When it comes to building an artist website, two builders come to mind that specifically focus on creatives: Pixpa and Squarespace. Both are easy to use, geared towards visual art, and allow you to sell online. Now, how do know if Pixpa is good for artists or if Squarespace is better for an artist website? By the end of this review, you’ll have a clear understanding of the pros and cons of each platform, helping you decide which is the best website builder for your artistic goals and budget!
Pixpa
A budget-friendly website builder with features specifically designed for artists.
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Squarespace
Easy-to-use website builder with visually-focused templates and more scalability.
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Building your own website is essential for getting exposure online and growing your artist career.
Don’t worry, you don’t need any coding skills to design a website for your art. Nowadays, there are so many website builders that let you create a professional-looking site without touching a single line of code.
The hardest part is finding out: which is the best website builder for an artist?
Pixpa and Squarespace are some of the top choices because they are specifically tailored for visual creatives.
For most artists, platforms like these are much faster and more convenient options than building a website from scratch with WordPress or similar platforms. Why? Because they offer all-in-one solutions that include hosting, domain registration, customizable templates, and built-in eCommerce tools.
I’ve built various websites in my life, among this artist website using WordPress. It’s a fantastic platform, but it comes with a much steeper learning curve than Pixpa and Squarespace.
For this review of Pixpa vs. Squarespace for artists, I've taken a thorough look at both platforms. I'll walk you through the pros and cons of each and give you a clear overview to help you decide which one is the best fit for you!
I’ll share my insights, experiences, and opinions based on a range of key factors that matter most to artists:
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Pixpa vs Squarespace for Artists: Quick Verdict
Pixpa is an easy-to-use website builder specifically made for artists. You can showcase your work in a professional portfolio, sell it in an eCommerce shop, and start a blog. There are also artist-focused features, such as client galleries and online proofing tools.
Squarespace is also geared toward artists, providing visually appealing templates that make it easy to create a professional-looking site to showcase and sell your art. It offers more design freedom but also comes at a higher monthly cost.
Pixpa vs Squarespace For Artists: Quick Overview
Squarespace
Pixpa
Onboarding
Squarespace
Pixpa
Website Builder
Squarespace
Pixpa
Templates
Squarespace
Pixpa
Apps & Integrations
Squarespace
Pixpa
eCommerce
Squarespace
Pixpa
Blogging
Squarespace
Pixpa
SEO & Analytics
Squarespace
Pixpa
Pricing
Squarespace
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Overall Rating
Squarespace
Pixpa
Pixpa vs Squarespace: Which is the better website builder for artists?
Both Pixpa and Squarespace are popular names when it comes to building artist websites—quick and easy. They are both easy-to-use, all-in-one website builders that allow you to create a professional-looking site without any coding skills.
They both provide a range of stunning templates specifically designed for visual art, be it photography, illustration, traditional or digital art. The templates are customizable and fully mobile-responsive right out of the box. All you need to do is add your own content and your website is ready to go live. It’s as convenient as that.
When it comes to eCommerce and marketing, you can sell online on both platforms, manage inventory, accept payments, and handle orders. You also get built-in marketing and sales tools, such as coupons, analytics, SEO settings, and email marketing features.
→ Email Marketing For Artists: How To Start & Build An Email List
With so many similarities between both platforms, which is the better website builder for artists?
Well, Pixpa and Squarespace are not entirely the same. There are differences between the two, and in this Pixpa vs. Squarespace review for artists, I tell you everything you need to decide which is the better website builder for your specific needs!
Pixpa vs Squarespace Review For Artists
For this review, I’ve evaluated Pixpa and Squarespace across a number of different aspects that particularly matter to artists. These include ease of use of the website builder and backend, visual appeal of the templates, integrations for functionality, e-commerce capabilities to sell your artwork, and more.
By the end of the review, you’ll know about the pros and cons of both platforms, and you can make an informed decision about which platform is the best fit for your creative needs and budget.
Here we go!
