A tour of the Squarespace dashboard

A plain-English walkthrough of the Squarespace dashboard — what each menu item does and where to find the key tools you'll use most.

When you open your site in Squarespace, a list of links runs down the left side of the screen. Squarespace calls this the main menu. It's the hub for managing your website, and this guide explains what each part does so you can find what you need quickly.

Quick summary

The Squarespace dashboard is the main menu on the left of the screen. Website holds your pages, site styles, images, and SEO tools. Links such as Products & Services, Email Campaigns, Contacts, and Analytics cover selling, marketing, and reporting. The gear icon at the bottom opens Settings. Most day-to-day editing happens in Website, under Pages.

Getting to the dashboard

Log in at account.squarespace.com. You'll see your account dashboard, which lists every site you own or help run. Hover over your site's preview image and click Go To Website. The main menu opens on the left.

If your account only has domains and no website, you'll land on the domains dashboard instead.

Your main menu may look slightly different depending on your plan, when you signed up, and what your site uses. An owner or Administrator can also hide some links. These are the ones most sites have.

Website

Click Website to choose between four panels:

Pages: every page on your site. This is where you add, open, and arrange pages. See pages & navigation explained.
Site Styles: the look of the whole site (fonts, colors, buttons, and more)
Assets: the images and videos you've uploaded for use across your site
SEO/AI Visibility: tools that help your site show up in search engines, including AI-powered ones

Pages is where you'll spend most of your time as a content editor.

Design tools

There's no longer a single Design section. The design tools are spread across a few places:

Site Styles: open Website, then Site Styles, or click the paintbrush icon at the top right of any page. Themes here are preset packs that change your fonts, colors, and buttons in one go.
Logo and site title: click Edit at the top left of any page, hover over the header, and click Edit Site Header. See changing your logo & site title.
Favicon: the small icon that appears in browser tabs. It has its own Favicon panel; press the / key and type "favicon" to open it.
Custom CSS: at the bottom of the Pages panel, under Custom Code (leave this to Chykalophia)
404 page: what visitors see if they land on a page that doesn't exist. It's at the bottom of the Pages panel, under System Pages.

Products & Services

This is where you run an online store: products, orders, and customers. Selling is included on every current Squarespace plan. See Squarespace Commerce overview for more.

Depending on your site, you may also see:

Content and Memberships: digital products and their orders
Scheduling: appointment and class booking, through Acuity Scheduling (a separate subscription)
Donations: donation totals and individual contributions
Invoicing: projects, invoices, proposals, estimates, and contracts
Finance: all the orders and donations your site has received, plus payments and payouts

Email Campaigns and marketing tools

Marketing tools are spread across a few places:

Email Campaigns: its own link in the main menu. Use it to send newsletters to your mailing list. It's a separate, paid add-on, though every site starts with a free trial.
SEO: open Website, then SEO/AI Visibility
Promotional pop-ups: at the bottom of the Pages panel, under Marketing Tools, alongside the announcement bar
Social links: the Social Links panel, where you add links to your social media profiles. Press the / key and type "social links" to open it.

Contacts

Your customers, mailing list subscribers, members, and donors, all in one place.

Analytics

Shows you how people are finding and using your site: traffic, where visitors come from, which pages are most popular, what people search for, and (if you sell) how your store is doing. Many sites also use Google's free tools. See SEO settings in Squarespace for connecting Google Search Console.

Settings

Click the gear icon at the bottom of the main menu. This is where the technical and account settings live, including:

Permissions & Ownership: add or remove contributors and set their access level
Billing: your plan (under Subscriptions), your invoices, and your payment details
Domains: manage your domain name or connect one
Connected Accounts: link social media and other online services to your site, so you can show their content or share your posts automatically
Developer Tools: API keys, URL redirects, and other technical options (leave these to Chykalophia)
Language and region: your site's language and time zone
Store settings: if you sell, Payments, Shipping, and Taxes are here too

Settings to leave alone

Some of these areas, including Developer Tools, your domain settings, and Custom Code at the bottom of the Pages panel, can break your site if changed incorrectly. Unless Chykalophia has asked you to change something specific, leave them as they are. The full list, and what to do instead: Squarespace settings to leave alone.

Open Website, then Pages, and click a page. You'll see a preview of that page, with the Pages panel on the left. To make changes, click Edit at the top left of the preview, then click any section or block to edit it.

Squarespace doesn't save as you go. When you're done, click Save to keep your changes and carry on editing, or Exit and then Save to close the editor. Most changes aren't visible to visitors until you save (a few, like images added to gallery sections, go live straight away).

Switching between websites

If your Squarespace account has more than one website, scroll to the bottom of the main menu and click your profile picture or initials. That takes you back to your account dashboard. Hover over the other site's preview image and click Go To Website. Each site has its own main menu and settings.

Common questions

I can't see Products & Services. Where is it?

There's no section called Commerce any more. Store tools live under Products & Services, and selling is available on every current plan. If the link is missing, an owner or Administrator may have hidden it from the main menu, or your contributor role may not include it. Hidden panels can still be found: press the / key and type the panel name. Contact Chykalophia if you need access or a different plan.

What's the difference between Pages and Site Styles?

Pages is where you edit the content of your site (text, images, blog posts). Site Styles controls how the entire site looks (fonts, colors, buttons). Think of Pages as "what it says" and Site Styles as "how it looks."

Where do I find my billing information?

Click the gear icon at the bottom of the main menu, then Billing. Your plan is under Subscriptions, and your invoices and payment details are there too. Only the site owner, Administrators, and contributors with Billing permissions can see this.

Need a hand?

If you're stuck, email support@chykalophia.com and we'll help. Include your website address and a screenshot if you can.

Learn more

Your site's main menu — Squarespace Help