Hey -,
I'm Ciera, COO at TONIC.
And I have a confession.
I'm the COO of a company that makes Showit templates. Have been for years now.
And until recently, I had maybe... 45 minutes of total Showit experience?
Yeah. See, for 12 years before TONIC, I was a Squarespace and Wix designer. I knew those platforms so intimately I could probably write their biography. I could write custom code to make Squarespace do things it 100% was not designed to do and would probably prefer I didn't do.
I was that designer.
The kind who has "CSS debugging" blocked off on their calendar every week because that's just... life now.
Then Jen asked me to customize a few TONIC homepages. You know, to show the range. Prove the templates aren't one trick ponies.
Was I nervous?
Listen, I considered faking a medical emergency.
Did I say yes anyway? Of course I did. I'm an Enneagram 3 who needs constant validation and also genuinely believes I can do anything if people are watching.
It's a very healthy combination.
Here's what happened:
I customized three complete homepages. Thirty minutes each.
For context: on Squarespace, those three homepage designs would've taken me 3+ hours per site. Minimum.
And that's with 12 years of experience, extensive CSS knowledge, and a truly concerning amount of caffeine.
I am now drunk on a kind of power I cannot explain and never want to give up.
Turns out when you can just... put things where you want them... without writing code... or fighting a grid system... or sacrificing a goat to the Squarespace gods... it's kind of addictive?
Here's what I learned:
Holy sh*t, this is so much easier than Squarespace.
And I say that as someone who knew Squarespace. Like, really knew it. I could troubleshoot anything. I had seventeen different CSS workarounds memorized. I was basically a Squarespace whisperer.
But let me tell you why that expertise was actually just Stockholm syndrome:
1. The code nightmare
On Squarespace, if you want anything beyond what the template allows, you're writing custom CSS. Sometimes JavaScript. And that code breaks. Not sometimes. Regularly. Squarespace pushes platform updates that obliterate your custom code. So you fix it. Then they update again. And it breaks again.
It's like Groundhog Day but with more cursing and less Bill Murray.
"Why the f*k is this nav menu suddenly 400px too wide and also somehow upside down?"
With Showit? I didn't write a single line of code. And I got exactly the site I wanted.
2. The grid prison.
Squarespace is built on a grid system. Which sounds very professional and structured until you realize it's actually just a box you can never escape.
You can't put things where you want them. You're always fighting the grid. Always compromising your creative vision because the platform is basically saying "that's cute, but no."
Want that button slightly off-center for visual interest? Absolutely not. Want literally any creative freedom? Bold of you to assume.
Showit doesn't have a grid. It's actual drag-and-drop. Like Canva, but for your entire website and somehow even easier.
You want that headline at a weird angle overlapping that photo? Just... do it. Put it there. Done.
No code. No workarounds. No pleading with the internet gods. Just design.
(Squarespace did add some new animation tools in 2026, which is progress. But the underlying grid constraint hasn't changed. Still prison-adjacent.)
3. The expertise trap.
Here's the thing that kept me on Squarespace for so long: I was good at it.
I knew every workaround. I could solve any problem. I'd developed all these specialized skills for working within its limitations.
But I'd gotten really good at working around limitations instead of just... not having limitations.
It's like I'd spent 12 years becoming a world-class expert at parallel parking a city bus, and someone finally handed me a Mini Cooper. Turns out I didn't need all those specialized skills. I just needed a tool that wasn't actively working against me.
4. The template part.
I wasn't building these sites from scratch. The TONIC template came with everything already built.
The structure. The strategy. The conversion-optimized sections. The design hierarchy. All of it.
I was just customizing what was already there.
So I wasn't learning Showit AND building a site from zero. I was opening a pre-built, already-gorgeous template and dragging things around until they looked how I wanted.
Which is why I could do each site in 30 minutes instead of the 3+ hours it would've taken me on Squarespace—even with my 12 years of experience and CSS expertise.
Here's the thing:
If you're on Squarespace or Wix and you've been curious about Showit but nervous about switching platforms, I deeply, profoundly get it.
I was you.
But if a COO with basically zero Showit experience can fully customize a homepage in 30 minutes, you can absolutely do this.
Especially when:
- Showit's support is actual humans in live chat who respond in minutes, not help articles from 2019 that may or may not answer your question
- TONIC's support is Jax and Christina—real people, in your inbox and on chat, who respond like they're actually happy to help you (because they are)
- You're getting 20% off, which is basically getting paid to try something that will save you literal hours every time you need to update your site
- You get video tutorials for everything
The Spring Sale is on through May 26th. Use code SPICY20 for 20% off everything.
Buy a website template and you also get:
→ Ginny free ($250 value). Our AI copy concierge. Writes your website copy, emails, social, all of it. Gift with purchase.
→ The Get Spicy Cohort for $79. One week of guided prep + live coworking build day June 1st with Jen and Ryan. The perfect way to actually build the thing after you make the switch.
If you want to talk about switching platforms, or you need to vent about the time Squarespace broke your code for the third time this month, reply to this email.
I will read it. I will probably respond with my own horror story. We will bond over shared CSS trauma.
Grateful to be out of the square,
— Ciera
Ciera Krinke
COO, TONIC Site Shop
(Former Squarespace devotee who wrote so much custom CSS she forgot what her family looked like)
P.S. I haven't written a single line of CSS in months and my screen time is down, my blood pressure is lower, and I've remembered that hobbies exist.