Onboarding
Squarespace
Pixpa
PIXPA VS SQUARESPACE REVIEW: GETTING STARTED
Which makes it easier for artists to start a website?
Generally speaking, the onboarding process is equally simple with both Squarespace and Pixpa. The main difference is that Squarespace lets you make more detailed selections regarding the goals of your website.
When you start a free trial on Squarespace, you can answer a quick questionnaire. Do you want to create a portfolio site? Do you want to sell products and services? Start a blog?
Just tick what you want to do with your site and Squarespace will suggest a number of suitable templates. If you don’t want to answer the questionnaire, you can simply click on Skip or on I’m just browsing in the top right corner to continue directly to Squarespace’s template library.
Pixpa takes a slightly different approach. Once you’ve entered your email address to start a free Pixpa trial (no credit card needed), you’ll be directed to the templates library.
Since Pixpa is specifically designed for creatives, it’s not difficult to find a template that suits your needs. There are templates for every type of visual art, from photography, to art and design, fashion and style, and even business and services.
Just browse the library and choose a template of your liking. You can always change the template on Pixpa—on Squarespace, you have to stick to the template you first selected. This is something to keep in mind when making your choice on Squarespace.
Once you’ve picked a template, Pixpa takes you straight to the dashboard. The dashboard is well-organized and easy to navigate—even for beginners.
You see six boxes guiding you to the next steps. You can start building your website, customize the design, set up your online store, use client galleries, work on marketing and SEO, or review your settings.
- Bottom Line
Both Squarespace and Pixpa make onboarding easy, but differ in guidance and template flexibility.
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Website Builder
Squarespace
Pixpa
PIXPA VS SQUARESPACE REVIEW: THE WEBSITE BUILDER
Which Is A Good Website Builder For Artists?
With the onboarding process completed, you can go to the backend and start creating new content, meaning pages, blog posts, products, and more.
Both platforms come with visual drag-and-drop editors that allow you to pick elements (images, text blocks, headings, etc.) from the sidebar on the left and drop them on the canvas.
Once you’ve picked an element and dropped it, you simply fill it with your own content, such as your artwork or text.
Since both Pixpa and Squarespace focus on visuals, you have plenty of options for adding images to your site.
Pixpa’s editor offers multiple section types—from single images to four-image layouts, sliders, galleries, and more.
The images in the video are ‘Scared Bunny‘ and ‘Cat & Mouse‘ from my Surreal Stories.
Editing text is just as easy with the Pixpa editor. When you click on a text section on the canvas, the editor opens in the right sidebar and you can change the placeholder text, modify formatting, add numbered and bulleted lists, and so on.
When you’re done editing, simply click Save and your changes will become visible on your website.
Squarespace’s editor is an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that lets you arrange elements within a defined grid. This makes Squarespace’s editor much more flexible than Pixpa’s when it comes to designing your site. You can move elements around on the grid, overlap items, and create more custom layouts.
With Pixpa, you can’t place elements just anywhere you want. Instead, you work with predefined blocks that can be placed in specific areas.
Likewise, inline text editing is limited on Pixpa. Squarespace’s editor, on the other hand, supports inline editing, meaning you can click on any text and edit directly on the page.
The images in the video are ‘ST∆RRY NIGHT‘ and ‘D∆RK HE∆RT‘ from my Lip Service Collection.
Squarespace’s formatting toolbar appears directly above the text you’re editing. There are slightly more styling options than on Pixpa, such as quotes, highlights, animations, and access to Squarespace AI, a generative writing assistant.
While Pixpa’s editing options are more limited, the upside is that the editor never feels overwhelming. It keeps things simple, which can be a benefit for beginners.
- Bottom Line
Squarespace offers greater design freedom than Pixpa.
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Templates
Squarespace
Pixpa
PIXPA VS SQUARESPACE REVIEW: TEMPLATES FOR VISUAL ART
Which Platform Has The Better Templates For Artists?
