Square Online vs Instapage: guide for 2024

Final verdict

Square Online and Instapage both offer unique strengths tailored to different business needs.

Square Online (Overall Grade: 7.2/10)

is a comprehensive website builder ideal for businesses transitioning from brick-and-mortar to online sales. It excels in ecommerce functionalities, offering robust payment processing, POS capabilities, and seamless integration with Square’s suite of business tools. Square Online is particularly suited for retailers, restaurants, and service businesses looking for an all-in-one solution to manage their online presence and operations efficiently.
Instapage (Overall Grade: 6.6/10)

specializes in creating high-converting landing pages with a focus on personalization, optimization, and testing. It provides advanced tools for marketing automation, CRM, and analytics integrations, making it a top choice for businesses aiming to improve advertising conversion rates. Instapage’s user-friendly interface and extensive customization options make it ideal for marketers and small teams looking to execute effective marketing campaigns without needing technical expertise.

	Overall grade: 7.2	Overall grade: 6.6
Design functionalities & templates	7.4	8.0
Ease of use	8.4	8.5
Ecommerce	7.3	4.2
Website Editors	6.6	7.5
Product testing options	7.8	6.1
Price	7.5	7.0
Hosting quality	7.8	6.0
Website speed optimization	6.2	6.2
Plugins and integrations	7.6	6.8
Marketing features	7.4	7.7
Customer support	6.7	7.6
Security	8.5	8.4
AI capabilities	7.4	6.0
User Management	5.2	7.3

Best for ecommerce

7.3

4.2

Verdict

: Square Online is the superior choice for ecommerce, offering a comprehensive suite of tools for online store management, while Instapage excels in landing page optimization but lacks robust ecommerce features.

Square Online

: Designed to help businesses create professional, fully integrated online stores, Square Online is particularly strong for retailers, restaurants, and service businesses. It offers customizable templates, easy drag-and-drop tools, and direct integration with Square’s payment processing and business management tools. This makes it an attractive option for businesses looking to manage their online presence, sales, and operations efficiently within a single ecosystem. Square Online’s ecommerce features include product listing and inventory management, payment processing, POS features, and shipping and fulfillment options. Its score for ecommerce is 7.3.
Instapage

: While Instapage is excellent for creating high-converting landing pages, it lacks the comprehensive ecommerce features that Square Online offers. Instapage focuses on improving advertising conversion through personalization, optimization, and testing. It supports payment gateway integration through external systems like Stripe and offers advanced analytics, ad campaign management, and landing page optimization. However, it does not provide extensive ecommerce functionalities such as product page customization or POS capabilities. Its score for ecommerce is 4.2.

Best for informational & business websites

7.4

7.9

Verdict

: Instapage slightly edges out Square Online for informational business websites due to its advanced customization options and focus on landing page optimization.

Square Online

: Square Online is a robust platform designed for businesses transitioning from brick-and-mortar to online operations. It offers a range of customizable templates and easy drag-and-drop tools, making it suitable for retailers, restaurants, and service businesses. However, its primary focus on e-commerce may limit its flexibility for purely informational sites. Score: 7.4
Instapage

: Instapage excels in creating high-performing landing pages with its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and extensive customization options. It is designed to improve advertising conversion through personalization, optimization, and testing. This makes it an excellent choice for businesses looking to create informational websites that are also optimized for lead generation and customer engagement. Score: 7.9

Detailed comparison

7.4

8.0

🏆

Winner: Instapage.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more advanced customization and a wide array of design features, Instapage is the preferred choice.

Square Online offers a flexible website builder with a focus on e-commerce, providing a variety of design options through integration with platforms like Weebly. Users can customize their sites extensively, choosing from themes and preset styles to best represent their brand. While the exact number of templates available directly from Square is not specified, the integration with Weebly provides about a hundred themes, including 15 for online stores, emphasizing professional design and mobile responsiveness.

Square Online Themes

Instapage provides an extensive collection of 100+ design templates for website building, business-specific templates. These templates are tailored to support small teams and businesses in executing their marketing campaigns efficiently, including features for marketing automation, CRM, and analytics integrations.

