Yola vs Square Online: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Yola and Square Online cater to different niches within the website builder market, each with its unique strengths.

• 
  Yola (Overall Grade: 6.5/10)
  
  is a user-friendly platform that excels in providing a straightforward website building experience. It is particularly suited for individuals and small businesses looking to establish a professional online presence without delving into complex functionalities. Yola’s strengths lie in its ease of use, responsive design capabilities, and solid customer support. However, it falls short in more advanced areas such as ecommerce features, website speed optimization, and AI capabilities.
• 
  Square Online (Overall Grade: 7.2/10)
  
  stands out for its comprehensive ecommerce solutions, seamless integration with Square’s payment processing, and a variety of marketing tools. It is the go-to choice for retailers, restaurants, and service businesses aiming for a smooth transition to online sales. Square Online offers superior ecommerce features, better hosting quality, and innovative AI capabilities, making it a robust platform for businesses focused on growth and scalability.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Square Online surpasses Yola with a more robust set of ecommerce features and a higher score, making it the preferred choice for businesses looking to expand online.

• 
  Yola
  
  : Offers basic ecommerce capabilities suitable for small businesses or individuals starting out. While it provides essential tools for online selling, it lacks the scalability and advanced features needed for larger operations.
• 
  Square Online
  
  : Designed with a focus on ecommerce, Square Online provides a comprehensive suite of tools for businesses of all sizes. Its integration with Square’s payment processing and advanced POS capabilities make it a standout choice for retailers, restaurants, and service businesses aiming for a seamless online and in-store experience.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: With identical scores for informational and business websites, the choice between Yola and Square Online comes down to specific user needs and preferences. Both platforms offer robust features tailored to creating professional websites, but their focus areas differ slightly, which could influence the decision for users.

• 
  Yola
  
  : Yola shines with its user-friendly interface and a variety of responsive templates, making it a solid choice for individuals and small businesses looking to create professional-looking websites without needing advanced technical skills. Its focus on simplicity and ease of use, combined with effective SEO tools and e-commerce capabilities, positions Yola as a versatile option for informational websites.
• 
  Square Online
  
  : Square Online, while equally capable for informational sites, leans more towards businesses looking to integrate online sales seamlessly with their informational content. Its direct integration with Square’s payment processing and business management tools, alongside customizable templates and easy drag-and-drop tools, make it particularly appealing for retailers, restaurants, and service businesses aiming for a comprehensive online presence.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: Square Online.

Although both platforms offer a range of templates and design functionalities, Square Online slightly edges out Yola with a score of 7.4 compared to Yola’s 7.2.

Yola offers a diverse range of templates and designs, catering to various types of websites, from personal blogs to professional business sites. Users can choose from a wide selection of themes, each customizable to fit their specific needs and preferences.

Yola Themes

On the other hand, 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.

Square Online Themes

🏆 Winner: Square Online

. With a score of 8.4, Square Online edges out Yola, which scored 8.0. Square Online’s user-friendly interface and comprehensive set of tools for ecommerce make it a great choice for businesses looking to expand online. Yola, on the other hand, is designed with simplicity in mind, making it accessible for users of all skill levels to create and manage their websites.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Yola

. Both platforms offer solid learning resources, but Yola goes a step further with its wide array of tutorials, guides, and video tutorials. These resources are designed to be clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date, ensuring users have access to the latest information and best practices.

When it comes to ecommerce, Square Online outperforms Yola with a score of 7.3 against Yola’s 5.7. Square Online is designed to provide a seamless transition from brick-and-mortar operations to online sales, making it particularly suitable for retailers, restaurants, and service businesses. On the other hand, Yola, while offering ecommerce capabilities, may be limited by the lack of tiered options for scalability and a conventional CMS dashboard.

