Square Online Pricing 2023: Fees, Plans and More

In today’s guide to Square Online pricing, we’re going to be looking at all of the fees, subscription costs, and other expenses connected with creating a Square store. Square Online provides business owners with a convenient way to design a lucrative online presence, and synchronize it with their offline store and point of sale system.

How Much Does Square Online Cost?

Today, we’re going to take a closer look at the functionality you get with each plan, the value included in the packages, and the extra costs you may need to be aware of.

Square Online Pricing – How Much does Square Cost?

Square Online is a convenient website builder, developed by the Square payment processing brand. The website builder is a hosted solution, which means you get everything you need to run your business online, without having to pay for separate hosting or usage caps.

Square provides unlimited bandwidth on its packages, as well as an SSL certificate, to ensure your store remains secure. There’s also the option to use a custom domain (on some plans), and accept payments from major credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Square Pay, and PayPal.

You can build a store on Square Online for free, which means there are no monthly subscription costs, but you’ll still need to manage transaction fees.

Your online store will integrate naturally with any offline solutions you’re using with Square, so you can manage transactions both in the physical world, and online at the same time. Square also allows for sales through social media channels like Instagram and Facebook.

All Square plans are PCI compliant and certified, so you can rest assured you’ll be able to stay compliant. Additionally, you can switch plans at any time.

The Free Plan

One of the main things that makes Square Online so appealing to a wide range of business owners is it’s possible to get started for free. In other words, you don’t need pay anything to set up your store with Square Online. However, the features on the free plan are extremely limited. Additionally, there are still costs to consider, such as transaction fees.

The Square free plan isn’t ideal for long-term use, but it might be a good option for beginners and small companies testing out Square for the first time. The free plan does come with a number of caveats. You’ll have a Square subdomain, rather than being able to use your own custom domain.

Secondly, Square’s free plan comes with adverts from Square displayed on your website, which can harm your reputation and branding. On the plus side, you will be able to create a site and sell an unlimited amount of physical and digital goods on the free plan. You can even accept donations, sell services, and more. The free plan also includes:

• Up to 500MB of bandwidth and storage
• The option to manage multiple sites
• Custom embed codes for adding your store to other channels
• In-house delivery, click and collect, and self-serve ordering
• Operations management and order-status text alerts
• ClearPay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Square Pay and donation payments
• Item badges and time-based categories
• SEO tools and blog platform support
• Voucher creation
• Lead capture forms
• Facebook, Google, and Instagram ads and marketing

Overall, Square’s free pricing plan does give you quite a lot of flexibility and control over your online business. The free plan gives you all the basics you need to get started online. Additionally, the features above are included with all of the premium plans too (alongside a number of extras).

Who should use the free plan?

The Square free plan is best for people who are experimenting with the Square online store builder for the first time. The number of features and options included is quite generous. However, you’ll struggle to scale your store or build an eye-catching brand on this package.

The Square Professional Plan

The Square Professional plan is the next step up from the free plan. It’s intended for small business owners with limited online sales requirements. This package will cost $12 per month, and includes the same transaction fees as the free plan. Intended for launching your store, and creating a branded, professional online presence, the Square Professional plan is an affordable way to get started online.

With the Professional plan, you’ll get all of the features included in the free plan, but there are a number of additional bonuses to consider too. For instance, you’ll get unlimited bandwidth and storage on this plan, as well as the option to set up your own custom domain to enhance your brand’s appearance. You’ll even be able to access a free domain for one year.

Alongside the features of the free plan, the Square Professional plan includes:

• The ability to remove the Square footer and ads from your site
• Access to custom fonts
• Password-protected pages

Ultimately, the Professional plan offers all of the features of the free plan, plus some additional scalability. There are none of the major drawbacks of the free plan included here. You won’t have to showcase Square adverts, and you can build your own professional image with a unique domain.

Square’s Professional plan lacks some of the advanced functionality of the more expensive plans, but it could be a good option if you’re getting started with a relatively small budget.

Who should use the Professional plan

We’d recommend the Professional plan for anyone who’s ready to officially launch their online store and start building a digital brand. You’ll be able to ensure you’re making a good first impression on your customers, and start scaling your store without limitations. Plus, you can save some extra cash by getting your domain for free for one year.

