Podia vs. Squarespace

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Podia
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Podia in New York offers their ecommerce platform for managing memberships and selling courses online.
$39
per month
Squarespace
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Squarespace is a CMS platform that allows users to create a DIY blog, eCommerce store, and/or portfolio (visual art or music). Some Squarespace website and shop templates are industry or use case-specific, such as menu builders for restaurant sites.
$25
per month
Pricing
PodiaSquarespace
Editions & Modules
Mover
$39.00
per month
Shaker
$79.00
per month
Basic
$25
per month
Core
$36
per month
Plus
$56
per month
Advanced
$139
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PodiaSquarespace
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details28% to 36% discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PodiaSquarespace
Considered Both Products
Podia
Chose Podia
It has all the same features of kajabi such as the website builder, email system, affiliate system, and course hosting . I believe they both now do quizzes and certificates too. Kajabi gets points for having a podcasting platform, a more full fledge community platform …
Chose Podia
Kajabi had lots of features all in one place. I liked their digital course creator program. I liked the ease of their their membership site program/host, too. It had an app for my clients to use. There were some problems with not being able to customize the look of pages, but …
Squarespace
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace is more user-friendly and sleek. I'd recommend it over Freenom for beginners and those who are more interested in running a website (instead of caring about their DNS).
Chose Squarespace
I like Squarespace better if you are starting from scratch. I was able to use Wordpress when it was an existing site and I just had to make updates, but would have a difficult time starting from the beginning and building a Wordpress site.
Chose Squarespace
Blackbaud DonorCentral, Donorbox, Alaya by Benevity, Intuit Mailchimp, monday CRM and monday.com
Chose Squarespace
In my opinion, Squarespace beats Wix all day. We have used both for microsite development. We use Wordpress for our main site as the featureset is open source and is considered the industry best practice. You can do a lot more specific features with WordPress that are sometimes …
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace if much less work than WordPress, plus hosting and security are not an issue. GoDaddy and Wix are okay, but nowhere near the flexibility or advanced feature set that you can get with Squarespace. Compared to the other products that I have used, Squarespace …
Chose Squarespace
We picked Squarespace for a specific use case because it was easy to spin up the promotional content we needed.
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace is easy to use, webflow can feel clunky (though I haven’t tried it recently), and Wix is very similar, but I preferred the Squarespace aesthetic. Also, Squarespace has clear, transparent pricing - you know what you get, and I like the design styles. I’m not in a …
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace was the quickest to get up and running for a basic website, and with the GoDaddy integration it simplified rapid setup. A plugin for basic language translation allowed us to be compliant from day one.
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace was quicker to set up and more accessible to manipulate the theme, pictures, and content. The page layouts are more versatile and fluid. With Wordpress, more time-consuming efforts go into making a template work the way you want it to (because of the lack of the …
Chose Squarespace
Submittable and Squarespace serve different functions but Squarespace is by far the easier and more user friendly platform.
Chose Squarespace
Wordpress is for more advanced users and allows more functionality to be built into the website. However, Squarespace is easy to use and you will be able to get a functioning website up and running on your own. That is their main point and purpose for their mission. However, …
Chose Squarespace
I would choose Squarespace over all the competition unless I wanted a website builder/host that had an online course portal. Squarespace has the easiest website builder. It's relatively cheap. It automatically updates. It is easy to integrate with third-party services such as …
Chose Squarespace
Both of my fields are visual, so design is as important as functionality. Unbounce looks great, but it's not set up for the same full functionality. I've also been quite familiar with Squarespace and felt comfortable with them.
Chose Squarespace
Not even comparable. I was hacked within 2 years with WordPress in a brute force attack. Since going to Squarespace, I have had zero security issues. I feel the two platforms, though similar, are incomparable.
Chose Squarespace
I found it easier for me to use square space myself rather than have a middle person between me and my website. It was a lot easier for me to access and change something and when I wanted to change something on my site. It gave me flexibility and more options to utilize my …
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace's most attractive feature in comparison to WordPress and Wix is its library of themes available to use. WordPress has a neverending supply of options but that's WordPress, the industry-standard however the limited options for Squarespace is nice so you aren't …
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace offers better SEO options and ease of use than Wix/Weebly site builders. Squarespace is easy to manage and easy to track inventory and sales. For companies with lower skill sets in-house, it is also very easy to train staff to manage the platform.
Chose Squarespace
I liked the usability of Squarespace better than Network Solutions for the type of website we were looking for. I found it was easier to create and customize and I liked the overall look of the website in Squarespace better than what the end result of the Network Solutions site …
Chose Squarespace
Myself and my team have used more robust web development platforms for bigger organization presence on the web. However that has always required more time, effort and talent by using web developers to setup and add content to the sites. With squarespace, a site can be setup in …
Chose Squarespace
Squarespace is the best option relative to other web hosting and design platforms we initially reviewed. It was a bit more expensive than some of the free models we looked at but those sites often came with hidden fees if we wanted to customize anything and Squarespace has …
Chose Squarespace
I actually ended up going with Wordpress's OShine theme. Squarespace just missed some of the SEO and API tracking that I wanted and Elementor was too slow and WP Rocket isn't compatible with it. OShine ended up fitting the bill so everything I wanted could work together, but …
Chose Squarespace
I really like Squarespace's all-in-one concept vs. WordPress, where you add each piece individually. However, if you are building a much larger site, WordPress may be better. For our needs in terms of sales, Squarespace was great.
