How to Pick the Right Pricing Plan for Your Client
Choosing the right Squarespace plan for your client is arguably one of the most important steps in the whole web design process. After you hand over the keys to their new website, this plan is what will keep the site running smoothly moving forward.
As a web designer, it’s your responsibility to advise your clients on best practices. This includes finding the perfect mix of price and functionality. You don’t want clients to overspend on a plan that they don’t need, but they’ll require a plan that’s robust enough to handle both short- and long-term objectives.
Getting familiar with Squarespace plans
Squarespace announced four new website plans to better support customers in February 2025. While these plans don't automatically replace the plans you’re accustomed to seeing (Personal, Business, and Commerce), they will be available to new website customers and existing clients who want to make the switch in the US.
Every new site plan offers ecommerce features, but each is unique in several ways. Let’s take a look at the Squarespace plans and their respective offerings:
Basic
With this plan, clients can create their own custom website and get discovered online. Clients also get the basic commerce features they need to start building their business.
Standout features available on this plan include:
Free custom domain for one year (annual plan)
The ability to sell unlimited products
Squarespace AI for creating websites and copy
30 minutes of video storage
24/7 customer support
2.9% + $0.30 Squarespace Payments fee on domestic cards
Core
With the Core plan, your client gets everything from the Basic plan, as well as commerce analytics and advanced coding capabilities.
Standout features of this plan include:
No commerce transaction fee*
Five hours of video storage
One free user/inbox for the first year on the Google Workspace Starter plan
Custom code, including site-wide and per-page injection
Unlimited contributors
Advanced commerce features, including carrier-calculated shipping and shipping labels
*View a full breakdown of fees.
Pro tip: This is the plan that I recommend to 95% of my clients. In my experience, it gives most people everything they need and nothing they don’t.
Plus
The Plus plan includes all the features in the Basic and Core plans, plus a decrease in processing fees and an increase in video storage. This is great for clients who either have established businesses today or are looking to scale their business on Squarespace.
Standout features of this plan include:
No commerce transaction fee
2.7% + $0.30 Squarespace Payments fee on domestic cards
1% Digital Product fee
API integrations for advanced sales functionality
50 hours of video storage
Advanced
For larger ecommerce stores that process many orders and want to further optimize their ecommerce websites, the Advanced plan offers Squarespace’s lowest transaction fees and includes all the features in the Basic, Core, and Plus plans.
Standout features of this plan include:
No commerce transaction fee
2.5% + $0.30 Squarespace Payments fee on domestic cards (View a full breakdown of fees)
No Digital Product fee
Unlimited video storage
Understanding client needs
Once you're familiar with Squarespace’s website plan options, the next step is to recommend the best fit for your client. Focus on what they truly need to build and manage a site that supports their business goals—not just what you want to offer or sell. Understanding their specific requirements will help you guide them toward the most practical and effective plan.
Assess the scope of the project
Each Squarespace plan offers a different level of complexity and features. During the consultation, determine the scope of the project. This includes questions like:
How many website contributors does my client require? The Basic plan allots for two site contributors, making it great for personal portfolios and blogs. For clients who run small businesses and anticipate needing more contributors, each successive plan—Core, Plus, and Advanced—offers unlimited contributors.
How complex does the website need to be? The more complex the website, the more features that may be necessary to realize it. Each successive Squarespace website plan from Basic to Advanced offers more features than the last.
Does my client want to sell products or services through their Squarespace site? While your ecommerce client can sell on a Basic plan, the Core, Plus, or Advanced plans offer lowered payment processing fees and may be the right solution to help them maximize their revenue.
How much per month and year does my client anticipate selling? Clients planning to sell high volumes of products and services can save more on commerce transaction fees, Squarespace Payments fees, Digital Product fees, and more with the Plus and Advanced plans.
Does my client require features to manage complex sales and product offerings? The Plus and Advanced plans include Squarespace’s most robust commerce features for better managing complex sales and offerings to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Budget considerations
Budget discussions are a key part of client communication during every site build, but they’re not just about how much you’ll charge to create the website. You also need to discuss how much the client is willing to set aside for their Squarespace plan.
Be clear with clients from the beginning and set expectations that they will need to pay for an ongoing Squarespace plan. Explain what they will get for their investment. Squarespace offers an array of different plans at different price points, meaning it’s likely you’ll find an option that suits your client’s budget. Some clients may even save money in the long run with Plus or Advanced plans thanks to their lower fees for general commerce transactions as well as Squarespace Payments and Digital Products sales.
Pro tip: This is a great opportunity for you to share how you can immediately provide value to your client as a Circle member. As a member, you receive a discount on all new annual subscription plans. This, in turn, saves your clients money. Not yet a Circle member? Join today!
Bandwidth and storage needs
With some other web builders, bandwidth and storage are a big factor in pricing, and often more storage comes at incrementally higher price points.
This isn’t so with Squarespace!
