Is There a Free Version of Squarespace? No. Here Is What $0 Gets You Instead

Is there a free version of Squarespace? No. Squarespace sells four paid plans and a 14-day free trial, and its own pricing FAQ states plainly that it doesn't offer a free plan. The trial is not a free website either, because the site stays private until you pay: visible to you, your contributors and anyone you hand a password to. The cheapest way to keep a Squarespace site online is the Basic plan: $19 a month when billed annually, $228 a year, which also covers a domain for year one. Those are US prices, read on Squarespace's pricing page on 12 October 2026.

So the question worth answering is the next one: if you need $0, where should you go instead? This page answers both: Squarespace has no free tier, and the free plans below publish a real site instead.

What the 14-day trial lets you do, and what it does not

The trial is generous with the editor and strict about the audience. You need no card to start, and for 14 days you can pick a template and build every page. What you cannot do is open the site to the public. Squarespace's help centre says a trial site is private: owners and contributors log in to see it, and everyone else lands on a login page.

There is one way to show a trial site to someone. Add a site-wide password, then send people your built-in Squarespace address with the password, and they can look around without editing anything. The password also keeps the site out of search results. When you want it open to everyone, the only route is to upgrade to a paid plan; Squarespace says it occasionally runs promotions, and that it shares them only on its own website or by email.

Read that as a clear limit. A trial is for deciding whether Squarespace suits you, not for running a site, even briefly. If you need a page live this week for nothing, skip ahead to the free tiers.

The cheapest way to keep a Squarespace site, per year

Squarespace's four plans all bill either annually or monthly, and annual billing is where the headline prices come from.

Basic is the floor. On annual billing it costs $228 for the first year, and that year includes a free domain on Squarespace's cheapest domain pricing tier. From the second year the domain renews at Squarespace's standard rate, which its domains FAQ gives as $20 a year for a .com, so the second year comes to $248. Pay month to month instead and Basic costs $300 a year with no free domain at all. Squarespace advertises savings of up to 36% for paying annually; on Basic the saving is 24%.

Two smaller costs sit inside Basic. It charges a 2% transaction fee on online sales, which Core removes, and its card rate, shared with Core, is the highest of the four. If you will sell more than occasionally, price Core at $348 a year against Basic plus the fee. If you have already decided to pay, Squarespace Basic on annual billing is the cheapest way to own a Squarespace site.

Is Squarespace free for students or portfolios?

Not for students, though it is half price for a year. Squarespace's student page offers 50% off the first full year of a new annual plan to students who verify through its partner Student Beans, with the offer code entered at checkout. On Basic that turns $228 into $114 before tax, and the plan renews at the full price after the first year. Our list of free website builders for students and nonprofits covers the options that stay at $0.

Not for portfolios either. Squarespace's portfolio templates run on the same four plans as every other site, so a portfolio costs at least $19 a month on annual billing. There is no separate portfolio tier and no free one. If a portfolio has to cost nothing, the free tiers below will publish one.

If you need $0: the free tiers that publish a real site

These five builders publish a public website on their free plans, which is the thing Squarespace's trial will not do. They appear in the same order as on our truly free website builders ranking.

Google Sites is the only one that lets you connect your own domain without a paid plan; you buy the domain from a registrar and connect it at no extra charge, up to five per site, as of 9 October 2026. Our Google Sites review covers the plainness of its templates, which is the price you pay for that.

On its free plan Framer puts the site on a Framer address and allows 1 GB of bandwidth a month, plus 500 AI credits to try, and it is the closest of the five to Squarespace's design quality. Carrd is the cheapest exit of all: free for up to three one-page sites, and $19 a year for Pro Standard with your own domain and no branding. Wix gives away its whole editor but puts its ads on every free page, as our Wix free plan review sets out. Strikingly lets you publish unlimited free sites on its subdomain with a single product for sale.

The price difference over three years

The gap between Squarespace and the free tiers is not one subscription; it compounds. Here is what three years of the cheapest plan that takes your own domain costs on each.

Squarespace Basic on annual billing comes to $684 over three years, plus $40 for two .com renewals, or $900 if you pay monthly. Framer Basic costs $360 for the same three years and includes a complimentary domain on yearly billing. Carrd Pro Standard is $57, and Google Sites stays at $0 for the platform, leaving only the domain you register yourself. Wix Light at $612 and Strikingly Pro at $576 sit between them.

When paying for Squarespace is the right call

Squarespace earns its price when the things it bundles are the things you need. Its templates are the reason most people look at it, its selling tools are built in on every plan rather than added on, and one bill covers hosting, security certificates and the first year's domain. If you will sell, the card rate falls from 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic and Core to 2.5% + $0.30 on Advanced, so a busy shop should price the higher plans properly before choosing.

It is the wrong call when the site is one page, when the budget is genuinely zero, or when you only need something online for a few weeks. In those cases a free tier or Carrd does the job and leaves the decision about Squarespace for later, when you know the site is worth $228 a year.

Edge cases

A few situations change the answer for a particular reader.

• You already own a domain: you can connect it to any Squarespace plan, but the free-domain year applies only to registering a new one with an annual plan.
• You pay monthly to keep your options open: there is no free domain on monthly billing, so add a domain's cost to the $25 a month.
• Someone offers a free Squarespace site: Squarespace says it shares its promotions only on its own website or by email, so treat anything else with suspicion.
• You are outside the US: plan line-ups and prices differ by country, so read the pricing page from where you will be billed.