Shopify vs Squarespace for an Online Store

Choose Shopify if the store is the whole point of the site. Choose Squarespace if the store is one section of a design-led site that's mostly portfolio, blog, or booking pages; its Core plan and above drop the commerce transaction fee on physical products. Squarespace sells one set of plans that cover design, content, and commerce together, with an extra selling fee that shrinks as you go up in plan. Shopify has no design-only tier at all — every plan is a store plan, with no separate commerce surcharge on top of payment processing. Here's what each vendor's own documentation says.

What does each catalog support?

Squarespace's documentation states a per-product ceiling that covers everything at once: "Each product can have up to six options and 250 variant combinations, images, and SKUs, whether added through the product editor or the .csv importer" (Squarespace, "Adding product variants", checked September 2026) — so options, variant combinations, images, and SKUs all draw from the same 250-item budget for a single product. Shopify keeps these separate: its help documentation states "you can create up to 2,048 variants for a product" with "up to three options" (Shopify Help Center, "Adding product variants", checked September 2026), and separately allows "up to 250 media items, such as images, per product" (same source) — so a Shopify product's image count doesn't shrink its available variant slots the way Squarespace's combined limit can.

A product with heavy option branching — multiple colors, sizes, and finishes, each with its own photo — reaches Squarespace's shared 250-item ceiling faster than it reaches Shopify's separate 2,048-variant and 250-image limits. A simple catalog with a handful of variants per item fits comfortably on either.

How does the commerce fee actually work on each plan?

This is the sharpest difference between the two. Squarespace's transaction-fees article shows a real plan-based schedule: a commerce transaction fee on top of payment processing, which Squarespace lists as a "2% commerce transaction fee" on the Basic plan and "No commerce transaction fee" on Core and above (Squarespace, "Selling on the Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced plans", checked September 2026). Digital products are different: the same page lists a separate Digital Product fee, 7% on Basic and 5% on Core. Payment processing through Squarespace Payments is billed separately. For US standard cards, Squarespace's rates table lists 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic and Core, 2.7% + $0.30 on Plus and 2.5% + $0.30 on Advanced, with premium cards at 3.2% + $0.30 and a 1.5% surcharge on international cards (Squarespace, "Transaction fees and payment processing rates", checked September 2026).

Shopify has no separate platform commerce fee at all: it charges payment processing only, through Shopify Payments, with card rates "from" 2.9% + 30¢ on the Basic plan ($29/mo), 2.7% + 30¢ on Grow ($79/mo), and 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced ($299/mo), per the pricing page's yearly billing view (Shopify, pricing page, checked September 2026). Where Shopify does add a charge is if you skip its own processor: its help documentation says third-party transaction fees apply "when you use a third-party payment provider to accept customer payments" (and, on stores created on or after May 12, 2025, on store credit and gift card payments) (Shopify Help Center, "Third-party transaction fees on your Shopify bills", checked September 2026). So the fee shapes are inverted: Squarespace's commerce fee on physical products disappears once you're on Core or above; Shopify's extra fee appears mainly when you use someone else's payment processor, on any plan.

What ecommerce features differ by plan?

Squarespace's own plan-comparison documentation lists concrete feature gates beyond the fee schedule: abandoned checkout recovery and selling subscription products are both available starting on the Basic plan, while purchase funnel analytics and carrier-calculated shipping are Core-plan-and-above additions (Squarespace, "Selling on the Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced plans", checked September 2026). Check that same plan-comparison page against your actual feature needs before assuming a lower plan covers everything a higher one does — and check Shopify's own plan-comparison page on its pricing page the same way, since plan-gated features change over time on both platforms.

What third-party tools can extend either store?

Squarespace calls its marketplace Extensions, described on its own site as "a collection of third-party tools to enhance your Squarespace website" that "connect Squarespace with other platforms to help streamline shipping, sell products across the web, market your store, and more" (Squarespace, Extensions, checked September 2026) — general-purpose site and marketing tools sit alongside commerce-specific ones. Shopify's App Store is commerce-first and larger by its own description: "over 16,000 apps for all the different ways you want to customize your store" (Shopify, App Store homepage, checked September 2026). If your store needs a specific, narrow commerce integration — a particular loyalty program, a wholesale-pricing tool, a regional shipping carrier — Shopify's larger commerce-specific catalog is more likely to already have it built.

