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Published – Jun 01, 2024
Squarespace Courses is an add-on to the popular website builder for creating and selling online courses. Its course creation tools are quite basic, and it doesn’t have any features for learning and engagement.
We don’t recommend using it as a standalone platform for your online course, though existing Squarespace users looking to sell simple courses can give it a try.
Squarespace is a popular website builder that also provides features for creating and selling online courses.
But is Squarespace Courses the right choice for you? What features does it offer, and how do they compare to other course platforms?
To answer these questions, we’ve created an in-depth Squarespace Courses review. Here, we’ll cover all the platform’s features and discuss their pros and cons.
Let’s get started.
Squarespace Courses is a feature within Squarespace that allows you to create and sell online courses.
It features a drag-and-drop builder for creating your curriculum and adding content like video lessons. Plus, it has built-in payment processing, so you can quickly monetize your courses.
Squarespace Courses landing page
While this option is a good addition to Squarespace’s suite of tools, it’s pretty basic compared to other online course platforms.
It doesn’t offer any learning and engagement tools such as quizzes and content dripping, nor does it provide any features for facilitating course discussions.
With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at what Squarespace Courses offers.
Regarding content, you can add text, videos, PDFs, and other downloadable resources. Squarespace even handles video hosting, so you don’t have to worry about finding a separate video host.
Now, the process of adding content to your lessons is quite different from traditional course builders. While you can attach a video under the lesson settings, you need to go into the edit mode to add text and other resources.
The editor feels more like a page builder. So, while you get more flexibility in designing the lesson pages, it can be cumbersome to create them.
Squarespace’s lesson editor
One big drawback is that Squarespace’s course builder doesn’t have a bulk uploader, so you have to create lessons individually.
Squarespace completely misses out in this regard. Apart from students being able to track their progress, it doesn’t have any learning and engagement features.
Overall, there’s no real engagement between the instructor and the students; you can’t create an interactive learning experience using Squarespace Courses.
Another essential aspect of a course platform is the learning experience and how your content appears to students.
While Squarespace’s lesson pages look elegant, the course player isn’t well designed for the student experience. The content area takes up the whole screen width and has no visible sidebar navigation.
Students must click on the small menu icon to open the sidebar navigation, which isn’t intuitive.
Squarespace’s course player
The course player also doesn’t have a search bar. Usually, this can help students find lessons more quickly, especially in courses with a lot of content.
Regarding the mobile experience, the course player works well on mobile screens. However, there’s no mobile app for students, so they need to access the course from a mobile browser.
Overall, Squarespace’s course creation tools are rudimentary, and the lack of any learning and engagement tools is the most significant downside.
Squarespace Courses is included in all Squarespace plans, starting at $25 per month. However, it includes just 30 mins of video storage and charges a 9% transaction fee.
You need to buy the Digital Products Add-on to get additional storage and lower the transaction fee. There are three plans available:
Squarespace’s Digital Products Add-on Pricing
So, you can effectively start at $37/month + a 7% fee, while it can go up to $136/month.
When you compare the pricing to standalone course platforms, Squarespace is on the more expensive end.
However, if you already have a Squarespace website and want to add courses, it can be an affordable option for entry-level users.
Now that we’ve explored Squarespace Courses up close, we’ll review the areas where Squarespace does well when it comes to creating and selling online courses.
Now that we’ve explored Squarespace Courses up close, we’ll review the areas where Squarespace does well when it comes to creating and selling online courses.Squarespace’s lesson editor is quite flexible, allowing you to add content to your lessons and design them in any way you like.
The lesson editor uses Squarespace’s page builder so that you can add content blocks with text, images, videos, and other media elements. You can also add pre-designed sections to your page, making it easy to build lessons quickly.
Available page blocks in Squarespace
Moreover, you can easily customize the design and layout of your lesson pages, providing you with a great deal of creative freedom.
Its Member Areas feature enables you to bundle your courses and other content into a private members-only website; you can then charge a subscription fee to give users exclusive access.
Squarespace lets you charge weekly, monthly, or yearly for subscriptions, and it has built-in subscription management tools.
One of Squarespace’s biggest strengths is its powerful website builder which is among the top ones for the course and coaching industry. With it, creating a beautiful and professional-looking website from scratch is very easy.
