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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.
Pros
- Free to get started
- Slick and stylish hardware
- Serves businesses of all sizes and in all sectors
- Strong analytics, inventory, and third-party integrations
Cons
- Some necessary features for mid-sized businesses cost more
- 3.5% + 15¢ charge for keyed-in transactions
- Support options vary by plan
Square may have performed the best in our research and testing, but it’s far from the only POS out there. If you’re open to exploring different options, take our tailored questionnaire to get matched to a leading POS system, based on your specific needs.
Square POS: At a Glance
We’ve rounded up some key facts about Square POS so you can see if it is right for you straight away:
- Free plan: Square’s free plan comes with a free magstripe card reader, letting businesses get started at no cost – only charging them 2.6% +10c per sale. (You’ll still need to buy the hardware if you want to accept payments from chip cards without a magnetic stripe.)
- Great hardware options: Square offers the best hardware options we researched, making it a reliable choice for iPad sellers and established brick-and-mortar locations alike.
- POS app: Square’s iOS app and iPad POS Stand make it an especially strong option for portable vendors like pop-up sellers and food trucks
- Customer support: Square offers 24/7 support via live chat, and its chatbot has the best response times out of any other provider we researched.
- No training mode: While Square is simple to use, it lacks a dedicated training mode, unlike alternatives like Lightspeed and Toast. This makes it slightly harder for new employees to get acquainted with the software.
- Average user experience: When we tested out Square for ourselves we found its user experience to be quite clunky, especially in comparison with ultra-intuitive systems like Clover.
- POS features: Square offers an impressive array of retail and restaurant-focused features, but if you’re in need of more specific tools like cost management of capabilities or ingredient tracking we’d advise using alternatives like Shopify or Clover instead.
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
Test Summary (2024)
While Square offers lots of POS features, its interface didn’t seem too bogged down with capabilities. I also found it straightforward to carry out basic tasks like adding items to the system, logging orders, and managing the table plan.
The stripped-back nature of the POS will make it well-suited to smaller businesses like market stalls and food trucks. However, larger businesses with advanced needs may find Square’s no-frills software a bit too simplistic.
Some processes were slightly time-consuming too. For example, when I tried to add items to the system I had to add items one at a time and it took me quite a long time to search for specific features. I can imagine this would be annoying for busy businesses that don’t have tons of spare time to get to grips with the software.
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.
Plan | Price | Best for | Transaction fees | Benefits | |
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Free | Restaurant Plus | Retail Plus | Retail Premium | ||
Free | $69/month | $89/month | $POA | ||
Small, mobile food and beverage vendors | Established food and beverage businesses | Growing retail businesses | Established brick-and-motor retail stores | ||
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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:
Price from The typical lowest starting price. The lowest price available for your business will depend on your needs. | Good to know | |||||
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Square Stand for iPads (second gen) | Square Register | Card Reader | Contactless Card Reader | Square POS terminal | Square Stand Kit | Square Register Kit |
$149 per unit | $799 or $39/mo | $10 per unit | $49 per unit | $299 per unit | $579 | $1,268 |
| Fully integrated POS register with a separate customer-facing display |
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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.
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:
Best for Tech.co's verdict to help you identify the most suitable choice for your small business | Price from The typical lowest starting price. The lowest price available for your business will depend on your needs. | Additional costs Any additional costs you'll need to pay to get started | Transaction fees from The lowest possible fee that will be incurred with each transaction. | User limit | Get started | ||
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SPONSORED | BEST OVERALL | ||||||
Square POS | Clover POS | Lightspeed | Shopify POS | ||||
Best for onboarding new staff quickly | Small businesses aiming to expand | Best for high quality hardware | Businesses that need no upfront expenses | Fast growing restaurants | Online sales | Businesses with complex inventories | |
Free (with transaction fees) | $0 + $14.95 (virtual terminal) | Free (with transaction fees) | $349 upfront (+$79/month) | ||||
Additional terminals cost $50 per month | Marketing, customer loyalty, and employee management features all cost extra | Accounting integrations cost $19.95 per month | $3 per month per employee for restaurant plans | $29 per additional register per month | Shopify POS Pro is available for $89 per location, per month | Single training costs $175 or $35 per month for unlimited sessions | |
2.6% + 10 cents for each card-based sale |
| 2.3% +10 cents | Dependent on third-party payment processor |
| 2.2% + 20 ¢ | N/A | |
Unlimited user limit | Unlimited — but each till requires a new license | Unlimited — but each till requires a new license | Unlimited user limit | User limit depends on plan | Single user per license across all plans | Single user per license across all plans | |
Visit Lavu | Visit Square | Compare Prices | Visit SpotOn | Visit Lightspeed | Compare Prices | Compare prices |
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.
Verdict: Is Sqaure POS Worth It?
If you’re in the market for a new POS system, you can’t go wrong with Square. It’s our best-rated POS system for good reason. Not only does Square let users get started with a generous free plan, its retail and hospitality packages are feature-rich enough to meet the needs of established stores and full-service restaurants.
Even if Square does lack a feature your business needs, you’ll probably be able to access the tool externally through the provider’s expansive app Marketplace – as long as you’re willing to pay a slight premium. However, despite Square’s many accolades, it wasn’t able to outperform its competitors in every category. For instance, Clover offers lower transaction fees than Square and its retail features are slightly more impressive, while Toast’s user-friendly software makes it easier for food businesses to get started on.
Still undecided? You can take our quick and easy quiz to get matched to a POS provider based on your unique needs. It only takes a minute!
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