Struggling to settle on a Squarespace template? We’ve got you covered with 10 recommendations that’ll turn any idea into a gorgeous website.
BEST FOR BLOGGING
Five
An oldie *and* a goodie for bloggers who value versatility and a sidebar (or two).
BEST FOR E-COMMERCE
Galapagos
Sometimes basic isn’t a bad thing, especially if it takes the fuss out of incorporating interactive design elements.
Odds are you’ve already heard of Squarespace thanks to extensive marketing campaigns via podcasts and website banners. It’s a big name in the web design world now, allowing you to easily construct sites even if you don’t know much about web design or coding. Costing $12 to $40 per month depending on your needs, you get hosting, 24/7 customer support, website metrics, mobile optimization, SSL security, unlimited storage and bandwidth, drag-and-drop page building facilities, and, most importantly, access to dozens of original and modern templates. So, how do you decide what template to use? We’ve taken a look at the best Squarespace templates out there for every need, as well as answered some questions you may have about the service.
Why should I use Squarespace?
Simplicity is the key reason behind Squarespace’s popularity. There’s simply little else out there that works quite as well as Squarespace, even if you don’t know much about web design or coding. It’s also reasonably well priced and you don’t have to worry about setting up multiple separate services like arranging hosting and domain names — Squarespace does everything for you. Plus, if you simply want an online presence fast, Squarespace takes hardly any time at all to get set up, so you or your brand can be online quickly.
Is Squarespace good for beginners?
Absolutely! You don’t need any knowledge of coding or web design to create something wonderful here. Even if you don’t feel particularly competent about your creative skills, there are enough templates out there that you can find a look that works for you and your business or personal needs. Users have more than 90 different options available to them so your site will look distinctive and all you need to do is be able to drag and drop elements together. Easy, right?
You also won’t have to worry about signing up for multiple services or figuring out security needs. Squarespace is a neat all-in-one solution for ensuring you have a high-quality web presence.
Is Squarespace better than WordPress?
They’re both fairly different services. WordPress is older which means you have virtually unlimited customization options and thousands of themes to choose from, but they can require a bit more hands-on time than anything Squarespace provides. WordPress is often less secure too so you need to keep on top of updates, while Squarespace does everything automatically.
Squarespace offers less flexibility than WordPress but, generally, the content it has is of a higher quality than WordPress’s. It’s quality over quantity, essentially. It’s also typically more reliable and there’s official integration with key services such as Apple News, Paypal, and Acuity Scheduling which can be useful for business needs.
What are the limitations of Squarespace?
Flexibility is the only real issue with Squarespace. If you know how to code from scratch, you may find yourself a little restricted by Squarespace’s potential. That’s because it’s not really aimed at you — it’s aimed at users that want a good looking online presence fast. You also need to bear in mind ongoing costs. If you know how to design a site from scratch, hosting costs are always going to be lower than paying for the all-in-one service of Squarespace.
What are Squarespace family templates?
Squarespace families are groups of templates that have similarities between how they’ve been designed. In recent times, family templates have become less important and, ultimately, you don’t have to worry about them. We’ve simply included them here as a legacy item and for those that want to specifically use certain template families.
Five
An oldie *and* a goodie for bloggers who value versatility and a sidebar (or two).
Five may be one of the older Squarespace templates out there, but it’s anything but washed up. One of its main draws is its support for sidebars, which can play an important role on one’s blog. The flexibility that comes from sidebar support is vast. For example, you can use one to highlight promotions, place a call-to-action specific to your work, or plug your bio and social media handles to build your brand. Every page on a Five site can feature up to two sidebars. In fact, Five is the only Squarespace template that features a two-sidebar design.
Five isn’t just about sidebars though. There are also extensive options such as the ability to add full-width banners and videos, tweak your navigation menu, style galleries as grids or slideshows, as well as create events or add contact forms. Five also supports Squarespace’s integrated eCommerce feature so you can set up an online store once your blog takes off and start selling directly.
Effectively, the beauty behind Five is its simplicity and flexibility. You can make it whatever you need it to be. It works just as well as a simple blog as it does if you want to expand into eCommerce or use it as a form of portfolio. It’s an ideal place to start too if you’re not quite sure what your plans are.
