Squarespace Templates: How to Pick One in 2026

Choosing between Squarespace templates is the step most new users spend the longest on and should spend the least. The library is large, the previews are seductive, and the decision feels permanent. On the current version of the platform it is not permanent, and understanding why will save you a weekend.

What a template is now

On Squarespace 7.1 every template runs on the same underlying system. The differences between them are arrangements — section order, image treatment, type pairings, colour palettes — rather than different engines with different capabilities. That is a significant change from the older 7.0 generation, where templates belonged to families with genuinely different feature sets and switching meant rebuilding.

The practical consequence is that no template can lock you out of a feature. If you pick one designed around photography and later need a shop, the shop is available. What you are choosing is a visual starting point and a set of defaults, not a capability tier.

The size of the library

Independent counts put the library at roughly 190 designs, grouped by what the site is for rather than by industry stereotype. That number moves as designs are added and retired, and Squarespace does not publish a running total, so treat it as an order of magnitude rather than a figure to quote.

More useful than the count is the structure. Templates are sorted by purpose — portfolios, services, stores, one-page sites, publications — and within each group the real variation is in how much visual weight the design gives to images against text. That is the axis worth filtering on, because it is the one you cannot easily change later without the design losing its logic.

What the template decides

A template sets your starting section layouts, your default typography scale, your colour palette, and the general rhythm of how content stacks on a page. All four are editable. What the template really decides is how hard you will have to work to make the site look intentional.

Pick a design built around large photography when you have no photography and you will spend weeks fighting empty space. Pick a text-forward design when your business is visual and you will end up cramming images into slots that were never sized for them. The mismatch is not a technical problem — everything still works — it is simply a design you are now maintaining against its own grain.

Switching later costs less than you think

Squarespace 7.1 includes a layout switcher that lets you change the overall arrangement of a site without losing your content. The text, images and pages stay; the presentation changes. It is not a magic wand — bespoke styling and heavily customised sections will need attention afterwards — but the old fear of being stuck with a first-day decision no longer holds.

That reframes the whole exercise. The right approach is to pick the closest reasonable fit in twenty minutes, build real content into it, and then decide whether the design is working with material you actually have rather than with placeholder images of a café you do not own.

Third-party templates

There is a healthy market in third-party Squarespace templates, usually sold as a package of settings, custom code and a style guide rather than as a distinct product. Some are excellent and save real time. Two things to check before buying: what happens when Squarespace updates the platform underneath the custom code, and whether the design relies on custom CSS you will need to maintain yourself.

Custom CSS is the quiet cost here. It works, it is supported, and it does not survive an export — so anything built on it is another reason the site is not portable. That is worth knowing before you layer a paid design on top of a platform you may not stay on. The full inventory of what does and does not travel is in what you can take with you.

A method that takes twenty minutes

1. Decide whether your site is image-led or text-led. Be honest about the assets you actually have, not the ones you intend to commission.
2. Filter to that group and open no more than six candidates.
3. Look only at the section types each one uses — the way it handles a services list, a gallery, a contact block. Ignore the stock photography entirely; it is not yours.
4. Pick the one whose sections match your real content most closely and start building. Do not open a seventh.
5. After a week of real content, decide whether to switch. That decision will be far better informed than the one you would have made on day one.

If you are still on version 7.0

A considerable number of older Squarespace sites are still running on the 7.0 generation, where templates did belong to families with different capabilities and switching genuinely meant rebuilding. If that describes your site, most of the reassurance above does not apply to you.

Moving from 7.0 to 7.1 is not an upgrade button. It is a rebuild on the current system, with content moved across by hand. Whether that is worth doing depends on how much the older design is costing you in workarounds, but it is a project rather than a setting, and it is worth scoping honestly before you start. One thing it does buy you is the layout flexibility described above, which is a meaningful difference if your site changes shape often.

The practical test: if your 7.0 site does what you need and you are not fighting it, leave it alone. If you are working around the template family every time you add a page, the rebuild will pay for itself within a year.

Where templates stop helping

A template gives you a competent baseline. It does not give you a brand, and it will not rescue copy that has not been written or photographs that should not be used. The gap between a good Squarespace site and a mediocre one is almost never the template — it is whether somebody wrote the words and cropped the pictures.

If you want to browse before committing, the Squarespace template library is open without an account. And if you have not yet decided whether the platform itself is the right call, our full Squarespace review puts the design strengths against the pricing and the exit terms.