Squarespace vs Smugmug: Which Is Better For Photography Website (2024)

Squarespace and Smugmug are the best platforms for building portfolio websites, Squarespace is one of the best as it can house any website, Whereas Smugmug is focused on creating photography websites.

Quick Summary

Below are a quick summary of Squarespace and SmugMug platforms.

#7 Main Differences

---

1. Templates:

Squarespace offers over 50+ Free portfolio templates, Whereas Smugmug offers only 26 free themes, SmugMug’s themes are built to support photography website building.
Winner: Squarespace

---

2. Portfolio Features:

Squarespace has separate a section for Artists, Photographers, and Wedding websites. You can showcase your work or portfolio beautifully as well as systematically. Even though the SmugMug website builder is specifically built for Photographers. It doesn’t have a lot of page editor features to showcase your portfolio artistically.
Winner: Squarespace

---

3. Tools for Photographers & Artists:

Smugmug provides excellent tools for photographers with more photography themes, Image Protection, Client management, proofing, photo sharing services, Lightroom integrations, and more.
Winner: Smugmug

---

4. Pricing:

The Smugmug and Squarespace prices are similar but Smugmug is comparatively cheaper as its’s monthly pricing ranges from $10-$38, Whereas Squarespace’s first portfolio and business plans are ($16- $23) the other two plans are focused on building an eCommerce website.

Winner: Smugmug

---

5. Photo Blogging, Portfolio News & SEO:

As Squarespace is a good CMS platform, it offers better blogging with good SEO features, whereas Smugmug provides basic features for blogging and SEO.
Winner: Squarespace

---

6. Online Store

Squarespace has a fully-fledged online store with advanced eCommerce features. Users can sell unlimited products & services and take millions of orders a day. Smugmug has provided features to sell art & prints with shipping services But Smugmug takes a huge % of your profit. Squarespace doesn’t take any profit from you. There are many Squarespace shipping & fulfillment extensions available. There are various print-on-demand, marketing, and bookkeeping extensions available that can be valuable for small businesses.

Winner: Squarespace

---

7. Site Speed

We analyzed the Top 10 Websites of both platforms for their server response and we found that most of the Smugmug website’s average server response time is 300-350 milli-seconds, Whereas the Squarespace website’s average speed response time is 190-230 milli-seconds. which means websites hosted on Squarespace load faster in comparison to Smugmug.

Winner: Squarespace

Portfolio Features

Features	Smugmug	Squarespace
Photography related domains for free		There are photography related domains, you can buy domains like .video, .photography price ranges from $30/year to $70/year on squarespace domains or get them free on purchasing any squarespace annual plan.
Photography Themes	26	15+
Client Proofing
Client gallery protection
Photography Store
Photo Blog
Water Mark		Yes, through Custom CSS. you need to also block downloading or saving option.
Disable Download or Disable right click		adding codes will avail this feature
Privacy Control For Client Albums
Control Image Downloadable Sizes
Photo Storage	Unlimited Cloud storage for free	Squarespace provides unlimited storage, it has an image library that stores all your images and files.
High-Resolution Images	You can upload images upto 50MB and Smugmug doesn't compress them, it will be having original quality	Yes, you can add images of high resolution up to 120MP, but squarespace optimizes images for lesser size so it can loads faster.
Client Contracts	it doesn't have contracts that can be created and sent their system, However you can set up a Wufoo form to collect and give information you would like to share.	here you can create Client contract through Squarespace form
adobe Lightroom integrations
Image format	JPG,PNG,GIF	JPG,PNG,GIF

FAQ: Squarespace vs Smugmug

# In-Depth Review

Ease of Use

The Squarespace website builder is easy to use. Smugmug drag and drop feature makes it easy for building the webpage, and one of its main strengths lies in built-in features. Squarespace has made sure that the users can have a smooth experience with their website builder, In the 14-day trial period you can try out as many different themes before finalizing the best theme.

Smugmug’s website builder is more into offering photography-oriented features, its builder is not easy while getting started, but it becomes easy as you start spending more time on it. SmugMug made sure that their users can create beautiful portfolios and also sell their art or prints easily in the niche marketplaces which are not available in Squarespace. In Smugmug’ss 14 days trial you can try out any one theme.

Themes and Design

	Squarespace	Smugmug
Themes	100+	25+
Free Themes	100+	25+
Mobile-Friendly	Yes	Yes
Theme Customization level	Good	Good
Prebuilt Sections	Yes	No

Squarespace has considered having gorgeous templates for all kinds of projects, it has over 100+ portfolio themes for photography, arts & design, events, weddings, etc. Squarespace’s themes are easy to design and also customize, simply click on the + Icon, to add a section and you get lots of predesigned templates, drag and drop them into the webpage. further, you can customize it for different layouts, colors, styles, and more. these themes are mobile responsive and also can be edited separately for mobile for some sections, if you are good with codes you can add custom codes and alter the design.

