- Hey guys, my name is Christian Taylor, welcome back to Craylor
Made where I like to talk all things branding, marketing,
and entrepreneurship. Today we're taking a
look at Squarespace, Wix and WordPress to determine
which of these website builders might be right for you. A few important notes before we jump in. First, I'll explain the pros and cons of these website builders, but at the end of the
day pricing may dictate where you end up creating
your website and that's okay. All three options in this
video are fantastic platforms for building websites and although I have favorites
for different use cases, they're all perfectly
capable of creating a website for your brand or business. Don't let cost be a barrier
to getting your business or brand online.
(bell dings) If you need a free or budget
solution for a while, use it. My second note would be that there's no one best
website builders for everyone. It really depends on your
personal preference and needs. So with that said let's jump
in and start with Squarespace. Squarespace is very much the
iPhone of website builders. It's simple, it works well and it allows you to get a uniform somewhat cookie cutter-looking
website with ease. Squarespace sticks to a minimalist black and white design language with
pops of color here and there. The entire Squarespace editor
is based on theme elements. The theme you pick has a series of colors and fonts associated with it and Squarespace doesn't make
it easy to change colors for just one element or pick
a unique font for one section that's different from
the rest of the site. I'll say it again, Squarespace is like the
iPhone of website builders. It just works, it works well, it's smooth but you're limited in what you can do. Squarespace points you in a direction to where you get a solid
professional looking website but it does look kind of standardized. Squarespace sites have a look to them, consistent with the Squarespace styling. I can identify Squarespace
site 90% of the time just by seeing the
standard fonts, animations and elements on the page. With that being said, I
have the most confidence in Squarespace when it comes
to less tech-savvy users who may feel intimidated by the thought of creating a website. If this is you and you're
worried that you won't be able to build your own website, sign up for the trial of Squarespace. I think you'll be surprised and refreshed by this simple experience. As far as pricing goes,
Squarespace starts at $16 a month or $144 a year and goes all the way up to $54 a month or $480 a year. There's no free plan
available and for most people the personal starter
plan will work just fine to build your website. Squarespace does offer e-commerce features for selling physical products, services or creating member-only areas
for subscription services or online courses. Squarespace is a hosted
proprietary platform, meaning you do not need to
purchase web hosting separately. The code is stored on Squarespace servers so you'll just need to
pay for your domain name, Squarespace plan and email hosting if you want a custom email address. Squarespace walks you
through getting started with your website and there are
a lot of tutorials available to help you as you go. The drag and drop interface
is easy to navigate and I like the prebuilt sections available that match your theme of choice. It helps you build pages efficiently and end up with a great
looking end product without having a design degree. Overall Squarespace is best for
those who aren't tech-savvy, you don't mind paying the
monthly fee for your website and you want a simple and
elegant website for your business that's not too stylized or brand-specific. If you have a very particular
brand with exact colors, fonts, and style elements,
Squarespace is not for you. I find that I fit into
this category of users. I can appreciate
Squarespace for what it is and I recommend it somewhat
regularly to people if I see that it fits their needs. But I find myself frustrated by the lack of easily
adjustable styling on elements. I'm that guy who knows
exactly what I want, I go in with a vision and I
don't need training wheels on my website builder to keep me in that minimalist clean box. This brings us to Wix. Wix is the android of
website builders, kind of. If you're just comparing
Wix and Squarespace then Wix would be closest
to the android experience. I say that because WordPress
is ultimately the android of website builders, but let's
not get ahead of ourselves. You can do a lot more with Wix. Move elements around
down to the exact pixel, change colors and fonts
for every single element and style stuff to be exactly as you like. If you want the complete
what you see is what you get site-building experience Wix is for you. Wix has a lot of templates to choose from. Or you can use the Wix ADI AI feature to build a basic website in no time. Wix can be as simple or as
complex as you want it to be. The drag and drop builder is
intuitive and just makes sense. I love the customized
ability you get with Wix whilst still maintaining the drag and drop website building experience. While I personally stick to
WordPress for 95% of my websites I do have one Wix website and I've enjoyed the
time I've spent with Wix. It's certainly not quite
as flexible or powerful as WordPress but it's nice
to just drop in that editor, swap a few things around and publish my changes
at the end of a long day. That's something I can't
say about WordPress. Wix is more expensive than Squarespace with plans starting at $18
a month or $168 a year. Wix does offer a free
plan but your website can only be hosted on a Wix subdomain. And there is pretty
aggressive Wix advertising unless you pay for a premium plan. But overall I'd say Wix is the best fit for anyone looking to create
a drag and drop website that matches your company's branding. If you have a vision for
colors, fonts, and styling and you want things to look a certain way, Wix is great for bringing
that vision to life. Wix gives you power and
control over the visuals but it's not overwhelming to
the less tech-savvy users. I especially love the Wix phone support. I've had questions a few times, and when I call they can walk me exactly through the solution and
understand my question clearly. Squarespace does not offer phone support so if you'd like to be able to call and speak to a person
Wix is the way to go. Where Squarespace might be
considered a website builder with training wheels that
keeps things restricted to keep you in that black
and white minimalist look, Wix takes the training wheels off. Using Squarespace is sort of
like hiring a UI designer. They're going to point
you in a certain direction and keep your site to a
clean, professional look. This is not a bad thing. I like the simple and elegant
look of a Squarespace site but they're definitely trying
to keep you in a certain box. With Wix, you are the UI designer. You have templates to start with as a base but once you start modifying things, colors, fonts, and element
placement are entirely up to you. Just like Squarespace, Wix is a propitiatory hosted platform. You do not need to purchase
web hosting to use Wix. Just have a domain name,
