Frequently
Asked Questions

Studio Mesa templates are pre-designed, ready-to-launch websites built exclusively on Squarespace 7.1. There’s nothing to install, upgrade, or upload in order to get started. Every design is thoughtfully crafted to elevate your brand’s online experience and make your Squarespace site stand out among the rest.

Building websites from scratch takes a long time, and often is limited to your personal experience of design. With templates, you’ll save at least 10-20 hours of work, and get a seasoned web designer’s customization—without having to pay thousands of dollars.

Nope — all of our templates utilize the simple drag-and-drop functionality that put Squarespace on the map, making them incredibly easy to get started with. One caveat though: If you need extensive customizations with custom code, plugins, or other third party code injections, you may be overwhelmed and might be better served hiring a Squarespace expert to help with your project.

Generally, it’s best to select a template based on two things: The brand direction, and the features included. While every template is fully customizable to work with any kind of brand or color palette, building your site will be a lot easier if you select a template that’s already pretty close to what you need. Ex: If you need a lot of pages, like serif fonts, and have a neutral color palette in your brand, Parable might be a good choice.

All Studio Mesa Templates are built exclusively for Squarespace 7.1 and cannot be modified to work with Squarespace 7.0. Note that Classic Editor (what I use) and Fluid Engine (latest update) are both considered version 7.1. Some templates like Tandem have no Fluid Engine sections, while others like Retrograde have a few interspersed.

Studio Mesa templates are built exclusively on Classic Editor, but are entirely Fluid Engine compatible. The Custom CSS added to modify Classic Editor sections plays nice with Fluid Engine: So if you want to add FE sections later, you don't have to worry about things interfering. But, if you change one of the built-in Classic Editor sections to Fluid Engine, I won’t be able to provide support.

Classic Editor is the tried-and-true Squarespace builder that’s worked and been improved on for years. From my experience, Fluid Engine is often buggy, unreliable, and an overall more frustrating experience to use. However, there are a few Fluid Engine sections in larger templates like Learnable and Cove, as it provides the ability to create layouts that would require hundreds of lines of code to make in Classic Editor.

Just as much as a “regular” Squarespace website! Fonts, colors, layouts, blocks, pages, etc. will function just as you’d expect. Each template comes with detailed instructions on how to change or update things (see Template Manual page).

No. Templates are essentially standalone websites that are already fully built out with the design, layouts, and style you see in the demo site. Because templates are not “themes” that can be switched on and off, you’ll have to build your new site from scratch, copying over content from your previous site.

Yes! The pages you see in SM Templates are just the start — you’re free to duplicate, reuse, and customize them as much as you’d like while still having the flexibility to add more pages later. One-page templates like Handshake and Quantum serve as both an excellent budget-friendly solution, or as a great starting point to expand from.

After checkout is complete, you’ll receive an automated email with an invite link to your copy of the template. Once you’ve accepted the invite, all that’s left is to customize and add your content.

Every template purchase comes with an unlimited license: This means you can use your template purchase as many times as you’d like. I’d recommend making a duplicate copy of your purchase before using it for a project so that if you need to reference the original it’s still available.

Due to the digital nature of templates, purchases will not be refunded or exchanged for any reason. Not reading a template’s description fully, ignoring installation warnings, or having conflicting code are not valid reasons for a refund.

Transferring site ownership is still a manual process that I cannot automate. So, I usually batch-transfer ownership of all new template purchases monthly. If you have a pressing need to get it sooner (ie: client confidentiality, etc.), send me a message after purchase, and I’d be happy to expedite that process.

You’re always just an email away from getting the support you need. The most common uses of this perk: If you run into any issues with the template, you need help customizing something that’s custom coded in CSS, or can’t figure out how to make something work for your project. In most cases, I’ll simply advise and give instructions on how to change something—but occasionally, I’ll request access to your project and take a closer look at what’s going on.

No — unlike most other template sellers, I don’t keep tabs on my customers or request to see what they’ve used a template for. Once you’ve paid, I’m completely out of the equation (unless you need support).

There sure is! Send me a message with a little bit of info about your project and I’d be happy to give you a 30% off code to use on your next template purchase.

Nope — once you’ve made a purchase, the site is yours entirely! I’ll never ask to see what you’ve made with it or request credit of any kind.

Very rarely (it’s only happened once or twice), Squarespace pushes out an update that somehow hinders or breaks the customizations I’ve added to templates. If the change is severe or requires manual input, I’ll email you instructions or code to update your site with. Again, this is hardly a concern as I aim to design templates that work with SQSP’s systems instead of against them.

Afraid not, sorry! I'm only available for template support — but there are many talented Squarespace-specialized designers and developers who would be happy to help with your project. Check out Squarespace's Experts Program to find someone.