Earlier this year, we made a decision that raised a few eyebrows: we removed Squarespace from our website maintenance and management plans at Hoot Host.

This month, Squarespace validated that decision for us.

Squarespace Raising Prices

If you’re a Squarespace customer, you may have already gotten the email. In July 2026, Squarespace quietly raised prices again – up to 26% on some tiers. And that’s on top of a full pricing overhaul in 2025 that retired their old plans and replaced them with a much more expensive lineup.

Because most Squarespace customers bill annually, a lot of people are just now hitting their first renewal at the new rates – and the sticker shock is real. Some long-time users report their costs have climbed more than 60% over the past few years.

The justification? AI features. Squarespace has been layering in AI tools, content generators, and automated layout options under its “Design Intelligence AI” banner. The problem is that most small business owners never asked for these features and even more don’t use them. You’re paying a premium to fund a product roadmap that doesn’t serve you.

It’s worth noting the timing. Squarespace went private in late 2024 in a $7.2 billion private equity acquisition. When a platform gets acquired by private equity, the playbook is predictable: raise prices on the existing customer base to squeeze out a return. That’s not a platform investing in your success. That’s a platform monetizing your existing membership for every cent they can.

Why Hoot Host Stepped Away

We didn’t drop Squarespace from our maintenance plans because it’s a bad website builder. It makes attractive websites and good results are possible. We dropped it because it’s a changing platform that is increasingly limiting what we can actually do for our clients under a reasonable price.

Here’s what that means in practice: The Squarespace costs are out of control and only hurting average small businesses.

When we build a new website under a Hoot Host Website Builder based plan, we control the hosting, the technology stack, and the costs. We keep them reasonably priced because our goal is always to support average SMBs. So we’d rather move Squarespace users to our platform where they will have more included value, more impactful capabilities, and a much fairer price.

When we previously offered maintenance and support for Squarespace websites, our clients could get positive results while on a typical small business budget. However with their recent pricing changes, Squarespace is showing itself to not be in touch with average SMBs. They just want more profit.

So when it comes to supporting businesses with an existing website, we only focus on platforms where our clients get real results for affordable rates: WordPress, Wix, and Shopify. WordPress gives you full control and unlimited flexibility. Wix and Shopify are proprietary platforms too, but they’re open enough that we can genuinely manage, optimize, and grow your presence on them – and they’ve earned their place in their categories. While also remaining reasonably priced! On these platforms, our work compounds to outstanding results with affordable rates for our clients. On Squarespace, that is just no longer the case.

So Where Should Squarespace Users Go?

This is the question we’ve been answering a lot lately, and it’s the second reason for this post. We’ve been moving Squarespace users to two options with great success – and keeping their costs more reasonable in the process.

Option 1: SprySite – The True Low-Cost Alternative

If what drew you to Squarespace was a clean, professional website at a simple price, that’s exactly why we built SprySite.

SprySite is a flat-rate $15 per month website and marketing platform designed for smaller businesses and DIY users. No tiers that creep upward every year. No paying extra for AI features you’ll never touch. No renewal surprise. You get a Squarespace-style website at a true low entry cost – the price Squarespace users thought they were signing up for before the corporate increases started stacking.

For a lot of the Squarespace users we’ve migrated, SprySite alone cut their website costs by more than half!

Option 2: Hoot Host Website Builder – When You Need More

Some businesses need more than our simple SprySite website platform. They need advanced features, higher functionality, and a professional team keeping everything running for them month-to-month.

That’s our Hoot Host Website Builder plans starting at $125 per month. They include:

• A professionally built website with the features and functionality growing businesses actually need
• Ongoing professional support – you’re never troubleshooting alone
• The HootBiz and HootCRM platforms built in – all the CRM, marketing tools, and business systems to run your daily operations, marketing, and online presence in one platform

Compare that to what a Squarespace Advanced plan costs once you add the tools, integrations, and outside help you’d need to get similar results, and the math starts making a lot of sense. You get more capability, real human support, and a partner invested in your outcomes – often for less than what a patched-together Squarespace setup was actually costing.

The Wiser Way Difference

Squarespace’s price increases showcase a real platform problem. It is a platform changing for the worst, now owned by private equity, and charging you more each year for features you didn’t ask for, on a website that isn’t actually helping your business.

We stepped away from supporting it because we couldn’t deliver our best work there. Instead we are now migrating Squarespace users to SprySite or a full-service Hoot Host Website Builder plans with results that match our standard.

If your Squarespace renewal email left a bad taste in your mouth, let’s talk. We’ve made this move for a lot of businesses already, and we’ll show you exactly what it would look like for you – including what you’d pay, with no corporate price hike surprises baked in.

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Christopher Carbaugh is the founder of Hoot Host, a website technology platform serving small and medium businesses from the Monterey California.