Squarespace Free Trial in 2026: Length, Card Rules and Costs
The Squarespace free trial lasts 14 days and needs no credit card, and you can extend it once by seven days. As listed in October 2026, staying afterward costs $25 a month on Basic, $39 on Core, $65 on Plus or $139 on Advanced, or $19, $29, $49 or $99 a month on annual billing (US prices). There is no free plan, so when the trial ends you pay or lose access to the site.
For a coach, the catch is what a trial site cannot do. It cannot accept payments, send form submission emails or appear in search results, so 14 days tells you how the design feels and very little about whether clients can book and pay you. Online booking also sits outside the plan, in a separate subscription. This guide covers the trial rules, the full price once it ends, and the point where coaches tend to outgrow a website builder. We make Coachful, a coaching platform that competes with the stack you would build around Squarespace, so weigh our recommendation with that in mind; the Squarespace facts here come from its own published terms.
How long is the Squarespace free trial, and do you need a card?
Every new site gets a 14-day free trial, and you do not enter a credit card to start it. Squarespace's help center confirms both points, and also says you can create as many trial sites as you want, each one upgraded and paid for separately.
| Trial term | What Squarespace publishes (October 2026) |
|---|---|
| Length | 14 days per site |
| Credit card to start | Not required |
| Extension | One self-serve extension of seven days, offered by email after the trial expires |
| Number of trials | As many trial sites as you want |
| Features | "Nearly all features" and most custom code options, with the exceptions listed below |
| Who can edit | Administrators and contributors, up to 5 contributors |
| Who can see it | Nobody unless you add a site password; search engines do not index trial sites |
| Export | Trial sites cannot be exported |
| Free plan after the trial | None: "Squarespace doesn't offer a free plan" |
Because no card is collected, a lapsed trial has nothing to bill. You will not get a surprise charge on day 15; the site simply locks until you upgrade. The risk runs the other way: the work you put in stays inside Squarespace, because you cannot export a trial site.
If you are comparing the trial terms of coaching tools rather than website builders, our roundup of coaching software with a free trial and our guide to what is actually free in coaching software cover that side of the market.
What can't a coach test during the trial?
You cannot test the money or the follow-up. The design tools are open, but several features a coaching practice depends on stay off until you pay, so the trial cannot show you the path from a stranger landing on your page to a paying client.
| Blocked on a trial site | What that means for a coach |
|---|---|
| Commerce and donation payments | No real sale of a session, package or program, so you cannot run a live checkout |
| PayPal connection | You cannot connect a PayPal business account until you are on a paid plan |
| Subscription products | You cannot build a monthly coaching subscription during the trial |
| Form submission emails | Your contact or inquiry form sends you no email; Squarespace suggests Google Drive or Mailchimp as storage instead |
| Customer email notifications | Clients get no order or purchase emails, so you cannot see what they would see |
| Abandoned checkout emails | Recovery emails cannot be sent |
| Search engine indexing | Trial sites are not indexed and cannot be verified in Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools |
| Podcast submission | You cannot submit a show to Apple Podcasts |
| Getty images | You cannot license Getty images |
One more trap sits in the features you can use. Squarespace warns you to choose a plan that offers what you set up during the trial, or those features will not be available after you upgrade. Since the trial shows nearly everything, you can build a site around discounts, payment plans, pop-ups or code injection and then find that Basic excludes all four. Check the plan table before you design around a feature.
Contributors work the same way. A trial allows up to 5, but the help center says you cannot upgrade to Basic with more than one contributor on the site. The pricing page lists 2 contributors on Basic, which most likely counts the owner plus one. If a VA or a second coach is helping you build, plan on Core.
What happens when the Squarespace free trial ends?
You lose access to the site until you upgrade. Squarespace's wording is that the site will not be made public and "all content is marked for permanent deletion", though it adds that, depending on how much time has passed, you can still upgrade and carry on editing where you left off.
