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What a Squarespace website costs in New Zealand.
There are three separate costs and most people only hear about one of them. Here they all are, with numbers.
1. My fee: the design and build
Fixed, quoted in writing before anything starts. The price I quote is the price you pay.
A single scrolling page. Right for a trade, a cafe, or anyone who mainly needs to be found and contacted.
$2,400Around five to seven pages: services, about, contact, and the pages that earn you search traffic.
$3,900Squarespace commerce set up properly: products, shipping rules, payments, and the tax settings people usually get wrong.
From $5,600Code beyond what the platform does on its own: booking integrations, calculators, unusual layouts. Quoted once I know the job.
QuotedEvery build includes the design, the build, your content loaded in, a walkthrough so you can edit it yourself, and thirty days of fixes after launch.
2. Squarespace's own subscription
This goes to Squarespace, not to me. You pay it directly and own the account, which means you're never locked to me for hosting.
Roughly NZ$30–70 per month depending on the plan, with commerce plans costing more. Annual billing is cheaper than monthly. Squarespace changes its pricing periodically, so check squarespace.com/pricing for today's figure, and I'll confirm the exact plan you need in the quote.
That subscription covers hosting, SSL, backups and updates. On a WordPress site those are separate line items and separate things to go wrong.
3. SEO and support (optional)
Content changes, monitoring, and keeping an eye on the things that break quietly.
$120 / monthOne-off. The audit, keyword research, technical fixes and getting your Google Business Profile properly claimed and configured. Everything that only happens once.
$1,500 one-offGetting found. Technical work, Google Business Profile, local listings and content, reported monthly in plain English.
From $600 / monthNone of it is compulsory and none of it is a lock-in contract: a month's notice and you're out. You can take the site and run it yourself. That's the point of building on Squarespace.
The SEO setup is charged separately because the first month is several times the work of the sixth. Charging it properly is what lets me offer a monthly fee you can leave at any time, instead of a twelve month contract to recover the start-up work.
Common questions
Why is a designer cheaper on Squarespace than WordPress?
Because a large chunk of a WordPress build is plumbing: hosting, security, plugin conflicts, updates. Squarespace handles that, so the money goes into design and content instead of maintenance you can't see.
Can I not just build it myself?
Yes, and some people should. Squarespace is good DIY software. You're paying a designer for the things templates don't give you: a layout built around what you actually sell, page structure that ranks, and someone to blame when it breaks. If your budget is tight, build it yourself and hire me for the SEO.
How long does it take?
Two to four weeks for most sites, from the day I have your content. The content is usually what holds it up, so I'll help with that if you want.
Do I own it?
Yes. The Squarespace account, the domain and the content are all in your name. I get access, not ownership.