Showit vs Squarespace: Which is better for me.
Hi I’m Kelly was from Squarepeg Studio and in today’s video I’m going to be talking about why I moved away from Squarespace, and I moved to Showit.
After eight years of designing on Squarespace exclusively for my business, I actually had my business hosted on Squarespace or built on Squarespace, and then I also built websites for clients on Squarespace.
And now that has completely changed to me moving to Showit.
Which is a different website platform that is drag and drop, just like how Squarespace is, and so I will be talking about in this video why I made the switch just to give you some perspective to let you know if you’re kind of like what do I do Showit? Or, do I use Squarespace? Here’s my take on why I moved.
Comparing Showit to Squarespace: Creative Freedom
Alright, so now you can see that this is the back end of my website, that I have designed on Showit. The number one, hands down reason, why I left Squarespace ,or decided to go full time on Showit, is the creative capacity. With Squarespace you are basically given a limited amount of creative options without using a third-party app or custom code.
But in Showit the world is your oyster.
Like you can take this font, you could make this subheading and you could make it purple. Or you could add a completely different custom code, then you can change the size of it.
There’s more variability with that in Squarespace as well, but, it’s dependent on your palette for each section, if you were to have a certain color palette for each section on your site, you’re kind of limited to what you can do with that particular font. At least in size-wise, color-wise.
You do have way more flexibility than you used to in Squarespace, but like, I could even do something like tilt this, and then I could, you know move it over and have it be on top of this.
Which in Squarespace moving fonts around or making fonts go vertical or tilt or basically the only way to do that is with custom code or with a third-party app.
So that is a big, big plus in Showit.
Showit vs Squarespace, which is better for photo layout?
Obviously not just fonts but you can even angle the photos. In Squarespace, you are not able to angle photos, again without a third party app or custom code, which I would do as a workaround and I’ll talk about that in just a second.
And this is one tiny little part of the creative aspect of what you can do in Showit.
There are just so many different things that you can do like even this idea of like stacking images over different sections. That is definitely something that I was not able to do in Squarespace without code or third-party app. And it’s just this idea of the canvas layering number of this. So basically the stacking orders is two on this canvas, and the stacking order is three. So that’s basically going to mean that this one was going to go over this one. So, I just made the images on top of this one. I’m sorry, hang down from this one. So then they be on top of this one.
So just like stuff like that, like you can get very creative with the layouts rather than the ones that Squarespace has for you, it becomes very difficult to create out-of-the-box designs which as a designer doing it for several different clients and creating templates and I just felt like I broke out of my creative box. And I just wanted I wanted something to look different.
Showit gives me more Creative Freedom
I wanted to feel more unique. I wanted it to feel like a piece of art. So that is reason number one was Showit hands down. And the other reason which I’m going to touch on is probably the second biggest reason is that you can change your mobile look to your desktop look and they can be designed independently.
NOTE: Using a Showit Template can make your life 1000x’s easier!
Better Design for Mobile? Showit vs Squarespace, which is better
Now in Squarespace when you go to design on a desktop, they translate it to mobile, which can be lovely and time saving, and to be honest, that was why I didn’t switch for so long because I was like I don’t want to design two websites when I’m only used to designing one because you’re essentially once you design on a desktop and here it looks like a jumbled mess over here and in mobile and so you have to organize it how you want it to, but getting to the point where most people will feel your website, if not first, at least some point in their journey with you most people are viewing websites from their phone.
So you want to make sure you have control over what you want it to look like. I have to admit there was a time when I was like the desktop is good enough. I mean I just want it to be legible on mobile and that is not how I fit I want it to be the same work of art on mobile as it is on desktop and I want it to be functional and legible.
So you have that complete control in Showit.
So you have that complete control in Showit.
Let’s say for some reason I didn’t want this image I would just come over here and I would turn it off. So basically, it doesn’t affect desktop, but it takes it off on mobile. It’s just a really nice way to have control over what your mobile website looks like. But you don’t have that complete control in Squarespace.
And again, I will say, I was getting around all these creative hiccups through using a third-party app called Squarekicker. And then I was also doing custom code. I don’t know a lot of custom code. I know just enough to be dangerous. I could pretty much because I knew the basics. I could figure stuff out.
But it started to when I would hand it over to my clients and they wanted to change certain things and it became a tutorial that I would have to give them and like I would have to go in and change it so it didn’t feel like it was like something that they could do.
Pricing: Showit vs Squarespace, which is better?
Then the app started to get really expensive, because it’s taken off and it is a wonderful app. I love it and I think it’s a game-changer for Squarespace. But, you have to not only pay for Squarespace, but you have to also pay for SquareKicker. So Squarespace’s website fees are about the same as what Showit is and then you’d have to, on top of that pay a monthly fee just to SquareKicker, when you could really have the same amount of design freedom for just the price of Showit. Which is right around the same price as Squarespace, I can’t remember their numbers are off the top of my head. But they’re very similar.
Another cool thing about Showit vs Squarespace
So the other cool thing with Showit is you can have a new website in minutes, if you want to choose one of their templates, but you can also essentially come in and you can have another website like maybe you wanted to have a sales page for a special like mastermind or membership or something like that. Or, you wanting to separate the sales page, I’ve seen done a lot. It can’t have a separate domain but maybe you wanted to have a separate look.
And so actually I think I can have a separate domain. Just kidding. So basically, you can build as many sites as you want. So if you wanted your course to be simple.com for sure that domain would not be available. But you could essentially have this you could it would still live in your Showit would count as your showit subscription could live in your Showit back end, but it could have a whole different, like your design settings could be different, you can have all different colors all, different logos, all different fonts, everything can be completely different.
So that is another huge bonus. It’s definitely more affordable in that way. All right. So in closing, just to kind of give you a brief recap, I would say the two biggest reasons of why I switched to Showit is basically creativity. I needed way more creativity than I was getting from squarespace for the cost.
Showit vs Squarespace, which is better: Final Thoughts
So while I think Squarespace is an amazing platform, and I think it is great for those that are DIY-ing your website, because it can be it can be a lot easier to use and you can get things done quicker. I do think ultimately you get a more customized-looking website, a website that’s more creative, that is out of the box, is innovative, which I’m very interested in for lower costs because you don’t have to pay for the third-party apps. And then you also don’t need to pay for additional subscriptions. Should you want to host a separate website, like if you have a course or a membership, or a sales page that you want to be a completely separate brand from your own brand.
I will definitely be having tutorials on this channel about Showit how to design so definitely stay tuned to the channel. There will be a lot more videos that will be more tech training, content creation, and astrology. All the things you need to know to build a truly unique brand.
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