Squarespace Commerce Limitations 2025
I am always open and honest with potential clients about what is possible with Squarespace and what isnβt. I will tell you from the outset whether the features you need are included or can be developed.
If a clientβs primary aim is to build a great website and to dip their toes in online selling, I believe Squarespace is a great solution. It is streets ahead from a design standpoint, and is still one of the easiest and most cost-effective eCommerce solutions available. Squarespace continue to invest in the platform, adding features at a steady pace (see my updates) but, as with any product or service, there are inevitably some limitations that keep Shopify slightly ahead.
To be fair to Squarespace, this is often because the missing feature is available on Shopify from a third party App developer, and when you add the cost of all those addons, the Shopify platform will cost far more! However, if that feature is essential to your business model, you need to know whether it is available on Squarespace before you commit. Youβve probably read that Shopify is a more advanced commerce platform than Squarespace but, if you are considering moving to Shopify, please know that:
Shopify it is more complex to set up
Shopify it is more complex to manage
Shopify is more expensive
Also, if you needed to be convinced, please know a proportion of clients ask for their site to be moved from Shopify back to Squarespace!
Paul
Squarespace Expert
Why am I sharing this list?
I produced the original version of this Commerce Limitations list in June 2018 to share with Squarespace teams. The purpose was to help them understand why real customers (my clients!) were not using Squarespace Commerce, or were moving to other platforms. Since then, Iβve had many more (monthly!) conversations with Squarespace Product Managers and Iβve updated this list to reflect the improvements - most recently in August 2024.
Iβm a strong advocate for Squarespace so this list is not intended to βrubbishβ Squarespace teams or the platform. It is the exact opposite - it was the result of two years of research, speaking to real Squarespace clients who were unable to remain on the platform. Having shared it with Squarespace I published the list as a service to anyone who is considering building an online store with Squarespace. I hope it helps you to know what you can and cannot do with the platform.
A number of great new features have been added recently, but some important limitations - first pointed out in 2018 - are yet to be resolved, due to other priorities.
The list now applies to Squarespace 7.1 only. This is because version 7.0 is no longer promoted by Squarespace and now accounts for fewer than 1% of all new Squarespace websites.
Please note that this page only contains information that is in the public domain. I do not publish information about upcoming or beta features because this information is subject to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
The missing features
Search doesn't work. You cannot rely on the built-in search feature to find content on your website. The search results are sketchy and badly formatted and thereβs a serious limitation for commerce sites - search doesn't work correctly, and visitors won't find your products! If you need search and filtering, buy the Squarewebsites plugin called Universal Filter. Itβs an amazing solution
Shipping options are extremely limited. If your business is based outside the US, there isnβt a way to automatically calculate shipping rates at checkout using carrier rates. Instead, you must pre-calculate shipping costs and add fixed amounts based on weight. Thereβs a carrier-calculated shipping option in the United States but it uses the full retail costs of shipping with a few supported carriers - it cannot use your discounted carrier rates, making it unusable. This cannot be changed because Squarespace doesnβt offer any way of adding functionality using Shipping Extensions or APIs.
Sales Tax: European VAT rates cannot be managed. Since 2021, VAT has been managed differently in the UK and the EU. Squarespace has not been updated to collect VAT correctly for different countries in Europe. This makes it unsuitable for sites selling to different territories where some customers must pay sales tax and others do not, depending on order values.
Sales Tax: Rates cannot differ between products. Products cannot have different sales tax/VAT rates. If you sell products that have have different rates, or some zero-rated items, this isnβt possible on Squarespace. VAT exemption isnβt available for individual products.
Sales Tax: Always shown for all products until checkout. Everyone sees the same price (with same VAT), regardless of where they are located or what their VAT rate is, until they reach the checkout. There is an option to hide sales tax until checkout, but this is equally unsuitable for sites selling to different territories where some customers must pay sales tax and others do not.
Limited payment options especially in Europe and South Africa. On Squarespace Commerce you can process payments using Stripe, Squarespace Payments (a white-label version of Stripe) and PayPal. It is not possible to use other, more cost-effective payment processors. Stripe allows merchants to accept payments by credit and debit cards, as well as Apple Pay. PayPal allows payment by PayPal account and Venmo. The Stripe integration (SOAP) is old and does not support newer Stripe features like Radar (anti-fraud) or European payment methods like iDEAL, Bancontact or Mollie.
Prices are only shown in one currency. Your product prices will only be shown in a single currency. If your site appeals to customers in other countries, they will be confused by the currency. For example, US customers viewing a Canadian site may be confused about the currency as only '$' is shown. We sell an extension called Currencies that will allow you to show your prices in more than one currency.
The checkout is limited to one currency. This cannot be overriden due to restrictions imposed on the Squarespace checkout page.
The checkout page is "locked" to prevent code and style changes. They do this to protect the payment process, but this does limit your options for checkout customisation. For example, the checkout uses Squarespace's own-brand font (known as βClarksonβ). This cannot be styled to match your own brand design. As code cannot be added, it isn't possible to add other payment methods or modify shipping options.
Online orders must be paid in full online. Squarespace commerce works with the online payment methods described above. The commerce and checkout features cannot be used for business-to-business (B2B) transactions, where businesses want to pay by bank transfer or cheque/check against an invoice. However, we sell a Wishlist Extension that allows customers to submit their cart to you by email and then arrange payment separately.
US-centric phrases are fixed and cannot be changed. Squarespace is very obviously from the USA. They refer to delivery as 'shipping', collection as 'pickup', VAT as 'sales tax' and gift vouchers as 'gift cards'. Unfortunately these phrases are fixed and cannot be changed. Also, the translations of fixed phrases are not always perfect.