Squarespace themes

Smugmug offered 26 portfolio themes, just click on them to customize them. SmugMug offered various design styles like adding textures, patterns, colors, background images, and abstracts, to themes. Smugmug has content blocks that can be added to the site by the drag-and-drop method, but it doesn’t have enough pre-built templates as Squarespace does. all images will resize automatically when you upload them to the gallery, click on the block that you want to customize and it shows various options in a box-type editor. Smugmug offered special mobile settings and you can also add custom CSS to make some changes.

Smugmug themes

Smugmug theme styles

Pricing and Plans

	Squarespace	Smugmug
Trial Period	14 days	14 days
Starting Pricing	$16/mo	$10/mo
Ecommerce Plans	$27/mo – $49/mo	$22/mo – $38/mo
Enterprise Pricing	custom pricing	No

Squarespace has four plans

• Personal:$23/m($16)
• Business:$33/m($23)
• Basic Commerce:$36/m($27)
• Advanced Commerce:$65/m($49)

(Prices in the Bracket are applicable when you buy a year plan)

Squarespace Pricing

If you are looking to create a portfolio website then the personal plan ($14) is best, if you want a portfolio website plus eCommerce functionality then choose the second plan($23), for advanced eCommerce functions basic and advanced eCommerce plans are good.

As per the stats, Squarespace 180k+ users use personal and 300k+ users use the business plan, Squarespace eCommerce plans are used by 50k+ users

Smugmug too offers four plans

Plan Type	Monthly billing	Annual billing
Power	$13	$130
Portfolio	$33	$266
Pro	$53	$453

Smugmug Pricing

These plans differ in features which are been added below them, choose the plan as per your requirements, the basic plan starts from $9/month.

Ecommerce Features

Ecom Features	Squarespace	Smugmug
Products	4.5 In Squarespace, you sell physical and digital products, you can either add products manually or import them in a CSV file	4.3 Smugmug lets you sell physical, and digital prints and downloadable files on its platform
Payment gateways	4.4 Squarespace offers three payment options Square, PayPal, and Stripe all of these payment gateways accept debit/credit cards.	4 Smugmug lets you accept payment through Paypal(Visa, Amex, Discover )
Shipping Option	4.3 with Squarespace shipping service, you can display real-time carrier rates for FedEx, DHL, and UPS at customer checkouts in the US Region. to print shipping labels, you can choose a third-party extension like Easyship or ShipStation. offer free, flat rate,weight-based shipping	4.5 In Smugmug you can offer personal delivery or let SmugMug takes care of shipping for you, they deliver prints, and gifts internationally on your behalf of you which is charged extra, this feature is available on the pro plan.
Transaction Charges	4.5 Squarespace doesn’t charge for commerce plans($36 & $65), They charge 3% transaction charge on business plan($33)	3.8 Smugmug Charges 15% on profit as transaction charges for every sale you make on their store.

How Does Smugmug Charge?
If you sell a 5*7 size print for 10$ then Smugmug marks it as $10.79 as it charges default price of $0.79,this default price is differnt for each item, and differs from one print lab to another, once you get a sale Smugmug keeps 1.5$ and rest of 8.5$ is yours. if you only sell stock images you still have to pay 15% of the markup price

Marketing Features

	Squarespace	Smugmug
Social Media	In Squarespace insert social icons on the webpage, which lets customers share products, and galleries, on social platforms social icons. you can push and pull content from websites and social media, and use Unfold app to share posts, and stories on social sites, Squarespace analytics lets you measure the sources of social traffic	Social media is one of the key Channels to promote your art, enabling social sharing from setting and sharing your images, folders, a gallery on Facebook, Twitter, and more. connect google analytics to your site to track your social traffic
Blogging	In Squarespace, they have offered beautiful blogging templates with more features for blogging as they can be customized, and you can add products, contacts, pricing, email newsletter, & more section to existing blogs. it has a built-in RSS Feed, comments, social sharing, multiple authors, and more features.	In SmugMug blogging is not straightforward, but SmugMug has made it simple to build a photoblog in five steps, here you can enable sharing, commenting, do SEO of it.
SEO	Squarespace’s SEO settings have advanced options such as updating titles, meta descriptions, and URL slugs of products, categories, and blogs. Squarespace provides automated sitemaps, robots.txt, 301 redirects & AMP pages.	Smugmug offers a minimal setting for doing the on-page SEO, you can do SEO for galleries, images, folders, blogs, etc. your title will be added as alt text in the image, you can’t alter it manually. it provides sitemaps, and robots.txt but not AMP pages
Email marketing	Squarespace’s inbuilt email marketing tool provides a free template that can be customized as per the brand requirement, Squarespace’s email tool lets you run 3 campaigns, that can send up to 50000+ emails, If you like to perform more campaigns you can upgrade to a $7 plan.	In Smugmug through an email newsletter, you can collect customers’ email addresses, there is no inbuilt email marketing tool but you can use third-party tools like Mailchimp, privy to manage and run email campaigns.
App Store	Squarespace extensions offer third-party integrations for marketing, fulfillment, etc it has 25+ extensions	Smugmug doesn’t have an app store but it has integration with adobe lightroom, Dropbox, Flickr, etc. you can import and sync your existing work on Smugmug

