Flodesk vs Squarespace: Which email marketing platform is right for you?

Whether you're an artist, maker, creative business owner or service-based practitioner, the good news is that you don't need all the bells and whistles to get started with your newsletter writing. In this guide, I’ll be talking about two email marketing platforms that I love for their ease of use, design-features, and reliability - Flodesk and SquareSpace Email Campaigns.

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If your website is built on Squarespace, you might be wondering whether you actually need a separate email marketing platform.

After all, Squarespace has its own email marketing tool, Squarespace Email Campaigns, built right into your website.

So why would you add another platform like Flodesk?

It's a very reasonable question.

For a small creative business, the thought of having another login, another monthly subscription and another system to learn can feel like unnecessary complexity.

But Flodesk and Squarespace Email Campaigns are designed with different priorities in mind. And the right choice depends less on which platform is "better" and more on how you want to use email in your business.

In this guide, I'm comparing Flodesk and Squarespace Email Campaigns, including design, pricing, newsletter layouts, automations, signup forms, integrations and ease of use, so you can decide which one makes sense for your business.

Flodesk vs Squarespace: the quick answer

Here's the short version.

Squarespace Email Campaigns is a good choice if you want your website and email marketing to live together, you send quite simple newsletters and systems, and you value having fewer tools to manage.

Flodesk* is a better fit if your newsletter is an important part of your marketing, you care a lot about the visual design of your emails, or you want more flexibility around email forms, segmentation and automated workflows.

Neither option requires you to be particularly technical, nor to spend hours formatting or writing your newsletters - which really is the most important part of all of this!

You can use Flodesk with a Squarespace website. You don't have to choose between having a Squarespace website and using Flodesk for your email marketing. Flodesk now has a direct Squarespace integration for syncing subscribers and customers.

Very short - I personally prefer and use Flodesk*, and have set up many client accounts using this platform. But I’ve also set up and created accounts for clients in Squarespace, and they love using them.

Email features

• Features

  • Flodesk

  • Squarespace

• Best known for

  • Beautiful, visual email design, and continually adding new features

  • Simplicity and Squarespace integration

• Design

  • Flodesk is built by designers for designers. The back end, templates, automations and layout are design-focused for ease-of-use, as well as beautiful emails to land in your audience’s inboxes.

  • Templates and designs are easier than some platforms, but do feel a little clunky to use. There aren’t as many layout options and extra features as Flodesk, but once you’ve set it up the way you want you can replicate the design each time.

• Sign-up forms

  • With beautiful templates, or build your own possibility, you can create stand-along pages with a sign-up form (perfect for the link in bio), embedded forms (you grab the code and add to your website), and pop-up forms to add to your website.

  • Already embedded into your website, so easy to build simple opt-in forms or pop-ups. Stand alone pages for sign-up forms are built slightly differently than Flodesk, as you need to create a new page inside your Squarespace website and add the form into that design layout (not difficult, just a different process).

• Ease of use

  • The learning curve for Flodesk is very small. It’s quite intuitive and has a great back-end layout making it easy to follow the process. Templates for various email sends are a great starting point. Flodesk has an excellent Facebook community and very responsive customer service team.

  • It takes a little longer but if you’re comfortable with Squarespace web layout then you will pick it up easily. The online community will help you out, but isn’t an ideal place to go for general set-up guidance. There are great tutorials on the Squarespace blog.

• Connections & Integrations

  • Flodesk integrates one-click with Squarespace to embed forms or pop-ups, but doesn’t connect with Squarespace Scheduling / Acuity, or work for post-purchase automation. There are also easy connections using Zapier or Pabbly, which allows a set-up between most tools and tech you’ll need. There are one-click integrations with Teachable, Thrivecart, Shopify, Wix, Canva, and many more.

  • Squarespace Email Campaigns only connects to your Squarespace website, and has not Zapier integrations.

• Automations

  • 1 automation on the ‘Lite’ plan and unlimited on the ‘Pro’ plan. Easy to set up with multiple workflow variations, connections to segments, and complex conditions and steps.

  • Unlimited automations, but the send quantity is determined by your plan. The automations are limited and quite clunky to set up, with no complex set-up or conditional steps. There are great possibilities for follow-up purchases and orders, if you’re using Squarespace for commerce.

• Analytics

  • In depth analytics that are easy to read and action on. Filtering allows you to search subscribers based on email behaviour such as open or click rate, when they last opened, engagement and more. As well as seeing where a subscriber first joined your list - ie, what opt-in form did they arrive and what date.

  • Quite limited in the analytics, but if you have a simple system then this might be fine as really one of the most important analytics is ‘are your emails converting to sales’.

• Segmenting or Tagging

  • You can create multiple segments, with subscribers fitting within as many variables. Such as a main list, what courses or products they own, what content of yours they’re interested in, or what form they signed up via, and whatever segment or ‘folder’ you need them in. The segmented folders are easy to view and filter through

  • You create different email lists depending on where the subscriber falls in your business. Such as customers through your site, joined via X form, or signed up for a waitlist form. While there is an easy filter tool, it’s not as extensive as the possibilities in Flodesk

• Branding

  • Add your own colours, fonts and logo for branding. Upload images, or grab them direct from Canva. Create templates, saved sections, and layouts that fit your branding and design.

