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Alien Web Design vs Squarespace
Squarespace Business is $62 a month on an annual plan in Australia, or $89 a month billed monthly. At the annual rate that is $744 a year, and it is $744 again the year after. Our builds start at $690 plus GST ($759 including GST), once, with twelve months of hosting inside the price, then $99 a year including GST. In year one the two are close, and we say so instead of dressing it up. This page is about year three.
The price you saw is the annual price
Squarespace advertises two numbers for the same plan, and the smaller one has a condition attached to it. Start with the published figures.
| Option | Annual plan | Monthly plan | Year one |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Personal (as published) | $28/mo | $40/mo | $336 |
| Squarespace Business (as published) | $62/mo | $89/mo | $744 |
| Alien Web Design | from $690 +GST ($759 incl) | $759 incl GST | |
Squarespace prices are Australian list prices from squarespace.com/pricing, checked 2 September 2026. Squarespace does not state a GST basis on that page, so we print its figures exactly as published and do not assume either way. Ours are quoted plus GST with the inclusive figure printed beside them, and the year-one column above is the inclusive one.
The smaller Squarespace number is the annual rate, and it assumes you hand over twelve months in advance. Pay month to month and the same plan costs more than 40 per cent more across a year. Multiply the published monthly prices by twelve and you can see what that condition costs.
| Squarespace plan | A year at the annual rate (as published) | A year billed monthly (as published) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $336 | $480 | $144 |
| Business | $744 | $1,068 | $324 |
All four figures are the published monthly price multiplied by twelve. If you are already on Squarespace, check which of the two rates you are billed at before you compare it to anything. A year at $1,068 and a year at $744 buy the identical plan.
One thing to be straight about on our side of the table. At $690 the words are yours to supply. The design, the page structure, the hosting, the schema and the search setup are ours, and the quote is fixed in writing before any work starts.
Year one is a wash, whichever way the GST falls
Our $690 is plus GST, so the like-for-like figure is $759 including GST. Squarespace's Australian pricing page does not say whether $62 a month includes GST, so we will not assume it. If it does, year one is $744 against our $759. If it does not, it is about $818 against our $759, which is 62 × 1.1 × 12. Either way the two land within $60 of each other, and year one is not where this decision gets made.
The two numbers are close. What they buy is not. One is twelve months of a subscription that starts again in month thirteen. The other is a site built for you, with twelve months of hosting, SSL and monitoring inside the price. On money alone, year one is a coin toss. On what you are holding at the end of it, it is not.
Three years: $2,232 against $957, and why that holds either way
Renewal is the whole argument. Squarespace bills year two at the same rate as year one, then year three the same again. We bill once for the build, then $99 a year that covers hosting, your domain name and ongoing SEO updates.
| Running total, paid out | Squarespace Business (as published) | Alien Web Design (incl GST) |
|---|---|---|
| End of year one | $744 | $759 |
| End of year two | $1,488 | $858 |
| End of year three | $2,232 | $957 |
That is $1,275 apart at the end of the third year. It is also the smaller of the two possible gaps. If Squarespace's price turns out to exclude GST, its three-year figure is higher, not lower. The uncertainty runs one way: you would be comparing our $957 against a bigger number, never a smaller one.
Both columns are money that has left your account. Ours is the $759 build plus two years of $99. Theirs is the annual rate paid three times at today's price. And the fourth year, at today's prices, is $744 against $99.
If you are on Squarespace now, send us the address and the plan you are on. You get a fixed written quote for the rebuild before any work starts, and the year it stops costing you $744. Send us the Squarespace URL.
What a template does for you, and where it stops
Squarespace's templates look good, and that is a real reason people stay on them. Someone with taste set the grid, the type and the spacing, and you get all of it for $62 a month without briefing anybody. Nothing on this page argues with that.
A template does the part of design that is the same for every business: rhythm, hierarchy, whitespace, something that holds together on a phone. That is worth money, which is why the tier sells.
A template stops at your business. It cannot know which four services pay your wages, which suburbs you will drive to, or the question a buyer asks in their head right before they pick up the phone. Someone drew it before your business existed, so it never bent around the one action that makes you money.
That shaping is what we sell. The page structure, the structured data and the internal links are chosen for your services and your suburbs, so the site can be found for them and quoted back when someone asks an AI assistant who does this work near them. A template decides how your business looks. A build decides what it does.
That difference has a number on it. Select Coolrooms & Construction had a site that drew roughly three unpaid visits a month. We rebuilt it around a live quote calculator wired into their CRM. It produced $299,521 in quotes in four days, and it now sits #1 for "cool room builders Sydney", a search that costs $14 a click. The case study has the detail.
None of that came out of a gallery. It came from deciding what the page had to do before anyone drew it. Design that produces quotes is the product. Looking good is what gets the page read on the way there.
What leaves with you, and what stays with Squarespace
Check this before you renew. It decides more than the monthly figure does.
Leaves with you:
- Your domain name. You registered it, it is yours, and it points wherever you tell it to point.