How much time you have is not published. Squarespace gives no number of days before deletion happens, so treat the expiry date as the real deadline if you care about the work. You can check your date in the Billing panel: under Trial Subscriptions, click Website, and the Upgrade Your Site section shows the days left.
Can you extend the trial?
Yes, once, by seven days. After your trial expires, Squarespace sends an email from customercare@squarespace.com with the subject "Your trial has expired. Need more time?", and a link in it adds the extra week. That gives you 21 days in total without speaking to anyone.
If you need more, Squarespace invites you to contact support and says it wants to give you "the appropriate time" to get started, but it does not promise a specific length. Squarespace Circle partners, a program for people who build sites for others, get extended trial periods. Since the extension link arrives only after expiry, look in your spam folder if nothing shows up that day.
What does Squarespace cost after the trial?
Plans run from $19 to $99 a month on annual billing, or $25 to $139 month to month, as listed in October 2026. These are the US prices from Squarespace's pricing page, and they replace the $16, $23, $39 and $99 annual figures that many third-party guides still quote, so check the date on anything you read.
| Plan | Pay monthly | Pay annually (per month) | Annual total | Main limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $25 | $19 | $228 | 2 contributors; 30 minutes of video; 10 one-time AI credits; 2% store fee; 7% fee on digital content and memberships |
| Core | $39 | $29 | $348 | Unlimited contributors; 5 hours of video; 20 AI credits a month; 5% fee on digital content and memberships |
| Plus | $65 | $49 | $588 | 50 hours of video; 40 AI credits a month; 1% fee on digital content and memberships |
| Advanced | $139 | $99 | $1,188 | Unlimited video; 120 AI credits a month; 0% fee on digital content and memberships |
Prices change with your location. A visitor in the Netherlands saw euro prices excluding VAT in October 2026: Basic €17 or €12, Core €24 or €18, Plus €42 or €32, Advanced €79 or €69 a month, monthly or annual. Upgrade from the pricing page you actually see, and budget for VAT where it applies.
What does each Squarespace plan add for a coach?
Basic gets you online, Core is the first plan that suits a service business, and Plus and Advanced mostly reduce the fees on what you sell. Squarespace itself pitches Core as a foundation for service businesses, and for most coaches that is the sensible floor.
- Basic: a website with SEO tools and mobile-optimized templates, unlimited bandwidth, a free custom domain for a year on annual billing, unlimited products and services, invoices and pay links with no invoice fee, courses and memberships with the 7% fee, the Contacts panel and form and newsletter blocks. It has no discounts, payment plans, code injection, pop-ups, or Mailchimp or Zapier integration.
- Core: drops the store transaction fee to 0% and adds a free first year of Google Workspace email, discounts, payment plans with deposits and installments, automated taxes, code injection, promotional pop-ups, form and button conversion insights, and the Mailchimp and Zapier integrations.
- Plus: everything in Core, plus a lower card rate of 2.7% + $0.30, a 1% fee on digital content, a reserved cart and countdown timer.
- Advanced: everything in Plus, plus 0% on digital content and memberships, the lowest card rate at 2.5% + $0.30, high-traffic checkout and ACH capped at $10.
What Squarespace does well is real: polished templates, hosting included, native selling of services and courses, and invoices on every plan. If the site is your main need and your coaching happens on calls, it does that job without much setup. Its Trustpilot score was 3.5 from 6,313 reviews when we checked in October 2026, for what a broad consumer rating is worth.
What fees and add-ons come on top of the plan?
Three layers sit on top of the subscription: a Squarespace fee on some sales, card processing on all of them, and separate subscriptions for booking and email. The first is the one that changes which plan you should buy.
| Cost | Basic | Core | Plus | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fee on products, services and donations | 2% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Fee on courses, memberships and paid content | 7% | 5% | 1% | 0% |
| Fee on invoices | None | None | None | None |
| Standard card rate (Squarespace Payments) | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.7% + $0.30 | 2.5% + $0.30 |
| ACH (US, $250 minimum) | 1.5% | 1.0% | 1.0% | 1.0%, max $10 |
| Automated tax calculation | Not available | 0.15%, max $0.99 | 0.10%, max $0.99 | 0.05%, max $0.99 |
Premium cards such as Amex cost 3.2% + $0.30. International cards add a 1.5% surcharge and currency conversion adds 1.0%. Stripe and PayPal charge their own processing fees if you use them instead of Squarespace Payments.
