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Square combines in-person and online payment processing with a full range of mobile, retail and online sales, and business management tools in one package. In other words, if you have a small business it enables you to take payment from anywhere and manage your day-to-day operations.
There are no start-up or monthly fees for Square and, for most users, the only costs are its flat-rate payment processing fees which are pretty transparent. Find out more with our guide.
Why consider Square?
Low cost, ease-of-use, versatility and reliability are the top reasons that small businesses might choose Square. Square’s efficient payment processing, point-of-sale (POS) and business management tools are packed into a user-friendly system. Any beginner can set up a Square account in minutes and immediately start accepting all types of payments for in-person and online sales.
Here’s a look at how Square’s versatile sales and payment options fit a broad variety of small business needs.
This convenience is why so many small businesses use Square. Every user can tap into these business essentials for free, plus track all sales, inventory, staff activities, customer data and more via Square’s desktop and mobile POS dashboards.
Square can be ready to grow with your business too, with optional upgrades and add-ons that expand the essentials tool kit. Any Square user can add advanced retail, bar and restaurant features to the POS system, plus enable customer loyalty programmes, email marketing, prepaid appointments, payroll services among others.
These come with monthly fees that start around £20 per month, depending on the service. However, considering everything that Square delivers in the free account, the combined value is hard to beat.
Some drawbacks of using Square
Despite its considerable benefits, Square doesn’t cover every base for every business. Here are a few areas where features and services can fall short of Square’s competitors:
- Payment processing fees: While Square’s fees are competitive with other all-in-one payment providers, such as Stripe and PayPal, other top-rated payment processing services may offer lower fees when you reach a certain annual sales threshold
- Business limitations: High-risk, high-fraud businesses and merchants selling prohibited items, such as online gambling, illegal goods, age-restricted items and credit counselling services can’t use Square
- Account holds and freezes: If you have excessive chargebacks or fraudulent charges, Square can place a hold on your account and freeze your fund payouts. This shuts down your businesses and can take time to resolve
- Customer support: Square’s customer support is largely online tutorials and online chat. Chat response times typically are quick, but it can take time to get help for major issues
- No built-in accounting: As with most other POS and payment processing services, Square doesn’t offer robust accounting tools. However, you can seamlessly integrate top-rated small business accounting software, including Xero, QuickBooks and Zoho Books with Square.
How Square works for payment processing
Square is best known for its versatile mobile, in-store and online credit and debit card processing. However, that just scratches the surface of all that Square offers in terms of payment processing.
Here are all of the convenient payment options you can offer customers through Square:
- Credit and debit cards: Accept credit and debit cards for mobile and in-store POS sales using card readers and registers and online for e-commerce sales, invoices and phoned-in sales
- E-wallet payments: Accept Apple Pay and Google Pay for in-person POS sales, e-commerce sales and other types of online payment
- Buy now pay later: Offer instant financing for both in-person and online sales of goods and services with Square’s Afterpay integration. You get paid immediately and your customers can pay over time.
- Cash and paper cheques: Record and track cash and paper cheque sales in the mobile and retail POS app and for invoices
How to get paid with Square
To process credit cards with Square, you need to connect a bank account and set up payouts.
Payouts to your own bank account:
- Payouts typically transfer the working day after a transaction, with no added fees
What’s included with Square
Square pairs its payment processing features with a full suite of sales and business management tools to create a powerful sell-anything-anywhere platform. Here’s a look at everything you get with your free Square account, plus paid upgrades and add-on features that you can add as growth demands.
POS
Square’s mobile app-based POS software handles all types of in-person sales, including mobile sales, retail and in-store sales and mobile service payments. The POS app links to all of your product data, inventory, sales and payments, customer data, team tracking and more in your centralized Square database, so you can easily conduct business anywhere using one or more devices.
Mobile sales and payments:
The Square POS app works on both iOS and Android phones and tablets. Pair with a card reader to process credit cards physically or use the keypad to enter card information manually. You can text and email receipts from the mobile POS app, plus add a Bluetooth printer to offer printed receipts.
