see also:[[Ecommerce platform research]] # Braindump I'm researching pros/cons of website migration options! Opinions welcome but not essential **Features I'm looking for:** portfolio, blog, newsletter, everything all on my site **Ideal features:** sell digital products, competitive fees vs Gumroad (10% + $0.50) and Ko-fi (5%) **Future plans:** paywalled content, courses, subscriptions (moving shop can also be a future plan) **Ruled out platforms:** Wordpress+Woocommerce, Shopify, Wix current Ghost(Pro) analysis and research into Squarespace incoming (in a bit, still writing.) --- ## Current: Ghost(Pro) I'm currently using Ghost(Pro) Starter plan <https://ghost.org/pricing/> Pros: - $9/mo - Already set up & enjoyed using it so far - Newsletter included, easy to use - 0% fees (for paying subscribers) Cons: - Free themes only, limited CSS adjustments - No ecommerce - Optimised for blog posts, creating a page for portfolio doesn't have the features I want and can only be 1 column - Newsletter supports up to 500 subscribers, after which the price increases to $15/mo - Only 1 newsletter (so no way of doing separate ones for blog posts / sales & products) - Only 1 premium tier for paid newsletter - No custom sending domain - newsletter emails are sent from a ghost.io email address ### **Option 1:** upgrade to Creator plan Pros: - All of previous tier pros - No ecommerce, same issue with portfolio capabilities - Custom themes/building & full CSS/JS - 3 different newsletter slots - 5 premium tiers for paid newsletter - Up to 1000 subscribers (but again, after that price goes up to *$40/mo*) Cons: - $25/mo is reasonable but not for these benefits to me ### **Option 2:** set up portfolio on Cara (direct traffic off of website), use Ko-fi/Gumroad for ecommerce ### **Conclusion:** Starter plan is fine for just blogging, not worth the upgrade for what I want. Sticking with Ghost isn't futureproof because I will outgrow the subscriber slots and it will be --- which leads us to today's sponsor: ## Squarespace I bought my .com domain through Google Domains, which got bought out by Squarespace and they've been managing it fine, so there's that credibility & trust (and ease of my domain already being there). I was browsing their features and they look like what I need - I didn't realise I was already logged in with an account (bc of domain) and accidentally started a free 14 day trial woops - so I thought well, I may as well give it all a try. Only took about 20mins of poking around to get to know where everything is and how the layout & customisation works, and I'm happy to use it. As with everything though I want to double-triple check everything before making a commitment. I *am* aware of the marketing behaviour techniques of limited time trial and other 20% off first year, and also let's be real - shiny new toy syndrome. ### **Option 3:** Squarespace Personal plan: $16/mo <https://www.squarespace.com/pricing> ($5 more than current plan, $9 less than Ghost(Pro) Creator plan) Pros: - drag & drop editor is piss easy and I can make good looking stuff with it - sitewide CSS including font upload - can use embeds for things like Gumroad products, external newsletter signup - flexible layout & column options, portfolio friendly - blog - sell content & memberships (9% fee) - no caps on bandwidth or storage usage - unlimited email subscribers & up to 20 mailing lists on any plan - custom branded invoicing, 0% invoicing fee Cons: - no extra html code injection for header/footer on this plan, not massively essential though - no ecommerce?(I think the difference here is this is for more of the full management and product inventory, geared towards physical products? I need clarity on this) - email campaigns are actually a paid add-on starting at +$7/mo - price only increases if you want to send more than 500 emails a month, no cap on subscribers/lists. *"mailing list size can't override other plan limits. For example, if you have a mailing list with 510 contacts on the Starter plan, that exceeds your monthly send limit and you won't be able to send your campaign to that list."* (<https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002123507-Email-Campaigns-pricing-billing-and-invoices>) hmm.. - 30mins of video storage (minor downside, this is fine for now) - will need to migrate blog posts and keep their url slugs (which is fine, there aren't many and I will only bring over the evergreen content) ### Option 4: Squarespace Business plan: $23/mo ($14 more than current plan, $2 cheaper than GhostPro Creator plan) **Pros:** - All of previous tier pros - Full ecommerce, unlimited products, checkout on domain - 3% fee on product sales (better than Gumroad & Ko-fi) **but says 9% for digital products, so what is the 3% applying to?** - All the analytics - Promotional pop-ups (eh, no thanks) and banners (top banner announcements are fine) - 1 year free professional email from Google Workspace **Cons:** - Can't sell subscription to *physical* products (which is fine) - Email campaigns recommend having Google Workspace business email so your personal email address doesn't get spam blocked (I currently only have redirect emails, which isn't a viable solution). After the free year, it will be +$6/mo - Email campaigns paid, but see comparison pricing below **Growth/Futureproofing:** - *optional* Digital Products add-on gives more video storage and reduces transaction fees (base 9%) for content & membership sales: +$9/mo for 7% and 10hrs storage, +$29 for 3% and 50hrs, or +$89 for 0% and unlimited hrs. - Email Campaigns add-on: +$7/mo for up to 500 emails/mo and has "powered by Squarespace" in footer, higher tiers unbranded: +$14 for 5k, +$34 for 50k, +$68 for 250k ...compared to Ghost: (with various options in between so you get a hike in between these, too) $9 for 500, $65 for 5k, $265 for 45k, or $1365 for 265k. Yes, really. - a professional Google Workspace email is something I've had my eye on for a while, as using forwarding means that when I reply it still comes from my personal email address. There are also numerous other options I have on a list to explore for using another service for a newsletter if it comes to that - I'd need the Squarespace Business plan to be able to add the code embeds for signups. ### Combo costs: - **Squarespace Personal:** $16/mo ($192/year), 20% off first year = $153.60 set up portfolio, resume, & blog, save newsletter for when I upgrade plans later, continue using other stores like Gumroad, Ko-fi, Itch.io - **Squarespace Business:** $23/mo ($276/year), 20% off first year = $220.80 - **Squarespace Business + Email Campaigns (Starter) + GWS email:** first year $30/mo ($360/y, $304.80 with 20% off), after that: $36/mo ($432/year) So it's scalable. And after writing this all out it seems like the Personal plan is the sensible starting point. --- If anyone has an extra braincell to spare, I'd still like some help figuring out the wording of these features between the Squarespace Personal and Business plan: 3% vs 9%, digital products vs not Relevant pages: - All features comparison: <https://www.squarespace.com/pricing> Notes: - Subscriptions: "Selling store page product subscriptions is only available on the Commerce Advanced plans. However, Selling Digital Product subscriptions is available on the Business and Commerce Basic plans." - Download Products: <https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206540787-Download-products> *"Sell digital goods such as music, books for ereaders, art, and PDFs. Commerce is a premium feature available in Business and Commerce plans."* and The file size limit for a download is 300 MB, so you'd need to .zip bigger products. - Getting started with digital products: <https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/360050366952-Getting-started-with-Digital-Products> [http://squarespace.com/Baumgartner](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbkNQQkRGb2ZnLXdFZGl0Z0NLR0l6dXJIMFFPQXxBQ3Jtc0tuWUxqSEJmSGZxWVE1TFFFcFZzMjh6c1FSWUVyMm1maGgteUZlTTB5SVg3ZEZ0Wnotb0FacDRCazJ0dGRJNTZzNk9uNlNKZFZTME5odGg3LWEwTG9RTWEyQVBtS2JUV2x0VzdkYTJ1NE95eE9CekVSRQ&q=http%3A%2F%2Fsquarespace.com%2FBaumgartner&v=0uWHNR9nneU) to save 10% off