Yola ecommerce features:

• Shipping and Tax configurations
• Product Catalog Management
• Ability to checkout as guest
• Analytics and reporting
• Promotions features

Square Online ecommerce features:

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

Ecommerce themes & templates

Yola offers a range of templates for building websites, including those suitable for ecommerce. However, the variety and design quality may not match those provided by other leading website builders. The templates are customizable, especially for users on higher-tier plans (Silver or Gold), which allow for deeper customization, including CSS editing.

Square Online, on the other hand, 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.

Product page customization

Yola’s ecommerce platform offers a variety of customization options for your product pages, including the ability to manage product options and combinations. This feature is especially useful for selling items that come in different sizes, colors, or models, allowing customers to select their preferences directly from the product page.

In Square Online, you can add up to 250 variations per item, like different sizes or versions, through “Selectable Options” in the item details section of your online store. Additionally, “Item Modifiers” allow for further customization by letting customers choose options or input custom text, such as engraving names on jewelry, without affecting inventory levels.

Payment processing

Yola supports various payment gateways for online store transactions, such as PayPal, Sage Payments, and American Express, allowing users to choose based on their specific needs, including geographical availability and fee structure.

Square’s website builder 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.

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Winner: Yola

. Yola, with a score of 6.7, offers a user-friendly website builder designed for individuals and small businesses. It provides a drag-and-drop interface, making it easy for users to add and customize elements on their web pages. Yola also supports responsive design, ensuring websites look great on both desktop and mobile devices.

Square Online’s website builder, 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.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: Square Online

. Both Yola and Square Online do not have a dedicated mobile editor app. However, they allow users to make some changes using a mobile browser. This can be convenient for users who need to make quick updates or check their website on the go.

Yola, with a mobile editor score of 4.5, allows for some small changes to be made using a mobile browser. However, it does not offer a dedicated mobile app for editing, which may limit its usability for users who prefer to manage their website from a mobile device.

On the other hand, Square Online, with a mobile editor score of 5.5, also allows users to manage and edit a website using a mobile browser. However, it comes with certain limitations. Despite these limitations, Square Online scores slightly higher than Yola in terms of mobile editing capabilities, making it the winner in this category.

Overall Result

:

Square Online wins

. Square Online scores slightly higher than Yola with a score of 7.8 compared to Yola’s 7.5. Both platforms offer a free version, but Square Online provides a 30-day free trial, allowing users to test premium features. Yola, on the other hand, does not offer a trial version, but premium features can be tested during the 30-day refundable period.

Yola offers a range of plans for both websites and online stores, with discounts for annual billing. Square Online, on the other hand, offers a free plan and two paid plans, with the Premium plan being tailored for larger businesses.

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Winner: Square Online

Despite not disclosing the type of hosting it provides or the locations of its data centers, Square Online edges out Yola with a slightly higher uptime of 99.96%. Yola, however, offers managed cloud hosting and has data centers in the US and EU. Both platforms offer hosting with their plans, but Square Online provides unlimited bandwidth, making it a more attractive option for businesses with high traffic.

🏆 Winner: Yola

Both Yola and Square Online have implemented various strategies for speed optimization, but Yola takes the lead due to its emphasis on Core Web Vital improvements and a higher website speed optimization score.

Yola, a user-friendly website builder, has implemented various strategies for speed optimization, including CDN, caching, code minification, server response time improvements, and image optimization. They also place a strong emphasis on improving Core Web Vitals, specifically LCP, FID, and CLS. However, both load times and PageSpeed scores can vary widely, depending on the level of optimization and website complexity.

On the other hand, Square Online, a comprehensive website builder, also employs several strategies for speed optimization, such as lazy loading, code minification, caching, and image optimization. However, they do not provide any information on their Core Web Vitals improvements. Similar to Yola, their load times and PageSpeed scores can vary depending on the level of optimization and website complexity.

🏆 Winner: Square Online.

With a score of 7.6, Square Online outperforms Yola, which scores 6.3. Square Online offers a wide array of app integrations to facilitate various aspects of business operations, including eCommerce, accounting, marketing, and employee management. These integrations span from free options to premium services, allowing businesses to tailor their Square setup to their specific needs, enhancing functionality while managing costs according to their budget.