Dates must be in US format (MM/DD/YYYY). In many places, including the checkout page, Squarespace only allows dates to be entered in US format (month then day). This has been a massive problem for 17 years and can now cause serious problems if the date is a delivery date or the date of a ticket being purchased. We sell a Datepicker that you can add to products and forms to make it easy for visitors to enter dates reliably and visually using a calendar. We wish it could be added to the checkout page too, but because the checkout page is locked (see missing feature above), this isn't currently possible.
Digital products must be smaller than 300MB. The file size limit for digital products is low (300MB) preventing larger digital files from being sold.
You cannot vault payment cards. On Squarespace Commerce, the customer's payment card will be charged immediately at checkout. It is not possible to 'vault' credit cards to defer payment until a later date, such as when a the order is despatched (Squarespace Scheduling does allow you to vault cards).
Built-in product categorisation and filtering is poor. You cannot create a page that allows customers to pick a product category and a size or colour. However, as mentioned above, an excellent third party plugin is available from Squarewebsites called Universal Filter that can filter by multiple categories.
Subscription products: Customers cannot manage subscriptions. For example, customers cannot change their shipping address or their email address - a common requirement! They can only cancel the subscription and then purchase a new one.
Subscription products: Merchants cannot manage lists of active subscribers. You cannot filter orders on the backend to just show active subscribers. You can only check whether a customer has an active subscription by drilling into each customer's details on a customer-by-customer basis, making it impossible to manage communications with active subscribers.
Subscription products: Subscriptions have a separate checkout. Customers must be purchase subscription products separately. It is not possible to checkout with subscription and non-subscription items at the same time. As soon as you click to purchase a subscription item, you are sent directly to a separate checkout where only your subscription product will be visible. If you have added other non-subscription goods to the checkout, these will not be visible and may result in lost sales.
Subscription products: Renewal dates are not synchronised. Subscription products cannot be set to start on a specific date by default. Instead, renewal occurs on the anniversary of the order. For example monthly subscriptions purchased on the 3rd of the month will renew on the 3rd day of each month, monthly subscriptions purchased on the 15th will renew on the 15th. If you want all subscriptions to renew on the same date, you must manually adjust each one.
Subscription products: Notification emails are confusing. As you'd expect, store owners receive an order notification email each time an order is received. With subscriptions, store owners receive an order notification email each time a subscription renews! These are easily confused with new non-subscription orders and cannot be disabled. No action needs to be taken when service subscriptions renew, making these emails difficult to manage.
Subscription products: The initial cost must be the same as the regular cost. It is not possible to have a higher (or lower) initial cost. For example, you cannot start a subscription with an initial 'joining fee' or with a low cost trial period.
Subscription products: There is no pause/snooze option to allow customers to take a temporary break. Itβs always better to allow subscribers to skip a single shipment rather than cancel the subscription. At the moment, they cannot even change their address without cancelling their entire subscription!
Subscription products: Charges cannot be increased over time. If you change the price for a subscription, this will only apply to new subscribers. There is not a way to increase the pricing of existing subscribers unless they cancel their membership and sign up again! This also applies to Member Area subscriptions.
Advanced Commerce features cannot be trialled. Although Squarespace advertise a 14-day free trial of Squarespace (6 months for Circle members), it does not include a trial of Advanced Commerce features such as Subscriptions or Abandoned Cart Recovery. This makes it difficult to test them and understand how they work before committing to a paid plan.
No minimum order quantity options. It isn't possible to set minimum quantities for products. Minimums can only be set by value for the subtotal, not individual products.
No quantity discount options. For example 1 product for $10, 2 for $18, 3 for $24, buy one get one half-price, buy one get one free, and so on.
No more than 250 variant combinations. Products can have variants such as different colours and sizes, but you can quickly run out of options. For example, imagine a product where you need to specify the top colour, the bottom colour and the size. If there were 7 options for each, that is a total of 343 different variants, exceeding the 250 variant limit (7x7x7=343).
Packing slips are not customisable. Your packing slip will include the default site logo. If this logo is white, it will not be visible on packing slips. It is not possible to customise these printed documents. Iβve written a workaround for this.
No point of sale (POS) capability, except in the United States. A POS feature is available in the USA, but elsewhere it is not possible to make in-person sales through Squarespace. If you have a shop, market stall or food van you must manage sales using a completely separate system. Squarespace intended to make POS available in more countries but there is no news on when this feature will be available.
No options for product bundles (for example, bundling of individual SKUs into a 'gift pack').
Sales Tax: US rates cannot be managed.
Improvements since I wrote this guide in 2018
Since writing this guide in 2018, there have been huge improvements in Squarespace Commerce features!
There is now a Local Delivery option for florists, bakeries, restaurants and similar local businesses who manage their own deliveries!
Afterpay and Clearpay are now supported in a number of countries
Klarna is now supported on Squarespace Payments.
It is now possible to offer product customisation like engraving or embroidery option for a small charge.
There are now more upsell options. In addition to the Related Products feature there is now a Product Add-on feature that adds products right beside the Add to Cart button.
You can now translate the checkout page using a third-party extension (extra charges apply) called Weglot.
Nested product categories are now possible.
Up to 10,000 products can be added to a website. On version 7.0, you could have a maximum of 200 per store page.
Item specific shipping is now possible. You can now create fulfillment profiles, which are tailored sets of shipping options that you assign to individual products. This allows you to limit the shipping options at checkout to those in the productβs fulfillment profile
It is now possible to specify which items are available for pickup and which products can only be shipped.
Digital product links have been improved. A valid download link is automatically resent to a customer if they click on an expired link.
A minimum order value option was added.