A personal review of Squarespace AI website builder (cost-benefit analysis)

Here's a review of everything I know about Squarespace AI and how to use it to build a functional website.

I've also written a step-by-step tutorial on how to get started using Squarespace AI tools if you want to check it out.

If you're not sure if Squarespace and its AI tools are right for you, I have written a separate article comparing Squarespace against all the other popular AI website builders in the market (pricing, their AI features, limitations, etc) following the tutorials I wrote about each of them..

For this review on Squarespace though, I'll mainly focus on its key AI features, how it works, what separates Squarespace from other AI website builders, the cost-benefit analysis, and more...

Let's dive right in!

What's Squarespace AI and How Does It Work?

Squarespace AI, now known as Design Intelligence, is basically a collection of AI features that Squarespace has incorporated in their website builder over the years.

What's inside Design Intelligence?

Here are all the AI features that are included in Design Intelligence as of this writing. I'll explain each of them in more detail later on:

Blueprint AI — Squarespace's very own website creation onboarding process. You'll answer a few questions about your business (which they'll use to populate the content on your site later), select a few pre-made sections, color theme, and fonts to build your starter site.

Brand Identity — Based on your business description, Squarespace will create a "brand voice" for your content. So whenever you use AI to create new text—whether for a blog post, email, or website copy—Squarespace will apply this brand voice to make sure your content maintains a consistent tone that aligns with your brand.

AI Content Generation — Generate new text for your website copy, email campaign, blog and more with AI.

Site Themes — Site themes are basically pre-defined sets of fonts, colors, and button designs — a theme essentially. You can easily preview and switch your website

Layout Switcher — Squarespace analyze the existing content for a given section and suggest you alternative layouts — different arrangements of the same content and images for that section.

AI SEO optimization — Autogenerate SEO optimized titles and descriptions to help you get favourable rankings in Google search results

AI Video description — If you have a library of videos on your website that show how your products are created, AI Video Descriptions can summarize your videos for you, keeping your descriptions on-brand.

AI Client documents — Use AI to draft proposals, estimates, and contracts for clients.

AI Course description — If you sell courses, you can use this feature to write accurate description for each lesson, saving you time on your course overview page.

As you can see, what started as a simple AI content generation tool has grown into a comprehensive suite of AI-powered features that help with everything from website creation, to brand identity management.

Let's take a closer look at these AI features from Squarespace.

How Design Intelligence works in practice

1. Start with Blueprint AI

In Squarespace, you can either start with a pre-made template, or Blueprint AI, where they ask you a few questions then build you a bespoke website based on your input.

Here's a preview:

They'll ask what your business is about and what's your brand personality. Squarespace will use this info to build your "Brand Identity".

You can then start building your home page, just pick and choose the type of sections you want. It's easy to preview before you decide.

Next, start adding other relevant pages. These are pretty standard pages for a local business.

And finally, choose and color theme and font pairings that you like.

Blueprint AI pros & cons

2. Refine your Brand Identity

Squarespace will create a default Brand identity for your business based on your initial input, but you can customize it.

You can use this template to update your Brand Identity:

Tips for Effective Brand Details:

• Be specific about your core audience and location
• Use persona references (celebrities or personality types) to guide tone
• Include example phrases your brand would use
• Provide clear adjectives that describe your brand's personality

Once you have your brand identity, it'll be applied whenever you try to generate new text content for:

• Website copy
• Email content
• Product descriptions
• Blog posts
• About page content
• Marketing materials

3.. Find tune your page with Layout Switcher

Layout Switcher is available when you hover to the top corner in any section in the editor.

Basically, it'll analyze and suggest a variety of alternative layouts you can use for that section. Again, it's easy to preview, toggle between layouts, and select the one you like.

What I like and dislike about Layout Switchers

4. Experiment with different Site themes

If you're feeling more adventurous. Squarespace has a Site theme feature where you can change the entire outlook of your site in one click.

It's like Layout Switcher except that it's applied to the entire site — changing the font, color, and button styles all in one go.

Site Themes are essentially curated design styles, a combination of fonts and color that Squarespace thinks will work well for any site.

So, if you decide to change from a monochromatic site to one with a bright vintage style, you can do it quite easily.

This flexibility is great for experimenting with different looks for your site. But keep in mind that all the styles share a similar feel as they follow Squarespace's signature clean, minimalistic, and professional aesthetic.

5. Generate copy and blog content for your site

Like most AI website builder, the default copy aren't that great. But you can easily regenerate or refine the copy with the built-in AI content generator.

Simply describe the text or content you want to show and the AI will get to work.

There are also quick buttons to edit the copy like simplifying or lengthening the text.

6. Autogenerate site title and description for SEO

If you care about getting search traffic (or business) from Google, then you want to pay attention to your site title and description (and not leave it blank like many other website builders do!)

