Squarespace 7.0 vs 7.1: Which Version Is Right for You?
Creating a high-performing website starts with choosing the right platform, and the right version of that platform. As one of the most trusted names in website building, Squarespace offers two distinct versions: 7.0 and 7.1. Each comes with its own strengths, depending on your goals, workflow, and how much creative control you want.
The release of Squarespace 7.1 marked a meaningful leap forward from 7.0, introducing upgrades designed to meet modern design standards, streamline the user experience, and enhance SEO performance. While both versions offer valuable features, the right choice ultimately comes down to what matters most for your brand.
Squarespace 7.0 offers a straightforward approach: pick from over 90 professionally designed templates grouped into distinct "families," then easily drop in your content without worrying about complex layouts or structure. It’s perfect if you prefer simplicity, clear guidance, and minimal setup.
By contrast, Squarespace 7.1 replaces fixed templates with a flexible, unified system that allows you to build pages from customisable content sections. This provides greater creative freedom and adaptability, ideal if you're seeking modern design, flexibility, and room to grow.
Both versions integrate seamlessly with plugins and external tools, but your choice ultimately depends on whether you prefer the straightforward, template-driven ease of 7.0 or the versatile, customizable approach of 7.1.
Key Features of Squarespace 7.0
Squarespace 7.0 remains a trusted favourite for small businesses, independent professionals, and creatives who value simplicity and straightforward website building. Featuring an intuitive drag-and-drop editor, structured templates, and a user-friendly interface, Squarespace 7.0 makes launching polished, professional sites effortless.
This version is ideal if you're creating small business websites, digital portfolios, or personal brands, providing all the essentials to help you stand out online. With clear customisation options and built-in SEO tools, Squarespace 7.0 ensures your website looks great and performs effectively right from the start.
Key Elements of Design and Templates
Squarespace 7.0 uses template “families” to give you a tailored experience, each one thoughtfully designed for specific needs like commercial brands, blogs, creative portfolios, or ecommerce stores. These structured templates come with built-in style presets, making it straightforward to maintain visual consistency while still allowing room for personalisation.
So, if you’ve been wondering "what are my design options using Squarespace?", you'll appreciate the wide variety of professional templates, the ease of switching between them, and the intuitive style editor that simplifies customisation.
Business & Ecommerce Tools
Small businesses benefit significantly from Squarespace 7.0’s ecommerce capabilities, including product categorisation, inventory management, and flexible checkout options. These tools make setting up and managing your online shop refreshingly easy, allowing you to focus on growing your business.
Content Editing and Workflow Efficiency
Squarespace 7.0 keeps editing simple. Its live drag-and-drop editor lets you see changes as you make them, providing immediate feedback and ensuring you remain in full control of your website's look and functionality. Additionally, integrating trusted third-party tools can further boost your website's capabilities and streamline your workflow.
Built for Simplicity
The clean interface and easy-to-follow workflows make Squarespace 7.0 especially welcoming for beginners. It’s designed with clarity and user experience in mind, ideal for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and creatives looking to launch websites with ease and confidence.
If you're establishing your brand online and need a platform that combines ease-of-use with creative flexibility, Squarespace 7.0 offers a smart, stylish starting point.
Key Features of Squarespace 7.1
Squarespace 7.1 provides a refined, all-in-one solution for creating stunning, user-friendly websites. Whether you're looking to enhance functionality with plugins or build a simple yet powerful site, Squarespace 7.1 delivers ease, flexibility, and modern design.
Unified Design System
Squarespace 7.1 introduces a streamlined, unified design approach, meaning every template shares the same flexible foundation. Instead of being tied to a single template, you're free to adjust your style and evolve your site’s layout effortlessly as your business grows.
This unified setup lets you experiment with new design ideas without starting from scratch, resulting in sleek, responsive websites that remain consistently professional and aligned with your brand goals.
Advanced Layout Customisation
The strength of Squarespace 7.1 lies in its modular, section-based editing. You can easily add, duplicate, and rearrange page sections in real-time, without interrupting your workflow. This intuitive approach enables you to quickly build polished, user-friendly websites or engaging ecommerce stores tailored specifically to your audience.
Enhanced Ecommerce Features
Squarespace 7.1 significantly enhances ecommerce features, making it ideal for businesses ready to expand their online presence. With advanced product displays, flexible checkout processes, and built-in marketing tools, Squarespace 7.1 is designed to maximise conversions, driving traffic, and help you effectively grow your customer base.
Smooth Migration for Small Businesses
Squarespace 7.1 makes upgrading from version 7.0 straightforward by preserving essential content and data such as pages, SEO settings, domains, orders, and customer information. For small business owners looking to modernise or scale their website, this simplified migration is invaluable. However, you’ll need to verify that your existing site uses a supported template (such as Brine or Bedford) and manually address any unsupported features or structural adjustments during the migration process.