The Square Performance Plan

As you start to scale your business, Square offers two larger plans for growing companies. The Performance plan, available for $26 per month, is probably the most popular solution offered by Square. It’s relatively affordable compared to many other online site builder packages. However, it includes a range of sophisticated features.

As you might expect, all of the capabilities of the Professional plan are included with this package. However, you’ll also have a lot more opportunity to streamline your sales and shipping process, and boost engagement with your target audience.

Square’s Performance plan includes a few bonus extras you can’t get on the Professional plan, including the ability to send gift cards to customers. You’ll also have access to:

• Abandoned cart recovery to reduce your risk of lost sales
• Customer product reviews you can display on your store for social proof
• Comprehensive shipping tools with label printing, tracking, and carrier options
• Discounts on UPS shipping rates
• Advanced reporting for insights into your sales over time
• The option to accept PayPal payments

Square’s Performance plan is excellent for increasing conversions and strengthening your online presence through social proof, customer reviews, and a range of other solutions. As your sales continue to grow, you can streamline your shipping process, with a range of helpful tools for managing logistics. Additionally, it’s easy to track sales information with custom reports.

Who should use the Performance plan?

We’d recommend Square Online and the Performance plan for any store looking to engage and grow it’s audience as rapidly as possible in the digital sphere. The plan is still relatively affordable, and comes with a range of tools to help you take your business to the next level. You can even track crucial metrics and KPIs with built-in analytics.

The Square Premium Plan

The final, and most expensive plan available from Square Online is the Premium plan. This will cost you a total of $72 per month, when billed annually. However, It is worth noting that the transaction fees are lowered to just 2.6% plus 30 cents, which could mean you save a decent amount of cash if you’re running a rapidly scaling store.

Square’s Premium plan is designed for bigger businesses, who can benefit from savings on shipping and processing fees. The Premium plan isn’t hugely different from the Performance plan in terms of features. However, you do get lower transaction fees, and higher discounts on shipping rates when you partner with Square approved companies for logistics.

As an added bonus, the Premium plan also includes a real-time shipping rate calculator. This means you can determine exactly how much it’s going to cost to fulfil an order, and reduce your risk of over-charging or under-charging your customers.

Who should use the Premium plan?

Since the price of the Premium plan is a lot higher than the cost for Square’s other packages, it’s worth ensuring you actually need the features on offer before considering this solution. We’d recommend using this plan if you’re running an already scaling store with a lot of customers. You can save a little extra cash on processing and shipping fees with this package.

Additional Costs to Consider

One point to keep in mind when you’re planning your budget for a Square Online store, is there are some additional fees to be aware of outside of the monthly subscription costs. Square offers relatively transparent pricing packages, but it’s easy to overlook some of the costs, such as:

1. Domain Names

The paid plans from Square Online will provide you with access to a free domain for up to one year. However, you will need to pay for your domain name eventually. The exact cost of a domain can differ depending on your choice of domain host. Square Online allows you to buy a domain directly from the company, for a cost of around $12 to $40 per year.

Notably, while you’ll get a free subdomain on Square’s free plan, it won’t be the best option for any business looking to build a reputable presence online.

2. Processing fees

Processing fees are included on all of Square’s plans. This might seem problematic, but processing fees are common regardless of which online site builder you use. Square’s processing fees are relatively standard, at 2.9% plus 30 cents for every transaction. However, you can reduce this to around 2.6% and 30 cents on the Premium plan.

The processing fees are about the same as you’d expect from another store builder, such as Wix and Shopify. As an added bonus, there aren’t any monthly fee for sending Square invoices and estimates. You’ll only pay a processing fee when a customer pays for an item. If you’re accepting in-person payments, the processing fee is around 2.6% plus 10 cents per transaction. Alternatively, card on file transactions are processed at a fee of 3.5% plus 15 cents.

3. Square Marketing fees

If you want to boost your chances of attracting a higher number of customers, you can access Square’s marketing suite for an extra cost. The marketing tools allow you to create, track, and send email campaigns from within your Square Dashboard. This functionality is available for free as part of a 30-day trial. After which, prices start at $15 per month. Options include:

• 0-500 contacts: $15 per month
• 501-1000 contacts: $25 per month
• 1,001-2000 contacts: $35 per month

Prices continue to increase depending on the number of contacts you have. For instance, if you have up to 75,000 contacts, you’ll pay around $425 per month.