The add-ons a coach usually needs are these:
- Acuity Scheduling (owned by Squarespace, separate subscription): Starter $20 a month or $16 billed annually, with 1 calendar; Standard $34 or $27, with up to 6 calendars, text reminders, waitlist, packages and memberships; Premium $69 or $55, with up to 36 calendars, branding removal and a HIPAA BAA. It has its own 7-day trial with no card, and Squarespace's scheduling page advertised 20% off the first payment of a new plan.
- Email Campaigns: a separate subscription priced by monthly sends, with tiers from 500 to 500,000 emails and unlimited contacts. Free use covers building lists, drafts and up to three trial campaigns. The tier prices load only inside the page and we could not confirm them, so check the live figure before you budget.
- Google Workspace email: free for the first year on Core and above, then the standard rate.
- Custom domain: free for the first year on annual plans. Squarespace's domain policy says these free domains then renew at $20 a year.
- Extensions: third-party tools with their own pricing.
The break-even worth knowing. On annual billing, moving from Core to Plus costs $20 more a month. Plus takes 4 points less on digital content, so at about $500 a month in course or membership sales the upgrade pays for itself. Moving from Plus to Advanced costs $50 more and saves 1 point on the fee plus 0.2 on the card rate, which breaks even around $4,200 a month. Services sold through the store carry no such fee on Core or above, so a coach selling only 1:1 packages can stay on Core. Whether a given offer counts as a service or as digital content depends on how you set it up, so check before you rely on the lower number.
What does a coach actually pay at three sizes?
On annual billing, a Squarespace stack runs from roughly $45 to $126 a month in the examples below, and that is before email and before any tool that delivers your coaching between sessions. These are illustrative practices we made up to show the arithmetic; your sales mix will change the answer.
| Monthly cost | Solo, 5 clients, 1:1 only | 15 clients, plus a program selling $1,000 a month | 40 clients, 3 coaches, $5,000 a month in digital sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coachful (all in one) | Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients | Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients | Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients (team plans add coach seats) |
| Squarespace plan (annual billing) | Core, $29 | Plus, $49 | Advanced, $99 |
| Acuity Scheduling (annual billing) | Starter, $16 | Standard, $27 | Standard, $27 |
| Squarespace fee on digital sales | $0 | $10 (1%) | $0 |
| Squarespace stack subtotal | $45 | $86 | $126 |
| Still needed beside it | Email tool, contracts with e-signature | Email tool, contracts, program and habit delivery, client messaging | All of those, plus team permissions and client records across coaches |
Card processing comes on top in every Squarespace column. As an example, ten $300 payments on Core cost $90 a month in processing (2.9% of $3,000 plus 10 times $0.30). The same sales through the store on Basic would add a further $60 from the 2% fee, which is why Basic is rarely the cheap option it looks like. On annual billing it saves $10 a month against Core, and the 2% fee cancels that at $500 in monthly store sales.
Payments through Coachful have processing too, because they run through your own Stripe or Razorpay account, but the Coachful platform fee is 0%. For the full stack view, see the coaching software overview.
What hidden costs and gotchas should you check before upgrading?
Most of the surprises come after you pay rather than during the trial. These are the ones in Squarespace's own documentation that matter most to coaches.
- Refunds are narrow. You can request a full refund on an annual website subscription canceled within 14 days of purchase. Monthly plans and renewals are not refunded, and if you took the free domain, its cost is deducted from your annual refund.
- Everything bills separately. Each subscription auto-renews on its own and must be canceled on its own, so the site, Acuity, Email Campaigns, Workspace and the domain are five separate things to track.
- "First year free" ends. The domain and Workspace both move to standard rates in year two, on a renewal you may not be watching.