Looking to upgrade your website from 7.0 to 7.1?
At Visuable, we make the transition seamless. From preserving your key content to refreshing your site’s look and feel, we’ll guide you every step of the way.
Let’s bring your website up to speed.
Template Availability and Modernity in Each Version
When comparing Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1, a key difference lies in how each handles templates and design flexibility. For users building business or e-commerce websites, understanding these structural differences is essential.
Squarespace 7.0 Template System
Squarespace 7.0 offers a curated selection of templates organised by industry, such as business, wellness, or creative portfolios. Each template family has its own design rules, making setup straightforward but somewhat limited. While switching templates is possible, it often requires rebuilding. This version suits users with specific design goals who prefer structured layouts.
Squarespace 7.1 Universal Editing Model
Squarespace 7.1 replaces traditional templates with a universal design system. Instead of choosing a fixed theme, users build pages using flexible content blocks and pre-designed sections. This approach allows for deeper customisation, consistent branding, and easier scaling, ideal for users prioritising long-term growth, SEO optimisation, and modern design standards.
Squarespace 7.0 is best for those who want guided design and niche-specific templates. Squarespace 7.1 is better suited for users who need flexibility and room to evolve. Both support professional, high-performing websites; it comes down to how much control you want over the layout and design.
Usability: Exploring How Intuitive Each Version Is
When it comes to creating a website, ease of use is just as important as design flexibility. That’s why understanding how intuitive each version of Squarespace feels can help you make the right choice for your goals.
Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1 each offer unique approaches to web design, catering to different skill levels, workflows, and creative needs. Whether you’re a first-time website owner, a small business looking to scale, or a creative professional aiming to stand out, your experience navigating and building within the platform plays a huge role in how confident and empowered you feel.
From layout customisation to content editing and site maintenance, let’s explore how each version supports users at different stages of their journey.
Squarespace 7.0 Usability Features
Squarespace 7.0 gives you hands-on creative freedom through its structured template system. Each template family comes with unique features and design behaviours, offering a more traditional, but flexible approach to building a website.
With tools like the LayoutEngine, you can drag and drop content blocks anywhere on the page and adjust spacing, alignment, and structure with precision. This setup is perfect for users who enjoy granular control over layout and design details, whether you're building a personal blog, wellness site, or a creative portfolio.
Like 7.1, Squarespace 7.0 supports live editing. You can make changes directly on your site, and once saved, they’re instantly reflected on the live version. While the interface is slightly more segmented than 7.1, it still offers a clear workflow for visual editing. That said, there may be a bit more of a learning curve for those applying custom CSS or navigating template-specific nuances, but for users who value control and adaptability, it’s a strong fit.
Squarespace 7.1 Usability Features
Squarespace 7.1 is designed for ease, speed, and consistency. It introduces a more intuitive user interface backed by a unified template system, which means all templates share the same features and editing tools, no more switching between template families or relearning design rules.
One standout feature is section-based editing. With pre-built “content sections,” you can quickly insert and customise full-width banners, image grids, testimonials, forms, and more, without touching the rest of your layout. These sections are fully mobile-responsive, aligning with the platform’s fluid design philosophy, so your website looks great on every screen.
Global style settings let you apply fonts, colours, and spacing adjustments site-wide in just a few clicks, reducing the need for manual page-by-page editing. Squarespace 7.1 also includes built-in tools like automatic image scaling, preset animations, and structured navigation, which make the entire user experience feel seamless and efficient.
Key Transition in User Experience
Ultimately, Squarespace 7.1 offers a more effortless, intuitive user experience, making it ideal for beginners or businesses looking for quick setup and easy management of professional, responsive websites. Meanwhile, Squarespace 7.0 appeals to those who desire greater control and the flexibility to fine tune their designs through structured templates and precision tools.
Performance Considerations: Speed and Stability
When it comes to building a reliable website, speed and stability aren’t just technical details; they’re essential for keeping your visitors engaged and your business running smoothly.
Squarespace 7.0: Solid but Slightly Dated
Squarespace 7.0 remains a stable version, but it's built on an older framework that can occasionally feel slower, especially as you layer in custom features or use third-party enhancements. For optimal performance, users often rely on extra tools and expert SEO tips to keep their site running efficiently.
Squarespace 7.1: Built for Today’s Demands
Squarespace 7.1 offers a noticeable upgrade in performance. Thanks to a more modern backend, sites load faster, handle visual content more effectively, and remain stable even under high traffic.
