Quick Answer
Google Sites is completely free with any Google account and works well for simple internal pages, intranets, and basic personal or portfolio sites. Squarespace starts at $19 per month and offers a genuinely different product tier: professional design templates, an AI website builder, built-in ecommerce, advanced SEO tools, and 24/7 support. For a quick, no-cost page with minimal design ambitions, Google Sites covers the need. For a real public-facing business website meant to sell products, build a brand, or rank competitively in search, Squarespace is the more complete platform
What Is Google Sites?
Google Sites is a free website builder included with every Google account, personal or Workspace. It uses a straightforward drag-and-drop editor with customizable themes, typography, and simple layout elements. It’s part of the free Google ecosystem, not a standalone product with its own pricing tiers.
What Is Squarespace?
Squarespace is a paid, all-in-one website platform starting at $19 per month, built around professional design templates, an AI website builder (Blueprint AI), built-in ecommerce, marketing tools, and 24/7 customer support. It’s a considerably more complete product aimed at businesses and creators who need their website to actually generate revenue or build a serious brand presence.
Google Sites vs Squarespace: Feature Comparison
| Feature | Google Sites | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Starting at $19/mo |
| Templates | Limited, simple designs | Extensive, professionally designed library |
| AI website builder | Not available | Blueprint AI |
| Ecommerce | Not available | Built-in, unlimited products |
| SEO tools | Basic sitemap, editable metadata | Advanced, AI-assisted SEO tools |
| Email marketing | Through Gmail only | Integrated campaigns with automation |
| Blogging | Not available natively | Full CMS with blogging support |
| Customer support | None dedicated | 24/7 support team |
| Custom domain | Must be purchased separately and connected | Included free for the first year on annual plans |
Where Google Sites Actually Wins
Cost is the obvious one; Google Sites is free with no tier ever requiring payment. Beyond price, it genuinely suits a few specific use cases well: quick internal pages or intranets for a Google Workspace organization, simple portfolio or resume sites with minimal design ambition, and situations where a page just needs to exist without any ongoing investment of time or money.
Where Squarespace Wins
Almost everywhere else. Squarespace’s template library is professionally designed and adaptable to nearly any business type, and Blueprint AI can generate a personalized starting point from a brand description in minutes, something Google Sites has no equivalent for. Built-in ecommerce, unlimited product listings, appointment booking, invoicing, and multi-channel selling are absent from Google Sites. Squarespace’s SEO tools go well beyond Google Sites’ basic sitemap and metadata editing, including AI-assisted content and alt-text suggestions. And critically, Squarespace offers actual 24/7 customer support; Google Sites has none.
Do You Need a Custom Domain?
Both platforms support a custom domain, but the path differs. Squarespace includes domain registration and management through Squarespace Domains, free for the first year on annual plans. Google Sites requires purchasing a domain through a separate registrar and connecting it manually, since Google no longer sells domains directly to anyone. That’s not a small caveat: Google Domains, the product that used to make this simple, was sold to Squarespace in 2023 and no longer exists, so a Google Sites user today has to go through GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace’s own domain service, or another registrar entirely separate from the website itself.
“Squarespace vs Google Domains”: A Comparison That No Longer Applies
If you’re seeing this phrase in search results, it’s worth knowing the two aren’t separate, competing options anymore. Squarespace acquired the entire Google Domains business in 2023, and by mid-2024 every Google Domains customer had been migrated to Squarespace’s own domain platform. There’s no live “Google Domains” to compare against Squarespace today; Squarespace is what Google Domains became.
Google Sites vs Squarespace vs Wix
Wix is the third platform that regularly comes up in this comparison, positioned similarly to Squarespace: paid plans, professional templates, and a more flexible drag-and-drop editor that gives finer control over exact element placement than Squarespace’s more structured layout system. Wix and Squarespace compete closely with each other on price and features, while Google Sites remains the clear budget outlier of the three, free, but considerably more limited in design flexibility and business features.
Is Squarespace Good for SEO?