Templates are ready-made website layouts that come complete with pages, galleries, shop, blog, and so on. You can think of them as a starting point that you customize with your own content.
Both Pixpa and Squarespace have a generous library of pre-designed templates for various creative needs. All templates of both platforms focus on aesthetics, are mobile-responsive, and look modern and professional out of the box.
The only difference is that you can change templates on Pixpa whenever you want, whereas once you’ve picked one on Squarespace, you must stick with it.
At the time of writing, Pixpa features 200+ templates across its categories for Photography, Art & Design, Fashion & Style, Business & Services—from minimalist one pagers to eCommerce-ready layouts with shop and product pages.
All of Pixpa’s templates are free, meaning you don’t pay anything extra beyond your subscription fee.
Some great Pixpa templates for artists include:
Very much like Pixpa, Squarespace’s library includes around 200 templates. There are categories for Art & Design, Fashion, Photography, and Portfolio sites that feature several dozens of carefully crafted templates, from minimalist grid galleries to full-bleed layouts.
All official Squarespace templates are free. There are no additional fees, no premium tiers, and no locked features. If Squarespace’s template library isn’t quite enough for you, you can also look for third-party templates on places like Etsy or Creative Fabrica. Those, however, come at an additional cost.
Some Squarespace templates I can recommend for art sites are:
- Bottom Line
Both Pixpa and Squarespace have a library of visually stunning templates specifically designed creatives.
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Apps & Integrations
Squarespace
Pixpa
PIXPA VS SQUARESPACE REVIEW: APPS & INTEGRATIONS
Which Platform Offers More Functionality For Artists?
Both Squarespace and Pixpa provide add-ons for more functionality. You can think of those extensions as extra tools you connect to your site to give it more features beyond what comes built-in.
At the time of writing, Squarespace features around 40+ official extensions. There are extensions for all essential needs, including marketing, eCommerce, SEO, and analytics.
Artists can add extensions for drop-shipping and print-on-demand, such as Printify, to deliver art prints globally.
Pixpa’s Apps Store currently offers over 100+ extensions. There are extensions for eCommerce, social media, marketing, SEO, analytics, and email marketing, such as MailerLite. You can even embed Shopify.
While Pixpa’s doesn’t directly integrate with print-on-demand providers, its Custom Lab for Print Orders app allows you to set up a custom print vendor.
Beyond that, Pixpa’s native integrations let you create client galleries (exclusive albums to share, proof, deliver and sell images to your clients) and gallery apps (personalized mobile photo albums for clients).
While neither Pixpa’s nor Squarespace’s app markets are as versatile as the extensions available for WordPress or Shopify, they cover the essential needs of most creatives and keep things simple and straightforward.
- Bottom Line
Both Pixpa and Squarespace offer essential add-ons to expand website functionality.
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Get up to 55% off with code "PXREF55"
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eCommerce
Squarespace
Pixpa
PIXPA VS SQUARESPACE REVIEW: ECOMMERCE FUNCTIONALITY
Is Squarespace Or Pixpa Better To Sell Art Online?
eCommerce functionality is vital if you ever want to launch an online shop. Both Squarespace and Pixpa are eCommerce-ready platforms, allowing you to sell both physical and digital products.
With its new pricing scheme, Squarespace lets you sell on all of its four plans. All plans include unlimited storage, meaning you can also sell large files, such as high-resolution images of your art, e-books, and other large digital downloads—without worrying about space limits.
To get access to Squarespace’s fully integrated eCommerce and advanced shipping options, including a robust backend for managing your store and inventory, you’ll need to be on at least the Business plan at $23 per month.
The Personal plan at $16 per month (both billed annually) also lets you sell, but it lacks the full suite of eCommerce features.
To help you sell your art successfully, Squarespace provides heaps of selling tools. From discount codes, to Google Shopping, selling on Instagram and Facebook, or in person with Square.
You can add product reviews to build trust, show stock or “coming soon” labels, suggest related items, and create waitlists for sold-out pieces. You even offer print-on-demand art prints by linking Printful to your shop.