On the other hand, Yola supports a variety of functionalities through plugins and apps, including social media integration, e-commerce tools, marketing and SEO enhancements, customer engagement features, and various utility widgets to improve user experience and compliance. However, the overall score and the range of functionalities offered by Square Online give it the edge in this comparison.

Yola Applications

Square Online Applications

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Overall Winner: Square Online

. Square Online offers a more comprehensive and integrated set of marketing features, particularly in email marketing, social media integrations, and analytics and reporting. Yola also offers a range of marketing tools, but they are more basic and less integrated compared to Square Online.

🏆 Winner: Square Online

. With a customer support score of 6.7, Square Online slightly outperforms Yola, which has a score of 6.3. Square Online provides customer support through phone, live chat, and email, with availability ranging from 6 AM to 6 PM Pacific Time on weekdays for general inquiries. Additionally, the customer success team is accessible for account issues Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 9 PM EST. Premium plan users benefit from 24/7 phone support in English, alongside weekend support hours from 8 AM to 5 PM PST.

On the other hand, Yola offers 24/7 email support to all users, with priority support for Bronze, Silver, and Gold customers promising responses in under 24 hours. Paid plan subscribers receive premium support with prioritized requests. Additionally, Yola provides a call-you-back service for personalized assistance and supports inquiries via social media channels. However, Yola does not have an enterprise level support, as they don’t have an enterprise plan.

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Winner: Square Online

. Both Yola and Square Online prioritize user privacy and data security, but Square Online edges out with a slightly higher security score of 8.5 compared to Yola’s 8.3.

Yola implements robust security measures including SSL encryption, DDoS mitigation, firewalls, and regular software updates to safeguard users’ websites. They also prioritize the security of users’ private data through encryption, access controls, and compliance with data protection regulations.

On the other hand, Square Online provides free SSL security for every site, ensuring that personal and financial information remains confidential and protected. They also prioritize user privacy and data security through encryption, adherence to industry standards, and constant security monitoring.

While both platforms are committed to providing a secure environment for their users, Square Online’s slightly higher security score and comprehensive security measures make it the winner in this category.

🏆 Winner: Square Online

. Square Online, with a score of 7.4, utilizes AI to enhance the ecommerce experience, streamline content generation, and improve operational efficiency. Its AI features focus on personalized product recommendations, AI-generated content, and automated processes for improved workflow.

Yola, unfortunately, does not have any AI capabilities. This lack of AI features may limit the platform’s ability to provide personalized experiences and automate processes, which are increasingly important in today’s digital landscape.

🏆 Winner: Yola

. Both Yola and Square Online offer multi-user editing capabilities, but Yola provides a more detailed and flexible approach.

• Yola supports multi-user editing capabilities, allowing different levels of access and control based on the plan chosen. The primary account holder, often referred to as the Owner or Administrator, possesses comprehensive control over the website, including the ability to edit content, manage settings, and extend invitations to collaborators for website modification. Collaborators or Editors, invited by the account holder, can edit the website to varying degrees, which might range from content editing to page management, depending on the permissions granted by Yola’s platform. The number of users permitted to edit a website and the scope of their roles and permissions may vary, typically increasing with higher-tier subscription plans.
• Square Online allows multiple staff accounts, however the platform does not specify how many accounts are supported.

Additional Features

User Feedback

Yola has received mostly positive reviews, with users appreciating its professional templates, ease of use, affordability, and customer service. It is considered ideal for website creation, especially for those without specialized knowledge. However, some users have expressed dissatisfaction with aspects such as data security, customization limitations, and lack of certain features like chat support.

On the other hand, users appreciate Square Online 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 have expressed dissatisfaction with the limited design customization options and the simplicity of the store layouts. Additionally, limitations in scheduled order processing and a desire for more advanced features and better support for custom HTML and SEO were highlighted.

FAQ