Square Fees & Pricing: The Ultimate Guide

Square is a payments, point-of-sale (POS), and business management tool for small businesses. Square charges a flat-rate payment processing fee, and businesses can use Square’s POS app for free. Additional features such as marketing and payroll, are available for a monthly fee. Square offers an affordable solution that can be customized with different features.

How Square Pricing Works

Square is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company with no contracts, minimum requirements, or upfront payments for any of its software or payment processing tools. The basic software is free, and any upgrades are billed monthly and on a month-to-month basis. Payments processed with Square have a flat fee deducted from transactions. Visit Square to create your free account.

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Square Pricing & Fees At-A-Glance

In addition to POS software and payment processing, Square offers add-on services like marketing and payroll that come with monthly fees. Square also has several card reader and POS terminals you can purchase, some of which come with discounted payment processing fees.

Square Payment Processing Fees

• In-person and mobile card payments: 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction
• Online payments: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction
• Keyed-in and invoice payments: 3.5% plus 15 cents per transaction

*Square offers a lower processing rate for businesses that purchase Square Register or Square Terminal hardware, or Square Retail or Square Restaurant software.

Whatever payment methods you use for your business—in-store, online, or virtual terminal—you’ll enjoy the same core features and services:

• No monthly fee to accept and process credit cards
• All payments and sales are tracked together in your Square dashboard
• Accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express, plus contactless payments
• Same rate 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%
• Chargeback protection free for sellers and covers disputes up to $250 per month
• Custom pricing for sellers with annual revenues over $250,000 and average ticket size over $15

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 POS. However, Square also offers specific POS software for retail, restaurant, and appointment-based businesses.

To learn more about Square’s free POS system, read our full Square POS review.

Square for Retail

Square for Retail is a POS system designed specifically for retail businesses of all sizes, such as boutiques and gift shops. It has advanced inventory, online sales, check out tools, and reporting. There is a free plan, a Plus plan that contains all of the advanced retail functions, and a Premium plan that provides access to Square’s other business tools like Marketing and Payroll. All plans provide unlimited products, transactions, employee logins, and a free online store.

Square for Retail includes advanced reporting and inventory management tools for omnichannel selling.

Square for Retail Pricing Plans

Square for Restaurants

Square for Restaurants is a POS software specifically designed for quick service, full service, fast-casual, bar, and multi-concept restaurants. All plans include fast order-entry with conversational modifiers, menu and order management, table management, open checks, auto-gratuity options, multi-location management, and remote device management.

Square for Restaurants allows businesses to centrally manage online and in-person orders.

The Plus plan has 24/7 support and more sophisticated restaurant features like auto 86ing, coursing, and options to set closing procedures. The Plus and Premium plans have the same features, but Premium comes with discounts on Square Payroll, Marketing, Loyalty, and Online Store. All paid Square for Restaurant plans have a free 30-day trial.

Square for Restaurants Pricing Plans

• Installation fees (optional): Remote setup $599+, in-person implementation $1,999+

To learn more about these features, read our Ultimate Guide to Square for Restaurants.

Square Appointments

Square Appointments is designed for service-based businesses like spas, salons, hairdressers, personal trainers, massage therapists, makeup artists, appointment-based retail, professional services like consulting or photography, and more. Unlike Square’s other POS systems, Appointments is priced based on the number of employees you have. The features are exactly the same in every plan.

Square Appointments makes it easy to manage multiple appointment calendars from anywhere.

Every plan includes:

• Free booking website: Show your services and automatically update availability so clients can book 24/7. Choose to manually or automatically accept appointments.
• Integrated payments: Save cards on file, require deposits or cancellation fees, send invoices and estimates, and process payments online or in-person for services and products.
• Automated appointment reminders: Square Assistant is a digital messenger that sends automated appointment reminders and can respond to clients’ requests to confirm, change, or cancel appointments any time of the day.
• Google and Instagram integrations: Customers can book appointments from the Instagram app or from a Google search result.

Square Appointments Pricing Plans

Square Online Store Pricing

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.