- The advertised saving is smaller than it sounds. The page says annual billing can save "up to 36%", but the listed US prices work out to 24% to 29%.
- Two clocks can run at once. The Squarespace trial is 14 days and Acuity's is 7. Start Acuity in your second week, or it will lapse while you are still designing.
- Leaving is harder than joining. Site content exports only as a WordPress-format .xml file with layout pages, one blog, and text, image and gallery content. Store pages, products, audio and video blocks, drafts, style settings and custom CSS do not come with you. Contacts, customers and form submissions export to CSV, and mailing lists export as a .zip of CSV files. Our guide to moving a coaching website off Squarespace covers the steps.
- There is no client side. Squarespace's pricing lists no client portal for programs, habit tracking, check-ins or client messaging, and the Squarespace app on the pricing page is for the business owner rather than your clients.
- Health coaches should read the BAA line. Acuity offers a HIPAA BAA only on Premium, at $55 a month billed annually. Coaching is not medical treatment, so refer clients to a licensed clinician for anything clinical, and keep clinical records in a clinical system.
Is Squarespace worth paying for after the trial?
It is worth paying for if you need a good-looking website and your coaching happens elsewhere. It gets harder to justify once you deliver programs, because you are then paying for a website and still shopping for the tools that run the coaching.
- A new coach who needs to look credible this month: Core with Acuity Starter works, at about $45 a month on annual billing. If you have not yet got paying clients, read our guide to building a free website for life coaches first, and see how Coachful works for new coaches.
- A consultant or speaker with a referral pipeline: this is a strong fit. The site is a brochure, invoices carry no Squarespace fee, and you may not need much more.
- A coach selling a course or membership: Squarespace can do it natively, but do the fee math above first. On Core, 5% of every digital sale goes to Squarespace on top of processing.
- A coach running programs with habits and check-ins: this is where the fit breaks. None of that is listed, so you would add a delivery tool and clients would have a separate login for it. See Coachful for life coaches and for health coaches.
- A small coaching team: Unlimited contributors help on the website side, but client records, staff permissions and per-coach availability still have to live somewhere. See Coachful for teams.
What should coaches who outgrow Squarespace look at instead?
We recommend Coachful for any coach who sells programs rather than only sessions, because one subscription replaces the site and the tools you would otherwise add beside it. Current plans: Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients.
What it is. Coachful is a coaching platform covering booking, payments, contracts, program delivery with habits and check-ins, courses, a community, a website with funnels and email, and an AI assistant. The coach has one login and the client has one branded app. It is built for coaches who deliver programs, solo coaches growing into a small team, and coaches replacing 4 to 6 tools.
The website. The section-based website builder includes a blog, custom domain, SEO settings, 30 designed homepage templates and an Import website option, along with booking, application, lead-magnet and checkout funnels. Squarespace has the broader design toolkit for general sites, and Coachful is not a general website builder for non-coaching sites. It is built so the page, the checkout and the client's first session sit in the same system.
Booking. Booking pages are included in your Coachful membership, with availability rules, buffers, minimum notice, time-zone detection, and two-way Google, Apple and Outlook calendar sync. Sessions use built-in video or auto-created Zoom, Meet or Teams links. There is no second scheduling subscription to add.
This short walkthrough shows how scheduling is set up inside the platform.
Between sessions. This is what no Squarespace plan lists. You can build multi-week programs with weekly goals, daily tasks, habits, morning and evening check-ins, and streaks, delivered into the client's branded home and app. The client record pulls together goals, check-ins, notes, intake answers, payments and sessions, with a status of thriving, active, quiet or at risk.
Payments and paperwork. Payments run through your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account: one-time, subscriptions, payment plans, order bumps and coupons, with a 0% Coachful platform fee. Coaching agreements with e-signature go out before the first call and stay on the client record. Email lists, broadcasts and multi-step sequences are included in your Coachful membership.
What it does not do. Be clear on these before you switch:
- It is not HIPAA-certified and offers no BAA, so it is not for clinical record-keeping or insurance billing.
