You got into this work to help animals. Not to spend your evenings watching YouTube tutorials about why your plugin is conflicting with your theme again. And yet here you are, Googling “Squarespace or WordPress”. Which means someone, somewhere, has already given you a strong opinion about which one you should use.
I spent 15 years as a WordPress advocate. I built my entire previous business on it, selling WordPress templates specifically to force-free animal professionals and helping over 150 of them build their own sites. I know what it can do, and I genuinely love how much freedom it gives you as a designer.
But here’s the thing I kept running into, after working with force-free trainers, behavior consultants, and animal physiotherapists for years:
When push came to shove, most of you valued being able to update your own site quickly and without stress over having complete design freedom. Not because design doesn’t matter (it does), but because unlimited flexibility and zero technical headaches don’t come in the same package. At some point you have to pick what matters more.
That’s what changed my mind.
When to choose WordPress over Squarespace
WordPress powers a huge chunk of the internet, and there’s a reason for that. It’s extraordinarily flexible. You can build almost anything with it: complex membership sites, large webshops, custom booking systems, multi-language setups. If you can imagine it, someone has probably built a plugin for it.
It’s also genuinely yours. You host it yourself (or choose your own hosting provider), which means you own the whole thing. No subscription to a platform. If you stop paying for hosting, you can export your site and move it somewhere else. That’s real ownership.
And for SEO, WordPress has excellent tooling. Plugins like Yoast or RankMath make it easy to optimize every page and post.
When WordPress makes sense:
- You want maximum flexibility in features and integrations
- You need a large or complex webshop
- You want a custom membership or course platform (instead of a third-party tool)
- You already have technical support or a developer on hand
- Keeping monthly subscription costs low is a priority
The real cost of WordPress (because “free software” isn’t free):
| Cost | Estimated annual cost |
|---|---|
| Hosting | ~€80/year (~$88/year) |
| Page builder (e.g. Elementor Pro) | ~€84/year (~$93/year) |
| Speed plugin (e.g. WP Rocket) | ~€55/year (~$61/year) |
| Maintenance (updates, backups) | ~€360/year (~$398/year) if outsourced |
| Technical support (1 hour/month at €75/hr) | ~€900/year (~$995/year) |
| Total (indicative) | €80 – €1,479/year (~$88 – $1,635/year) |
If you’re technically confident and handle everything yourself, you can keep costs very low. But for most animal professionals, that’s not realistic. At some point, something breaks, an update causes a problem, or you need help with a specific function. And then the costs add up fast.
When to pick Squarespace over WordPress
Squarespace is what I switched to for my templates, and it wasn’t a decision I made lightly given my WordPress background.
What made me change: after years of working with animal professionals, I kept seeing the same pattern. The technical side of WordPress (plugins, updates, the occasional site-breaking error) was creating stress and eating time that my clients wanted to spend on their actual work. With animals. Not with their laptops.
Squarespace removes that entire category of problem.
There are no plugins. The platform handles hosting, security, updates, and SSL automatically. You open your site, click on a text block, type your own text, and hit save. That’s it.
The editor works visually and intuitively. You can adjust colors once and they update across the entire site. Images resize automatically on mobile. You don’t need to think about breakpoints or grid columns or why the button is slightly off-center on a Samsung.
The trade-off is flexibility. Squarespace has made deliberate design decisions that limit what you can do, and sometimes that’s genuinely frustrating. But those same limitations are what prevent you from accidentally breaking your site. Squarespace has a fluid design system that means even if something looks off after an edit, you fix it in one click yourself.
No panicked message to a developer on a Saturday morning.
When Squarespace makes sense:
- You want to manage your own site without technical headaches
- You run a service-based business (which describes most animal professionals)
- You want to go live quickly with a professional template
- You don’t need a large or complex webshop or membership platform
- You want everything (hosting, security, updates) included in one subscription
Annual cost of Squarespace:
| Plan | Annual cost |
|---|---|
| Basic | ~€144/year (~$159/year) |
| Core | ~€216/year (~$239/year) |
That’s it. No hosting bill, no plugin licenses, no maintenance subscription on top.
Whether Basic or Core is right for you depends on what you need. Basic covers contact forms, blogging, and linking to external tools. Core adds Google Analytics integration and the ability to embed third-party tools (like Calendly or your email signup form) directly in your pages.
You can try Squarespace free for 14 days without a credit card to see how it feels before committing.
Side-by-side comparison of Squarespace and WordPress
| Situation | Squarespace | WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| You want no technical headaches | ✓ | |
| You want to update your site quickly and easily yourself | ✓ | |
| You run a service-based website | ✓ | |
| You don’t want to think about hosting, updates, or security | ✓ | |
| You want to go live fast with a professional template | ✓ | |
| You need maximum flexibility in features and plugins | ✓ | |
| You need a large or complex webshop | ✓ | |
| You want a built-in course or membership platform | ✓ | |
| Lowest possible monthly costs is a priority | ✓ | |
| You already have technical support available | ✓ |
So which one should you choose for your pet business?
Neither is objectively better. It depends on what matters most to you.
If you’re a force-free dog trainer, animal physiotherapist, behavior consultant, or equine professional who wants a website that looks good and is easy to manage yourself: Squarespace is almost certainly the better fit. You want it to work, look professional, and not require you to become a part-time web developer.
If you already have a WordPress site that’s working well and you have technical support, or you have specific functionality that Squarespace can’t match: stick with WordPress. There’s no reason to switch something that isn’t broken.
If you already have a WordPress site and you’re wondering whether to migrate: not necessarily. If it works well and you’re happy with it, there’s no urgent reason to move. But if you’re regularly dealing with technical issues, plugin conflicts, or you’re just ready for something new, this might be the right moment to seriously consider Squarespace.
A note on the cost comparison
I want to be honest here rather than just showing you the big WordPress number and leaving it at that.
If you’re technically capable and handle your own maintenance, or if you use free tools throughout, WordPress can be very affordable, potentially cheaper than Squarespace over time. You own your site outright, and that has real value.
The comparison above assumes you’re outsourcing at least some of the maintenance and support, which is realistic for most animal professionals who have a full practice to run. If that’s not your situation, weigh the numbers accordingly.
GoodBoy: my Squarespace template for force-free animal professionals
This is why I build my templates on Squarespace now.
GoodBoy is designed specifically for force-free, science-based animal professionals: dog trainers, behavior consultants, veterinary physiotherapists, and anyone building an ethical animal practice. It’s not just a design to fill in; every section has built-in writing prompts, CSS explanations in plain language, and setup guidance so you know exactly what goes where and why.
You can see the live demo here to get a real feel for how a Squarespace site works and what’s possible.
GoodBoy is available at riverwoodcreative.com/goodboy.
Still unsure whether to choose WordPress or Squarespace?
If you’re unsure whether WordPress or Squarespace is right for your situation, or you have questions about GoodBoy, feel free to reach out at simone@riverwoodcreative.com. Happy to help you think it through.
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