Square Online Store is a free drag-and-drop web builder for selling goods, services, and food online.

You can upgrade to a paid online store for a custom domain, to remove Square branding, and to 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 Store Pricing Plans

Square’s Fees for Add-On Software and Other Services

Square’s core products are POS, payments, and ecommerce, through 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

Square Invoicing can be a good fit for client service businesses like consulting firms, field service businesses like contractors or repairs, made-to-order retailers, and freelance professionals that want to easily request payment from customers.

Square Invoicing is free to use and just has the following payment processing fees:

• In-person: 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction
• Online: 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction
• Card on file: 3.5% + 15 cents per transaction

You can create, send, and manage invoices through your web-based Square Dashboard or through the Square Invoicing app for iOS and Android.

Square Payroll

Square Payroll is a subscription-based full-service payroll software that automatically calculates payments and taxes. This service can be used independently or in tandem with Square’s other products like POS or Team Management.

Square Payroll Pricing

Square Team Management

Square Team Management comes included with every free Square account. Some paid POS plans also include Team Plus features, however, they can also be purchased separately. Advanced features include setting wage rates, timecard notes, multiple permission levels, and detailed labor reports. Team Plus has a 30-day free trial.

Square Team Management Pricing

Square Marketing

Square Marketing allows businesses to create, send, and track email and social campaigns. Every plan includes automation features, customer coupon options, automatic email collection, and unlimited email sends. Plus, Square Marketing Assistant is an automated chat that sends you suggestions, opportunities, and reports to stay on top of campaigns. It also uses your email lists to suggest campaigns that you can launch from your phone.

Square Marketing Assistant is an automated chat feature that monitors and suggests campaigns.

The features are identical for every Square Marketing plan, the pricing ranges from $15 – $35+ per month based on the number of customer contacts you have.

Square Marketing Pricing

Square Loyalty

Square Loyalty is a mobile-app based digital rewards program that provides customers with points based on their activity. Square Loyalty integrates seamlessly with Square POS and Square Online Store. It tracks customers based on their payment and/or method once they enroll. Businesses can customize whether shoppers are rewarded per visit or per dollar spent. To apply rewards, just enter the customer’s phone number at online or in-store checkout.

Like Square Marketing, Loyalty pricing is based on the number of times a customer enrolls or completes a transaction where loyalty points are earned or redeemed. The features are identical for each plan.

Square Loyalty Pricing

Square Capital

Square Capital is a service that offers business loans to qualifying existing Square customers. The loan amounts can range from $500 – $250,000. Square uses data like your payment processing history and account history to determine your eligibility. Square automatically deducts a fixed percentage of your daily sales to repay the loan over time, or you can prepay the loan amount. The entire loan amount must be repaid in 18 months from acceptance date.

Square Hardware Fees

Mobile payments and in-store sales require credit card readers to accept payments. Square has a variety of readers that let you swipe, insert, or tap cards to process payments. Each of these works on smartphones or tablets using Square’s free point-of-sale (POS) app.

Square Mobile Payment Readers

• Square Reader for magstripe: First reader free, $10 for additional
• Square Reader for contactless and chip: $49, dock and additional $29

Square In-Store Payment Readers

• Square Reader for contactless and chip: $49, dock and additional $29
• Stand for contactless and chip: $169 (compatible with 10.2″ iPad 2019, 10.5″ iPad Air 2019, and iPad Pro 10.5″, sold separately).

Square Reader can be secured to a smartphone for mobile payments or docked on a countertop for in-store sales.

Square Full Register Systems

• Square Terminal: $299
• Square Register: $799

Square Terminal has built-in swipe, chip, and contactless payments plus receipt printing.

Square Hardware Financing

Square offers no-interest financing for qualified hardware purchases between $49 – $10,000. Qualifying orders can be split up into an installment payment plan with 3,6,12, or 24 monthly payments. Applications and payments for hardware financing are directly through Square, not a third-party.

Bottom Line

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

The nice thing about Square is that you can easily craft a full sales and business management solution on any budget. 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. Visit Square to sign up for a free account.

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