  • Pulls in the branding from your website, so no need to find your colour codes, fonts or logo.

• Set up

  • You need to verify your domain name and email address in order to have better deliverability. This can be a bit fiddly if it’s something new to you, but you only need to do it once (and there’s lots of help via the Flodesk website).

  • Automatically connected through your website connections

• Selling

  • Available on the ‘Everything’ plan that starts at $54US/ month. All the features of the ‘Pro’ plan but includes unlimited checkouts, sales pages, and funnels, including abandoned cart automations. Beautiful templates for sales pages and checkouts.

  • Through your existing Squarespace shop, which is a separate price to your Email Campaigns. But you can create automatic emails from customer purchases or abandoned cart.

Flodesk vs Squarespace pricing

This is an area where it's important to look at the pricing models rather than simply comparing the monthly subscription prices.

The two platforms approach pricing differently.

Flodesk pricing is based on the number of active subscribers. Paid plans include unlimited email sends. Whereas Squarespace Email Campaigns plan determines how many total emails you can send each month, rather than how many subscribers you have.

Flodesk:
Your list grows → your subscription price may increase.

Squarespace Email Campaigns:
Your sending volume increases → you may need a higher sending allowance. For example: If you have 100 subscribers you can send a total of 5 emails in one month, or 4 stand alone campaigns (‘Blasts’) and 1 automation. If you have 500 subscribers, you can only send 1 email blast a month and no automations, until you go up to the next pricing tier.

Neither pricing model is automatically better. They're simply different ways of paying for email marketing depending on your needs.

• Features

  • Flodesk

  • SquareSpace Email Campaigns

• Pricing based on a monthly plan. Is less when paid annually

  • Cheapest plan starts at $25US monthly for up to 1000 subscribers, with one automation. Or $28 for unlimited automations

  • Starts at $11AU / month for up to 500 email sends - this isn’t subscriber numbers but how many total emails you send in a month.

• Number Subscribers

  • 1000

  • Price based on emails sent each month, not subscriber qty

• Number email sends / month

  • Unlimited

  • 500 email sends total (automation and ‘blasts’)

• Automations

  • 1 automation on the ‘Lite’ plan, unlimited on the ‘Pro’ plan - unlimited sends

  • Unlimited automations - but number possible to send each month depends on your monthly plan (ie - 500 emails total able to be sent in a month)

Prices current at November 2026. Please check each individual website for accurate pricing based on your subscriber numbers and email sends. Flodesk pricing here, Squarespace pricing here.

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Flodesk or Squarespace for a small creative business - which one should you actually choose?

This is where I think the decision becomes much easier.

Imagine you're a ceramicist.

You have a Squarespace website, 250 subscribers and you send a newsletter once or twice a month.

Your emails might contain:

• what's happening in the studio

• new work

• upcoming markets

• a link to your latest blog post

If you don't need a complicated email marketing system. Squarespace Email Campaigns may be perfectly adequate.

Now imagine you're an artist with 1,500 subscribers.

You have a free downloadable guide, a welcome sequence (automation), regular newsletters, an online course and several different groups of customers.

You want your emails to look beautiful and you want different subscribers to receive different emails depending on what they're interested in.

At that point, a dedicated platform such as Flodesk may make more sense.

Again, this isn't because Squarespace suddenly becomes unusable.

Your email marketing simply has more moving parts.

“If you’re a little scared and not sure how to start or write to write, then I suggest using Squarespace to at the very least start collecting email addresses. You don’t need to do anything with them yet, but once you’re ready you can either set up Squarespace Email Campaigns and start sending, or (easily) import those email addresses into Flodesk and start from there. ”

If you're just starting your business, don't feel like you need to build a complicated email marketing system immediately.

At the end of the day, the best email marketing system is the one that makes it easier for you to consistently show up in your audience's inbox. The most important thing is to simply start building your email list today!

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Why I use Flodesk for my email marketing

I’ve been using Flodesk since 2019, and can’t see myself moving anywhere else. I’ve used other platforms for myself, and set them up for my clients (Kit and MailChimp), and have always found Flodesk to be more enjoyable to use.

The back end admin section makes it easy for me to read the analytics, and understand what’s going on with my audience. The build of each email or workflow means that I don’t have to stress or overthink every time I go in to write my weekly send.

Flodesk are always adding new features into their system to make it easier for us to use, as well as giving more robust tools, integrations, and systems. It’s a female founded start-up business that supports creatives in their journey of (small) business.

You can start with Flodesk here, using my link will give you 25% off your first year.

You can start with a free trial to have a look around and see how it feels to you.

If you’re not sure how to start, maybe I can help.

I offer a set-up service for both Flodesk and Squarespace Email Campaigns. You can book in here, and we can have your newsletter system set up and working within a week.

I build out your whole newsletter back-up with branding fonts and colours, templates for regular email sends, as well as an automation / workflow set up for your welcome email, and opt-in forms set up inside your Squarespace website.

You receive full video training from me on how to use your new platform, as well as my online course all about writing newsletters for your audience.

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Some links inside this email are affiliate links. This means that I may earn a commission if you purchase or upgrade via my link. This is at no extra cost to you. I only ever share affiliate products and services that I personally use, love, or know to be useful to you.