Located in Squarespace marketing settings, there's an AI SEO feature that will create an optimized (albeit AI-generated) site description based on your business information, detailing what your site offers, your location, and more.

The feature missing from this is the ability to auto-generate site titles and descriptions for every single page on your site. That will be a game changer!

What separates Squarespace from other AI website builders?

First, Brand Identity.

Squarespace is the only website builder that creates a unique Brand Identity system for your site. This is to make sure your site maintains a consistent tone (or voice) across all pages:

Second, clean design aesthetics with just a few clicks.

If you notice a pattern from all the above mentioned AI features from Squarespace, they tend to offer you a curated design aesthetic choices.

The goal of Layout Switcher and Site themes is to present you a menu of design choices you can create the signature "Squarespace look" in just a few click.

Layout Switcher and Site themes aim to present you with a menu of design choices. You can create the signature "Squarespace look" in just a few clicks.

Squarespace's content generation approach is also slightly diferent.

They focus on "brand voice", which generates content that specifically matches your chosen brand personality, all this is thanks to the "Brand Identity" feature we mentioned earlier.

Squarespace trade-offs

Obviously, Squarespace is not perfect. To give you the full picture, here's what you're compromising with Squarespace AI (Design Intelligence):

• Less flexibility — Wix has much more design flexibility in its editor AND they have an app marketplace to extend features beyond the dozen or so that Squarespace offers.
• Higher starting price ($16/month) compared to options like Hostinger ($8.99/month).
• No free plan option (unlike HubSpot or Wix)
• Fewer industry-specific templates compared to specialized platforms like Durable (focused on service industry)

Cost considerations: How Squarespace compare to other site builders

Here's Squarespace pricing compared to other AI website builders in the market.

Squarespace starter plan starts at $16/month, placing it in the mid-to-higher range of AI website builders:

• More expensive than Hostinger AI ($8.99/month)
• Pricier than Durable ($12/month)
• Similar to Dorik ($18/month)
• More affordable than Duda ($19/month)
• Definitely more expensive than HubSpot and Wix's free plans

What You're actually paying for the higher price point of Squarespace AI includes several value-adds that cheaper alternatives don't offer.

At its core, you're getting professional-grade theme packs rather than basic templates, along with their unique Brand Identity System that maintains consistency across your entire site.

Squarespace also has more sophisticated design tools like the Layout Switcher, higher quality stock photos, and more refined typography options that cheaper alternatives don't provide.

Other costs before committing, consider these additional cost factors:

• eCommerce functionality included in higher tiers (extra cost on most other platforms also)
• Add ons like email, appointment booking form, and membership features are charged separately.

Is Squarespace AI right for you?

Squarespace (and its AI features) makes sense if:

• You want the easiest route to create a clean, professional site. It's also the easiest to manage amongst other site builders.
• You don't want to waste time messing around with design options or customizing every aspect of the site.
• Visual branding and professional aesthetics are your top priority, and you want it done fast.
• You want a cohesive design system rather than just a website
• You're willing to spend more time customizing content for better results

Genrally it's great small business owners or content creators who need a professional website quickly and don't want to spend time learning web design principles or hiring a designer.

It's also good for service-based businesses and consultants because Squarespace already has pre-built templates and sections specifically for them.

Squarespace AI (Design Intelligence) really shines as a starting point - you can get a clean, professional-looking website in 10 minutes, then gradually refine and improve it over time. You will realistically spend an hour or two tweaking the content to get your site launch-ready.

When you should look elsewhere:

• If you need extensive customization (choose Wix instead)
• If budget is your primary concern (HubSpot, which is free, or Hostinger with a much lower annual cost)
• If you need industry-specific features (Durable would be more suitable)
• If you want rapid deployment with minimal editing (Hostinger or Dorik would work better, their AI has better content generation)

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need any technical skills to use Squarespace AI?

No, the AI builder is specifically designed for non-technical users. It guides you through a series of questions about your business when creating your website.

Can I edit the AI-generated content?

Yes, everything the AI generates can be edited, customized, or completely rewritten. You have full control over all aspects of your site after the AI creates it.

How long does it take to build a website with Squarespace AI?

The initial AI build takes about 5-10 minutes. Creating a complete, refined website typically takes about an hour, including customization and content refinement.

Can I save sections I like and reuse them?

Yes, you can save sections you've customized and reuse them across different pages of your website.

What kinds of content can the AI help create?

The AI can help generate website copy, blog posts, SEO descriptions, blog excerpts, and other marketing content, though all AI-generated content should be reviewed and edited before publishing.

David Nge

David is the founder of MakingThatWebsite.com and started making websites for businesses back in 2014. He's a keen learner and wants to share his journey and knowledge with other business owners and freelancers. He launched MakingThatWebsite.com in 2021 to make website building more approachable and scalable for businesses.

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