Retail store sales and payments:
You can use POS mobile devices for in-store sales or use Square’s streamlined iPad POS stands or all-in-one registers to your checkout counter. You can also use Square’s mobile and countertop tools together and offer a quick mobile checkout on the sales floor to shorten your checkout lines.
Other than display differences due to screen size, Square’s POS app functions and features are identical on phone and tablet screens.
Optional POS upgrades
Square offers upgraded versions of its free POS app to better meet the needs of retail stores and food service businesses, and to compete with specialised POS systems. Square for Retail caters to large, multi-store retailers while Square for Restaurants seamlessly connects back- and front-of-house operations for bars, cafes and restaurants. These plans start at £49 and £69 respectively, not including registers, other hardware or processing fees.
Square Dashboard
Square centralises all of your business activity in your Dashboard. No matter where you complete sales, accept payments, enter product and customer information or add staff and team details, you can access, track and manage it all in your Dashboard. It’s also home to popular Square features including Invoices, Online Store and the Virtual Terminal.
Screenshot of the Square Dashboard
Virtual Terminal
The Virtual Terminal is built into the Square Dashboard and lets you process and record all types of payments from a desktop or laptop computer. These include manually keyed-in card payments, card-on-file payments, gift card payments, subscriptions with recurring payments and cash and check purchases. You can also process cards physically with a card reader connected to your computer or laptop using the Virtual Terminal.
Overview of Square’s Virtual Terminal
Once the charge is complete, you can print or email receipts to clients and Virtual Terminal sales tally with your other Square sales data.
Square’s new Payment Link feature is part of the Virtual Terminal too. With it, you can send quick-pay links to customers via text.
Square Invoices
Square Invoices help you get paid faster by offering your customers their pick of convenient online payment options, including credit card and e-wallet payments. You can create invoices, select payment options and send the invoices to clients from your Square Dashboard and the POS app by enabling the free Square Invoices feature.
Requesting payments from clients is simple with the Square Invoices add-on.
Square online store
Square provides every user with a free, full-featured online store, called Square Online. Accessed from the Square Dashboard, setup only takes a few minutes and you can populate your online store quickly with products from your database. Inventory levels, product details, sales and customer data all sync seamlessly between your online store to other Square data to make multichannel sales management a breeze.
Set up a sleek online store in minutes with Square Online.
You can also connect your Square account to other top small business e-commerce platforms if you already have a website or online store. Most allow you to use Square to process payments and a few, such as Weebly, fully integrate with your Square POS and Dashboard data.
Optional Square Online Store upgrades
Square’s built-in online store offers two upgraded plans for £20 and £64 per month, each with added sales and marketing features.
Square Appointments is a free feature that lets you book and manage all types of service appointments using the Square Appointments app with Square POS. The free version supports both in-store and online bookings, automated text and email reminders, recurring appointments and more. Square Appointments fully integrates with Square POS data, card readers and registers for seamless payment processing and sales tracking.
Optional Square appointment upgrades
Two upgrade options, priced at £29 and £69 per month, expand Square Appointments to support multiple locations, prepaid appointments, large teams, automated confirmations, commission tiers and much more.
Advanced add-on features
Along with the upgrades detailed above, Square offers add-on features to help meet the needs of growing businesses. Once activated, add-ons seamlessly integrate with your Square system to give you a streamlined all-in-one business marketing and management solution.
Square marketing
Square Marketing puts your customer data to work with automated text and email campaigns built into your Square customer management system. Email and text messaging features can be added separately and carry different fees.
Email marketing is based on the number of contacts in your database:
- £0 per month for up to 500 contacts
- £19 per month for 501 to 1,000 contacts
- £29 per month for 1,001 to 2,000 contacts
- See more Square Email Marketing pricing tiers
Square loyalty
Give customers a reason to come back with Square Loyalty. This premium feature adds loyalty points tracking to Square POS and Square Online Store. On the customer side, Square Loyalty lets you set reward levels, such as points based on visits, amounts spent or items purchased. The incentives and rewards are up to you and customers can redeem them online or in-store.
