Elegant Themes vs Squarespace Comparison 2026
Elegant Themes sells Divi as a WordPress plugin: unlimited sites on one $89 a year licence, but that price does not include hosting, which has to be bought separately from somewhere else. Squarespace is the opposite shape, an all-in-one platform where hosting, templates and the editor are one $19 a month bill, though it takes a 2 percent fee on store sales and 7 percent on memberships on that cheaper plan. Divi is cheaper on the licence and asks you to assemble the rest yourself. Squarespace is one price that includes everything except a cut of what you sell.
Divi, on a licence for unlimited sites
Templates that look designed out of the box
At a glance
- Squarespace starts cheaper, at $19.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
Elegant Themes | Squarespace | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $89 | From $19 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Annual only |
| Free trial | Not stated | 14 days |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
Elegant Themes
Divi, on a licence for unlimited sites
Elegant Themes sells Divi, a WordPress page builder whose licence covers unlimited sites rather than counting them, which is why it has stayed in agencies for a decade. The visual editor works on the front end, so layout changes are made on the page rather than in a preview. A large marketplace of child themes and layouts sits beside it. Divi generates its own markup, and moving a site off it later means rebuilding, which is the cost nobody prices in at the start.
Our note
Buy the $89 tier unless the marketplace credit in the bundle covers something you were already going to purchase, because the bundle's saving is measured against products you may not want. Factor the rebuild cost before adopting Divi for a client site they might later take elsewhere.
Only on this side
- Covers design & graphics
Squarespace
Templates that look designed out of the box
Why people weigh these two
- Squarespace instead of Elegant Themes
- Squarespace replaces WordPress and Divi entirely with a hosted builder and templates that look designed out of the box, from $19 a month and no plugin licence to renew.
- Elegant Themes instead of Squarespace
- Elegant Themes licenses Divi for unlimited WordPress sites at $89 a year, cheaper per site once you build more than one.
Which one should you pick
Pick Elegant Themes if WordPress is already the plan, and design by adjusting on the front end rather than inside a constrained template appeals. The $89 a year licence covers unlimited sites, the cheapest per-site figure in this category by a wide margin for a freelancer or studio, but that number excludes hosting entirely. Know that Divi's own markup makes leaving it later a rebuild, not an export.
Pick Squarespace for a site that looks considered immediately and never needs touching again, hosting included in the price. Basic is $19 a month paid annually with a 2 percent fee on store sales and 7 percent on digital content and memberships, and Core at $29 drops both toward zero and 5 percent while adding unlimited contributors. Read the fee section before committing if memberships are more than a sideline; 7 percent is the largest number on the page for anybody selling access.
Common questions
- Is Divi cheaper than Squarespace?
- The licence alone, yes: $89 a year against Squarespace's $228 a year on Basic. That comparison is incomplete though, since Divi's price does not include hosting, which Squarespace bundles into its monthly fee along with a free domain for the first year.
- Does Divi charge a transaction fee on sales the way Squarespace does?
- Not described in its own pricing; Divi is a design licence rather than a commerce platform, so any transaction fees would come from whatever WordPress commerce plugin is added on top. Squarespace's fees are explicit: 2 percent on store sales and 7 percent on memberships on Basic, falling to 0 and 5 percent on Core.
- Which one is easier to run without touching it again?
- Squarespace, by design: its templates hold together because the editor stops a non-designer from breaking them. Divi's front-end visual editor is more open-ended, which suits somebody who wants to keep adjusting rather than leave it alone.
- What does moving away from each platform later actually involve?
- Leaving Divi means rebuilding, since it generates its own markup that does not transfer cleanly. Squarespace does not carry the same warning in its own materials, though moving any hosted site elsewhere still means recreating the design on a new platform.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.