Squarespace Pros & Cons for Videographers
As a videographer, you may be wondering if Squarespace is a good platform for hosting your portfolio website. What are the pros and cons?
With over 15 years of experience as a website designer, I’ve built sites for professional videographers across various platforms and can provide you with an overview of the pros and cons of using Squarespace for your site.
I'll also guide you through key pages of a videographer portfolio website and offer a website template designed specifically for video professionals.
Rather watch than read? This blog post is also a video:
Pro: Flexibility and Clean Design
One of the biggest advantages of Squarespace for videographers is its clean design coupled with flexibility. You get a good-looking portfolio while having the freedom to customize it extensively.
Unlike other platforms, which lock you into a particular template or style, Squarespace offers a blank canvas, allowing you to be as creative as you wish.
For videographers who have strong opinions about visual design, this flexibility is invaluable. While it doesn't offer the granular control found in platforms like Webflow, it’s accessible for DIY enthusiasts who might find Webflow overly complex.
Pro: A Complete Business Hub
Squarespace goes beyond just being a website builder; it acts as an operating system for your entire business. Over the past decade, Squarespace has developed a suite of tools for small businesses, including videographers.
Scheduling
Squarespace has a built-in scheduling tool called Acuity, which is integrated into its dashboard. You can easily schedule discovery calls with clients using this powerful tool.
Invoicing
The platform also features an invoicing tool. You can create proposals, convert them into invoices upon acceptance, and get paid seamlessly. For those dealing with larger projects, the ability to take ACH payments for 1% fees compared to credit cards is a significant advantage (USA only).
Email Marketing
Squarespace’s in-house email marketing tool makes it simple to send out emails. Unlike the the old days of linking your Squarespace newsletter forms to a MailChimp account, this allows for easy email campaigns straight from your blog posts, maintaining consistent branding.
Product and Course Sales
Whether you're selling digital products, courses, or content memberships, Squarespace has you covered. It rivals platforms like Shopify in the e-commerce space, making it a viable option if you’re a videographer looking to diversify your income streams.
Domain and Email Registration
Squarespace enables you to buy your domain name and set up a branded Google Workspace email directly through their dashboard.
These features essentially allow you to manage all aspects of your video business from one platform.
Con: Native Video Storage Limits
Squarespace does have limitations on native video storage, capped at 30 minutes on starter plans.
The main advantage of Squarespace hosted video is that it plays as background video on more mobile browsers. If you need more storage, you can opt for the Digital Products add-on (which can increase it to 10 hours, 50 hours, or unlimited hours of video).
Most pro video folks have a paid Vimeo account, and you can embed Vimeo and YouTube videos all day long, so this won’t be a dealbreaker for most folks.
Con: Subscription Costs Add Up
While integrating various tools into one platform is convenient, the costs can add up as each service is billed independently. If budget is a concern, consider using these free or cheaper alternatives.
Alternative Solutions
For those needing only a simple portfolio website, consider Format.
If you just need a one-page site, Carrd is my recommendation at just $19/year.
I recommend Cal.com for a powerful free scheduling tool, and MailerLite for free email marketing.
These alternatives will save you money, but require more manual integration work than using Squarespace’s suite of business tools.
Building a Videographer Portfolio Website
Let’s dive into how to build an effective videographer portfolio on Squarespace. You can see all this in more detail in the video above, or on our Bokeh template page, but here’s an outline of a template optimized for videographers:
Homepage
Start with a captivating background video using your reel, and make sure the reel is easy to watch, with sound on, on your homepage.
Feature logos of your most well-known client brands prominently to establish credibility, and include testimonials from satisfied clients.
Service Pages
Create subpages for each type of video work or video service you do. This will help with SEO and keep your homepage from getting too cluttered.
Contact Page
Make this your most prominent call-to-action across the whole site. Make it ridiculously easy for future clients to contact you - don’t load down the contact form with any unnecessary fields.
Link in Bio Page
Set up a page on your website as your link in bio for social media platforms. This keeps visitors on your site, offering a fully branded experience.
Other Pages
Don’t forget to include legal pages (terms and conditions), a custom 404 page if possible, and whatever else you might need.
Decision Time
Squarespace offers compelling features for videographers looking to build a portfolio website. While it has some limitations and costs can add up, the platform’s flexibility, integrated tools, and clean design make it a strong contender.
Check out Bokeh, our custom website template for videographers, or reach out if you’d like to work with us to build something bespoke!