Squarespace includes solid built-in SEO fundamentals: responsive design, search-friendly URLs, automated sitemap generation, editable page titles and descriptions, and AI tools that scan for missing SEO details and suggest copy. That said, no platform, Squarespace included, guarantees search rankings on its own. Good SEO ultimately depends on content quality, backlinks, and ongoing optimization work, not just which website builder generated the page. Squarespace’s tools make good SEO practice easier to execute; they don’t replace the practice itself.
“Square” vs “Squarespace”: Clearing Up the Confusion
These are two entirely separate companies that happen to share part of a name. Square, now operating under the parent company Block, is primarily a payments and point-of-sale business that also offers its own free website builder (Square Online) tied to its payment processing. Squarespace is an unrelated, independent website and ecommerce platform. If a search led here while actually looking for Square’s website builder, that’s a different product from everything covered in this comparison.
What’s Better Than Squarespace?
For businesses that outgrow Squarespace’s more structured, template-based approach, the most commonly considered alternatives are Wix, for finer layout control, WordPress, for maximum customization and plugin flexibility at the cost of more technical setup, and Webflow, for designers wanting closer to code-level control without writing code directly. None of these are strictly “better” in every case; each trades away some of Squarespace’s simplicity for more flexibility in a specific direction.
Google Sites for Business: A Legitimate Internal Use Case
It’s worth separating public website use from internal use here. Within a Google Workspace organization, Google Sites is a genuinely practical tool for building intranets, project pages, or internal documentation hubs, integrated directly with the same login, permissions, and admin controls as the rest of Workspace. That’s a real, legitimate use case distinct from trying to run a public-facing business website or online store on it.
Which Should You Choose?
Choose Google Sites if you need a simple, free page with minimal design ambition, an internal intranet or team resource page within Google Workspace, or a basic personal portfolio with no revenue goals attached.
Choose Squarespace if you’re building a public business website meant to attract customers, sell products or services, or establish a professional brand presence, and you want built-in ecommerce, marketing tools, and real support behind the platform.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Trying to run an online store on Google Sites. It has no native ecommerce functionality at all.
- Assuming Google Sites includes a custom domain. It doesn’t; a domain has to be purchased separately and connected.
- Comparing “Squarespace vs Google Domains” as if both are live options. Squarespace absorbed Google Domains in 2023.
- Confusing Square’s website builder with Squarespace. They’re unrelated companies.
- Expecting Google Sites’ basic SEO tools to compete with Squarespace’s AI-assisted SEO features; they’re not close in depth.
The Bottom Line
Google Sites is free and fine for simple internal pages or a no-frills personal site, but it has no e-commerce, no AI builder, and no dedicated support behind it. Squarespace costs $19 a month and up, but delivers a genuinely complete platform for anyone building a real public-facing business website, professional design, built-in selling tools, stronger SEO features, and actual customer support included. The right call comes down to whether the website needs to just exist, or needs to work for the business actively.
FAQ
Is Google Sites free?
Yes, completely free with any Google account, with no paid tier at all.
Is Squarespace better than Google Sites?
For a real business website, yes, generally. Squarespace offers ecommerce, professional design, AI tools, and support that Google Sites doesn’t have. For a simple free page, Google Sites can be enough.
Does Google Sites have ecommerce?
No, Google Sites doesn’t offer built-in ecommerce features at all. Squarespace includes unlimited product listings and multi-channel selling natively.
Can I use a custom domain with Google Sites?
Yes, but it has to be purchased through a separate registrar and connected manually, since Google no longer sells domains directly.
Is Squarespace the same as Google Domains?
No, but Squarespace acquired the entire Google Domains business in 2023, so Google Domains no longer exists as a separate product.
Is Squarespace good for SEO?
Squarespace includes solid built-in SEO tools, but no platform guarantees rankings on its own; content quality and ongoing optimization still matter most.
What’s the difference between Square and Squarespace?
They’re unrelated companies. Square (Block) is a payments company with its own separate website builder; Squarespace is an independent website and ecommerce platform.
