How to use code on a Squarespace Personal or Basic plan

If you’ve ever tried to install a Squarespace plugin, or a small snippet of code to a Squarespace website that is on the cheapest plan (known as “Personal” or “Basic”) then you’ve probably discovered that Squarespace does not want you to use custom code on these plans.

Squarespace restricts custom code on “Basic” and “Personal” plans as a billing feature differentiation, calling it a “Premium Feature”.

If you’re on one of these cheaper “Basic” and “Personal” billing plans there is:

• No Footer Code Injection

• No Header Code Injection

• No official support for custom scripts

• No guaranteed compatibility with third-party plugins

However, there is a long-standing workaround using Markdown Blocks.

Important

This method is not supported or encouraged by Squarespace. They could block this workaround at any time. If they did this, your code would stop working and you would need to upgrade to the Core plan to continue using your code.

SF.DIGITAL does not provide support for this method either, nor do we encourage customers to use this workaround with our plugins. However, we do believe in transparency, and know that some Squarespace customers particularly in the charity sector, cannot always justify the higher cost of the Core plan.

Using this workaround is entirely at your own risk.

Using Markdown Blocks

For many years, users have been able to add JavaScript to sites on “Personal” or “Basic” plans using Markdown Blocks, instead of Code Injection.

Instead of adding code using the Code Injection (Footer) panel, you can instead place your <script> directly inside a Markdown Block in your site footer.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Edit your site footer.

2. Add a new Markdown Block anywhere inside your footer.

3. Inside the Markdown Block, paste your full script, usually starting with <script> and ending with </script>.

4. Save the page.

That’s it!

Free guide

This guide is completely free to use.

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The risks

Let’s be very clear. Although this has worked for many years, Squarespace could remove this workaround at any time. If that happens, this workaround could stop working immediately, and so would your code. There is no guarantee of future compatibility. The correct approach is to upgrade to the “Core” website billing plan.

Why we don’t officially support this

You are welcome to use this workaround with the free code snippets that we provide but, as plugin developers, we build within the documented limits of the Squarespace platform, so we do not support this workaround when using our paid plugins.

Upgrading to a “Core” website billing plan is the safer, long-term approach. When you’re on a Core (or higher) plan, Squarespace has known limits, where we know scripts will load consistently. Behaviour is predictable and, if something breaks, we can report this issue to Squarespace engineers and they can fix it. The workaround is unsupported by Squarespace and you cannot depend on it.