Interactive shopping experience • Clean layout
Few opportunities for customization
Sometimes basic isn’t a bad thing, especially if it takes the fuss out of incorporating interactive design elements.
Galapagos
Sometimes basic isn’t a bad thing, especially if it takes the fuss out of incorporating interactive design elements.
A clean and simple interface is a great way of ensuring that your products take all the attention when potential customers are browsing. That’s certainly the case with Galapagos. It’s elegant in its simplicity forming an ideal starting point for setting up shop.
Granted, that comes at a small cost with fairly limited customization options compared to many other eCommerce Squarespace templates but we think it’s worth it. It means you can spend less time designing your site and more time selling your stuff. Customers won’t mind either because it looks good to them.
With a Quick View feature for all items, they can easily check out potential purchases with Product Image Zoom giving them as close a look as if they were there in person. There are several product layouts along with other special on-hover effects so your site will look distinctive from the competition. It’s all nicely interactive too so that customers feel more immersed in the experience.
Besides the Products page, the Galapagos theme can also support list-style blogs with one sidebar; galleries styled as slideshows or grids; calendars or lists of events; an album page with playable music; and a unique landing page. It’s enough to give your customers a taste of your personality, as well as what they can buy from you.
Adaptive grid layout • Tools for online shop • Single sidebar can be added to blog
Non-landing pages are pretty unexciting
A simple yet beautiful way to showcase your best creative work that facilitates visitor exploration.
Wexley
A simple yet beautiful way to showcase your best creative work that facilitates visitor exploration.In addition to your landing page, Wexley will let you build a list-style blog, a playable album page, a calendar or list of events, and a products page for your artistic services and creations. Just know that these other pages’ layout options are somewhat bare, as Wexley intends for your landing page to be the focal point of your site.
Striking index pages • Supports single-page sites
Main navigation isn’t displayed on index pages unless they’re set as the homepage
Your one-stop shop for an eye-catching, one-page website that helps your clips shine.
Aside from the index page, this Pacific family template supports list-style blogs, playable album pages, event pages, and sellable products pages with a customizable shopping cart button.
Extremely versatile • Virtually endless customization options
Doesn’t support a sidebar on any page
It’s not just the best Squarespace template for a business, but one of the best templates overall.
Brine is one of the biggest and most popular template families on Squarespace for good reason. It offers extensive flexibility and near never-ending amounts of customization options. If you want your site to look absolutely nothing like anything else out there, this is the solution for you, providing you put the time into tweaking it.
As you’d imagine, Brine gives you the most style control for both desktop and mobile than pretty much any other Squarespace template. It was designed with brands and companies in mind, appreciating that they want a distinctive look with minimal effort. It has features like the ability to have an active blog, sophisticated eCommerce features like on-hover effects, plus extensive ways to tweak and juggle your text and images.
Other impressive features include a stacked, parallax-scrolling index page which adds depth to your site, a content inset feature that can draw attention to big announcements, multiple navigation areas, multiple blog layouts, custom share buttons, and full-width banners and headers. The only thing it really lacks is sidebar functionality but otherwise, Brine packs so much in that you may be intimidated by what you can achieve here.
Soundcloud integration • Parallax effect available
Range of customizable features can be a little overwhelming
An intricate, stylish template that just makes sense for a growing podcast.
Named after the audio file format, Wav is a newer template featuring a statement-making, grid-style layout that’s fresh and modern. Most notably, it’s capable of integrating with Soundcloud, a perk that makes publishing your latest episodes a cinch.
For more on the features available within the Brine family, check out our write-up of the eponymous template (No. 5, above).
Professional look that doesn’t require lots of effort • Prominent calls-to-action
A refined template featuring bold calls-to-action that encourages potential employers to get in touch.
Templates within the Brine family are designed to sell things — and yes, that includes yourself.
What we’re trying to say is this: You can create a contemporary, attention-grabbing online resume with Pursuit, a text-focused, CV-style template with colorful call-to-action buttons that pop off the page. Be sure to take advantage of its stacked index page feature, which puts your skills graphs, experience, awards, and other pertinent information all in one polished place. That way, hiring managers don’t have to hunt it down across different pages.
For more on the features available within the Brine family, check out our write-up of the eponymous template (No. 5, above).