Instapage Themes

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8.4

8.5

🏆 Winner: Instapage

. With a score of 8.5, Instapage slightly edges out Square Online, which scores 8.4. Instapage’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface and extensive customization options make it a top choice for users looking to create high-performing landing pages without needing technical expertise. Square Online also offers a user-friendly experience, particularly for small businesses and retailers, but Instapage’s focus on landing page optimization gives it a slight advantage in ease of use.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Square Online

. Both platforms provide comprehensive learning resources, but Square Online’s extensive documentation, user-generated content, and active community forums offer a more robust support system for users. Instapage also provides a wide range of educational materials, but its smaller community presence is a limiting factor.

Learn more about Square Online’s resources

Learn more about Instapage’s resources

7.3

4.2

Square Online is designed to help businesses create professional, fully integrated online stores, making it a strong contender for retailers, restaurants, and service businesses. Instapage, while excellent for creating high-converting landing pages, lacks the comprehensive ecommerce features that Square Online offers.


Ecommerce themes and templates	6.8	0.0
Product page customization	7.6	0.0
Payment processing and commissions	7.9	5.0
POS capabilities	9.0	0.0
Payment gateways	7.5	6.0
Product numbers	7.0	0.0
Additional ecommerce features	7.2	4.0

Square Online ecommerce features:

Product Listing and Inventory management
Payment Processing and POS features
Shipping and Fulfillment
Marketing features

Instapage ecommerce features:

Shopify integration
Payment gateways such as Stripe and Paypal

Ecommerce themes & templates

Square Online offers a range of eCommerce templates designed to meet various business needs, enabling users to customize their sites to match their brand identity. It includes dynamic styling tools, personalized user experiences, and integrated payment solutions, including Square’s own payment gateway. While the platform emphasizes ease of use with drag-and-drop tools and pre-designed templates, it may offer limited design flexibility and payment processing options compared to other platforms. Overall, it’s well-suited for small to medium-sized businesses looking for an integrated solution with Square’s ecosystem.

Instapage does not have ecommerce-specific templates, focusing instead on landing pages designed to improve advertising conversion through personalization, optimization, and testing.

Product page customization

Square Online allows for extensive product page customization with up to 250 variations per item through “Selectable Options” and additional customization through “Item Modifiers.” These features enable a wide range of customizable options for your products, enhancing the shopping experience for your customers.

Instapage does not have product page customization capabilities, as it is primarily focused on creating landing pages rather than full-fledged ecommerce sites.

Payment processing

Square Online supports a variety of payment options including Square Pay, Apple Pay, Cash App Pay, Google Pay, and Afterpay, catering to diverse customer payment preferences. The platform charges a transaction fee of

2.9% + 30¢

per online transaction for its free plan, with a discounted fee available on the Premium plan. Additionally, Square offers comprehensive POS capabilities, with a range of hardware solutions that seamlessly integrate with its online store and point of sale systems, ensuring a unified management system for both online and in-person sales.

Instapage supports payment gateway integration, notably through external systems and third-party services like Commence Payments for Stripe, facilitating various payment options such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and card payments. The platform itself does not directly charge commissions for transactions, but payment gateways may have their own fees. While Instapage specializes in creating high-converting landing pages with a focus on online marketing, it does not explicitly offer Point of Sale (POS) capabilities, suggesting a primary use case away from direct sales or retail transactions.

6.6

7.5

🏆

Winner: Instapage

. Instapage, with a score of 7.5, is a comprehensive landing page platform designed to improve advertising conversion through personalization, optimization, and testing. It offers a range of tools for creating, testing, and optimizing landing pages with a focus on increasing sales, leads, and customer satisfaction. The platform boasts features such as AI content generation, targeted messaging through personalized landing pages, data-backed insights for optimization, and seamless ad-to-landing-page experiences. Instapage is recognized for its ease of use, allowing for the creation of high-performing landing pages without the need for a developer, and it facilitates team collaboration with its intuitive, cloud-based features.

