Can I Use Squarespace for Free?

Can You Use Squarespace for Free?

No, you cannot use Squarespace permanently for free. It is a paid subscription service. The only free access is the 14-day trial, which gives you enough time to build a complete website and decide whether the platform is right for you before paying anything.

During the trial, your site is assigned a Squarespace-branded subdomain in the format yoursite.squarespace.com. Visitors see a "This site was made with Squarespace" banner at the bottom of every page. There is no way to remove that banner or connect a custom domain until you upgrade to a paid plan.

What Can You Do During the 14-Day Free Trial?

The trial gives you access to the full Squarespace editor. Here is what is included:

• Access to all templates and the ability to switch between them freely
• Full drag-and-drop page editor with all content blocks (text, images, galleries, video, forms)
• Blog creation: write, schedule, and categorize posts
• Portfolio pages and project galleries
• Adding products to a store (you just cannot process payments)
• SEO settings: page titles, meta descriptions, URL slugs per page
• Basic page view analytics
• Mobile preview and responsive editing
• Password-protecting pages
• Connecting social media accounts

When you upgrade to a paid plan, you can connect a domain you already own or transfer your domain to Squarespace to manage everything in one place.

What You CANNOT Do on the Squarespace Free Trial

Most trial guides stop at the feature list. The gaps matter just as much, and several of them surprise people who assume the trial is close to the paid product.

• Make your site publicly visible: Your site is not indexed by Google during the trial, and you cannot publish it with a clean public URL. Visitors reach you through your squarespace.com subdomain only.
• Connect a custom domain: You are locked to yoursite.squarespace.com for the entire trial period. CNAME or A-record DNS pointing is not available until you pay.
• Accept real payments: You can add products and set prices, but no payment processor is active. The checkout flow is visible but no transaction completes.
• Send email campaigns: Squarespace Email Campaigns lets you build drafts during the trial, but subscribers receive nothing. Campaign sending requires a paid plan.
• Remove the Squarespace branding: The "Made with Squarespace" footer banner appears on every page and cannot be hidden during the trial.
• Access full analytics: Only basic page view counts are available. Traffic sources, conversion funnels, and the full analytics dashboard require a paid subscription.
• Use third-party integrations that need live checkout: Apps like ShipStation, Printful, and most commerce extensions require a working storefront, which the trial does not provide.
• Use CNAME records for third-party domains: You cannot point any external domain to your trial site, even as a temporary alias.

One thing that often catches people off guard: your trial content is fully saved even if you do not upgrade immediately after it expires. The site enters a locked state, but all pages, products, and design choices are preserved. You can return weeks or months later, pay for a plan, and pick up exactly where you left off.

Your Squarespace 14-Day Trial Checklist: What to Test Before You Pay

Fourteen days sounds like plenty of time, but most people spend the first few days on templates and run out of time before testing the features that actually matter for their use case. This checklist focuses on the decisions that affect whether Squarespace will work for you long-term.

1. Build your homepage with your real content, not placeholder text. Generic filler hides layout problems. Your actual heading lengths, image dimensions, and copy density reveal whether the template fits your content or fights it.
2. Switch between at least three templates after adding your content. Squarespace lets you change templates without losing content. Do this once your pages have real copy and images so you see how each template handles your actual content, not dummy text.
3. Upload your actual product or portfolio images. Squarespace compresses images automatically. Upload the files you plan to use and check quality at the sizes the template renders them. Some templates crop aggressively; better to find out now.
4. Set up a test product with variants (size, color, etc.) if you plan to sell. The variant interface is straightforward, but the checkout UX and how variants display on product pages varies by template. See the full flow before you commit.
5. Fill out every SEO field on your key pages. Add page titles, meta descriptions, and custom URL slugs to your homepage, about page, and product pages. Use Squarespace's built-in preview to see how each page would appear in Google results.
6. Walk through the checkout flow as a customer. Squarespace does not charge real cards during the trial, but you can see every step of the checkout experience: cart, shipping options, payment fields, and order confirmation.
7. Preview your site on the squarespace.com subdomain from a phone. The editor's mobile preview mode is useful, but loading the actual URL on a real device reveals scroll behavior, tap target sizes, and font rendering that the editor preview smooths over.
8. Build and submit a test contact form. Create a contact page, submit an entry, and confirm where the notification lands. Check whether the form confirmation message makes sense and whether the email notification routes correctly.
9. Draft one email campaign. Even if you cannot send during the trial, building a draft tests the email editor, lets you see template options, and confirms whether the email tool fits your marketing workflow.
10. Run your trial URL through Google PageSpeed Insights. Your squarespace.com subdomain is a live URL. Test it at pagespeed.web.dev to see the baseline load speed before you invest heavily in building on the platform.
11. Check that analytics tracking is active. Go to Analytics in your dashboard and confirm page views are recording. If Squarespace's native analytics look thin for your needs, test whether a Google Analytics connection is available at the plan level you are considering.
12. Export your content before the trial ends. Go to Settings, then Advanced, then Export. Download the XML file and confirm it includes your pages and blog posts. Knowing you can exit gives you a cleaner decision when it is time to choose.

What Does the Trial URL Look Like?

When you sign up for the Squarespace trial, you choose a site name during setup. Squarespace converts that into a subdomain: if you name your site "Blue Sky Studio," your trial URL will be something like blueskystudio.squarespace.com. You can share this URL with people during the trial, but visitors will see the Squarespace branding. The URL changes once you connect a custom domain on a paid plan.

