Updated: November 8, 2026

Shopify vs Squarespace: the real cost of selling at 10, 100 and 1,000 orders

Most comparisons stop at the plan price. For a shop, the plan is often the small part of the bill. Card processing and transaction fees grow with every order. This page adds them up at 10, 100 and 1,000 orders a month, using only Shopify’s and Squarespace’s own US pricing and help pages, read on November 8, 2026.

We have run a test store on both (November 12, 2026, while building a bakery site), but no real payouts or support tickets yet. The numbers below are arithmetic on published rates. See how we test.

The rates we used

Both platforms have their own card processor: Shopify Payments and Squarespace Payments. We assume you use it, because that is the cheapest path on both.

Sources: Shopify pricing, Squarespace pricing and Squarespace’s help page on transaction fees and processing rates (updated October 29, 2026). All checked November 8, 2026.

Things the table leaves out:

• Premium cards cost more. Squarespace charges 3.2% + 30¢ for American Express and some business cards, on every plan, plus 1.5% for international cards. Shopify’s comparison table lists a premium card rate of 3.5% + 30¢, but the same table also listed European payment methods, so we do not treat it as a confirmed US rate yet. Our model uses standard cards only.
• Shopify’s intro offer. Shopify offers a 3-day free trial, then $1/mo for 3 months on monthly billing, for “most plans”. That saves you money in year 1 only, so it is not in the monthly model.
• Shopify Advanced ($299/mo billed yearly) is out of scope for a small shop and is not modeled.
• Squarespace digital products. Courses and memberships carry their own fee on Squarespace: 7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus, 0% on Advanced. The model covers physical products only.

The model

To make the math repeatable, we use one assumption: an average order of $50. Change it, and you can redo every row with the same formula.

Monthly cost = plan price + (card rate % x sales) + (30¢ x orders) + (transaction fee % x sales)

At $50 an order, the card fee per order is $1.75 at 2.9% + 30¢, $1.65 at 2.7% + 30¢ and $1.55 at 2.5% + 30¢. Squarespace Basic’s 2% fee adds $1.00 an order.

Cost per month, billed yearly

Same thing as a share of sales

If you pay month to month

Fees stay the same. Only the plan line changes: Shopify Basic is $10 a month more ($39), Shopify Grow $26 more ($105), Squarespace Basic $6 more ($25), Core $10 more ($39), Plus $16 more ($65) and Advanced $40 more ($139). At 100 orders, Shopify Basic and Squarespace Core both come to $214.00 a month on monthly billing.

What the numbers say

1. On the published rates, Shopify Basic and Squarespace Core cost exactly the same at every order level: same plan price, same card rate, no transaction fee. The choice between them is about features, not price.
2. Squarespace Basic is only cheap for a tiny shop. Its 2% fee costs $10 a month at 10 orders, the same as the $10 step up to Core. Above $500 a month in sales, Core is cheaper.
3. Higher plans pay off later than you might think. The lower card rate saves 10¢ per $50 order for every 0.2 points.
   • Shopify Basic to Grow: the $50 a month difference pays back at 500 orders a month ($25,000 in sales).
   • Squarespace Core to Plus: $20 more pays back at 200 orders a month ($10,000).
   • Squarespace Plus to Advanced: $50 more pays back at 500 orders a month on top of Plus.
4. At 1,000 orders, the plans are within $130 of each other, except Squarespace Basic, which is about $1,000 a month more. Card processing is most of the bill on every plan.

When the money reaches your bank

Fees decide how much you keep. Payout timing decides when you can spend it.

Shopify Payments (US). Payouts “typically arrive in your bank account within 3 to 5 business days after a customer’s payment is captured”. The minimum settlement time in the US is 3 business days. New stores start with a longer settlement time, which shortens as you fulfill orders on time. There is no minimum payout amount (Shopify help, read November 8, 2026). Shopify’s payout timing page adds that weekends and holidays do not count (payout timing).

Squarespace Payments. Your first payout has an 8 to 12 day holding period that starts once your bank account is connected (7 days with a Squarespace Balance account). After that, payouts are sent daily, and US payouts arrive in 1 to 2 business days (Squarespace help, updated October 6, 2026).

Both can hold funds longer for risk reviews. Sellers do notice. One 1-star App Store review of the Shopify app said: “Shopify holds our sales revenue for 5 business days” (October 2, 2026). That is one seller’s report, not our measurement.

Refunds and leaving

• Refunds on your plan: Shopify’s terms say it does not provide refunds. Squarespace refunds an annual plan cancelled within 14 days of purchase, minus a free domain’s cost, and nothing on monthly plans or renewals. On yearly billing, you pay for the year upfront on both. See our renewal price tracker for the details and the 3-year totals.
• Exporting products: both export products to a .csv file. Shopify’s export runs from the Products page (Shopify help). Squarespace exports up to 10,000 products, but its file leaves out some product details such as variant images and reviews (Squarespace help). Squarespace’s main site export does not include store pages at all (Squarespace help).

What AI assistants say

We do not have an AI answer for this exact question yet. The closest one in our November 8, 2026 scan was “Is Wix or Shopify better for a small online store?”. All 4 engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) named both brands. Perplexity’s short answer: “Choose Shopify if selling is the main purpose of your site; choose Wix if you want a flexible, design-led website with a relatively simple store attached.”

Only Gemini spelled out transaction fees. Perplexity mentioned fees in one line (processing fees, and an extra fee for a third-party processor). None mentioned payout timing. That is the gap this page fills. Full scan: What AI assistants recommend.

Who each fits

Pick Shopify if: selling is the main job of the site, you expect your catalog and orders to grow, and you want store tools first.

Avoid Shopify if: you sell a handful of items alongside a content or service site and do not want to learn a store admin.

Pick Squarespace (Core or higher) if: the website, portfolio or service pages come first and the shop is a part of it. On published rates, Core costs the same as Shopify Basic.

Avoid Squarespace Basic if: you expect more than about $500 a month in online sales. The 2% fee then costs more than upgrading.

Running a bakery or café? We built the same bakery on both, with test orders for pickup and local delivery: a website for a bakery.

What we have not tested yet

Update, November 12, 2026: we paid for a month on each, ran test orders and cancelled both plans while building a bakery site. Still on our list:

• Recording what a US card is charged at checkout (our test account was billed in euros)
• Timing the first real payout and the later ones
• Checking the real fee on a premium card (such as Amex) on a US account
• Contacting support with a payout question and logging the first human reply time
• Exporting a real catalog from each and importing it into the other

Sources and dates

All read on November 8, 2026, unless a date is given.

• Shopify: pricing, US payouts, payout timing, exporting products
• Squarespace: pricing, transaction fees and processing rates (updated October 29, 2026), payouts (updated October 6, 2026), export products, export your site
• Refund terms and plan totals: our renewal price tracker
• AI answers: our scan of November 8, 2026, method here
• Average order of $50: our assumption, not a market figure