- It has no PayPal option and no permanent free plan.
- The client app ships under the Coachful listing with your branding, not under your own App Store account.
- It has no third-party plugins and is not a course marketplace.
Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. On every plan, the team will build what you describe inside your own account, usually within about 24 hours: a website, funnel, offer page, program, course outline, email sequence and more. From Create, choose "We'll build it for you", describe what you want and attach up to 8 reference links and up to 10 files. Nothing gets invented, so gaps are left for you to fill. Recording videos, logo design, ad management and ongoing marketing are not included. One leadership coach with a Squarespace renewal days away got one clean homepage with a repeated "talk with me" button. Read more about the free white-glove build service.
How to start. Begin with a free trial, send your website or program request to the white-glove team, and have your clients, programs and content imported for you during onboarding.
How does the Squarespace trial compare with the alternatives?
Squarespace's 14 days with no card is a fair offer among website builders, though some rivals let you stay on a free plan indefinitely and others are built for selling rather than design. Vendor terms below are as listed in October 2026.
| Tool | Trial or free option | Starting price | Platform fee on sales | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coachful | A free trial; no permanent free plan | Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients | 0%; Stripe or Razorpay processing only | Coaches running programs from one login |
| Squarespace | 14 days, no card, one 7-day extension; no free plan | $19/mo annual, $25 monthly | 2% store fee on Basic; 7% to 0% on digital content | A polished site with light selling |
| Wix | Free plan with Wix branding; no Premium trial; 14-day money-back | $17/mo annual (Light, cannot take payments); Bookings from $29 | None listed on the plans page | Booking and programs inside a site builder |
| Showit | 14 days, no card; no domain or WordPress blogging during the trial | $22/mo annual, $27 monthly | None; it does not process payments | Design-led sites with embedded tools |
| Carrd | Free plan; 7-day Pro trial, no card | $0.75/mo annual ($19/year for custom domains) | None documented; your own Stripe fees apply | A single landing page |
| Kajabi | 14 days; card optional, with a hold and charge at trial end if entered | $143/mo annual, $179 monthly | 0.5% to 2% extra with some outside processors | Courses and funnels at higher volume |
| Systeme.io | Free plan that never expires, no card | $0, then $17/mo | 0% | Low-cost funnels and email |
See the full ranking in the best Squarespace alternatives for coaches, or browse every matchup on our comparison page.
Wix
Wix has a free site with Wix branding and no custom domain, but no free trial of Premium plans. It offers a 14-day money-back guarantee on your first upgrade instead. Wix Bookings starts on Core at $29 a month billed annually. It gives you more scheduling inside the builder than Squarespace does, with no Acuity bill. Read Squarespace vs Wix for coaches.
Showit
Showit matches Squarespace's 14 days and no card, though you cannot connect a domain or blog through WordPress during the trial. It has no native booking, payments, courses or membership area, so those come from embedded tools. Pick it for visual freedom. Read Showit vs Squarespace.
Carrd
Carrd builds one-page sites, with a free tier and a 7-day Pro trial that needs no card. Pro Standard at $19 a year is the cheapest tier with a custom domain and forms, and no blog, booking or course features are listed. It suits a coach who needs a single page to send people to. Read Carrd vs Squarespace.
Kajabi
Kajabi's standard trial is also 14 days, but a card is optional and, if you enter one, it places an authorization hold and charges on the day the trial ends. It is a course, community and funnel platform, with no habit tracking or daily client check-ins, and it costs far more than Squarespace. Read Kajabi vs Squarespace and Kajabi pricing.
Systeme.io
Systeme.io skips the trial question with a free plan that never expires, covering 2,000 contacts, 3 funnels and 1 course, at 0% transaction fees. Our September 2026 profile found no native 1:1 scheduling with client records and no habits or check-ins, so it suits a coach building a list more than one delivering programs.
How do you get the most from the 14 days and save money afterward?
