Its templates are the best in the business. What it doesn’t sell is the work that turns a template into your website. Those evenings are yours, and they’re what the canvas actually costs.
The template gallery is design-award territory, and no done-for-you service hands you that much creative control. If you sell products online, its commerce tools handle everything from cart to checkout and have for years. If you’re a designer, or anyone who enjoys building a site, Squarespace is the finest DIY canvas on the market and you should use it.
Squarespace sells you a tool. The site itself is still a project. Your project. Budget the evenings: picking the template, writing every headline, sourcing photos, wiring the domain, and then maintaining all of it, forever. Plainsmith sells the finished thing. You answer one questionnaire — ten to thirty minutes, depending on how thoroughly you fill it in; we write every word in your trade’s language and build the five pages, in front of you in 48 hours and live when you approve. After that, changes are a two-line message from your account page, or a plain email: five edit requests a month included, and one message is one request however many changes are in it.
| Squarespace | Plainsmith | |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds it | You, in their editor, on your own evenings | We do — in front of you in 48 hours from a 10-to-30-minute questionnaire, live when you approve |
| Price | Billed annually: Basic $19/mo, Core $29/mo, Plus $49/mo, Advanced $99/mo. Month-to-month: Basic $25, Core $39, Plus $65. Read off their own pricing page, 22 August 2026. The free custom domain comes with the annual plans only — on monthly it is struck out | $40/mo or $400/yr, cancel anytime |
| The words | Template placeholder text until you write yours | Written for you, checked against how your trade actually talks |
| Email + changes | Every edit is your job. Professional email from Google Workspace comes with Core and above, read off their own pricing page on 22 August 2026 — on ours it is your own Google Workspace or Zoho account, and Zoho has a free tier | Five edit requests a month included, sent from your account page or by email |
| Owning it | The site runs on their platform | Domain yours at registry cost day one; $499 owns the site outright, the files are yours to host anywhere, and the monthly ends |
Billed annually, their entry plan is Basic at $19 a month, $228 for the year, and it will run a five-page service site perfectly well. Core, the one they mark Recommended, is $29 a month, $348 for the year, and it is the fair comparison to us: unlimited contributors, analytics, and professional email from Google Workspace. Month to month those become $25 and $39. One line worth reading twice on their page: the free custom domain is an annual-plan benefit and is struck through on the monthly tiers, so on monthly you are buying a domain there exactly as you are here. Read off Squarespace’s own pricing page on 22 August 2026, and they were running 20% off new plans that day, so check for a code before you buy from them. Ours is $400 for the year or $480 monthly, plus your domain at exact registry cost, about $11.
Already paying for Squarespace? Paste your site into the switch page and the questionnaire comes back pre-filled.
Paste your current address into the switch page. We’ll use the services, hours and contact details we find to start your questionnaire, and you answer the rest. Your Squarespace site stays up until the new one is live.
vs HubSpot · vs Wix · vs Durable · vs UENI · vs Fiverr · all of them