Every single plan comes with unlimited bandwidth, save for per-plan limits on video storage. For instance, no matter how many photos they wish to store or how many visitors they expect on their site, your clients will be covered. This is a fantastic selling point to potential and current clients.
Ecommerce considerations
Every website plan offers some degree of ecommerce features that can help your client manage customers, share content, build communities, or start an online store. These new website plans make it possible for your client to take that step immediately, whenever the moment is right.
It’s not, however, a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, you’ll need to work with your client to understand how advanced they want their online store to be, then help them choose a plan accordingly.
For example, a restaurant owner who wants to add a small store to their website to sell merchandise will benefit from a less advanced plan than an online clothing store whose website’s main purpose is to sell.
Additional features and customizations
When choosing the right Squarespace plan for your client, you also need to consider just how much they’ll want to customize their site.
For some, spruced-up Squarespace templates will be enough. However, more advanced websites may require code injection, something that can only be added to websites on a Core plan and above.
If the client only requires CSS, then you can suggest a Basic plan. But it’s important to get this information early on. If you go all in with HTML and JavaScript coding while the site is in trial, all of this will be disabled if your client ultimately opts for a Basic plan. This not only renders your work obsolete, but it will completely change the site’s overall functionality (and potentially its aesthetic).
Third-party integrations
Some clients may also want to add third-party integrations and extensions to extend the power of their website. Examples of additions that your client may want to make to their website include Google Analytics, Weglot, TaxJar, Printful, and more.
There are also other embeddable integrations should you find that your clients are interested in these integrations. If so, you can confidently rule out the Personal plan and explore Core or higher plan options with your client.
Scalability and future growth
Selecting a Squarespace plan for your client isn’t just about where they are right now. You’ll want to take into account where they hope to be in the future, too.
Discuss plans for growth with your client so that you can verify their Squarespace plan will support scalability. For example, your client may not sell many or any products today, but they may plan to up their ecommerce game in the next five years. With that in mind, it’s advantageous to set them up on a plan that will support this from the very start. In this particular case, the Core plan is their best bet as it offers them all of Squarespace’s ecommerce features like product and service selling and rich analytics, all at a price point that makes sense for where they are along their ecommerce journey. With the Core plan, they can get their store set up and test everything Squarespace has to offer without committing to a larger monthly (or annual) subscription.
Pro tip: Your clients won’t always recognize how their future endeavors are relevant to the website they’re building today, so it’s your job to ask the questions now.
Making the final decision
When you recommend a Squarespace plan to a client, be prepared to justify it. Review the key requirements for the website that you identified with your client and align these with the most appropriate plan, backing up your decision with facts and data. Remember: the clearer you can be with your client, the better.
If you suggest one of the less advanced plans, it’s important to discuss any trade-offs or features the client won’t have access to. They may decide they aren’t willing to miss out on these, or they may want to avoid paying extra for features they don’t want or need.
A pro’s recommendations
Every client has different needs. However, you can use the following framework as a guide to making plan recommendations.
Opt for the Basic plan if the client doesn’t require code injection or premium integrations. This is great for someone who is just starting to build their online presence and wants to lay the foundation for their business.
If your client needs more than two contributors and the ability to add code (including third-party integrations), suggest the Core plan. This is the plan I most often recommend to my own clients who can use the plan to set up an ecommerce store.
The Plus plan has advanced video storage options. Shipping labels, product waitlists, and commercial analytics features make it ideal for small to medium-sized ecommerce stores. Plus, it takes things one step further from the Core plan in that it removes transaction fees for product sales.
For clients who process a large number of online orders, the Advanced plan is certainly the way to go with low transaction fees across the board. With the Advanced plan, your client will also enjoy the removal of fees for products seen in the Plus plan, and there are no digital product fees. Paired with abandoned cart recovery and subscription products and commerce APIs means that the Advanced plan has every base covered for clients who sell online at scale.
Circle members can earn a commission on the annual subscriptions (including websites, Acuity Scheduling, Digital Products, and Email Campaigns) they set up for clients. This means you can make more money when you bring clients to Squarespace! Learn more about the Circle Referral Payment Benefit.
Final thoughts
It is important to help your client select the right plan by giving them all the information they need to make a well-informed decision. By communicating the benefits of each plan clearly, you’ll take most of the decision-making out of the equation for your client, which lets them get back to other business needs.
Pro tip: Maintain ongoing communication with clients, even once their website is live. This gives them the confidence to take control and try things out with the confidence that they can get in touch with a pro if they get stuck. This expedites their learning curve and helps them understand how to use Squarespace more efficiently. Plus, great communication is a part of maintaining client relationships.
In the long term, you can continue to stay in touch with your clients. As they grow, their needs will likely evolve and you can be there to guide them again when the time comes to choose a Squarespace plan for their new circumstances.
This article was originally published January 12, 2024. It has since been updated.
Want more?
Check out Squarespace Circle, Squarespace’s program for professional designers and web design agencies. Along with exclusive content, discounts, and other perks, Circle brings experts together from across the globe to exchange advice while connecting with new clients and collaborators.