Square POS Review: Is The Affordable POS Right For You?

If you’re after an affordable, reliable point-of-sale system – look no further than Square POS. Square’s free plan and complimentary card reader lets you sell for free, making it a great choice for new businesses and portable sellers like food trucks and market stalls. What’s more, Square’s flexible hardware options and impressive feature catalog make it an asset to established brick-and-mortar locations too, especially if they manage multiple venues.

However, while our research found Square to be the best POS for small businesses, it won’t be a natural fit for everyone. Its transaction fees are higher than alternatives like Clover, and its lack of a training mode may be off-putting to businesses that regularly bring on new staff.

There’s so much to discuss when it comes to Square, including its low learning curve, retail and restaurant-focused features, and pricing plans. We’ve rounded up everything you need to know about the popular POS, so read on to see if it’s a good choice for you.

In this review:

• Square POS: At a Glance
• Square POS: Core Features
• Square Hardware
• Square Plans for Restaurants and Retail Businesses
• Square Customer Support
• How Does Square Compare to Alternatives?
• How Did We Research the Best POS Systems?
• The Verdict: Is Square Worth It?

Who should go for Square?

• Establishments with one to three locations
• Businesses that want to start selling for free
• Mobile sellers like pop-up shops and food trucks
• Users who want to integrate their POS with an online store

Who shouldn’t go for Square?

• Large restaurants in need of ingredient tracking features
• Businesses that want a training mode for new employees
• Businesses looking for ultra-low card processing fees

Square POS Review: Core Features

There’s no denying it, Square offers an impressive raft of features. From flexible payment features to retail and restaurant-focused capabilities, the POS is stacked with useful tools, especially in comparison to other free systems like Zettle By PayPal and SumUp. Read on to learn more about Square’s key features in 2024.

Payment options

Square’s payment options are second to none. The POS lets businesses accept payments by all major credit cards like Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express, as well as mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Cash App Pay.

In addition to standard payment options, Square lets customers pay via QR codes – a perk not currently offered by POS rival Clover – and integrates seamlessly with ‘Buy, now, pay later’ (BNPL) services like Clearpay.

Square’s eGift Card system lets businesses sell, track, and redeem payments easily with digital gift cards for free – while physical gift cards are available at an additional cost. These gift cards are fully customizable and able to be fitted with your business’s unique branding. When we tested Square out for ourselves, we were impressed with how easy it was to create custom gift cards from scratch.

Square made it easy for me to set up and customize gift cards for my business. Source: Tech.co user testing

Inventory tracking

Square offers a solid range of inventory management features with its free plan. For instance, users can manage their stock, update inventory quantities in bulk, and receive low-stock alerts. The POS also makes it easy to edit inventory items and add modifiers to help servers log orders faster.

Square also offers a number of specialized stock management features for retailers with large or complex inventories. The system lets you create and print barcode labels, and auto-generate unique SKUs. Square Plus and Premium users can also create purchase orders to stock up on products and track vendors seamlessly.

I found Square’s inventory management system comprehensive, even for beginners. Source: Tech.co testing

Online ordering

Square’s seamless integration with its commerce platform Square Online makes it a competitive choice for those selling across channels, whether you’re a retailer or a take-out and delivery food business.

Businesses with a Square website are able to sync their online store with Square POS and manage sales data from one centralized dashboard. Not only does this reduce the hassle associated with switching between platforms, but it also unlocks valuable customer insights from online sales and makes it easier for vendors to stay on top of stock counts.

Square lets you create a professional online ordering page in a matter of minutes. Source: SquareUp

Food businesses are able to create mobile-ready ordering pages in minutes too, that are customized to suit their unique brand. For example, after you import your menu, you can edit the colors, fonts, and image shapes on the ordering page to suit your liking, and even edit your photos in Square’s Photo Studio App. These features make Square a solid choice for food businesses that want to maximize their revenue by branching out into delivery.

Multi-location management

While Square’s free packages and hardware options lend themselves well to small and new businesses, the POS helps chain restaurants and retail stores streamline their processes too.

Square lets you link locations, manage transfers, set up location libraries, and access multi-location reports for free. The POS also makes it easy to create new locations, edit location information, and add transfer tags to switch between locations. Square can even tackle payroll challenges by letting users switch between bank accounts when sending transfers across business locations.