Just like Squarespace, Pixpa supports selling on all four of its plans. While you can only sell up to 3 products on the Basic plan, it’s super budget-friendly at $4.05 per month (when billed biannually).
As your art shop grows, you can upgrade to the Creator plan at $6.75 per month to sell up to 10 products, or move to the Professional plan at $9 per month to sell up to 100 products.
To start selling on Pixpa, all you need to do is go to the store dashboard and activate the type of products you want to sell: products like services and digital files, or images as prints and downloads—or both.
With that done, Pixpa provides a fully integrated online store. There are no transaction fees, meaning you keep 100% of your profit.
The great thing about Pixpa is that you can not only sell through your store but also through client galleries. Both come with integrated SEO tools to optimize your artwork titles and descriptions for search engines.
You can make everything searchable, from page URL, to page title, description, and Google search results preview. There’s even an AI tool that helps you generate SEO-optimized text.
That’s a big advantage, because without proper optimization, people won’t be able to discover your artwork online. Squarespace does not have this SEO feature for the store.
→ How To Find The Best Keywords For Artists To Boost Your SEO
- Bottom Line
Pixpa wins, if cost and simplicity matter. If you want a more scalable eCommerce system, go for Squarespace.
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Get up to 55% off with code "PXREF55"
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Get 10% off with code “WBE10”
Blogging & SEO
Squarespace
Pixpa
PIXPA VS SQUARESPACE REVIEW: BLOGGING & SEO FEATURES
Which Platform Is Better For Your Art Blog To Get Found In The Search?
Blogging is such a game changer when it comes to driving traffic to your website and your shop. Why? Because you can optimize your blog content for SEO, meaning for ranking high in the search engine results. That’s why every artist should have a blog.
The good news is that both Squarespace and Pixpa offer solid blogging features. Both platforms allow you to create an unlimited number of posts, schedule them, engage with readers in the comments, and organize your posts into categories. The only difference is that Squarespace also offers the option to add tags.
Apart from that, Squarespace’s and Pixpa’s blog formatting options are pretty much the same. You can add headings and subheadings, bold text, add bulleted and numbered lists, images, links, emoticons, and so on.
That said, both Pixpa and Squarespace offer basic post editing options. They’re nowhere near as flexible as WordPress when it comes to design customization, but they cover the essentials and are easy to use for beginners.
→ Is WordPress Good For Artists? – An Artist’s Honest Opinion…
Likewise, both Squarespace and Pixpa make it easy to optimize your blog posts for search engines. When you click on SEO settings, Squarespace’s SEO manager pops up, while Pixpa’s manager appears in the right sidebar.
On both platforms, you can enter an SEO title and description, and customize the URL to be search-friendly.
Comparing Pixpa vs. Squarespace for artists in terms of SEO, I find that Pixpa has the better in-built SEO manager. It gives you a well-structured overview of which aspects of your site are already well optimized and which still need improvement.
These include mobile friendliness, loading speed, image optimization, and URLs—all of which are essential for search engine ranking.
What’s more, Pixpa’s SEO manager gives you a clear to-do list of what still needs attention to fully optimize your site. You’ll be guided to add your website to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, use scheme markup, check broken links, and request Google to index your site.
Those are all super important points to optimize your site, and Pixpa’s SEO manager really helps you get everything done step by step.
- Bottom Line
Both Squarespace and Pixpa provide effective blogging features for artists, with Pixpa leading in SEO optimization.
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Pricing
Squarespace
Pixpa
PIXPA VS SQUARESPACE REVIEW: THE COSTS
How much is Squarespace vs Pixpa?
Both Pixpa and Squarespace have four pricing plans, but Pixpa stands out for its value for money, offering excellent performance at some of the most affordable prices on the market.
With the Basic plan starting at $4.05 per months (when billed biannually, get 55% off with code “PXREF55“), Pixpa is extremely budget-friendly and a great option for artists just starting out.
