For a design studio, the website is the portfolio, and the platform underneath it is a decision made once and lived with for years. Most of what an owner finds when searching Webflow vs Squarespace is written by affiliates with a commission on the answer, not by practitioners who build and maintain sites on both. The comparison that follows is grounded in daily client work, and it turns on four criteria: SEO capability, design control, ease of self-management, and cost.
Both platforms can rank. Squarespace wins on simplicity for a studio managing its own site; Webflow wins on structural control and design freedom when someone builds it properly, at entry prices that are now nearly identical. The platform is rarely the reason a site underperforms. What is published on it, and how consistently, matters far more.
Webflow vs Squarespace at a Glance
The widest gap is scaling: Webflow's CMS, roles and template propagation pull ahead as a portfolio grows. The closest thing to a tie is upfront cost for a basic site. And Google Search Central's guidance is deliberately platform-agnostic: no builder gets preferential treatment, which frames everything that follows.
Is Squarespace Good for SEO?
Yes, and for most studio sites, sufficiently so. Squarespace covers the essentials: editable titles and meta descriptions, clean URLs, automatic sitemaps, all documented in the official Squarespace SEO documentation. A studio site on Squarespace can rank for the searches that matter, the same searches covered in the studio's guide to SEO for interior designers.
The squarespace pros and cons only show up in practice. Since version 7.1, a page-level indexing toggle sits deep in the settings, and pages go unindexed when an owner does not know to switch it on. Schema markup is the second catch: for blog articles it has to be added through a code block on each individual page, which drifts into inconsistency as articles accumulate, and the auto-generated business schema is often left incomplete in the settings, producing markup that alarms owners during audits. None of this is fatal. Across the studio's client work, structural fixes of exactly this kind have been made inside Squarespace without migrating anywhere.
The ideal use case is clear: a studio that has just launched, has one or two projects to show, and wants a site it can manage alone without technical confidence. For that profile, Squarespace is the closest thing to the best website builder for interior designers intending to self-manage from day one.
Is Webflow Good for SEO?
A disclosure before the deep dive: Krueger Design builds client sites in Webflow, so the recommendation that follows carries a bias. It is an informed one, though. My SEO work also runs daily inside client sites built by other studios on Squarespace and WordPress, so this comparison comes from working in all three platforms, not from selling one.
The case, then. Webflow's answer to the same SEO questions is structural. Schema markup is configured once in a CMS template using dynamic fields, so every project and article page inherits it consistently, and the same template logic means one design change propagates across the whole collection. Alt-text checks run automatically at publish, and the official Webflow SEO documentation covers settings that sit where they claim to sit. Role-based access is the quieter advantage: a designer, a marketeer and an SEO consultant can each work in the site without being able to break the layout.
That last point carries real money in it. On the WordPress and Squarespace sites the studio works in, a theme change or a CSS fix usually means calling a developer, and that cost lands with the business owner. In Webflow, anyone who knows the platform can go in and work without fear of breaking anything or waiting on someone else's schedule.
The webflow pros and cons have an honest other side. The interface intimidates non-technical owners and the learning curve is real: an owner who did not build the site will likely need an occasional service agreement for design changes rather than making them solo. And a freelancer who needs a landing page live by Monday should not choose Webflow; the time investment to learn it is not practical for a weekend build.
Choose Squarespace If… Choose Webflow If…
Choose Squarespace if:
- The studio has just launched, has one or two projects, and needs a presentable site quickly
- The owner will manage the site alone, publish infrequently, and no technical help is coming
- Simplicity matters more than headroom: a well-kept one-pager showcases work and contact details perfectly well
Choose Webflow if:
- The portfolio is established, with a backlog of projects and articles a CMS should be organising
- Marketeers or SEO consultants will work in the site, and role-based access matters
- A designer can be afforded to build it properly, even for a simple one-pager
One warning that applies to both platforms: never decide on a discounted first-year price. Studios regularly choose on the introductory rate, then meet the renewal price or discover the plan cannot carry their needs.
A note on WordPress, since many studios arrive with one: an existing WordPress site does not need migrating for SEO reasons. On a recent WordPress engagement, visibility improved with the platform unchanged: indexing enabled properly, heading hierarchy corrected, thin pages given real text, schema markup added through a plugin. The problem was never the platform. The same holds for studios asking how to get interior design clients through search: the answer starts with what is published, not what it is published on.
When a Squarespace to Webflow Migration Makes Sense
A squarespace to webflow migration is warranted only when an audit finds the structure itself is the blocker: a backlog of projects the platform cannot organise, collaborators who need safe access, growth the CMS cannot carry. Rankings alone are never the trigger. The rebuild is more transfer than redesign: existing designs are copied into Figma and rebuilt in Webflow, content moves into the CMS, and the URL migration is handled so ranking signals survive the move. Scope depends on page count, animation complexity and whether the site structure needs reorganising. At Krueger Design, that rebuild lives within product design and is scoped alongside the SEO engagement, never sold as a standalone SEO fix.
Webflow vs Squarespace: Which Should You Choose?
For a studio that has just launched and will manage its own site, Squarespace: a well-kept one-pager does the job. For an established studio scaling its portfolio and bringing in help, Webflow, and the gap widens with every project added. Entry pricing is now close enough that a new studio able to afford a designer for a simple Webflow build gets a better starting point. Pushed for one word, the studio's own answer is Webflow from day one, and that is precisely the bias disclosed above; weigh it accordingly.
Across the client sites I have audited, the platform was rarely why rankings stalled. Owners start strong, then maintenance eats too much time and publishing slows. That pattern decides far more than the webflow vs squarespace question ever does. The view comes from practice: at Krueger Design, Manuel Krueger holds a UX certification and has trained in SEO with one of Europe's leading marketing companies, applied in hands-on work for independent design studios, building in Webflow, fixing structure inside Squarespace where migration is unnecessary, and auditing what actually holds a portfolio back.
The platform question usually turns out to be the wrong first question; whether yours is the exception is exactly what an audit answers. If you want to know how your website really performs, book a free 30-minute discovery call.