Table management

If you run a restaurant, Square’s drag-and-drop table management system makes it easy for businesses to create and customize floor plans. Users are able to update the layout of their floor plan in a matter of clicks too, which can be a huge time-saver for busy restaurants.

During service, Square lets you color-code the status of your tables to monitor customer activity in real-time. This handy capability helps servers turn around tables as soon as they’re free, resulting in higher turnover rates and profits for restaurants.

Square’s Table Management system let me create a replica of my restaurant’s layout with an intuitive drag-and-drop builder. Source: Tech.co user testing

However, compared to alternatives, Square’s table layout system is slightly rigid. Unlike restaurant-focused POS systems like Lightspeed Restaurant and TouchBistro, Square doesn’t let you customize the color or add custom labels to your tables, making it harder for managers to create tailored, interactive layouts. While it’s table management system is extremely user-friendly, it’s lack of flexibility will make it less useful for larger full-service restaurants, and venues that regularly experiment with their layout.

App store

If you find Square lacks a feature you need, chances are you’ll be able to fill in the gaps with its expansive third-party app store. Square has one of the best app stores we’ve researched, with the platform boasting over 300 software integrations in customer loyalty, stock management, and more.

While there are a number of free apps on the Square Marketplace, including the QR ordering system Mr Yum, and the online appointment system Appointy, most integrations come at a premium, so relying on multiple add-ons will bump up the price of your monthly package.

Square Plans for Restaurants and Retail Businesses

Square offers a number of different POS packages for businesses to choose from, including Square Free, Retail Plus, Restaurant Premium, Restaurant Plus, and Restaurant Premium. We break down Square’s costs below and outline the features you’ll get with each plan.

How much does Square POS cost?

Square lets you get started for free, just charging you a fraction of each sale. However, if you want to unlock premium features, Square offers premium retail and restaurant-focused packages too.

Square Retail costs $89 per month, and Square’s hospitality package, Square Restaurant, costs $60 per month, plus $40 per month per extra countertop POS device and $50 per month for every additional location.

Read on to learn about these plans, or refer to our Square POS pricing page for a full overview of the provider’s costs.

Square Free

Square lets businesses get started completely free. Its free plan doesn’t have set-up or monthly fees, and it even throws in a complimentary Square Reader for magstripe which plugs directly into your mobile device, allowing you to accept swipe payments on compatible devices. (You’ll need to pay for any of its other readers, however.)

While Square’s free plan lacks certain advanced capabilities, it offers every POS feature a business would need to get started including flexible payment options, inventory management, sales analytics, and even multi-store management tools.

Square does charge businesses for a percentage of each sale, however. We outline how the platforms’s card processing fees compare below:

• Card present payments cost 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction
• Card not present payments cost 2.9 + 30 cents per transaction
• Manually keyed-in payments cost 3.5% + 15 cents per transaction 

Square for Retail

If Square’s free plan is too basic for your store, the provider’s retail-focused POS package unlocks a variety of useful capabilities including advanced stock controls, automatic purchase orders, barcode label printing, and unlimited employee time tracking.

Due to Square Retail Plus’s enhanced stock management features, the package will be much better suited to stores with large or complex inventories. Its price point is slightly higher than similar plans, with alternatives like Clover offering a hardware and software retail package for $60 per month.

What’s more, while the plan is stacked with useful features, if you want to access profit management features to identify potential profits and price products effectively, we’d recommend investing slightly more in alternatives like EposNow or Shopify.

Established businesses with complex needs can also opt for Square Retail Premium for a tailor-made software package with one-on-one onboarding support.

Square for Restaurants

Square also offers a feature-rich plan for full-service restaurants – Restaurants Plus.

With this plan, restaurants get everything in Square’s free package with additional order-ready text, floor plan customization, and course management features. Businesses are also able to unlock the Square for Restaurants mobile POS app, and benefit from unlimited use of the platform’s KDS services.

Square Restaurants Plus also gives users access to Square Shifts, the provider’s streamlined employee management tool. Square Shifts offers a wealth of useful functions including shift management, time and attendance tracking, labor-cost reporting, and more. Since most other POS systems charge you extra for these perks, Square’s Restaurant Plus plan will be a cost-effective option for food businesses that want to manage these processes in-house.

