Squarespace review
We read the company’s pages and its help centre, and bought nothing. Every figure here comes from a page you can open.
- ByMohamed Al-Shehri · edited by Nora Al-Mutairi
- Read on
- Score5.2 / 10
We read the pricing page and the help-centre articles on language and text direction on Squarespace’s own site, on .
Squarespace makes sites whose looks match anything on this list, for anyone writing in English. Its templates, editor, store tools, search tools and analytics are all named on its own pages, and its score for what you get reflects that.
The flaw is not our opinion: the company publishes in its own help centre that it has no built-in way to write right-to-left text. For a reader of this page that is not a detail; it is the whole question.
How this review was built
We did not buy a Squarespace plan. Speed and uptime are out of the score entirely for that reason. The score rests on four criteria readable on the company’s own pages: price and billing, Arabic and right-to-left support, published features, and support availability.
We read past the pricing page: the help-centre article on writing in your language, and the list of languages the help centre itself publishes. The Arabic chapter comes from those two.
There is no buyer-reports chapter here. We opened no reports this round, and a chapter without verification is no use to a reader.
Buying and price
6.7
Basis: the company’s own pages · weight 25%
The advertised price is {entry} a month billed yearly, rising if you pay monthly, and the page prints both figures together.
There is no plan renewal price on the page. The domain gets a line that is clear and incomplete at once: The pricing page states that a domain registered through the promotion renews at the company’s standard rate after the first year, and the page never names that rate So a buyer knows a price exists and not what it is.
The entry plan carries a commission on store sales and a higher one on digital content and memberships, and neither goes away without upgrading. That is a second price the monthly figure does not show.
| Value | Points |
|---|---|
| $12.00/mo billed yearly | 9.30 |
| Paying monthly costs a good deal more | 0.00 |
| No commission on sales | 10.00 |
| A trial only, no free tier | 5.00 |
Arabic and right-to-left
0.0
Basis: the company’s own pages · weight 20%
This chapter is short because the company answered it itself.
Squarespace states in its own help centre that there is currently no built-in way to add right-to-left text to a Squarespace site The two workarounds the page offers are pasting short phrases and justifying them right, or adding custom code. Of the second, the page says it sits outside the scope of its support.
The help centre confirms the picture: Squarespace’s help centre is published in 10 languages and Arabic is not among them, and the company states its translated guides are machine-translated with no human review Its chat widget tells a visitor it is not available in their language and asks for English.
No Arabic and no right-to-left templates are published. Anyone building an Arabic site here builds with tools not made for it, and carries what follows alone.
| Value | Points |
|---|---|
| No Arabic interface published | 0.00 |
| Publishes no right-to-left support | 0.00 |
| No Arabic templates published | 0.00 |
| No Arabic support published | 0.00 |
Published features
8.2
Basis: the company’s own pages · weight 35%
What you get is plentiful: {feats} of the items we count, with an extensions marketplace, search tools, analytics and an AI builder, all named on its pages.
Selling is available from the entry plan but with a commission, dropped by moving one tier up. Custom code starts higher still, which puts the right-to-left workaround out of reach of the entry plan anyway.
No cap is published on storage or bandwidth, which few platforms here state outright.
| Value | Points |
|---|---|
| What you get: 5 of the 6 capabilities we could read | 8.24 |
Support availability
3.5
Basis: the company’s own pages · weight 20%
The published channels are chat and email, with no phone number. The chat hours written in the help centre are business hours rather than around the clock.
There is no free tier, only a time-limited trial with no card. We did not find a refund window on the pricing page.
The company states its translated guides are machine-translated with no human review — a published admission worth reading before relying on those guides.
| Value | Points |
|---|---|
| support in business hours | 5.00 |
| Contact by chat, tickets | 6.67 |
| No refund window published | 0.00 |
| No renewal price on the page | 0.00 |
Speed and uptime: we did not measure them
We did not measure the speed or uptime of a Squarespace site, and bought no plan. Both sit outside the score rather than inside it as a guess.
We opened no buyer reports and did not write to support. What we did not check is written here rather than filled in with an assumption.
The full calculation
| Sub-score | Value | Weight | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 6.7 | 25% | 1.675 |
| Arabic | 0.0 | 20% | 0.000 |
| Features | 8.2 | 35% | 2.870 |
| Support | 3.5 | 20% | 0.700 |
| Total | 5.245 → 5.2 |
If not this one, then what
Both picks are computed from the scores rather than written by hand: the first is the one directly above it in the ranking, the second the one that beats it by the widest margin on the criterion it loses on.
Site123
5.5The service directly above it in the ranking.
$5.80/mo billed yearly, and no renewal price published
Read the reviewSalla
7.2What this page offers instead on the criterion it loses on — Arabic and right-to-left.
82.50 SAR/mo billed yearly, or 99.00 SAR/mo month to month, and no renewal price published
Read the review
Bottom line
For anyone writing in English who wants a beautiful site without doing the design, Squarespace is among what leads this page.
For anyone building in Arabic the answer is on its own page: no built-in right-to-left text, and the workaround outside its support. That is reason enough to look elsewhere.
Questions
Does Squarespace support right-to-left writing?
No. The company states in its help centre that there is no built-in way, suggests pasting short phrases or adding custom code, and says custom code sits outside the scope of its support.
What does the domain cost in year two?
The page says it renews at the company’s standard rate, and never names that rate anywhere on it.
Is there a free plan?
No, only a time-limited trial that needs no card.
What we know, and where from
Every figure on this page, where it came from and when we read it.
| What we say | How we know | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| The pricing page states that a domain registered through the promotion renews at the company’s standard rate after the first year, and the page never names that rate | the company states it | Squarespace — Pricing | |
| Squarespace states in its own help centre that there is currently no built-in way to add right-to-left text to a Squarespace site | the company states it | Squarespace — Writing in your language | |
| Squarespace’s help centre is published in 10 languages and Arabic is not among them, and the company states its translated guides are machine-translated with no human review | the company states it | Squarespace Help Centre — published locales |