Google Domains vs. Squarespace

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Domains
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
N/A
$12
per year
Squarespace
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Squarespace is a CMS platform that allows users to create a DIY blog, eCommerce store, and/or portfolio (visual art or music). Some Squarespace website and shop templates are industry or use case-specific, such as menu builders for restaurant sites.
$25
per month
Pricing
Google DomainsSquarespace
Editions & Modules
.com
$12.00
per year
.net
$12.00
per year
.org
$12.00
per year
Basic
$25
per month
Core
$36
per month
Plus
$56
per month
Advanced
$139
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google DomainsSquarespace
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details28% to 36% discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google DomainsSquarespace
Considered Both Products
Google Domains
Chose Google Domains
Google Domains is by far the best out of the three. GoDaddy is too complicated and it oversells all its things. Bluehost is old and not up to date - it's hard to integrate unless you know something about domains. Squarespace is a website design site where you can purchase …
Chose Google Domains
Squaredspace purchased Google domains back on September 7th, 2023, and it is the perfect merger of online companies that provide a seamless service.
Chose Google Domains
Google Domains is probably the easiest to use if you already use a suite of Google services and would like an easy way to connect them. However, Google Domains does not offer any sort of hosting services, so you'll have to search for that elsewhere.
Squarespace
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace is a great starter website, however once your business grows and you need your website more, I would switch over to Shopify. As mentioned before Squarespace makes it hard to manage multiple pages or products. It's easier than Shopify when you first start out, but …
Features
Google DomainsSquarespace
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Squarespace
8.3
67 Ratings
1% above category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.367 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Squarespace
6.6
58 Ratings
16% below category average
API00 Ratings7.151 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings6.137 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Squarespace
7.7
99 Ratings
1% below category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings9.284 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings7.078 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings7.498 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings7.299 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings7.496 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings8.195 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings8.386 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings6.680 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Squarespace
6.2
89 Ratings
19% below category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings7.376 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings6.480 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings5.851 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings5.565 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings5.867 Ratings
User Ratings
Google DomainsSquarespace
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(25 ratings)
8.6
(100 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.3
(6 ratings)
8.5
(14 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google DomainsSquarespace
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
[Google Domains is] very simplistic and easy to use, so it's very straightforward to register a new domain but it doesn't have some features that other services provide. Also, the integration with other Google Services and domain search tool is amazing.
Read full review
Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the best solutions out there for building a website or web experience that looks good, has great functionality and is cost-effective, even for smaller businesses. Although most people in marketing will find most of the elements intuitive, if the creator is struggling with any of the functionality, there are many, many support options and other users who can offer assistance.
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Pros
Google
  • Process of buying a domain with Google Domains is easy
  • Payment was simple - can use Google Wallet and other forms of payment.
  • After purchase, you can quickly build a website with one of their partners.
  • Email forwarding add-on for free.
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Squarespace
  • Stupid simple to use. I know very creative people who cannot code and this is probably the easiest ever platform for them!
  • Pretty website templates and great functionality with showing off portfolios.
  • They've already figured out what are the problems that non-coding people have when creating websites and they've figured out a simple solution for all of it.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • Google Domains is pretty good at pre-solving email faux pas such as reply all mishaps. Perhaps a built-in email monitoring tool such as knowing when a customer opens up an email would be good. You can get these features with integrations, but what if it was an internal Google product? Might be nice
  • Email masking was a bit difficult to figure out, but nothing you can't discover with a few Google sessions.
  • I wish I could see more insight into time zones that my customers are in, or scheduling calls on Gcal with timezone awareness. I know this is super hard to code around though.
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Squarespace
  • Customizing the sites can be highly UN intuitive
  • Navigation for editing the sites can be difficult and frustrating
  • Squarespace has different versions and it's hard to know which version you're on. You can't switch after you start making a site with one version.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
Unless the product goes away, I'll continue using it.
Read full review
Squarespace
Unless our website requires significantly more functionality in the future, I can't see us terminating our contract
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Usability
Google
Because it is intuitively easy to use, like all of their products. The integration with other apps works seamlessly, and you can have a professional website within hours, rather than days, as with most hosting companies. The templates on the website builder for just about every business make it so simple that even I can do it!
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Squarespace
It's simple to use for someone who is really good with computers as well as those who are not. I've been using my personal squarespace for years and have also helped clients build a starting page which they are later able to manage theirselves.
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Support Rating
Google
I've never actually had to use support because everything has been very straightforward and I have not had a glitch. I have used Google's support for other items so I can only imagine that it's probably the same support which is decent. They do take a while to get back to you.
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Squarespace
Help is available directly from the back end and uses full sentence searching to find answers to questions others may have asked before. With a ton of articles and support questions documents, it is very likely that your question has been answered. If not each page has the ability to open a direct email to support. Each case has a number and can be followed. Responses are often quick and have links and directions clearly stated
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Alternatives Considered
Google
GoDaddy is great, but what I really like about Google Domains when compared to GoDaddy is the ease of centralization. Our email, calendar, accounts, domain, etc was all handled in one place and that made things really easy. You could also access domains easily and quickly by being logged into your email, instead of worrying about yet another log in.
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Squarespace
Squarespace was quicker to set up and more accessible to manipulate the theme, pictures, and content. The page layouts are more versatile and fluid. With WordPress, more time-consuming efforts go into making a template work the way you want it to (because of the lack of the drag-and-drop grids that Squarespace has).
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Return on Investment
Google
  • Being able to host my URL with Google Domains is one less thing I have to worry about in my writing career.
  • I'm sure having my URL, which is my name, with Google Domains also helps people find me via Google's search engine.
  • Its ease of integration with other Google products, especially Google Apps for Business, is a huge plus for marketing and day-to-day work.
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Squarespace
  • The cost is reasonably decent. My client says they spent about $20 a month or $240 a year. I asked her if she could add Google AdSense to her blog one day, and they believe they can. They said a custom site would cost them $3000-10,000 depending on who does it. And I agreed, but I found the website they created was on the lower end of that range.
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ScreenShots