Acuity Scheduling integration is easily set up • Mobile styles can’t be disabled
With a fun design and thoughtful functionality, Ready will ensure you’ll be, well, ready to take on all sorts of exciting new freelance projects. (Sorry, we had to.)
Ready’s chic, minimalist design is accentuated with “[vivid] headlines and bright pops of color,” per Squarespace, creating a welcoming web presence that’ll attract all sorts of potential clients to your main and/or side hustle(s). Structure-wise, it’s a multi-page template that highlights your service(s) on its homepage, then dedicates separate pages to tidbits like pricing, contact information, testimonials, and appointment requests.
As a member of the Skye template family, Ready is unique in that it doesn’t give users the option to disable mobile styles, which guarantees your site is always mobile-friendly.
Neat design • Headlines cleanly divide sections • So many opportunities for mobile
Relies heavily on imagery
Any Brine family template is great for mobile, realistically, although we’re partial to this one for its simple layout with long, scrolling pages and bold headlines.
For more on the features available within the Brine family, check out our write-up of the eponymous template (No. 5, above).
Lots of opportunities to show off photos of you and your spouse-to-be • Puts all of your most important info in one place • More customizable than wedding websites offered by sites like The Knot
Squarespace plans cost money, whereas The Knot, et al. will set up your site for free
A playful, photo-filled template that’s so easy to navigate, even your Great Aunt Edna will be able to find her way around it.
Help your guests get organized in preparation for your big day with Charlotte, another template from the Pacific family. Its layout’s focal point is a scrolling index page that supports full-bleed images with text overlays, which you could use to tell the story of your relationship, share highlights from your engagement photoshoot, recommend accommodations, and/or drop some gift registry ideas. Plus, if you set that index page as your homepage, your main navigation will be pinned to the top of your browser as viewers scroll. (Hey, anything that makes the site easier for your technology-challenged relatives to use.)
For more on the features available within the Pacific family, check out our write-up of the Horizon template (No. 4, above).
Clear layout • Booking services • Landing page offers key info
Mobile layout isn’t so appealing
Focusing on good photos and clear text, Vance is ideal if you want to show people what wonderful food you can provide.
Vance
Focusing on good photos and clear text, Vance is ideal if you want to show people what wonderful food you can provide.
More and more food services are going online for bookings and showcasing their menus. Vance is a great way of doing this with minimal effort. Its landing page has all the key information such as photos of the food you offer, your location, and the option to subscribe to a newsletter. You can also include text on how your restaurant or cafe came to be with an About Us page keen to expand your story.
Alongside that is a simple to browse menu, an all-important photo gallery to tantalize one’s tastebuds, and a booking service so that everything can be done from within the site. It’s just a shame that the mobile version isn’t so classy looking but it’s still highly functional.
Attractive text layout • Intuitive design
A traditional blog layout that lends itself well to imparting a lot of knowledge quickly.
Lusaka
A traditional blog layout that lends itself well to imparting a lot of knowledge quickly.
Lusaka harks back to an older style blog than other Squarespace designs but that works well for a site that needs to impart a lot of knowledge. In particular, if you’re designing a site for a non-profit organization that needs to tell potential donors a lot in an appealing fashion, then Lusaka has the right design. A mixture of images and text overlays along with quick intros to further reading ensures that it’s captivating without being overly wordy.
The landing page serves as exactly that, tempting users into finding out more before delving further into more text-heavy content. It’s ideally suited for a site with a lot to say and the inclusion of donation features makes it all the more appropriate for such a purpose.
Attractive layout • Modern stylings
Jack of all trades but master of none
Selling your products is sometimes as much about selling your personality, so Almar combines the two.
Almar
Selling your products is sometimes as much about selling your personality, so Almar combines the two.
These days, selling your products online is often as much about selling your lifestyle and personality as it is the specific product. Almar combines those two sensibilities allowing you to advertise your wares or services while also giving you ample room to show your personality.
Aimed primarily at health and beauty, you can adapt it for other needs, with an appealing layout that works for many needs. You can write up blogs and features showcasing your knowledge, as well as explain how your journey began via the About Me page. That’s all before the user makes an appointment through the online booking service. It’s a great option for those looking for something a little more personal than a product page, but a little more financially viable than a blog.
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