The platform has an impressive library with dozens of page templates. Add to that the page builder with complete control over the design, and you have an excellent foundation for creating your brand website and course sales pages.
When you host your courses on Squarespace, you also unlock access to a suite of other tools and features. These include:
Having multiple tools in one place makes it easier to manage your course business.
As discussed, the Digital Products Add-on costs an additional $12 per month (+7% fee) for the Starter plan.
The $12/month price is a great deal compared to other standalone course platforms that typically charge between $30-$50/month for their entry-level plans.
So, it’s an affordable entry-level pricing option for users who want to add courses to their existing Squarespace website.
Unfortunately, Squarespace Courses has many drawbacks, making it a less-than-ideal choice for many course creators. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Squarespace Courses is quite different from specialized course builders, as it uses Squarespace’s page builder as its foundation.
As a result, creating lessons isn’t intuitive, and it can take some time for new users to get used to the tool.
For example, to add a downloadable resource to a lesson, you must first add a button block in the frontend editor and then upload the file under button settings, which isn’t obvious.
However, it would be ideal to simply upload the file in the backend and have the platform automatically add a download link to the lesson page.
The biggest drawback of Squarespace Courses is its lack of features for learning and engagement.
For instance, you can’t add interactive elements to your courses, such as quizzes, live lessons, or discussion areas. Even the most basic course creation features, such as content dripping and prerequisite lessons, aren’t available in Squarespace Courses.
As a result, Squarespace can work only for very basic courses with little interaction or engagement.
Unlike specialized course platforms, Squarespace doesn’t offer unlimited video hosting on all plans.
The entry-level plan ($12/month) includes only ten hours of video storage, while the Core plan ($37/month) comes with 50 hours.
Only the Professional plan ($111/month) offers unlimited video hosting. In this case, you’ll be paying $136/month, which is quite high for what you get.
While Squarespace has built-in analytics for page views and sales, it doesn’t include any reporting features for tracking your course stats.
This means you won’t be able to generate detailed reports for understanding course progress, completion, or video engagement.
Even the most basic course reporting feature—tracking which lessons and chapters students have completed—is missing.
Squarespace’s checkout process for selling digital products isn’t optimized for conversions.
When a visitor purchases a course, they first need to create an account on your Squarespace website before finally being able to make the payment.
This creates unnecessary friction, leading to lower conversions. It would make more sense to move the account creation step after the payment has been finalized.
Additionally, Squarespace’s checkout process doesn’t offer order bumps and 1-click upsells, which are vital sales-boosting features.
Now that we have explored the pros and cons of Squarespace Courses, let’s compare it to some of the leading online course platforms.
Thinkific, our #1 choice in online course platforms, offers a range of features for learning and engagement, including quizzes, live lessons, certificates, a community builder, content dripping, and prerequisite lessons. It also has a better course player design and offers free mobile apps for end users.
Add a free plan with no transaction fees, and you have a clear winner in Thinkific. In fact, many Squarespace creators use Thinkific to host their courses and memberships.
The next competitor is Kajabi, which also has interactive course elements like quizzes, live lessons, and online communities.
However, what sets Kajabi apart are its all-in-one capabilities. You can create sales funnels, set up email automations, run webinars, host a blog, and manage your affiliate program.
While Kajabi is more expensive than Squarespace, it’s an excellent all-in-one option for course creators.
If you would like to compare Squarespace to other course platforms side-by-side, try out our interactive comparison tool.
We evaluated all aspects of Squarespace Courses, and based on that, it’s a straightforward solution for creating and selling online courses. However, it lacks many essential course creation tools.
So, we recommend it only to existing Squarespace users looking to sell simple video courses or include them in their membership sites.
If you want to try it, click the button below to start a 14-day free trial.
Yes, Squarespace has a native Courses feature that allows you to create, host, and sell your online courses on Squarespace.
Squarespace Courses is very basic and will only work for creating simple video courses. If your courses require any interaction or engagement, the platform isn’t ideal, and you’ll be better off using a dedicated course platform.
Squarespace Courses is a tool for creating online courses, while Member Areas lets you create a membership site with various content types, including online courses. Both tools have a significant overlap, but they serve different purposes.
Hey there! I'm Baidhurya, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I'm here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
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