Features
PodiaSquarespace
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Podia
8.1
Ratings
3% above category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
Product catalog & listings8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Product management9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk product upload8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Branding8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile storefront8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Product variations8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Website integration8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual customization8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
CMS8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Podia
8.0
Ratings
4% above category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
Abandoned cart recovery8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Checkout user experience8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Podia
8.0
Ratings
4% below category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
eCommerce security8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Podia
7.0
Ratings
10% below category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
Promotions & discounts9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Podia
8.0
Ratings
0% below category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
Order processing8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom functionality8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Podia
-
Ratings
Squarespace
8.5
Ratings
5% above category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Podia
-
Ratings
Squarespace
4.2
Ratings
57% below category average
API00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings3.50 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Podia
-
Ratings
Squarespace
7.1
Ratings
8% below category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Podia
-
Ratings
Squarespace
7.0
Ratings
5% below category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings5.70 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PodiaSquarespace
Small Businesses
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PodiaSquarespace
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PodiaSquarespace
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are not techy want to create a course creation type of business then I think its really great. I have used a lot of programs and only a few are complete and Podia is there except for a full fledge blogging platform (you can do a version but it's not quite the same). It's probably the most user friendly email system I have used and the website builder is very user friendly as well. I think if you are a serious blogger and wanting seo traffic to drive to your site, this one thing to watch and consider not as competitive then vs Kajabi.
Read full review
We've found Squarespace perfect for quick, well-designed websites that you can literally design and launch in a day. However, if you want to get more complex with your website, including custom backend integrations or code, Squarespace presents a bit more of a challenge when it comes to what they will allow you to modify on their platform (especially using third-party integration apps).
Read full review
Pros
  • Emails
  • Course hosting
  • Website creation
  • Website chat
Read full review
  • Squarespace is very easy to use, this is a super helpful thing as small business owners we have to wear many hats and being a full blown website developer doesn't need to be one of them.
  • Squarespace has quick and simple plugins.
  • Squarespace allows you to easily expand as you need to.
Read full review
Cons
  • I sometimes wish there was more that I could customize on my website and digital programs
  • I wish their email service (for broadcasts/group emails) had more features and customization
  • I would like to use my brand font
Read full review
  • Customizing the sites can be highly UN intuitive
  • Navigation for editing the sites can be difficult and frustrating
  • Squarespace has different versions and it's hard to know which version you're on. You can't switch after you start making a site with one version.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
It's a great CMS tool. Easy to use and maintain. It looks great and the support is excellent.
Read full review
Usability
It has a great user interface, it's fast to edit and create courses, to edit and create emails, to find chats, to develop the website. Support has been friendly and I haven't found anything that hasn't worked. It also has basically all the tools you need outside if a complete blog platform
Read full review
It's dead simple to use. There are no over complicated controls or tons of menus to screw things up. People with bad taste couldn't make an ugly website. While it may be frustrating for the pro designer to get exactly what they want, it prevents the uninitiated from making something ugly
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Help is available directly from the back end and uses full sentence searching to find answers to questions others may have asked before. With a ton of articles and support questions documents, it is very likely that your question has been answered. If not each page has the ability to open a direct email to support. Each case has a number and can be followed. Responses are often quick and have links and directions clearly stated
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Alternatives Considered
Kajabi had lots of features all in one place. I liked their digital course creator program. I liked the ease of their their membership site program/host, too. It had an app for my clients to use. There were some problems with not being able to customize the look of pages, but they allowed coding/programming if you had training, so I sometimes hired someone to do that for me. I couldn't figure out how to use their website builder, so I didn't do much there. When it came down to it, I could use Podia and it was cheaper and easier to use. GoDaddy was my website host for a few years. I did a lot on there. It was my website builder and host and I liked it. It was easy to use. My website looked great. It had more features than Podia with blogging and connecting to social media. I had a storefront but it wasn't great for selling digital products. Back then, it wanted to show my inventory and shipping options, which don't apply for services and digital products. I did a little with my digital courses on there, but in the end, I liked other sites better for this. It didn't work out. Weebly was just a starting point for me when I create my first digital course. I liked how it looked and it was easy to build, but there are better options for this sort of thing now.
Read full review
Squarespace if much less work than WordPress, plus hosting and security are not an issue. GoDaddy and Wix are okay, but nowhere near the flexibility or advanced feature set that you can get with Squarespace. Compared to the other products that I have used, Squarespace definitely offers more options, customization, advanced features and design options than others, for a great price.
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Return on Investment
  • Increased sales by $8000 from January to June (Added 2 more programs quickly and easily)
  • Saved almost a thousand dollars in the first year in costs by switching to Podia
  • Improved customer satisfaction by using 1 site instead of 4
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  • I can see how squarespace can improve efficiency since it's so quick to build a site on there.
  • For those who don't want to hook up a bunch of different stuff to their website and make it work...they most likely have whatever plug in you need and you can add it. Worst case scenario, they have developers you can hire who can make what you need.
  • As your business grows you can add an online storefront to your site and make more money that way! Easy peasy!
  • They have an easy system for adding special SEO words/phrases so you don't have to learn SEO at all!
Read full review
ScreenShots