pay for your Wix plan and purchase email hosting
if you want a custom email. Last up is WordPress and before diving in, I need to clear up a
common misunderstanding about WordPress. There are actually two
versions of WordPress and they are wildly
different from each other. There's wordpress.com and
this is a hosted platform with proprietary aspects much
like Squarespace and Wix. Chances are if you Googled
WordPress you just ended up at wordpress.com and assumed
that's what WordPress is. Well I'm not gonna get too
deep into the difference of wordpress.com and
wordpress.org in this video as I have an entire
comparison video on the topic but I'll say this,
wordpress.com can be great if you absolutely need
a free website hosted on a wordpress.com subdomain. And the personal plan of
wordpress.com can be a great fit if you want a convenient blogging platform that's intuitive and elegant. But for the simplicity of
this video, I am not referring to wordpress.com when
I talk about WordPress. Watch my other video for
more info on the two variants of WordPress but from now on I'll be referring to wordpress.org. WordPress is a free open source platform where you bring your own web hosting. This means you'll need a domain name and you'll need to purchase web hosting from somewhere like
Namecheap or DreamHost. You can get decent hosting
for as little as $3 a month or you could go all out
and get baller hosting from WP Engine for $30 a month. But trust me the $3 a
month hosting is just fine. The WordPress code works
on your web hosting account and most hosts make it extremely
easy to install WordPress to your web hosting and get started. WordPress is best for tech-savvy users who want ultimate control
and customizability of every aspect of their website. If you want the plain and simple what you see is what you get drag and drop website
builder, do not use WordPress. The WordPress editor is
this weird mix of menus, dropdowns, checkboxes, and new aspects like the barebones drag
and drop page builder that's been in development for years. But this is just vanilla WordPress. Nothing about WordPress is standardized. 99% of WordPress users
rely on third-party themes and page builder plugins to
enhance their experience. Want a drag and drop page builder, you can get that with the
WordPress plugin like Elementor? Want a contact form? You can use Contact Form 7 for that. Email list opt-in pop-up? You can use Sumo for that. There's a plugin for everything and WordPress is insanely powerful and can make epic websites. It just takes a lot of time
and dedication to learn. With WordPress, there's no
official customer support. Typically your WordPress theme
developer will offer support and you can also turn to the WordPress community online for help. Remember it's a free and
open source platform. There's no WordPress staff. And your web hosting company
is ultimately the company responsible for keeping
your website online. WordPress is just free code
that runs on your web server. If you're not the most tech-savvy and you're aren't the
type of person to tinker do not try and build a
WordPress site yourself. If you determine that
WordPress is the best fit for your business but aren't tech-savvy, you may wanna find a
developer in your area who can help you build your site? Quick side note, I am
referring to building sites like corporate landing pages, or a site for your local business when I talk about WordPress. I actually find that
WordPress is pretty easy and straightforward and intuitive for non-tech savvy people as a blog. So if you wanting to have a blog, WordPress is immediately
elevated to the top platform, there is no comparison. Squarespace and Wix are not
nearly as good for blogging but I'm just talking about website firsts. Now I'm not really getting into if you have a website plus a blog or a blog tab on your website. If you're primarily wanting a website to represent your brand whether it happens to
have a blog page or not, that's kinda what's this video is about, not for bloggers. Now it may seem like I'm being mostly negative about WordPress. But in reality, I just
want you to understand what you're getting into
if you go down this path. There's a reason why
WordPress powers nearly 40% of the internet, it's powerful. Because it's free opensource and so widely used the sky's the limit with what you can do on WordPress. You can customize everything
about your WordPress website giving you much more
freedom than you'd ever get with Wix or Squarespace. You could build an epic
landing page for your business, host a blog, run an e-commerce store, or membership community. If you know exactly what
you want in your website and you know you want total
control over every aspect, WordPress is for you. WordPress is hands down my
website builder of choice. But I've spent years
toying around with it, picking up tricks and
learning the interface. If you are interested
in learning WordPress, make sure to subscribe to the channel and check out Craylor Academy and the link in the description. I'm launching my course on
building a WordPress site from start to finish, in just a few weeks and you can get it for a heavy discount if you sign up now for my interest list. So to summarize, Squarespace is best for less tech-savvy users
who aren't interested in being a UI designer. If you just wanna get in and get out and leave with a clean,
polished, professional website for your business,
Squarespace is a great choice. If you want the ultimate
drag and drop experience where you can customize
every aspect of the visuals Wix is a great option. It's a straightforward builder and doesn't take much technical knowledge but you will still have total
control over every aspect of the look and feel of the site. And finally, if you're tech-savvy and want to control every
aspect of your website down to custom features and
plug-ins, WordPress is for you. WordPress is also the cheapest option, only costing you the price of web hosting. I do want to stress the importance of finding the right
website builder for you. There's no easy way to
transfer your website to and from Squarespace,
Wix, or WordPress. Once you build your website with a particular website
builder, you're kind of stuck and you'll need to start
over from the ground up, copying and pasting text
into your new website builder if you decide to switch. Certainly don't lose
sleep over the decision but I would encourage you
to try at least all three of these website builders to see which one you gravitate towards. Squarespace offers a two-week free trial, Wix offers a free version that still gives you tons of features and WordPress is free to
try offline on your computer with a program called Local. If you have any questions,
definitely leave a comment below and I'll try my best to respond. So which website builder did you pick? I'd love to know your thoughts
in the comments down below and if you liked this video do be sure to hit that subscribe button and click the bell so you don't miss when I release new videos. Be sure to check out the
link in the description below for Craylor Academy and learn how to build your WordPress website
from start to finish. And with that said, I'll
catch you guys next time.