E-commerce Capabilities in Squarespace 7.0 vs 7.1
Squarespace is a trusted platform for building professional online stores, and both versions 7.0 and 7.1 offer solid ecommerce functionality. You can sell physical or digital products, subscriptions, and services, with integrated payment options like Stripe and PayPal available across both. Inventory management, shipping tools, and SEO features are also standard in each version.
Squarespace 7.0 gives you tighter design control with customizable page layouts and third-party plugin support, but enforces a limit of 200 products per store page, up to 100 variants per product, and often requires more manual setup for advanced store functions.
On the other hand, Squarespace 7.1 meets modern ecommerce needs with a scalable system that supports up to 10,000 products per page or site, 250 variants per product, nested categories, and site-wide waitlist features. Templates share unified styling, built‑in layouts and checkout tools, making it easier to maintain a consistent store design optimised for customer experience.
For anyone building a sales-ready website that looks great and performs beautifully, Squarespace 7.1 offers the smoothest path forward, while 7.0 remains a solid option for smaller shops prioritising hands-on design control.
Shared SEO Features in Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1
No matter which version you choose, Squarespace gives you the essential tools to boost visibility and connect with your ideal audience.
Both 7.0 and 7.1 include:
Editable Meta Data – You can easily update page titles and descriptions, which is crucial for applying best practices from guides like driving traffic to your website.
Image Alt Tags – Adding alternative text improves both accessibility and search engine indexing, supporting stronger performance from the top Squarespace SEO tips.
Built-in SSL Certificates – Secure sites are trusted by search engines, and this feature ensures your visitors’ data stays protected.
Mobile-Optimised Design – All Squarespace sites are responsive by default, which supports Google’s mobile-first indexing.
Automatic Sitemap Generation – Squarespace automatically creates a sitemap to help your content get discovered faster.
Notable Differences in SEO Tools Between 7.0 and 7.1
Choosing between Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1 depends on your website goals, design preferences, and long-term business needs.
Here's a quick, clear breakdown of the most notable differences:
Custom Page Titles & URLs – You have more control over how your pages appear in search results.
Structured Content Layouts – With universal sections and consistent styling, it's easier to organise your content for readability and SEO impact.
Improved Blogging Tools – For small business owners, Squarespace 7.1 offers a more seamless blogging experience, which helps you target keywords more effectively over time.
Quick Comparison Table: Squarespace 7.0 vs 7.1
| Feature | Squarespace 7.0 | Squarespace 7.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Template Structure | Multiple separate template families (e.g., Brine, Bedford) | Single universal template system |
| Switching Templates | Often disrupts layout/content | Seamless; no layout disruptions |
| Editor & Layout | Classic drag-and-drop; limited flexibility | Fluid Engine; grid-based, highly flexible |
| Mobile Layouts | Automatic, limited customisation | Independent, customisable mobile layouts |
| Styling & Headings | Page-specific, limited options (H1–H3) | Global site styles; extensive options (H1–H4) |
| Colour Customisation | Limited colour variations per section | Flexible colour themes per section |
| Gallery Features | Gallery Blocks | Integrated gallery sections |
| Blog Sidebars | Built-in sidebar support | Requires custom coding |
| Index Pages | Available in selected templates | Removed; replaced by universal page sections |
| E-commerce Features | Up to 200 products; basic functionality | Up to 10,000 products; advanced features (waitlists, nested categories, product tabs) |
| Performance | Stable but slower load times | Faster loading; optimised for mobile |
| Ongoing Updates | Maintenance-only; no new major features | Regular updates; ongoing enhancements |
Migration Process: Transitioning from 7.0 to 7.1
Migrating from Squarespace 7.0 to 7.1 unlocks modern design tools, enhanced SEO features, and improved performance. However, this upgrade requires careful planning, as the transition isn’t automatic, and in some cases, requires manual rebuilding.
Key Preparations Before Migrating
Evaluate Current Site Needs: Review your site’s structure, design, content, and goals. Consider how the new 7.1 features align with your needs.
Back Up Content: Because the migration from Squarespace 7.0 to 7.1 isn’t reversible, it’s essential to back up your content before making the switch. Take the time to manually save key assets like text, images, blog posts, and product details. If you're running an ecommerce store, make sure to keep a record of product descriptions, variants, and categories so nothing gets lost in transition.
Review Functionality and Integrations: Identify any custom code, plugins, or third-party integrations used on your current site. Ensure these will function smoothly in Squarespace 7.1, or identify suitable alternatives ahead of migration.
Steps in the Migration Process
1. Choose Your Migration Method:
- Built-in Squarespace Migration Tool: Use the built-in option within Squarespace 7.0 for transferring basic content. However, note that this method has limitations and won't migrate custom collections like galleries or albums.