Is the design model the same?

No, and this matters for how a store looks day to day. Squarespace's 7.1 documentation describes every current site as sharing one underlying system: "all version 7.1 sites are part of the same template family, so every site has the same features and style options," with page design built from "page sections" you can add and restyle individually (Squarespace, "Understanding Squarespace templates", checked September 2026) — your product pages sit inside the same section-based design as the rest of the site, styled together. Shopify keeps the storefront design in a separate theme layer, built from sections and blocks, that you can swap without touching your product data; Shopify's own theme documentation frames themes as commerce-specific, offering "unique styles, layouts, and experiences tailored to the specific products you sell" (Shopify Help Center, "Themes", checked September 2026). A brand that wants its store visually distinct from a swappable theme library may prefer Squarespace's single, cohesive design system; a brand that wants an ecommerce-specific theme it can replace independently of its catalog may prefer Shopify's separation.

What does each platform's own AI do for a store?

Squarespace's Clarkson AI chat works inside the page editor. Squarespace's help guide says it can change page text and images, work with products and discounts, and update site styles, and that it may not be on every site yet (Squarespace, "Using Squarespace AI", checked September 2026). Our full breakdown of Squarespace's AI tools covers Clarkson, Blueprint AI, and what a browser-based outside agent can and can't do there.

Shopify's Magic and Sidekick cover content generation, image editing, and order/product assistance, with Shopify stating Sidekick "presents changes for your review before applying them" (Shopify Help Center, "Sidekick", checked September 2026). Our guide to AI on Shopify covers Magic, Sidekick, theme-code editing through Shopify CLI, and where checkout stays off-limits to any agent.

Can I move a store from one to the other?

Yes, but not with a full automatic import either direction. Shopify's own free Store Migration app supports an automatic connection for a handful of platforms, but not Squarespace: Shopify's migration guide names the supported platforms as "Square, WooCommerce, Etsy, Wix, Amazon, eBay, Clover, and Lightspeed R/X (Vend)" — Squarespace isn't on that list, so a Squarespace-to-Shopify move goes through Squarespace's product and order CSV exports instead. Our guide to moving your store to Shopify covers the exact Squarespace export steps, what the import app does and doesn't bring over, product URL redirects, and the pre-launch checklist — read that instead of starting a move from this page. There's no equivalent official importer moving a Shopify catalog into Squarespace; that direction means rebuilding products by hand or via CSV inside Squarespace's own product editor.

Is Figment a fit for either kind of store?

No. Figment publishes designs from Figma as websites through a Figma plugin, and its AI editor is a preview with an access-request form, not a production tool. Neither is a commerce platform: catalogs, checkout, and payment processing stay Shopify's or Squarespace's job regardless of which you pick. If you want a separate landing page built from a Figma design, Figment can publish that; the store itself still runs on Shopify or Squarespace. For changing an existing site with AI, see can AI edit my website.

Which should I actually pick?

• Pick Shopify if the store is the primary purpose of the site, you expect catalog complexity or a specific commerce app need, or you want the storefront theme kept separate from the catalog underneath it.
• Pick Squarespace if you're already choosing it for a design-led content site — portfolio, blog, booking — and want a small-to-medium store bundled into the same plan and editor, especially if Core or a higher plan's 0% commerce fee makes sense for your margins.
• Read the actual plan-comparison pages before committing to either, since Squarespace gates real features (not just the fee) by plan, and Shopify plan prices change over time.

Bottom line: Squarespace's commerce fee on physical products drops to zero from the Core plan up; Shopify has no platform commerce fee but adds one if you use another payment processor. Squarespace bundles the store into one cohesive site design; Shopify keeps a separate, swappable, commerce-specific theme layer. Check your actual catalog shape and margins against the numbers above rather than picking on reputation alone.