Square Online’s editor, scoring 6.6, is designed for businesses looking to establish an online presence with ease, focusing on e-commerce functionality. It offers limited customization options, aiming to simplify the design process, yet includes essential e-commerce and marketing tools suitable for a variety of business needs. The platform supports an unlimited number of products and integrates with Square’s payment processing, albeit with limited external payment options. While Square Online is user-friendly and efficient for quickly setting up a website, it may not cater to those seeking extensive design flexibility or advanced e-commerce features.

Mobile editor/app

5.5

🏆

Winner: Square Online

. Both Square Online and Instapage lack dedicated mobile editor apps, but Square Online allows users to manage and edit their websites through a mobile browser. This feature, although limited, provides some level of flexibility for on-the-go adjustments.

Instapage, however, does not offer any mobile editor capabilities, which can be a significant drawback for users who need to make quick changes to their landing pages from a mobile device.

In summary, Square Online scores higher due to its limited but existing mobile browser editing capabilities, whereas Instapage does not provide any mobile editing options.

7.8

6.1

Overall Result

:

Square Online wins

. Square Online scores 7.8, offering a more flexible and extensive product testing experience compared to Instapage, which scores 6.1. Square Online provides a 30-day free trial with access to premium features, although billing information is required. Instapage offers a shorter 14-day free trial, also requiring payment information, but includes a 24-hour money-back guarantee.


Free Plan	Yes	No
Trial Duration	30 days	14 days
Testing Premium Features	During the 30-day free trial	During the free trial
Money-back Guarantee	No	24-hour money-back guarantee

7.5

7.0

Square Online offers a more budget-friendly entry point with a free plan, while Instapage focuses on premium features with higher pricing tiers.

	Offerings	Offerings
Free	Free ($0/month): For businesses who want to start selling online fast. Online payments with 2.9% + 30¢, basic-site layouts and design controls, tax calculation, unlimited items, SEO tools, blog feature, Facebook ads.	No offering at this amount
$20-$30	Plus ($29/month): For businesses looking to drive online growth and streamline operations. Includes all the features of the free plan, plus, free custom domain for a year, professional branding, custom embed code, manage multiple sites, pre-orders, abandoned cart recovery, free shipping and delivery progress bar, product reviews, discounts, website statistics. Value for Price: 7.5	No offering at this amount
$200+	No offering at this amount	BUILD ($299/month): Optimize conversions with experimentation and lead generation. Includes #1 Landing page builder, No Conversion Limits, Server-Side A/B Testing, AI Content, Unlimited Triggered Popups, Thor Render Engine, Dynamic Text Replacement, SSL Encryption, GDPR Compliance, Google SSO, Zapier, HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo Integration, Multi-Step Forms, Invisible reCAPTCHA, and more. Value for Price: 7.5

In some cases companies have different prices based on various components like a
location. As a result in rare cases the prices displayed here can differ from the ones you see on their
websites.

7.8

6.0

🏆

Winner: Square Online

Square Online offers unlimited bandwidth and a slightly higher uptime of 99.96%, making it a more reliable choice for businesses transitioning to online sales. Instapage, while providing cloud hosting and a 99.9% uptime guarantee, falls short in comparison. Square Online’s seamless integration with its suite of business tools further enhances its appeal.


Do they offer hosting?	Yes, with unlimited bandwidth	Yes
Data Centers:	Not disclosed	Not disclosed
Type of hosting:	Not specified	Cloud Hosting
Uptime:	99.96%	99.9%
Uptime Guarantee:	No	Yes, 99.9%

6.2

🏆 Winner: Tie

. Both Square Online and Instapage have a website speed optimization score of 6.2, indicating that they offer similar performance levels in this area.


