Squarespace is not permanently free, but you do get a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. During that window you can build your full website, test every template, and try all the design tools before spending a cent. If you want to know exactly what the trial covers, what happens when it ends, and whether there is any way to use Squarespace for free long-term, this guide covers all of it.
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
What you cannot do during the free trial:
- Connect a custom domain (you are locked to yoursite.squarespace.com)
- Accept payments or process orders
- Remove the Squarespace branding banner shown to all visitors
- Send Squarespace Email Campaigns
- Access full analytics beyond basic page views
- Make your site publicly searchable (Google will not index a trial site)
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 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.
Is Squarespace Expensive?
Squarespace is reasonably priced for an all-in-one website builder. Current 2025 pricing (billed annually):
- Personal: $16/month. Websites and portfolios only. No ecommerce.
- Business: $23/month. Ecommerce with a 3% transaction fee, code injection, advanced analytics.
- Basic Commerce: $36/month. No transaction fees, abandoned cart recovery, customer accounts.
- Advanced Commerce: $65/month. Subscriptions, advanced shipping, sell on social channels.
Monthly billing is available at a premium (Business runs $33/month, Basic Commerce $46/month). All annual plans include a free custom domain for the first year, which normally costs $20 to $70 depending on the extension.
For a direct feature and pricing comparison, see our Shopify vs Squarespace breakdown.
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
The Personal plan at $16/month covers websites, blogs, and portfolios. It does not include ecommerce, so you cannot take payments. The Business plan at $23/month adds ecommerce with a 3% transaction fee, code injection for custom scripts, and better analytics. The Basic Commerce plan at $36/month removes the transaction fee entirely, which makes sense if you are doing meaningful sales volume.
The Business plan also adds third-party integrations (Gmail, Squarespace Scheduling, MailChimp, OpenTable) 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 start at $16/month billed annually. For most small businesses, the Business plan at $23/month offers the best mix of features and cost. Students and nonprofits can bring that cost down 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.
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