- Your words and images. Squarespace allows a partial content export, so the raw material comes out with you.
Stays with Squarespace:
- The site itself. Squarespace hosts it as part of the plan and there is no working-site export, so leaving is a rebuild rather than a move.
- The layout work. A partial content export brings out your words and your pictures. The site they sit in is not part of it.
That is not a scandal. It is how a hosted builder works, and you are paying for the convenience. It does mean the years you spend there never accumulate into anything you can carry off. You pay for the use of it, and after three years you have had the use of it.
The rebuild itself is less painful than it sounds, and we do the part people worry about. We map every address on your old site and 301 redirect it to its new home, so the Google standing you have built carries across instead of going down with the subscription. Then your domain points at the new site. You cancel the old plan last, once the new one is live and we have verified the redirects.
On our side the ownership question has a short answer. You own the code, the domain and the hosting. Take the files to another developer whenever you want to. We would rather you stayed because the site is working.
Where Squarespace is the right call
Squarespace wins some versions of this decision. Better you find that out here than after you have paid us.
- The templates look good out of the box. A competent design on day one, with nobody to brief and nothing to wait for.
- You change it yourself. Swap a photo at midnight, fix a typo on a Sunday, no email to anyone.
- There is no build fee. Nothing to save up for. You can start this afternoon.
- The bill is one line a year. No per-sale slice and no add-on creep.
If you want a template you maintain yourself and the annual cost does not bother you, Squarespace is a perfectly good choice. We are not the right answer for everybody, and that is one of the times we are not.
It stops being the right call on a narrow test. The site is meant to bring work in. You want to be found for named services in named suburbs. You would like to own what you have been paying for. Three yeses and you are on the wrong platform.
When the template is the thing in the way
The clearest case we have is one we built for ourselves. A client needed review automation and the off-the-shelf platform cost about $600 a month, which is the same trap as a subscription you cannot leave: the tool decides what you can do and what you pay. We built the thing instead. It runs from $56 a month and it is theirs to keep.
For a design that had to fit the business rather than the other way round, a Sydney coolroom builder's rebuild issued $299,521 in quotes in four days, through a quote calculator no template ships with. Everything else we have built is on our work page.
Squarespace questions
Is Squarespace more expensive than a built website over time?
For the Business tier, yes, and by a margin that does not depend on GST. Squarespace Business is $62 a month on an annual plan in Australia as at 2 September 2026, which is $744 a year and $2,232 over three years. Our entry build is $690 plus GST, $759 including it, then $99 a year, so $957 over three years. Squarespace does not state whether its price includes GST; if it does not, its three-year figure is higher still.
Why is the monthly price so much higher than the annual price?
Because the advertised figure assumes you pay a year upfront. Squarespace Business is $62 a month on the annual plan and $89 a month billed monthly, which works out to $744 a year against $1,068, a difference of $324. Personal is $28 against $40, so $336 a year against $480. Both pairs are the published monthly prices multiplied by twelve. Compare a subscription to a build at the rate you would be billed, not the rate on the pricing page.
Can I export my Squarespace site?
Not in a usable form. Squarespace allows a partial content export but not a working site, so moving means a rebuild. We handle the URL mapping and 301 redirects so your rankings carry across.
Do your prices include GST, and do Squarespace's?
Ours are quoted plus GST with the inclusive figure printed beside them, so $690 plus GST is $759 including it, and the $99 a year includes GST. Squarespace's Australian pricing page does not state a GST basis, so we print its figures exactly as published and do not assume either way. Where the answer could change depending on which it is, this page gives you both cases.
Is there a subscription with you at all?
No subscription for the build. Twelve months of hosting, SSL and monitoring are included in the price, and after that it is $99 a year including GST, which covers hosting, your domain name and ongoing SEO updates. You own the code and the domain the whole time, so you can take the files anywhere.
Weighing up more than one builder? Each of these runs the same arithmetic against a different platform.
- Alien Web Design vs Wix: the month the lines cross, and what leaves Wix with you.
- Alien Web Design vs GoDaddy: the cheapest entry tier, the tier that is a wash, and the row that is not like for like.
- Alien Web Design vs Shopify: when you need a store, and when you are paying for one you don't.
- All four builders compared: all four in one table.
Where you are in three years
On Squarespace Business you will have paid $2,232 as published, against $957 including GST with us, and the fourth year opens at $744, the same as the first one did. With us you will have paid $957, the site is yours, and the fourth year is $99.
Against Squarespace Business the like-for-like build is five pages at $1,490 plus GST, or $690 plus GST if one page does the job, with the larger builds and the store above those (full package detail). Every tier includes twelve months of hosting, SSL and monitoring, a fixed written quote before work starts, and the code, the domain and the hosting in your name at the end of it.
Send us the Squarespace address and the plan you are on. You get the rebuild price in writing. If the answer is to stay where you are, we will say so.
Get the fixed quote or call 02 9161 8000. Sydney based, 18+ years.