Focus	Lazy Loading, Code Minification, Caching, Image optimization	Responsive design, Image optimization, Caching
Performance Tools	<`p_marketplace_page_item_a`>	<`p_marketplace_page_item_b`>
Key Strategies	Lazy Loading, Code Minification, Caching, Image optimization	Responsive design, Image optimization, Caching
Load Times	Varies depending on optimization and website complexity	Varies depending on optimization
Page Speed Scores Range	Varies depending on optimization and website complexity	Varies depending on optimization
Core Web Vitals Improvement	No information provided	No information provided

Square Online focuses on strategies such as lazy loading, code minification, caching, and image optimization to enhance website speed. These techniques help in reducing load times and improving overall performance, although specific data on load times and PageSpeed scores are not provided.

Instapage, on the other hand, emphasizes responsive design, image optimization, and caching as its primary strategies for speed optimization. Similar to Square Online, Instapage does not provide specific data on load times and PageSpeed scores, but these strategies are aimed at ensuring fast and efficient landing pages.

Both platforms have room for improvement in terms of providing detailed performance metrics and Core Web Vitals improvements, but they offer a solid foundation for website speed optimization.

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7.6

6.8

🏆 Winner: Square Online.

Square Online scores 7.6, offering a wide array of app integrations that cater to various business needs, from eCommerce and accounting to marketing and employee management. This makes it a versatile choice for businesses looking to enhance their online operations comprehensively. Instapage, with a score of 6.8, provides robust integrations focused on improving marketing funnels and conversion rates, but its range is narrower compared to Square Online.

It is worth noting that Instapage includes the cost of integrations in their pricing plans, which can be a cost-effective solution for users looking for seamless marketing tool connections.

Square Online Applications

Square Online apps marketplace

Instapage Applications

Instapage integrations

7.4

7.7

🏆

Overall Winner: Instapage

. Instapage excels in advanced analytics, ad campaign management, and landing page optimization, making it ideal for businesses focused on conversion rates. Square Online offers a more comprehensive suite for general online store management, including blogging and social media integrations.


SEO Tools	✓	✓
Email Marketing	✓	✓
Blogging	✓	✗
Social Media Integration	Yes	Yes
Analytics and Reporting	Comprehensive suite of analytics and reporting tools	Advanced analytics, A/B testing, heatmaps
Ads and Promotions	Comprehensive suite of tools for creating and managing ads	Targeted tools for enhancing ads and promotions

6.7

7.6

🏆 Winner: Instapage

. When comparing Square Online vs Instapage, Instapage takes the lead in customer support with a score of 7.6. Instapage offers live chat support available 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday, along with email and toll-free phone support during regular business hours. This ensures users have access to assistance throughout the week, making it easier to resolve issues promptly. Additionally, Instapage provides personalized support for enterprise users through Success Managers and Launch Specialists, enhancing the overall support experience.

Square Online, with a customer support score of 6.7, provides support through phone, live chat, and email, available from 6 AM to 6 PM Pacific Time on weekdays. Premium plan users benefit from 24/7 phone support in English and weekend support hours. While Square Online offers a range of support options, its availability is more limited compared to Instapage, which may impact the speed and convenience of getting help.

8.5

8.4

🏆

Winner: Square Online

. Square Online excels in providing robust security measures essential for ecommerce platforms. With free SSL certificates for all sites, it ensures encrypted data transfer, which is crucial for protecting personal and financial information. Square Online’s adherence to GDPR further enhances its commitment to user data privacy and security.

Instapage also offers strong security features, including SOC 2 Type I and II compliance, and a comprehensive Information Security Program based on ISO 27001/2 and NIST 800-53 frameworks. These measures ensure a high level of security for landing pages, making it a reliable choice for users focused on advertising conversion and data protection. However, Square Online’s focus on ecommerce security gives it a slight edge in this comparison.

7.4

6.0


Personalized Design
SEO Optimization
Customer Behavior Analysis
Sales Predictions
Inventory Management
Content Generation	AI-generated photo environments, personalized email copy, website content, and menu generation	AI Content Generator for landing pages, headlines, page texts, and CTA buttons
Additional AI Features	Team Announcements, Auto-imported Services, Kitchen Categories	AI Experiments for dynamic traffic allocation to landing pages

🏆 Winner: Square Online

. Square Online, with a score of 7.4, offers a broader range of AI capabilities that enhance both ecommerce and operational efficiency. Its AI features include personalized product recommendations, generative content tools, and productivity enhancements like Team Announcements and Auto-imported Services.

