Build a Loyal Community With Squarespace’s New Subscription Features

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Blog paywall settings in Squarespace
I could edit the fee or subscription type to my Squarespace blog through the page settings. Source: Website Builder Guide
  • Squarespace’s new subscription features help businesses earn recurring revenue
  • Monetize content with paywalls, video subscriptions, and more

Squarespace is one of the best website builders to sell online courses or subscriptions in 2024. As of early April, Squarespace has introduced new subscription features so entrepreneurs and businesses can monetize their content. These include:

  • Blog paywalls
  • Video subscriptions
  • Content bundles

Paul Gubbay, Chief Product Officer at Squarespace, had this to say about the update:

“At Squarespace, we are building a versatile toolkit to make it effortless for the next generation of entrepreneurs and creators to get online, monetize their work and grow a business.”

Squarespace is a top choice for building a membership website, adding to a toolkit that already offers the ability to sell online courses, engage audiences through Email Campaigns, and take bookings through Acuity Scheduling.

These new features take things to the next level by helping businesses monetize their audiences – and, in a world exploding with video content, subscriptions, and loyal follower bases, it’s not surprising to see these improvements from Squarespace.

The subscription features are ideal for side hustles and growing businesses seeking passive income, especially if you have exclusive content to share, such as online video classes.

How Can I Monetize My Site’s Content?

Firstly, Squarespace now lets you block blog posts behind a paywall, meaning readers must subscribe to read your content. We recommend adding a blog to your website (if you haven’t already) to boost your expertise and authority within your niche, but you can transform your returning readers into paying subscribers at the click of a button.

Squarespace shares a preview of the blog post with visitors, but they’ll need to pay to unlock the full article.

The second new feature is video subscriptions, helping websites take recurring payments through an alternative media type. You can charge users for access to a single video or your entire video library.

This is useful for video creators who want to offer content like education classes, or even for entrepreneurs or influencers looking to reward loyal fans with exclusive website content.

The final new feature from Squarespace is the ability to bundle content into packages for customers to subscribe to. For example, you could set up membership tiers – the cheapest plan might grant access to an introductory blog and video package, while the most expensive tier could unlock an entire video course, consisting of over 20 videos.

Using Squarespace's Subscription Features

You’ll need the Squarespace Business, Commerce Basic, or Commerce Advanced plan to access these new features – the Business plan starts from $23 per month (billed annually).

However, if you’re on the cheaper Personal plan, you’re not entirely restricted. You can subscribe to the Digital Products Add-On plan (prices start from $9 per month) to unlock these tools, but this is an additional cost on top of your core website plan.

As Paul Gubbay says, Squarespace is “committed to lowering the barrier of entry for anyone looking to share their knowledge online” and these new features are certainly a step in the right direction.

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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