Square Fees: Is Square Worth It in 2024? (+ Calculator)

Square is a payments, point-of-sale (POS), and business management tool for small businesses. It has no contracts, minimum requirements, or upfront costs for its software or payment processing tools. The basic software is free, and any upgrades are billed monthly. Square deducts a flat fee on successful payment transactions, and you get low-cost hardware, with interest-free installment plans for qualified purchases.

Square Payment Processing Fees

Square processing fees are lower for businesses that purchase Square Register or Square Terminal hardware or Square for Retail or Square for Restaurants software.
Lower rates are also available for businesses processing over $250,000 annually.

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Square Fee Calculator

Enter your monthly card processing information to find out how much you would pay with Square.

How Square Fees Work

Overall, Square offers some of the best merchant services tools for new and small businesses. You’ll get the same core features and services for whatever payment methods you use—in-store, online, or virtual terminal.

• No monthly fee to accept and process credit cards
• All payments and sales are tracked together in your Square dashboard
• Accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express, plus contactless payments
• Same Square transaction fees for all cards and card types: debit, credit, prepaid, rewards, and corporate
• Deposits made within one to two business days
• Instant deposit available for an additional fee of 1.75%
• Chargeback protection free for sellers and covers disputes up to $250 per month
• Custom Square pricing for sellers with annual revenue over $250,000 and average ticket size over $15

What You Get With a Free Square Account

Without a doubt, Square’s free merchant account is the best option for new and small businesses, particularly if you need a POS. There is no approval required to set up an account. Square allows you to start running your business with little to no setup cost, and charges no monthly fees.

Square POS Fees

Square offers a free POS system with every free Square Payments account. When you sign up with Square, you’ll instantly have access to inventory, order, sales, and customer management tools through the free basic POS. However, Square also offers specific POS software for retail, restaurant, and appointment-based businesses. These business-specific Square POS systems offer different plans with slightly different fees, while the basic free Square POS uses the standard Square pricing.

Square Basic POS

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Square for Retail

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Square for Restaurants

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Square Appointments

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Feature-wise, Square is the undisputed leader in startup and small business POS software. Even with its paid plans, Square offers the most value for money, providing merchants with industry-specific POS, and a range of free tools to run a business.

On the other hand, Square’s inventory management tools are not the most robust. You will need to use third-party integration for customization tools to handle complex inventory management for establishments like convenience stores and specialty restaurants.

Square Online Fees

Every free Square account comes with basic POS software, payment processing, invoicing, and a Square Online store. The online store ties into the rest of the Square ecosystem and can be managed through your Square Dashboard, where you can sync products, orders, and customers across your in-person and online sales channels.

You can upgrade to a paid online store to get a custom domain, remove Square branding, and receive discounts on integrated shipping labels and real-time shipping calculations. Paid plans also come with advanced features like customer product reviews, abandoned cart recovery, and the ability to accept PayPal payments.

Square Online Pricing Plans

When talking about online POS platforms, it’s hard not to compare any provider with Shopify. Overall, Shopify is the better option in terms of features, customization, and scalability. However, Shopify does not have a free version, and its monthly fees are more expensive even if merchants subscribe to a Square Online paid plan. So if you are primarily a merchant with a storefront looking to expand with an online presence, Square is the more cost-effective choice.

Square Hardware Fees

To get a complete idea of Square POS system cost, you also need to consider hardware. Mobile payments and in-store sales require credit card readers to accept payments, and Square has a variety of hardware options that let you swipe, insert, or tap cards to complete a sale. Each works on smartphones and iPads using Square’s free POS app.

The beauty of Square’s range of hardware is that it offers setup for every stage of your business. You can start with zero upfront cost, and invest only as needed.

Consider the following examples:

Accessories such as cash drawers, barcode scanners, kitchen printers, and thermal printers are also available and can be bought separately or bundled into a POS hardware kit.

What we like about Square is that it offers scalable hardware options. You’ll find that Square has more hardware variety compared to Clover and has better setup flexibility than Lightspeed.

Granted you’ll end up spending a significant amount depending on your business needs, but the range of choices and the availability of installment payment plans makes it easier for merchants on a budget.

Square Fees for Add-on Software & Other Services

Square’s core products are POS, payments, and ecommerce, though the company offers a variety of other supplemental products, including invoicing, payroll, and marketing that you can use alongside other solutions or individually.

Square Invoicing

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Square Payroll

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Square Team Management

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Square Marketing

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Square Loyalty

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Square Business Banking

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Ways to Lower Square Fees

With Square, merchants can launch their business with very minimal (even free, if you prefer to accept payments without a card reader) upfront cost. Your monthly Square fees can be limited to transaction rates if you use the standard POS software.

If you wish to keep your Square transaction fees, consider the following:

• Accept more in-person payments: Transaction rates for accepting in-person payments are much lower than remote payment methods.
• Refrain from manually keying in your customer card information: Manually keyed-in and card-on-file transaction rates are charged above 3%.
• Avoid buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) transactions: Square’s BNPL app, Afterpay charges expensive transaction fees compared to other top BNPL apps.
• Avoid same-day fund deposits: If possible, wait for Square’s standard 2-business day funding speed. Square charges 1.75% for same-day deposits.

Cheaper Alternatives to Square Fees

Square fees are small-business friendly, but if you are looking to save more, here are some Square alternatives to consider:

For omnichannel payment processing

Helcim is a suitable cheaper alternative to Square when it comes to payment processing fees. It uses an interchange-plus-plus pricing model which means it charges the interchange rate plus a small add-on rate and a flat amount for every transaction.

Helcim’s pricing schedule is designed to charge lower fees as the monthly sales volume increases. Interchange-plus pricing models usually come out cheaper than Square’s flat-rate pricing model.

Read our Helcim review to learn more.

If you have high-volume transactions, an even cheaper option is Payment Depot which only charges the interchange rate plus a flat amount for every transaction. However, it comes with a $79 monthly fee. If you have a lot of transactions in a month, Payment Depot may still come out cheaper even with the monthly fee.

Read our Payment Depot review to learn more.

For in-store payment processing

If you only need to process payments in-store, PayPal Zettle is a cheaper option. The PayPal Zettle POS app is also free to use like Square’s and its all-in-one terminal costs $199–cheaper than Square’s $299. Additionally, its processing fee is 2.29% + 9 cents per transaction, which is also lower than Square’s 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction.

Read our PayPal Zettle review to learn more.

For online payment processing

All the best ecommerce platforms we’ve evaluated offer the same payment processing fee. However, some charge monthly fees. One of the best free ecommerce platforms to consider is Shift4Shop. It costs the same as Square and has features similar to Shopify, one of the best and most popular ecommerce platforms.

Read our Shift4Shop review to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are some of the questions we commonly get about Square fees.

What fees does Square charge?

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How much does Square charge per transaction?

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Are Square fees high?

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Does Square have monthly fees?

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Bottom Line

Square is best known for its square-shaped mobile card reader and payment processing service. However, it has grown into a platform that supports your entire business, including, business management, online selling, and marketing.

Its strongest advantage is that you can easily craft a full sales and business management solution on any budget. Square pricing is set up so that the core features are free, and you only pay the Square fees for credit card processing, certain processing equipment, and optional advanced features. So, with Square, you only pay for what you actually need. Head over to Square to sign up for a free account.

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