Banzena vs Squarespace

A beautiful shop, built for you

Squarespace is well known for polished, design-led templates you arrange yourself, on a monthly plan. Banzena takes the design work off your plate: describe your shop and AI builds it — with no monthly fee, and just 1% on a confirmed card sale.

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Nothing to pay until you make a sale. Then just 1% of confirmed card orders.

Side by side

How they compare

Both can give you a good-looking store. They differ in who does the building, and what you pay to keep it running.

Banzena
Squarespace
Monthly cost
BanzenaNothing upfront and no monthly fee — a flat 1% only on a confirmed card sale.
SquarespaceA monthly subscription, billed whether or not you make a sale.
Getting set up
BanzenaAI writes your copy and assembles the storefront from a single sentence.
SquarespaceYou design and arrange the pages yourself from its templates.
Themes
BanzenaSix mobile-ready themes the AI picks from, switchable any time.
SquarespaceA range of polished templates you customise by hand.
Custom domain & SSL
BanzenaYour own domain with free automatic SSL, included.
SquarespaceCustom domains are supported on its paid plans.
Cash on delivery
BanzenaBuilt in and on by default, with no Banzena fee.
SquarespaceCard-first; cash on delivery is not a standard option.
Card payments
BanzenaStraight into your own connected Stripe account.
SquarespaceBuilt-in payments, with processing fees on top.

A fair, general comparison — competitor plans and fees change, so check their current terms too.

The maths

What a new shop actually saves

Squarespace and most platforms charge a fixed monthly subscription plus paid apps — whether or not you sell. Banzena charges nothing fixed: just 1% of a confirmed card sale.

A typical subscription setup

Monthly plan — roughly $30–40 a month for a basic store

Essential apps — reviews, email, upsells: often $20–60 a month

Transaction fees on top of card processing

~$600–1,200+ a year
fixed, before you sell a thing
Banzena

Monthly plan — $0, nothing upfront

Every feature included — no apps or plugins to buy

Just 1% on a confirmed card sale; cash on delivery is free

$0 fixed
+ 1% only when you sell

Worked example: a shop selling $2,000 a month by card pays Banzena $240 for the whole year — and $0 in any month it doesn’t sell. A subscription stack can cost that much in fixed fees in a couple of months, sale or no sale. You keep the difference.

Competitor pricing is illustrative and changes — check current plans. The point stands: their costs are fixed; Banzena’s scale with your sales.

Why Banzena

What you get with Banzena

The things small shops tell us matter most — all included from day one.

Built for you by AI

Describe what you sell in one sentence and your store is ready in minutes — name, copy, theme, and standard pages all done for you.

Fair, simple pricing

No monthly fee and nothing upfront. Just a flat 1% on a confirmed card sale, and nothing at all on cash-on-delivery orders.

Your shop, your domain

Your own custom domain with free automatic SSL, your customers, and no lock-in — the store stays yours.

Which is right for you?

Honest advice

Both are good tools. Here is the simplest way to choose.

Choose Banzena if…

you would rather describe your shop and have it built than design every page yourself, and you want costs tied to sales.

Choose Squarespace if…

you enjoy hand-crafting a highly designed site yourself and prefer a fixed monthly plan.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know about selling with Banzena.

How much does Banzena cost?
It's free to start with nothing upfront, no monthly fee, and no setup cost. We earn a flat 1% only on a confirmed card sale, so if you don't sell, you don't pay a thing.
How does the AI build my store from a description?
You describe what you sell in one sentence, and our AI builder suggests store names, writes your product and page copy, picks a matching theme, and stands up a real, mobile-ready storefront in minutes. It even creates your standard pages like Privacy Policy, Terms, Refund and Shipping policies, Contact and About.
How can my customers pay?
Shoppers can pay by card at a secure checkout or choose cash on delivery, where they pay when the order arrives. Both are turned on by default the moment your store goes live, and customers pick whichever they prefer.
Can I use my own domain name?
Yes. Every store gets a free yourname.banzena.com address, and you can also connect your own custom domain like shop.yourbrand.com at no extra cost, with free automatic SSL. Your shop, your domain, your customers, with no lock-in.
How do I get paid for my sales?
You connect your own Stripe account, and card payments flow straight into it. Banzena's 1% is taken as a small fee on each card sale, so the rest is yours. For cash on delivery, you collect from the customer directly.
How do I get help if I'm stuck?
Email us anytime at support@banzena.com and you'll always hear back from a real person, never a robot. Our team is around Monday to Friday and usually replies within one working day, often sooner, while the Help centre is open 24/7.
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Open in minutes

Your shop is one sentence away.

Describe what you sell and our AI builds your store — on your own domain, with nothing upfront. We earn just 1% when you sell.

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Built on trust

Your store and your customers' data stay safe by default

Every store runs on Cloudflare's global network with HTTPS on by default, card payments handled by Stripe (never stored by us), and each shop's data kept isolated from every other.

Built on CloudflareEncrypted in transitPer-store data isolationStripe-secured checkoutFree automatic SSLBot & spam protection