Squarespace Turns 20: A Trip Down Memory Lane

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White background with "SQSP20" in black text to celebrate Squarespace's 20th anniversary
Images pop up as you move your mouse across Squarespace's reflective timeline.

The popular website builder Squarespace first sprung to life in 2003, meaning the platform celebrates its 20th anniversary this spring. After two decades of innovation and growth, Anthony Casalena, the founder of Squarespace, shared a post to mark the occasion.

Casalena shares achievements, such as Squarespace Refresh, and mentions how Squarespace has played an important role in shaping the web. And, of course, he thanks the team behind Squarespace, as well as the customers themselves.

To share the milestones together, Squarespace has put together an interactive timeline to highlight key moments from the company’s history. It marks momentous occasions, from writing the first lines of code to hitting one million international customers. We highly recommend you check out the fun site yourself, but here’s a quick breakdown of just some of Squarespace’s achievements since launch:

  • 2003: Squarespace’s first lines of code are written
  • 2004: Squarespace is officially published and Squarespace 2 rolls out
  • 2005: Squarespace 3 launches
  • 2007: Squarespace 4 is announced, adding Google Maps and search improvements
  • 2008: Squarespace 5 goes live, introducing the drag-and-drop editor and templates
  • 2009: Squarespace launches an app for iPhones
  • 2012: Squarespace 6 drops, revealing 50+ new features
  • 2013: Squarespace Commerce debuts
  • 2014: First Super Bowl ad and Squarespace 7 launches, adding Gmail integration and access to Getty Images
  • 2015: Reaches one million paying customers
  • 2016: Squarespace Domains means customers can now buy domains directly from the platform
  • 2017: Tons of new products, including Squarespace Analytics, Account Dashboard, and Single Sign-On
  • 2018: Squarespace’s mobile app is launched and the company gets a fresh look
  • 2019: Squarespace Email Campaigns and Squarespace Extensions go live, Point of Sale is revealed, and… Squarespace partners with Sesame Street
  • 2020: Squarespace 7.1 launches, adding new page options and a sticky header navigation
  • 2021: The “Everything to Sell Anything” campaign reveals unique products and updates, including integration with Etsy and the Squarespace Video Studio
  • 2022: Squarespace’s new editing system, Fluid Engine, launches, and Squarespace Refresh 2022 goes live, showcasing the platform’s newest features
  • 2023: Squarespace hits one million international customers

Now, this is just a taste of what the platform’s achieved over the years. Our own research has monitored Squarespace’s performance and evolution, maintaining its spot as the best builder for design, and most recently, the only builder in our testing to increase its value for money despite industry-wide price increases.

As we’ve already mentioned, it’s worth having a look at the page for yourself – the design-heavy experience draws on Squarespace’s talents to create something truly unique and special. In fact, we should add it to our list of parallax website examples since it’s such a brilliant use of the design technique!

And, as you travel – or scroll – through time on the page, there’s a running total of sites created with Squarespace that ticks up, and up, and up as you get closer to 2023 – from zero to three million and counting.

Happy 20th anniversary, Squarespace! We’re excited to see what the platform has in store in the years to come.

Written by:
Headshot of Emma Ryan
Emma is Lead Writer at Website Builder Guide, having first joined the team in 2022. She manages the website's topical content strategy to help website owners navigate the highs and lows of being online. Emma also specializes in following the development of leading website builders Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify, through hands-on testing and research. Her work and expertise have been featured in Startups.co.uk, Digiday, TechRound, Industry Today, and Digital Information World.

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