Can You Extend the Squarespace Free Trial?

Squarespace does not publish an official way to extend the 14-day trial, but there are a few things worth knowing. First, if your trial expires before you finish building, your site is not deleted. It goes into a locked state where you can still access the editor, but the site is not publicly visible. All your content, pages, and design choices are saved. You can upgrade at any point, even months later, and pick up where you left off.

Second, Squarespace customer support occasionally grants trial extensions if you contact them before expiry and explain you need more time. There is no guarantee, but it is worth asking via their live chat if you are close to the deadline and not ready to commit.

What Happens When the Trial Ends?

When the 14-day trial ends, Squarespace puts your site into a locked state. Your content is preserved, but the site goes offline for visitors. You will see a prompt in your dashboard to choose a paid plan. If you do not upgrade, the site stays locked indefinitely. Squarespace does not delete trial sites quickly, so you can return after a gap and still find everything intact. Once you pay and activate a plan, the site goes live again immediately.

Squarespace 2026 Pricing: All Plans Compared

Squarespace currently offers four plans. Prices below reflect the updated 2026 structure. Annual billing is almost always the right choice: you save roughly 24 to 29% and get a free custom domain for the first year.

The most common starting point for new site owners is Basic or Core. Basic works well for portfolios, personal sites, and anyone not planning to sell. Core is the smarter pick if ecommerce matters at all: the jump from $19 to $29 per month (annual) removes the 2% transaction fee on every sale. At just $167 in monthly revenue, the fee savings alone cover the difference. Every dollar beyond that is pure gain.

All annual plans include a free custom domain for the first year. Monthly plans charge extra for the same domain, adding another reason to commit annually if you plan to run the site for more than a few months.

How to Get the Best Deal on Squarespace

Annual billing saves 20 to 30% compared to monthly payments. If you are committed to Squarespace for at least a year, the annual plan is always the better value. Beyond the standard pricing, there are several ways to reduce the cost further:

• Discount codes: Squarespace runs promotions, particularly around Black Friday (typically 25 to 30% off annual plans). Search for active codes before purchasing.
• Student discount: Squarespace offers approximately 50% off your first year for verified students through UNiDAYS and Student Beans.
• Nonprofit discount: Registered nonprofits can apply for a 25% discount on any Squarespace plan through Squarespace's nonprofit program.
• Free domain with annual plan: Purchasing an annual plan includes a free custom domain for the first year, saving $20 to $70.

Squarespace Free Trial vs Wix Free Plan: Which Is Better?

This is one of the most common comparisons people make. Wix has a permanent free plan, which Squarespace does not. But the two "free" options are very different in practice.

Wix's free plan lets you build a basic site and keep it live indefinitely, but your site URL is yourname.wixsite.com/sitename (longer and harder to remember), Wix displays ads on your site that you cannot remove, you cannot connect a custom domain, and advanced features like ecommerce and analytics require a paid plan starting at $17/month. The Wix free plan is genuinely free, but it comes with visible limitations that make it unsuitable for any professional or business use.

Squarespace's 14-day trial gives you a cleaner experience. There are no ads from Squarespace on your trial site (only the branded footer banner). You get access to every template and the full editor for two weeks. The trade-off is that it is time-limited rather than permanent.

In practice, if you need a free website with no time limit, Wix free is the only real option. If you are serious about building a professional site and want to properly test a platform before paying, Squarespace's trial is a better environment because you see exactly what the paid product looks like. For a full breakdown of how the two platforms compare on features and pricing, see our Squarespace vs Wix comparison.

Free Alternatives to Squarespace

If cost is the barrier, there are genuinely free website options, though each has significant limitations:

• Wix free plan: Permanent but ad-supported, no custom domain, Wix-branded subdomain
• WordPress.com free tier: Limited storage and customization, WordPress branding visible
• Google Sites: Completely free but very basic, no ecommerce, limited design control
• Weebly free plan: Ad-supported, Weebly-branded domain, limited features

None of these free options are suitable for a professional business or ecommerce site, but they work for personal projects or testing an idea before investing in a paid platform.

Difference Between Personal and Business Plans

Under the old Squarespace plan names, Personal and Business were the two entry tiers. Today those correspond to Basic and Core. Basic at $19/month (annual) covers websites, blogs, and portfolios but limits selling with transaction fees. Core at $29/month removes those fees, adds customer accounts, code injection, and better analytics.

The Business plan (now Core) also adds third-party integrations and additional marketing tools like announcement bars, popups, and mobile information bars. For more details on monetization options, see our guide on making money from Squarespace.

Can You Export Your Squarespace Content?

Yes. Squarespace lets you export content even during the trial. Go to Settings, then Advanced, then Export, and you can download an XML file containing your blog posts and pages. The export does not include your design, images, or ecommerce data. If you are testing Squarespace before committing, write your posts in a separate document so you have a portable copy regardless of which platform you end up using.

Final Verdict: Is Squarespace Free?

Squarespace is not permanently free. The 14-day trial gives you full access to build and test your site with no payment required, but there is no ongoing free tier. Plans now start at $19/month billed annually (Basic). For most small businesses wanting to sell, Core at $29/month is the better starting point since it removes transaction fees from day one. Students and nonprofits can reduce those costs significantly through Squarespace's discount programs.

For a full walkthrough of the platform once you are ready to build, see our complete guide to how to use Squarespace.