It includes all the essential features to build a website, portfolio gallery, blog, and start selling your work through your own online shop. The only limitations are the number of products you can sell on the Basic plan (up to 3), the images you can upload (up to 200), and the pages you can create (up to 10).
To sell up to 10 products and remove the limits on images and pages, plus access discount coupons and marketing pop-ups, you can upgrade to the Creator plan at $6.75 per month. And even the Professional plan at $9/month and the Advanced plan with unlimited product sales at $11.25/month remain very affordable (all billed biannually).
In comparison, Squarespace’s entry-level plan starts $16/month when billed annually ($23/month if billed monthly). It comes without limitations on products, pages, or images, and includes unlimited storage, meaning you can upload as many high-resolution images and other files as you like. It is great for portfolio sites where you occasionally want to sell some of your artwork.
If you want to sell with more advanced tools, you need at least the Business plan at $23 monthly (billed annually) or at $36 when billed monthly. This plan allows you to sell products and services directly on your site with a 3% transaction fee per sale, and provides features such as a built-in checkout and a shipping rate calculator.
To remove the transaction fee, you can upgrade to one of Squarespace’s Commerce plans. The Basic Commerce plan at $28 per month comes with more advanced sales and marketing tools, while the Advanced Commerce plan also lets you sell subscriptions and use promotions such as discount codes.
- Bottom Line
Pixpa offers exceptional value with low-cost plans that cover all the essentials artists need to build an eCommerce-ready portfolio site.
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Get up to 55% off with code "PXREF55" at checkout
Overall Rating
Squarespace
Pixpa
PIXPA VS SQUARESPACE REVIEW: THE VERDICT
Which is the overall best website builder for artists?
Overall, both Pixpa and Squarespace are excellent platforms for artists, offering user-friendly setup, intuitive editing tools, and professional-looking results.
Pixpa is an excellent choice for artists who want an affordable, easy-to-use platform with beautiful templates, built-in SEO, and artist-focused eCommerce features. While it offers slightly less design flexibility than Squarespace, its budget-friendly plans and template-switching freedom make it perfect for beginners and small art businesses.
Choose Pixpa if you want:
- Budget-friendly pricing with plans starting at just $4.05/month
- An SEO manager that guides you step by step to fully optimize your site
- An eCommerce platform that supports selling physical and digital products through both online store and client galleries
- Switch your website template along the way
Squarespace is a powerful, design-focused platform that excels in template quality, design flexibility, and full-featured eCommerce when using higher-tier plans. It’s ideal for artists who prioritize visuals and scalability, but it comes at a higher cost compared to Pixpa.
Choose Squarespace if you want:
- A flexible website builder that gives you more control over your site’s design
- A tailored onboarding experience with a goal-based questionnaire
- Advanced eCommerce capabilities to sell unlimited products from the start
- High-quality templates that look professional out of the box
Pixpa vs Squarespace for Artists: Key Takeaways
1. Onboarding & Ease of Use — Both platforms are beginner-friendly. Squarespace offers a goal-based questionnaire to start with, while Pixpa takes you straight to its template library.
2. The Editor — Squarespace gives you more creative control with a flexible grid editor and inline text editing. Pixpa’s editor is simpler and more rigid, making it also easier to use for beginners.
3. eCommerce & Sales Features — Both platforms support selling physical and digital products. Pixpa is more budget-friendly with artist-focused galleries, while Squarespace offers advanced eCommerce tools with higher-tier plans.
4. Blogging & SEO — Both Squarespace and Pixpa come with blogging and SEO optimization. Pixpa has the advantage of a structured SEO manager that guides you step-by-step through improvements.
5. Value for Money — Pixpa stands out with affordability, simplicity, and artist-focused features. Squarespace is the better choice if you want more customization options, polished design, and scalable eCommerce.
In the end, the right platform depends on your specific needs and budget. I recommend making use of the free trials both platforms offer. Testing out each one will help you decide which one is the best for you:
