Squarespace vs Payly: commerce plans and fees compared
Squarespace is known for beautiful templates, and its commerce plans turn those templates into a store. You pay for that every month, and on the cheapest plan you also pay a fee on every sale. Payly gives you a designed store, checkout and hosting for free. Here is how the two compare.
The short answer
- Squarespace starts at $19 a month billed yearly, or $25 billed monthly, with a 2% transaction fee on that Basic plan. The fee goes away from the Core plan, at $29 a month billed yearly.
- Payly is free: no monthly fee, no transaction fee and no commission. You pay only PayPal's or Stripe's standard processing fee.
- Choose Squarespace if your site is a portfolio, a studio or a service business that also sells, and you want Squarespace's design tools for all of it.
- Choose Payly if you want a good-looking store without a monthly bill or a cut of your sales.
What Squarespace costs in 2026
Squarespace's plans, as published in October 2026, with prices per month:
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Transaction fee on store sales | Fee on digital content and memberships |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $19 | $25 | 2% | 7% |
| Core | $29 | $39 | 0% | 5% |
| Plus | $49 | $65 | 0% | 1% |
| Advanced | $99 | $139 | 0% | 0% |
Squarespace's transaction fee applies whichever payment processor you use, PayPal and Stripe included. Its own card processing costs 2.9% + 30¢ per standard US card on Basic and Core. There is a 14-day free trial, and no free plan.
The Basic plan also leaves out some store features, including discount codes, shipping labels, carrier-calculated shipping and automatic tax, which start on Core.
What Payly costs
Payly is free, and every feature is included for every store. Customers pay your own PayPal or Stripe account directly, and the only fee on a sale is theirs:
- PayPal: 3.49% + 49¢ for a PayPal Checkout payment in the US.
- Stripe: 2.9% + 30¢ for a standard US card.
Memberships, members-only pages and digital downloads are included too, with no extra fee on what you earn from them.
Your store is hosted in your own free Cloudflare account, which comfortably covers most stores, about 5,000 visitors a day. If it ever outgrows that, Cloudflare's paid plan is $5 a month, paid to Cloudflare. Payly stays free either way.
A year of selling, side by side
For a store selling $2,000 a month, here is the platform cost alone, before payment processing:
| Platform cost a year | |
|---|---|
| Payly | $0 |
| Squarespace Basic, billed yearly | $708 ($228 plan + $480 in 2% fees) |
| Squarespace Core, billed yearly | $348 |
| Squarespace Core, billed monthly | $468 |
If part of that $2,000 came from memberships or digital content, Squarespace's 5% to 7% fee on those sales would come on top.
Features compared
| Squarespace | Payly | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | From $19 a month (billed yearly) | None |
| Transaction fee | 2% on Basic; 0% from Core | None |
| Payments | Squarespace Payments, Stripe and PayPal | PayPal (PayPal, Pay Later and cards) and Stripe (cards) |
| Your own domain | Yes | Yes, free to connect |
| Designed templates | Yes | Yes, ready-made store designs you can change |
| Discount codes | From Core | Yes |
| Abandoned cart emails | Yes | No |
| Subscriptions and memberships | Yes, with a 0% to 7% fee on memberships by plan | Built in, no fee |
| Buy shipping labels | From Core | No; add the carrier and tracking number yourself |
| Sales tax | Automatic tax from Core, for a small fee per order | Tax rates you set, by country, state or postcode |
| Export your products | CSV, physical and service products only | Shopify or WooCommerce file |
Where Squarespace is the better choice
Squarespace is excellent for sites where design carries the brand: photographers, studios, restaurants and creative services. It also handles scheduling, email campaigns and portfolios in one place. If your store is one part of a larger site like that, and you want automatic tax or shipping labels, Squarespace's Core plan is a solid, polished option.
Where Payly is the better choice
If you mainly sell products, Payly gives you a designed store and everything around it, from subscriptions to shipping zones and sales reports, without the monthly bill. And it never takes a percentage, not on products, not on memberships and not on digital downloads.
Moving from Squarespace to Payly
Type your Squarespace store's address into Payly, or upload the product file Squarespace exports. You see every product before anything is added, and your photos are copied into your own store. Nothing changes on your Squarespace site. See Move from Squarespace, or Switch to Payly for an overview.
Questions
Does Squarespace charge transaction fees?
On the Basic plan, yes: 2% of store sales, whichever processor you use. Core and higher plans have no transaction fee on store sales, but still charge a fee on digital content and memberships below the Advanced plan.
Can a Payly store look as good as a Squarespace site?
Payly comes with ready-made store designs, and you can change every color, font, photo and layout in its editor, with separate layouts for phones and tablets when you want them.
Is Payly really free?
Yes. No monthly fee, no transaction fee and no commission. PayPal and Stripe charge their own standard processing fees.
Squarespace plans and fees as published by Squarespace for the US in October 2026; Squarespace says its new plans are rolling out in stages. PayPal and Stripe rates as published by each company for US payments. Prices can change; check each company's own pricing page.
