Which Squarespace plan is right for authors?
One of the most frequent questions my author website clients ask me is which Squarespace plan they should be on. So in today’s post I am going to take a look at the two main options that my authors use: the Personal plan, and the Business plan.
Unfortunately, Squarespace is not free! There’s a monthly fee, which covers your hosting, plus all the added benefits you get with using Squarespace as your author website platform - top-notch security, in-built SEO and a dedicated help team at your disposal should anything go wrong.
Another great thing about Squarespace is that they don’t charge for the number of pages you have on your website, or limit you storage-wise.
No matter what plan you are on, you have unlimited bandwidth and can add as many photographs, blog posts and pages to your site as you like.
Meaning your Squarespace author website can literally grow with your career!
Other website builders often limit you and force you to upgrade to a more expensive plan for more storage, so this is a real plus point.
Why I recommend Squarespace for your author website →
Squarespace offers a huge range of functionality, meaning it can be used for everything from author websites to hairdressers to restaurants to online stores. Which is why they offer four different plans: Personal, Business, Commerce Basic, and Commerce Advanced, all with different features and different fees.
You can find out more about the different pricing plans here →
The Commerce plans are designed for people running online businesses.
As an author, you will be fine with either the Personal or Business plan.
So let’s take a detailed look at what you get with each of these…
Squarespace Personal Plan
Obviously, the Personal plan is the cheapest of the lot, starting at £12 per month.
However, do bear in mind that this is a little bit misleading (one of my bug-bears is the way that Squarespace market their plans!).
It WORKS OUT at £12 per month, but you have to pay the entire fee annually - which means £144 upfront.
If you actually want to pay the fee monthly, then it will cost you £16 per month - adding up to £192 per year.
I still think this plan represents great value for money, and it’s perfect for authors who are just starting out and want to get a simple and affordable website up and running at an affordable cost.
Squarespace Personal plan features
This plan offers everything you need to get a smart, beautiful author website live.
If you pay for your subscription annually, you’ll also get a free custom domain included (for eg yourauthorname.com), saving you at least £16.
Here are some of the features of the Personal plan:
Free custom domain (only with annual plans)
SSL security
Unlimited bandwidth
Video hosting
SEO features for site visibility
Templates to fit every need from blogs to portfolios
Mobile-optimized websites
24/7 customer support
Basic website metrics
Squarespace extensions
Squarespace Business Plan
The Squarespace Business plan costs £17 per month, if paid annually, which works out to £204 per year.
If you prefer to pay monthly and spread the cost, it’ll cost you £24 per month (£288 per year in total).
Squarespace Business plan features
The Squarespace Business plan is, unsurprisingly, a ‘step up’ from the Personal plan, and the one I recommend to authors who want to get a bit more from their author websites.
It offers you the ability to sell signed books directly to readers - so you can set up your own ‘store’ on your website and Squarespace can take payment and handle all the processing for you.
(Alas, it can’t actually send the books for you, so you will still need to take a trip to the post office!)
It also offers two of my favourite marketing features: the announcement bar and the promotional pop-up window.
These are both great for driving newsletter subscribers.
The announcement bar
My announcement bar (the green strip at the top!)
The promotional pop-up
My current promotional pop-up
Find out more about the promotional pop-up →
With this plan, you also get a year’s free professional email, tied to your domain name (for eg: author@yourdomainname.com).
This is crucial if you want to send newsletters to your readers.
Why you need a custom email address →
You will also need to be on the Business plan of Squarespace if you use Mailchimp (or another platform) for your author newsletter, as they require you to be on this plan in order to embed the sign-up forms on your website.
And from a web designer’s point of view, the Business plan also offers you the ability to use more advanced code on the website, making the design more flexible.
A summary of the additional features on this plan:
Unlimited website contributors
Professional email from Google
Premium integrations and blocks
Complete customization with CSS and JavaScript
Fully integrated ecommerce
Sell unlimited products
Accept donations
Gift cards
Customer accounts
Squarespace discounts
There are a few ways to get a discount on your Squarespace plan.
Squarespace Circle is their program for professional web designers, and comes with a few benefits.
If you use a Squarespace Circle designer (like me! 😎) to build your author website, you’ll get 20% off your Squarespace plan for the first year - provided you pay for it annually.
Squarespace also run promotions throughout the year, so if you’re planning on DIYing your site, do keep an eye out for those - again, you can quite often get 20% off your plan with a discount code.
You can check for any current Squarespace discount codes on this page →
Squarespace trial periods
It’s also worth mentioning that Squaerspace offers a 14-day free trial period on new websites.
So you can open an account and start building a website without paying anything upfront, and see if you like using the platform.
At the end of the 14 days you can either upgrade to a paid plan and publish your site to the world, or if you need a little more time, you can ask Squarespace to extend your trial for another seven days.
Squarespace Campaigns
Squarespace Campaigns is their author newsletter functionality. Which I love and highly recommend!
Why I use Squarespace Campaigns for my author newsletter →
However, just note that this is an additional subscription which you will pay for separately, and is not included in your hosting package, no matter which Squarespace plan you are on.