Instapage, scoring 6.0, focuses primarily on AI-driven content generation and optimization for landing pages. Its AI Content Generator and AI Experiments are valuable for marketers looking to streamline content creation and improve conversion rates through dynamic testing.

5.2

7.3

🏆 Winner: Instapage

. Managing your online team with Square Online and Instapage involves different approaches to website editing access.

Square Online allows multiple staff accounts, but the platform does not specify the number of accounts supported.
Instapage offers a more structured user management system with defined roles: Viewer, Editor, and Manager. The number of users you can invite depends on your subscription limits. However, only one user can edit a page at a time to prevent overwrite issues.

Both platforms support simultaneous editing to some extent, but Instapage’s role-based access provides more clarity and control over user permissions.

Instapage User Roles and Access Levels:

Role	Description	Access Highlights
Administrator	Oversees the entire Instapage account, managing users, settings, and billing information.	Full access to all features, including user management, settings, billing, and page creation and editing.
Editor	Works on creating and editing landing pages, responsible for the design and content.	Can create and edit pages, manage integrations, and view analytics, but cannot change account settings or manage users.
Viewer	Has view-only access to the landing pages, typically for review or analytics purposes.	Can view pages and analytics but cannot make any edits or access account settings.

Additional Features


SSL Certificate	✓	✓
Custom Domain	✓	✓
Free Custom Domain Included	✓	X
International Domains	✓	✓
Mobile Responsive	✓	✓
Page Speed	✓	✓
Website Builder Mobile App	X	X
Convert a Website To An App	X	X
Website Analytics	✓	✓
Multilingual Sites	✓	✓
Multiple Users	✓	✓

User Feedback

Square Online

16 reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars

Instapage

488 reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars

Users appreciate Square Online Store for its ease of setup, no initial payment requirement for registration, and dependable payment processing. The platform is lauded for its simple user interface, which allows for quick product sales and efficient inventory management. However, some users express dissatisfaction with the limited design customization options and the simplicity of the store layouts, noting that they do not match the design quality of competitors like Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify. Additionally, limitations in scheduled order processing and a desire for more advanced features and better support for custom HTML and SEO were highlighted.

Users generally appreciate Instapage for its user-friendly interface, robust customer support, and seamless integration capabilities, highlighting its effectiveness in creating high-quality, high-converting landing pages optimized for lead capture. Positive feedback emphasizes the platform’s ease of use, allowing both experienced marketers and newcomers to quickly design and deploy landing pages, along with its broad range of integrations with other marketing tools and CRM systems. However, some users encounter challenges with mobile responsiveness, custom domain settings, and occasional bugs.

The making of this blog

We followed a clear, step-by-step process to write and research this article.

Our Ranking Criteria

FAQ

Which platform is better for creating an online store, Square Online or Instapage?

Square Online is better suited for creating an online store due to its comprehensive ecommerce tools and integration with Square’s payment systems. Instapage, while excellent for landing pages, lacks the necessary features for full-fledged online store management.

Can I use both Square Online and Instapage for high-converting landing pages?

Yes, both platforms can be used to create landing pages, but Instapage specializes in high-converting landing pages with advanced optimization and personalization features, making it more suitable for targeted marketing campaigns.

How do Square Online and Instapage compare in terms of ease of use?

Both platforms are user-friendly, but Instapage has a slight edge with a higher ease of use score. It offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that simplifies the creation of landing pages without needing technical skills.

What are the main differences in pricing between Square Online and Instapage?

Square Online offers a more budget-friendly option with a free plan suitable for small businesses starting online. Instapage, on the other hand, focuses on premium features with higher pricing tiers, catering to businesses that prioritize advanced landing page capabilities and conversion optimization.