Buttondown vs. Squarespace

Created in a college dorm room in 2003, Squarespace has become one of the most well-known website creation platforms. Squarespace prides itself on being the all-in-one tool for budding and established entrepreneurs. Since its graduation from the university dorm rooms, Squarespace has enabled millions to create websites and grow their brands through its multiple products, including website-building, e-commerce, marketing, and creator tools. It’s safe to say that the company has grown into a powerhouse platform that doesn’t seem to be leaving the industry any time soon.

Squarespace pulls users in with their key email and newsletter campaign features:

• Integrated analytics
• Email design templates
• Audience management
• Consistent content from website to email
• Sender Details

While Squarespace is larger than Buttondown, bigger isn’t inherently better. Buttondown offers nearly the same features--multiple integrations, analytics, tags for mailing list organization, surveys, A/B testing, and the ability to send from Gmail (or your preferred email service)––with more to come.

Features are very important but pricing can be a make or break for many creators. Which service will provide your desired tools while staying within your budget?

It’s important to remember that Squarespace is first and foremost a website creation tool. Maybe you already have a website or just don’t need one. Instead, your priority is to grow your email newsletter. If that’s the case, you don’t really need the website part of the platform that you will have to pay for to gain access to Squarespaces’ email and newsletter campaign tools. In the eyes of Squarespace, email marketing is merely a feature.

On the other hand, email marketing is the principal service of Buttondown. Every update is made intentionally, making your email marketing goals attainable with our easy-to-use tools. Dedicated to ensuring your newsletter’s growth, our features such as automations, webhooks, and first-party API are far more powerful than a service provider such as Squarespace where your newsletter is a small component of a larger product. Your community and content are, and will always, be the top priority with Buttondown.

Because of this, Buttondown gives you access to all our robust marketing tools for one flat price––no add-on costs for necessary features. With Squarespace, if you create audio, video, and/or written content, you would have to purchase each specific component, as they are separated by tools, to create a Frankenstein monster-esque plan. You would have multiple subscriptions, with different prices, and different pay cycles, ultimately stressing your budget and peace of mind. With Buttondown, you can relax knowing that whatever your medium is, you have what you need, from attachments to audio and video integrations. No one wants to be put in a square box––here, exploration is encouraged. Buttondown allows you to create what you want without limitation.

At our core, we’re just a couple of humans who want to help you reach your goals.