Use the trial to answer one question: can a real client get from your page to a booked, paid session? Since a trial site cannot take payments, plan to test the design first and the money in your first days on a paid plan, while the annual refund window is still open.
- Days 1 to 3: write before you design. Draft your offer, your about page and one clear next step. Pick a template only after that.
- Days 4 to 7: build one page that converts. Add a form, and connect it to Google Drive or Mailchimp as storage, because submission emails will not arrive on a trial.
- Days 8 to 12: start the Acuity trial. Its 7 days should overlap the end of your build, so you can see the booking flow on the page.
- Days 13 to 14: check every feature against the plan table. Note anything you used that your chosen plan excludes.
- First days on a paid plan: run a live test. Buy a small item from yourself, follow the emails and check the record it creates. If it fails you, an annual plan canceled within 14 days of purchase is refundable on request, less the domain if you took the free one. Monthly plans are not refunded.
To keep the bill down afterward:
- Pay annually if you are sure. That saves $72 a year on Basic, $120 on Core, $192 on Plus and $480 on Advanced against monthly billing. The catch is that the money is locked in after the 14-day window.
- Pay monthly if you are not. On Core it costs an extra $10 a month, which is a cheap way to keep your exit open if you are still deciding on your stack.
- Use invoices where they fit. Invoices and pay links carry no Squarespace fee on any plan, so a 1:1 client on Basic can be billed that way and avoid the 2% store fee. Card processing still applies.
- Use ACH for large packages. On a US payment of $250 or more, ACH at 1.0% on Core is well below the card rate.
- Watch the first-year renewals. Put the domain and Workspace dates in your calendar, and decide before they renew.
- Take the Acuity offer if it is still live. Squarespace's scheduling page advertised 20% off the first payment. If you only need a calendar, our guide to free booking software for coaches may save you the subscription.
Squarespace free trial FAQ
Does Squarespace have a free trial in 2026?
Yes. Every new site starts with a 14-day free trial, and Squarespace's help center confirmed this in October 2026. There is no free plan afterward, so you need a paid plan to keep using the site.
Do you need a credit card for the Squarespace free trial?
No. You sign up with a name, email address and password, then verify the account by email. Because no card is on file, nothing is charged when the trial lapses, and you pay only if you choose to upgrade.
Can I extend my Squarespace trial?
Yes, once, by seven days, through a link in the email Squarespace sends when the trial expires. That makes 21 days in total. You can ask support for more time, but no specific length is promised.
What happens to my site if I don't upgrade?
You lose access, the site stays private, and its content is marked for permanent deletion. Squarespace says you can still upgrade and continue for some time after expiry, but it does not publish how long. Treat the expiry date as your deadline.
Can I take payments during the trial?
No. Trial sites cannot accept commerce or donation payments, connect PayPal or create subscription products. You can only test real checkout on a paid plan, so run a live test soon after you buy.
Can I export my work if I don't subscribe?
No. Trial sites cannot be exported. Even on a paid plan, export is limited to a WordPress-format .xml file that leaves out store pages, products, audio and video blocks, and style settings.
Can I get a refund after the trial?
An annual website subscription canceled within 14 days of purchase can get a full refund on request, minus the domain cost if you took the free one. Monthly plans and renewal payments are not refunded. Add-ons have their own policies; annual Acuity plans canceled within 14 days are refunded automatically.
Does the Squarespace trial include booking?
Booking is not part of a website plan. It comes from Acuity Scheduling, a separate subscription with its own 7-day trial and no card, from $16 a month billed annually. You add it to your site with the Scheduling block.
Is Squarespace or Coachful better for a coach?
Squarespace is a good choice if you mainly need a website and your coaching runs elsewhere. We recommend Coachful if you deliver programs, because booking, payments, contracts, habits, check-ins and the website share one login. If you are not sure, start with a free trial of each and map one client's path through both.
What is Coachful's free white-glove service?
It is a build service on every Coachful plan. You describe what you want (a website, funnel, program, course outline, email sequence or something else) and the team builds it inside your account, usually within about 24 hours. It does not cover recording videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing.