Is Square good value?

Yes, Square POS offers great value for businesses keen on keeping costs low. In fact, Square’s powerful free plan and affordable hardware options make it one of the best-value POS systems on the market, especially for new and small businesses that don’t sell high volumes of goods.

This being said, larger, established businesses that prioritize low transaction fees might find POS providers like Clover better value in the long run, as the POS takes a slightly smaller percentage of each sale compared with Square.

Square POS Hardware

Square POS offers a wide selection of custom hardware for businesses to choose from. From its slick iPad stand, Square Stand, and its integrated Square Register, to a wide range of POS accessories, businesses are able to choose hardware packages or cherry-pick devices based on their unique needs.

The providers recently launched Square Stand 2nd generation makes it easier than ever for businesses to turn an iPad into a fully-fledged POS system too. The iPad Stand operates offline as well and is able to function during power disruptions by using the iPad’s battery. These enhanced capabilities give Square’s 2nd generation Stand the edge over other iPad systems by competitors like Touch Bistro and SpotOn.

In fact, tied with Clover POS, our research found Square offers the best POS hardware options on the market. This is because Square offers a very wide assortment of modern, user-friendly devices, including stand-out options like customer displays and kitchen display systems. The fact Square retails its very own POS terminal also gives it a leg up over systems that are 100% iPad-based, like TouchBistro.

We’ve rounded up some of its main hardware options, and their price points in our table below:

Square Setup and Customer Support

Square’s help and support center is among the best in the industry. Even if you’re using its free plan, you’ll be able to access 24/7 support through its AI chatbot. Square also has an expansive knowledge center and offers support via email, social media, and phone channels, giving businesses the choice to reach out in a way that suits them best.

When we tested out its chatbot feature, we were really impressed with its fast response times. The AI chatbot helped us to resolve queries in under 10 seconds. In comparison, it took over 30 seconds to get a response with Clover’s live chat service. Square’s fast response times, combined with its wealth of other support tools, make the POS an especially strong option for busy businesses that need queries to be resolved in a hurry.

How Does Square Compare to Other POS Alternatives?

While our research found that Square is the best choice for small businesses overall, it won’t be the best fit for everyone. In our last round of research, Clover overtook Square to become our best retail POS system due to its smoother user experience and impressive in-house customer loyalty features.

What’s more, while Clover lacks a free version, and charges slightly more for its paid packages than Square, its transaction fees are lower. This will make Clover a better value in the long run for established retail businesses selling large volumes of goods.

Learn more about how the POS systems compare in our Square vs Clover guide.

Alternatively, established full-service restaurants or POS beginners may be better off going for Toast. The Android-based POS system recently usurped Square and became our best-rated POS for restaurants due to its ultra-low learning curve and inclusion of advanced features like automated tip sharing and community building. Toast offers a free plan too, which makes it a great alternative for smaller, budget-conscious food vendors.

See how Square compares to other quality POS providers below:

How Do We Research The Best POS Systems?

We understand that the right technology can make all the difference to small businesses. This is why our product reviews are backed up with hundreds of hours of research and testing. After shortlisting the best POS solutions on the market, we analyze them against the following metrics: 

• Software – We check what general and industry-specific features are being offered by POS systems, and how advanced these capabilities are.
• Hardware – We analyze the provider’s hardware options, like kitchen display systems, receipt printers, POS terminals, and more.
• Price – We calculate the average price of the POS plans, consider its entry price and the price of transaction fees, and check for the presence of free plans. 
• Help and support options – We research which customer support channels are available, how fast the response times are, and if they’re open 24/7. 
• Customer satisfaction – We take an aggregate score from customer review sites like Trustpilot and TrustRadius to understand what businesses actually make of the POS system.
• User experience – We also conduct first-hard testing on the products and measure metrics like their error rates, learning curve, intuitiveness, and more.

After we’ve collected the data, we give each provider a score out of five in all the core categories, as well as an overall score. These scores help us to determine how the providers weigh up side-by-side, and how capable they will be at meeting the needs of specific types of businesses.

You can learn more about our research process here.