Domain & Hosting

	Squarespace	Smugmug
Domain	With Squarespace you can register domains with up to 300 extensions, users can own them renew also transfer them to a different register. you can connect custom domains from different registers by following a set of instructions.	Smugmug has partnered with a domain registrar to provide easy domain integration, after buying from the register just enter the domain and save it in the account setting it will be connected, if you have purchased from GoDaddy, connect with the “GoDaddy connector”. users can connect third-party custom domains from a different register by following a set of DNS instructions.
Hosting	Squarespace has a powerful and secure hosting server, they house all your web pages, and provide backups. When Squarespace’s server speed is compared with other website builders, it has shown better server response with fast loading speed.	Smugmug offers truly good image hostings and a Secure server with encryption that also provides automatic backups for stored contents
SSL & Security	Squarespace has provided SSL, and HTTPS encryption on their sites, system& user protection, Data protection, and more.	Smugmug has provided a layer of SSL/HTTPS security to all custom domains, it offers personalized privacy control, password protection, and custom right-click protection so nobody can save your photos.
Storage and Bandwidth	Squarespace claims to provide Unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth on all of its plans.	SmugMug provides unlimited image and video storage, also zero image compression so you don’t lose quality. it offers a bandwidth of 16 to 25 GB in an upgraded plan
Uptime and Speed Server	Squarespace has powerful uptime of up to 99.98% and an average server response time of 190-220 ms	Smugmug has a good uptime speed and a server average response time of 300-350ms

We analyzed the Top 10 Websites of both platforms to check their server response and we found that most of the Squarespace website’s avg server response time is 190-220 ms, Whereas the Weebly website’s avg speed response time is 300-350ms. That means websites hosted on Squarespace load slightly faster in comparison to Smugmug.

Support and Resources

	Squarespace	Smugmug
Email	✔	✔
Live chat	✔	❌
Phone	❌	❌

Squarespace offers support through a live chat system and emails. In their help center, they have provided tutorials in form of videos and articles, they conduct webinars, they have an active community that involves fellow Squarespace users and support members to help users.

Squarespace support

Smugmug’s help center is considered to be the fastest, and it’s true, their conversation takes place via Email. once you submit the query to the help center they will quickly reply to your mail. they have active communities of photographers who have answered most of the questions, which is really helpful for beginners to get started.

Squarespace Portfolio sites Examples

Smugmug Sites Examples

Pros and Cons: Squarespace vs Smugmug

Squarespace Pros	Squarespace Cons
1. More themes and extensions	1. Bit expensive plans
2. Excellent Ecommerce and Marketing Features	2. Themes don’t have the option of multiple styles at the same time
3. Prebuilt templates and designs, and awesome page editor web features.	3. Doesn’t offer many inbuilt features for photography websites.

Smugmug Pros	Smugmug Cons
1. Inbuilt photography editing features	1. Basic marketing features
2. Themes editor comes in various styles and colors.	2. Few integrations and payment options
3. Let’s sell in the photography marketplaces and ship your prints.	3. 15% transactional charges on sale profits.

Conclusion: Squarespace vs Smugmug

Use Squarespace over Smugmug,

• If you want to sell and extend your art working as a service then Squarespace is better than Smugmug as it has features to offer services.
• If you want to build personal branding or merchandise of your art, Squarespace has better ecommerce and customizing features so it is better than Smugmug

Use Smugmug over Squarespace,

• If you are just looking for portraying your best work and sharing with clients or teams then Smugmug is better than Squarespace
• if you want to sell your art in the photography marketplaces and make money from them, then SmugMug is better as it has integration with marketplaces.