Can You Sell Things on Squarespace?

What Selling on Squarespace Actually Involves

Squarespace supports selling across multiple categories: physical products that require shipping, digital files that download instantly after purchase, services and consultations, memberships, subscriptions, and event tickets. The platform handles payment processing through Stripe and PayPal, with no separate gateway setup required.

The comparison with Shopify often comes down to catalog complexity. Squarespace suits stores with a focused product range and a strong design priority, while Shopify scales better for large inventories and advanced ecommerce needs.

Which Squarespace Plan Do You Need to Sell?

You need a paid Squarespace plan with Commerce features to sell anything. Here is how the plans break down:

• Business ($23/month billed annually): Includes basic ecommerce but charges a 3% transaction fee on every sale, on top of Stripe or PayPal processing fees. On $5,000/month in revenue, that is $150/month lost to Squarespace fees alone.
• Basic Commerce ($36/month billed annually): Removes the 3% transaction fee entirely. Adds customer accounts, checkout on your domain, and advanced merchandising. This is the right starting point for most stores.
• Advanced Commerce ($65/month billed annually): Adds subscriptions, abandoned cart recovery, advanced discounting, and sell on Instagram. Best for stores that rely on recurring revenue or need aggressive conversion tools.

If you plan to do more than a handful of sales per month, Basic Commerce pays for itself quickly by eliminating the transaction fee.

What Products Can You Sell on Squarespace?

Squarespace supports several product types through its native Commerce tools:

• Physical products: Add weight, dimensions, shipping options, inventory tracking, and variants (size, color, etc.). Squarespace integrates with ShipBob and connects to shipping carriers for real-time rates.
• Digital products: Upload a file (PDF, audio, software, template, etc.) and Squarespace delivers a download link to the customer after payment. Keep files under 300 MB for best performance.
• Services: Sell a consultation, design package, or coaching session. You can use Squarespace Scheduling to let customers book a time slot and pay in one step, fully integrated with your website calendar.
• Subscriptions: Available on the Advanced Commerce plan. Customers pay a recurring fee (weekly, monthly, or annually) for ongoing access to a product or service.
• Memberships: Use Squarespace Member Areas to gate content behind a paywall. Sell access to an online course, community, or exclusive content library.
• Gift cards: Available on Basic Commerce and above. Customers can purchase and send digital gift cards redeemable on your store.
• Event tickets: Sell tickets to in-person or virtual events directly through your Squarespace site.

How Do You Add Your First Product on Squarespace?

1. Log in to your Squarespace account and open your site editor.
2. Go to Commerce > Products in the left sidebar.
3. Click Add Product and choose your product type (Physical, Digital, Service, Gift Card, or Subscription).
4. Add a product name, description, price, and images. For physical products, enter weight and dimensions for accurate shipping rates.
5. Set inventory tracking if needed.
6. Click Save. The product is now live in your store.

You can organize products into categories and control which appear on collection pages or are featured on your homepage.

What Payment Methods Does Squarespace Accept?

Squarespace uses Stripe as its primary payment processor, which accepts all major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover). PayPal is supported as a secondary option. Apple Pay and AfterPay (buy now, pay later) are available in supported regions. There is no option to integrate other payment gateways like Square or Braintree. If you need a specific processor, Squarespace may not be the right fit.

How Do You Set Up Taxes and Shipping on Squarespace?

Before you start selling, you need to configure taxes and shipping so orders process correctly. Both are set up under Commerce > Settings in your Squarespace admin.

For taxes: Squarespace calculates sales tax automatically for US-based stores when you enable automatic tax collection. You enter your nexus states (states where you have tax obligations), and Squarespace applies the correct rate at checkout based on the customer's shipping address. For international VAT and GST, Squarespace supports manual tax rules - you add fixed rates for each country or region where you are registered to collect tax. Note that Squarespace does not have built-in EU VAT OSS support, so high-volume international sellers may need a third-party tax integration.

For shipping: Go to Commerce > Shipping to set up shipping zones and rates. You can offer flat-rate shipping, free shipping with a minimum order, weight-based rates, or carrier-calculated rates (FedEx, UPS, USPS) on supported plans. If you use ShipBob for fulfillment, connect it via the Squarespace Extensions marketplace to sync inventory and automate label generation.

What Are the Limitations of Selling on Squarespace?

Squarespace ecommerce works well for focused stores, but it has real constraints that matter depending on your scale and business type. Here is what you will hit if you grow past a certain point:

• Product catalog limits: Squarespace supports up to 10,000 products on Advanced Commerce. Most small stores never reach this, but growing wholesale or large catalog businesses will. Shopify has no published product cap.
• Payment gateways are fixed: You cannot add Square, Braintree, Authorize.net, or most other payment processors. If your business requires a specific gateway for industry compliance or existing contracts, Squarespace will not accommodate it.
• No native multi-currency checkout: Squarespace can display prices in local currencies, but customers always pay in your store's base currency at checkout. True multi-currency checkout requires a third-party integration or a platform like Shopify Markets.
• No native dropshipping: Squarespace has no Oberlo/DSers-equivalent integration. Dropshipping on Squarespace requires manual order forwarding or a third-party connector, which adds friction and increases error risk. It works, but it is not built for it.
• Limited POS for physical retail: Squarespace Point of Sale works with the Squarespace app on iPad or iPhone and connects to a Square card reader. It handles simple retail but lacks the inventory sync, staff management, and reporting that dedicated retail platforms like Lightspeed or Square POS offer.

None of these are dealbreakers for the majority of small online stores. But if any of them apply directly to your business model, it is worth testing a plan before committing.

Is Squarespace a Good Platform for Selling Online?

Squarespace works well for stores with a focused product range, service-based businesses, creators selling digital products, and brands where design quality is a primary selling point. The all-in-one nature of the platform (website builder, hosting, checkout, and email marketing) means you can launch a complete store without stitching together multiple tools.

It is less suited for merchants with hundreds of SKUs, complex inventory management needs, or those who need advanced POS integration with physical retail. Squarespace's product filtering, variant options, and reporting tools are more limited than dedicated ecommerce platforms. For those use cases, or if you expect to scale to a high transaction volume, a platform built specifically for ecommerce is the better fit.