Square Loyalty fees are based on qualified loyalty visits per month:
- £25 per month for up to 500 loyalty customer visits
- £45 per month for 501 to 1,500 loyalty customer visits
- £65 per month for 1,501 to 10,000 loyalty customer visits
- Custom rates for higher-volume users
Qualified visits include when a customer registers for the program, makes a points-earned purchase or redeems points.
Gift cards
Gift card sales, tracking, reload and redemption tools are all included in all of Square’s POS and online sales tools. Online e-gift cards are free to use, the only cost is the usual payment processing fee at the time of purchase. Physical gift cards customised with your logo or message can be purchased from Square starting at 52p each, with discounts for volume purchases of 1,000 or more.
Square pricing and fees
Square’s flat-rate payment processing fees are very transparent with no hidden or add-on fees based on card type, unlike standard merchant account providers. Square’s fees are all based on the type of payment used and how the sale was completed, such as in-person, online or using a keyed-in option.
Here’s a look at Square’s processing fees for various payment options and sales tools.
For most Square users, payment processing fees make up the bulk of their ongoing costs. If you don’t need any paid add-ons or upgrades, payment processing fees are your only cost of using Square.
Square hardware
Square’s mobile card readers, checkout stands and in-store registers let you process credit cards physically, plus accept other types of payments for in-person sales. Various card readers and register options have one-time purchase costs.
Mobile card readers
Square offers two card readers for mobile POS payments using iOS and Android phones and tablets. Readers can also connect to desktop and laptop computers to complete Virtual Terminal sales. Square also offers a compact, mobile-friendly all-in-one POS, card reader and printer product called Square Terminal.
Retail checkout stands and registers
Square offers three checkout-style registers that are ideal for retail, restaurant and walk-in service locations. Square’s sleek iPad Stand and Stand Mount houses your POS-powered iPad and includes built-in card readers. Square Register provides an all-in-one solution, with dual-display screens and onboard POS software (no iPad needed) for the speediest in-store checkout experience.
Checkout and register accessories, such as barcode scanners, receipt printers and cash drawers, can be added to Square Stands and Square Register. Square sells a variety of accessories individually and in bundled sets, so you can build exactly what you need.
You can even pair Bluetooth barcode scanners and receipt printers to iOS devices for a full-service checkout using Square’s POS and your iPhone or iPad.
Perhaps most importantly: no internet connection? No problem. Square’s mobile POS app and register systems can capture and save payment data, then process it later when you have a signal. That’s something few other mobile POS systems can boast.
Bottom line
With easy-to-understand fees, an array of payment options and virtually unmatched suite of sales, marketing and business management tools, it’s no wonder that Square is a favourite of small business owners. Startups, power sellers and practically everyone in between can tailor a system that meets their specific needs using Square. Despite a few drawbacks, such as set fees and limitations on what can be sold, overall, Square delivers incredible value, especially considering the many perks you get for free.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What exactly does Square do?
Square combines a full array of online and in-person payment processing options with powerful sell-anywhere sales tools and business management features.
Square users can use mobile devices, in-store checkouts, online stores, email marketing, invoices and more to sell products and services and get paid anywhere and track sales, customers, products and more in one central location. Square provides these perks for free, all you pay is credit card processing fees.
Does Square charge a fee?
Square accounts are free and have no startup, monthly or termination fees and no long-term contracts. Square makes the bulk of its money through credit card processing fees, which are 1.75% per transaction for in-person sales, 1.4% plus 25p per transaction for online sales and 2.5% per transaction for keyed-in card sales.
Square offers optional feature upgrades and add-ons that start around £20 per month. But for most users, payment processing fees are all they pay to use Square.
Does Square offer fraud protection?
Square monitors all payment activity automatically and provides alerts on suspicious activity through both algorithmic automation and human observation.
According to the company, Square constantly evolves its fraud detection policies to keep customers as safe as possible.
Does Square support third-party integrations?
Square supports multiple third-party integrations via its Square App Marketplace. You might have to pay for those integrations separately, depending on which apps you choose.