- Manual Content Transfer: For greater control, manually copy and rebuild your content in Squarespace 7.1. While time-consuming, it allows a precise and customised outcome.
- Third-party Tools: Tools like Squarespace Websites Tool Extension Pro (a Chrome extension) and Squarespace Admin UI Tweaks plugin can simplify this process significantly, especially if handling large amounts of content. However, these tools have associated costs and might be more suited to designers managing multiple sites.
2. Recreate and Optimise Your Pages:
Rebuilding your site in Squarespace 7.1 provides a perfect opportunity to refresh your brand and enhance your message. Utilise Squarespace’s new page sections and intuitive layout tools to create engaging, responsive designs.
3. SEO Optimisation:
After migrating, revisit your SEO strategy to leverage Squarespace 7.1’s enhanced features. Update meta descriptions, optimise titles and headers, and take advantage of the platform’s built-in SEO enhancements to boost your site's visibility.
Through careful planning and execution, users can take advantage of Squarespace 7.1 while ensuring a seamless transition focused on increasing functionality and aesthetic appeal.
Let Us Help With Your Migration
Migrating your Squarespace site can feel overwhelming—but it doesn't have to be. We're here to guide you through every step, ensuring a smooth, hassle-free transition that elevates your website’s look and performance.
Book a free consultation call today, and let's discuss how we can help you migrate seamlessly to Squarespace 7.1.
FAQs
What are the key differences between Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1?
Squarespace 7.0 gives you more hands-on design control through template families, making it ideal for users who want detailed customisation. Squarespace 7.1, on the other hand, simplifies the experience with a unified template system and section-based editing, making it easier to build flexible, modern layouts.
Can Squarespace work for small business websites?
Yes, Squarespace is a fantastic platform for small businesses. Whether you’re just starting out or refreshing your current site, both 7.0 and 7.1 versions offer beautiful, professional templates and SEO-friendly tools to help you get noticed.
Which version offers better SEO features?
Both versions offer essential SEO tools like editable meta titles, descriptions, and alt tags. However, 7.1 has a slight edge with its cleaner structure and mobile-responsive layout, making it easier to align with SEO best practices.
How do these versions impact migration or upgrading?
Upgrading from 7.0 to 7.1 isn’t a direct transfer; it’s more of a rebuild. Because the two versions use different structures, migrating means recreating your pages and adapting your design to 7.1’s tools. If you're planning the switch, take time to map your content, back up key assets, and rethink your layout with your brand goals in mind.
Does Squarespace 7.0 or 7.1 integrate well with external tools?
Yes, both versions work well with tools like scheduling platforms, email marketing systems, and analytics apps. Squarespace 7.1, however, offers a more modern editing interface that makes integrations feel more seamless.
How long does it typically take to migrate from Squarespace 7.0 to 7.1?
Migration timelines vary depending on the size and complexity of your site. Smaller, simpler sites might take just a few days, while larger, content-rich or ecommerce sites could require several weeks of manual rebuilding and content migration.
Are there additional costs associated with upgrading to Squarespace 7.1?
Squarespace doesn't charge additional fees for using version 7.1. However, you may incur costs if you choose to use third-party migration tools or seek professional help with redesign and content transfer.
Will upgrading to Squarespace 7.1 affect my current SEO rankings?
Any major site redesign or migration has the potential to temporarily impact SEO rankings. However, careful migration practices, like maintaining URL structures, setting up proper redirects, and promptly updating meta-data, can help minimise any disruption.
Final Thoughts on Selecting Between Versions
Selecting between Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1 ultimately depends on your goals, workflow preferences, and the level of flexibility you need as your business grows.
Squarespace 7.0 is an excellent choice if you value structured templates, simplicity, and consistency. It's ideal for small businesses or individuals seeking straightforward setup and design stability. If your current 7.0 website is performing well and you’ve invested significant time into customisations, SEO, or plugins, there may be no immediate need to migrate.
On the other hand, Squarespace 7.1 is built with the future in mind. It provides greater flexibility with its unified template system, intuitive section-based editing, and modern design capabilities. This version is optimal for businesses aiming for creative control, seamless scalability, and long-term growth. Whether you’re creating a wellness brand, launching an ecommerce platform, or refreshing your brand identity, Squarespace 7.1 offers the tools to evolve alongside your ambitions.
Both Squarespace versions deliver professional, high-performing websites. The key is identifying which aligns best with your current and future needs. If you're still unsure, we’re here to help you make the best decision with clarity and confidence.
Not sure which path is right for your brand?
We’re here to help. Contact Visuable today and let’s explore the best solution for your business, designed with strategy, style, and your goals at heart.
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