social media support.
In terms of live chat support experience, both providers initially use bots, so requesting a live agent right away speeds things up. GoDaddy responded to my request in just 1 minute, and the agent replied in 2 minutes, solving the issues quickly. They were also transparent about waiting times, setting clear expectations during the chat.
Squarespace, on the other hand, took 4 minutes to connect me to a live agent, and responses came in 2-minute intervals afterward. The communication felt less clear and a bit slower overall.
Squarespace vs GoDaddy – side-by-side comparison
| Category | Squarespace | GoDaddy |
| Price | ❌ | ✅ |
| Ease of use | ✅ | ❌ |
| Templates | ✅ | ❌ |
| Features | ✅ | ❌ |
| Performance | ❌ | ✅ |
| Customer support | Live chat (specific hours), 24/7 social media support, email support, help center, community forum | 24/7 live chat, phone support (specific hours), email support, help center, community forum |
Bottom line
When choosing between Squarespace and GoDaddy, it really comes down to what you need and how you work. Both are easy to use, offer beginner-friendly editors, and come with helpful features – but they shine in different areas.
Squarespace is a great all-rounder. According to our hands-on experience with Squarespace, it’s especially strong in design, with stunning templates and built-in tools like Design Intelligence that help you customize the look of your site without needing to code. It can provide a professional-looking website to a creative, a small business owner, or a freelancer – and it can do it fast. It’s a bit more expensive, and some advanced marketing tools cost extra, but overall, it’s packed with quality.
GoDaddy is more basic when it comes to design, but it’s fast – pages load in under half a second – and very beginner-friendly. Its AI assistant, Airo, guides you through setup and even suggests next steps. The interface is clean and simple, and its pricing is more affordable overall. Plus, customer support is available, responsive, and helpful.
Squarespace gives you more control over how your site looks, while GoDaddy focuses on speed and simplicity. Both are solid, it just depends on what you’re after.
FAQ
Which is better, GoDaddy or Squarespace?
It depends on your needs – Squarespace is slightly more expensive. However, the design possibilities are almost endless with their beautifully crafted templates. GoDaddy is cheaper than Squarespace and is better if you're on a budget.
Can I use Squarespace with GoDaddy?
Yes, it’s possible to use Squarespace with a GoDaddy domain if you already have one. You can either transfer your domain to Squarespace or connect it to your Squarespace account. If you transfer your domain, you will manage all of your domain settings and billing from your Squarespace account. If you only connect your domain, you will still need to manage some of the settings through GoDaddy. Note: This applies to the domain only – migrating a GoDaddy website to Squarespace is not possible.
Can I switch from GoDaddy to Squarespace?
Yes, you can switch from GoDaddy to Squarespace in terms of your domain. You can transfer it to Squarespace, which lets you manage everything from there, or connect it to your Squarespace account, but you’ll still need to manage some settings through GoDaddy. Note: This refers to domain transfer only – website migration from GoDaddy to Squarespace isn’t supported.
