Should I Use Squarespace or Showit?

Sep 9

How two similar‑looking platforms create completely different long‑term experiences.

Sometimes the question is not which platform looks prettier but which one actually supports the life you are building. Squarespace and Showit both promise creative control, but the way they are built shapes everything, your workflow, your time, your stress levels, and the future of your brand. One gives you a unified home where every tool already lives together. The other asks you to stitch your website from multiple places, each with its own rules, updates, and responsibilities.

If you have ever felt like your website is asking for more energy than it gives back, this breakdown will help you understand why.

One Platform Does Everything. The Other Needs Add‑Ons.

Squarespace and Showit may look similar at first glance, but the way they’re built couldn’t be more different. One platform is designed to give you everything in one place. The other relies on outside tools to fill in the gaps, which changes how you build, manage, and maintain your site long term.

Showit does not come with ecommerce, a native blog, or built in features like an Instagram feed. You can add all of these pieces, but you will be pulling them from different places. Shopify Lite for selling products. WordPress for blogging. Plugins for your Instagram feed. It works, and you can build a fully functional site, but it also means you are managing multiple systems at once, each with its own updates and rules.

Squarespace, on the other hand, is the real MVP who shows up with everything already handled. Hosting, security, SEO, blogging, galleries, ecommerce, digital downloads, scheduling, email marketing, analytics, memberships, and mobile responsiveness all live in one place, and the experience feels streamlined and predictable.

The Honest Truth About Designing in Showit.

The hidden cost of creative freedom is something I didn’t really feel until I was deep in a Showit layout. The freedom is amazing, but it also takes way more time than you expect. You finish the desktop version, and then you’re basically rebuilding the mobile layout by hand. Showit copies things over, but nothing sits quite right until you go in and fix it. Same with dropdowns and links. They work, but they take longer, and you really feel it when you’re building a bigger site.

Squarespace just doesn’t make you do all that. It handles the mobile layout for you, the navigation is simple, and everything you need is already built in. It’s not about one being “better,” it’s just that Squarespace feels easier to live with. You spend less time fixing things and more time actually creating, which is a huge time saver for most people who just want their site to work without all the extra steps.

Why photographers pay more for Showit and less stress with Squarespace.

Showit appears affordable at first glance, but once you add WordPress hosting, SEO tools, security plugins, backups, ecommerce add‑ons, and scheduling systems, the real monthly cost climbs to $93–$218. This happens because Showit relies heavily on external tools that each require their own updates, subscriptions, and maintenance.

Squarespace bundles hosting, SEO, security, analytics, ecommerce, scheduling, email marketing, and blogging into one platform. That is why most photographers stay between $23–$33 per month with predictable long‑term stability and fewer moving parts.

Both sites lets you style freely but Squarespace keeps SEO steady.

Showit covers the essentials like page titles, meta descriptions, image alt text, and flexible heading tags that don’t alter your design. These tools give you enough structure to support basic SEO.

However, Showit’s quirks make optimization more challenging. There is no SERP preview, so you cannot easily see how your metadata will appear in search results. The visual layer order is reversed in the HTML output, which can affect how search engines interpret hierarchy. Alt text behaves differently depending on whether you use gallery blocks or image blocks. URLs are tied directly to page names, and changing a page name can break existing links.

Squarespace takes a different approach. It manages metadata, structure, and performance automatically, creating a consistent SEO foundation that stays organized without extra effort.

Showit needs WordPress. WordPress does not need Showit.

Showit is a visual page builder that sits on top of WordPress. It cannot function without WordPress powering the blog, hosting structure, and backend. WordPress, however, can operate entirely on its own without Showit. This one‑way dependency influences how you manage hosting, plugins, SEO tools, updates, and long‑term stability. It also means Showit sites inherit the maintenance requirements of WordPress, even if the design experience feels separate.

Should You Stay on Showit or Switch to Squarespace

Squarespace offers automatic protection, built‑in stability, and a predictable system that removes the need to troubleshoot WordPress or babysit plugins. It turns your website into something you can rely on instead of something you worry about.

Working with me makes the transition even smoother. As a Squarespace Circle Gold Designer, you receive a six‑month extended trial, 20% off your first annual plan, priority support through my designer channel, early access to new features, and a certified expert guiding your entire build. You are not just switching platforms. You are upgrading your entire experience.

If your brand is expanding, your content is growing, and your SEO needs are increasing, the real question is not whether to stay on Showit. The real question is whether Showit supports the business you are becoming or whether Squarespace gives you the stability, scalability, affordability, and peace of mind you deserve.

If you want to explore what your business could look like on Squarespace, I can guide you through the entire process with clarity, confidence, and care.

Begin your free trial here

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