Website builders compared
Squarespace is a popular website builder, and a lot of people start there. From the second year, the site and one email address come to about £257 a year on its cheapest plan. With Gravity Host it is £75 a year, with as many email addresses as you like. This page puts the two side by side, including where Squarespace is the better choice.
Squarespace's prices and terms below were read from its own website on 11 November 2026. Check its site for changes since.
The short answer
Squarespace is a website builder with monthly and yearly plans. Gravity Host is web hosting with a free website builder, email at your domain and a person to ask, for one yearly price.
Side by side
Quotation marks show Squarespace's own wording. Each Squarespace row links to the page it came from. Our prices are the total you pay.
| What you need | Squarespace | Gravity Host |
|---|---|---|
| Price for a business website | Basic £12 a month paid yearly (£144), or £16 a month paid monthly. Core £17 a month paid yearly (£204), or £24 monthly. Prices are listed before tax, and 20% is added in the UK, so Basic is £172.80 a year and Core £244.80. Pricing, tax on your billing | £45 for the first year, then £75 a year for 15 GB hosting. That is the total you pay. The website builder, email and SSL are included. |
| Trying it first | No free plan. A 14-day free trial with no card needed. Pricing | No trial, but a 30-day money-back guarantee on hosting. |
| Refunds | A full refund on yearly plans cancelled within 14 days. No refund on monthly plans or renewals, and the free domain's cost “is deducted from your refund”. Refund policy | Your money back on hosting if you cancel in the first 30 days. |
| Your domain name | Free for the first year on yearly plans, then it renews “at our standard rate”. The renewal rate is shown in the domain search. Pricing | .co.uk and .uk £10 a year, .com £15 a year, the same price every year. Billed apart from hosting, and yours to move whenever you like. Domain prices |
| Email at your domain | Through Google Workspace. Core and above include one mailbox free for the first year; after that, and on Basic, it is £7 a month for each mailbox. Google Workspace pricing | As many addresses as you want, included: hello@, your name, anything. Or keep Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace if you already use them. |
| Building the site | A drag-and-drop designer with a large choice of templates. | Our free website builder: nine hand-designed templates, click any word or photo to change it. Or tell us what your business is and we make a first draft with your name on it. WordPress and over 200 other apps install in one click. |
| Selling online | A shop built in. Basic takes a 2% fee on shop sales; Core and above take none. Card fees through Squarespace Payments are 2.0% + £0.25 on Basic and Core. Pricing | No shop inside the builder. Install OpenCart, or WordPress with WooCommerce, in one click. We take nothing from your sales; card fees are your payment provider's. |
| Space and traffic | “There are no caps on your bandwidth or storage usage.” Video is limited: 30 minutes on Basic, 5 hours on Core. Pricing | 15 GB of fast UK storage and a 1 TB monthly bandwidth allowance. Move up a size at any time. |
| Leaving one day | The export is a file “formatted for WordPress import”. It does not include shop, portfolio and gallery pages, styles or custom code. Export your site | Every file, page and database is yours. Download the lot from your account whenever you like, and take it to any host. |
| Help from a person | Email at any time, and live chat on weekdays, roughly 09:00 to 01:00 UK time. No phone support. Contact support | Message us and a person in the UK reads it and replies. Asking a question is always free. |
The yearly bill
A small business website with one email address at its own domain, from the second year on. Neither bar includes the domain name.
Squarespace: the plan paid yearly with 20% tax added, plus one Google Workspace mailbox at £7 a month. Gravity Host: 15 GB hosting at its renewal price, with as many mailboxes as you like.
In the first year Gravity Host is £45, and Squarespace Core includes the mailbox, so it is about £245. Google may add tax to the mailbox as well, which would make the Squarespace bars a little longer. A second mailbox on Squarespace is another £84 a year; on Gravity Host it is nothing.
The domain name, on both sides. Ours is £10 a year for a .co.uk. Squarespace's first year is free on a yearly plan, and the renewal price is shown when you search for one.
Squarespace's price buys a drag-and-drop designer and a shop that is part of the same dashboard. If those are what you need most, they are worth paying for. If you mainly need a good website, email that works, and the bill to stay small, the difference is about £180 a year, every year.
Where the money goes
With a website builder the yearly bill is several bills: the plan, a mailbox for each person, the domain once its free year ends, and sometimes a share of what you sell.
With Gravity Host there are two: hosting at £75 a year, and your domain at £10 or £15. Everything else is inside the hosting:
See what's included for the full list.
Moving across
You don't have to switch everything on the same day.
Shop products, galleries, styles and custom code don't come out of Squarespace's export, so the look is picked again in the new site. We will tell you plainly what moves and what doesn't before you order.
Common questions
For a small business website with email, yes. From the second year Squarespace Basic with one Google Workspace mailbox is about £257 a year once tax is added, and Core about £329. Gravity Host is £75 a year with as many email addresses as you like. Both add a domain name on top.
Yes, and it is free with hosting. You pick one of nine hand-designed templates and click any word or photo to change it. It is simpler than Squarespace's designer: fewer layouts to choose from and no drag-and-drop page building. If you want WordPress instead, it installs in one click.
Your pages and blog posts, yes: Squarespace exports them in WordPress format and we load that into WordPress for you. Its export leaves out shop products, galleries, styles and custom code, so the design is picked again. Or start fresh with our website builder and copy the words across.
Yes. Point it at us and leave it where it is, or move it to us so the domain and hosting are on one account. A .co.uk with us is £10 a year, a .com £15.
If you use Google Workspace through Squarespace, you can keep it: point your email at Google from your account with us. Or use the mailboxes included in your hosting.
No, but hosting comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial and refunds yearly plans cancelled within 14 days.
Ready when you are
15 GB hosting is £45 for your first year, then £75 a year, with the website builder included. Tell us what your business is and we will make a first draft for you to change.
Prices are shown and charged in this currency, with no conversion at checkout, and no surprise from your bank.