Square Point of Sale Pricing

One of the main reasons companies opt for Square Online over other forms of online builder, is the solution works well with an existing online store. If you already have an offline presence, Square will allow you to rapidly connect your online and offline assets. However, you will need to pay for point of sale hardware to enable your offline store.

There are different POS solutions available for different kinds of companies. For instance, there’s a solution for retail, appointments, and restaurants. Using the POS app is free, with no monthly charges. However, you will pay a processing fee of 2.6% plus 10 cents for each in-person transaction.

The hardware, on the other hand, has its own costs to consider. You can get your first Square Reader for magstripe payments for free, then each additional reader costs $10. Square readers for contactless and chip payments start at $49 per month. Square stands for contactless and chip payments cost either $16 per month for 12 months, or $169 as a one-off payment. You can also access a Square Terminal for $299 per month, or a Square Register for $799 per month.

How Does Square Online Compare to Other Builders?

Square Online is a relatively affordable way to get started online compared to many alternative solutions. Most ecommerce builders won’t allow you to start selling online until you upgrade to a premium plan, which differentiates Square from the pack.

Some alternative options worth considering may include:

Square Online vs Shopify Pricing

One of the better-known solutions for ecommerce store building, Shopify can be relatively affordable, but costs add up quickly. There’s a cheap plan for $5 per month which allows you to add ecommerce functionality to an existing website. Full store plans start at $29 per month and can range up to $2000 or more for Shopify Plus. Transaction fees are also included on all plans not using Shopify Payments.

Square Online vs Wix Pricing

Wix ecommerce gives companies a relatively affordable way to get started online. There’s a free plan available, but you won’t be able to sell anything on this package. The business plans start at $27 per month, and there are additional fees to consider. You can end up paying more than $500 per month if you choose an enterprise plan. Wix does allow you to sell online and through social media channels, and there’s an abandoned cart recovery solution available, similar to Square Online.

Square Online vs Squarespace

Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan on offer, but you can access a demo of the functionality for 14 days. Squarespace also offers discounts to companies willing to pay for an annual plan of 25%. To access the ecommerce features, you’ll need to pay for at least the $33 Business package, which is also available for $23 per month if you pay annually. On the plus side, Squarespace doesn’t have any transaction fees to pay, but you may still need to pay the payment processing fees implemented by your provider.

Is Square Online Worth It?

Compared to many alternatives, Square Online offers business leaders an affordable way to get started online with minimal expense or effort. There are many generous features to explore, even on the free plan. However, we’d recommend avoiding the free plan if you’re looking to create a highly professional image for your online store.

The low-cost starter plan is a good choice for beginners, but if you really want to scale your store, we recommend upgrading to the Performance plan, which offers a lot of additional features, without a huge price tag. It’s also worth noting that all of Square’s plans are relatively transparent, and come with access to create features like built-in security, and a free domain for a year on annual plans.

All Square Online plans come with access to simple templates you can use to get your store up-and-running, although the exact functionality can vary depending on how much you pay. Inventory management and in-store connections are included across all plans, making Square an excellent choice for multi-channel sellers who want their own ecommerce website.

Although you may need to pay a little more to get advanced features like coupon creation and discounted shipping rates, Square Online offers a relatively affordable way to access a range of valuable tools for online selling in one place.

Square Pricing: FAQ

Is Square Online free?

There is a free version of Square Online available, which will allow you to access a range of features, such as the option to take credit card payments, arrange curbside pickup, and design your own online website. While the free version offers exceptional ease of use, and various tools for managing online payments, it’s not as advanced as some ecommerce platforms.

It’s also worth noting you’ll have to pay a higher processing rate on Square’s free plan, and won’t be able to use a custom domain with your Square account. You’ll also need to deal with having Square ads placed on your website pages.

Can you sell unlimited products with Square?

You can potentially sell unlimited products on any Square Online plan, including the free package. However, you won’t have unlimited bandwidth unless you upgrade to a paid plan. You may also find the processing rate is higher on some of the plans you choose. However, you won’t have to pay for any add-on transaction fees to use Square’s shopping cart and online sale options.

Is Square Online good for omnichannel selling?

Square is an excellent choice if you’re already using a Square Point of Sale solution, as it allows you to unify your online sales strategy with your offline store. You can keep track of online ordering, shipping labels, and online payments in one place. Plus, it’s easy to sync inventory information across your online and offline store. Square even offers fantastic customer support to help you get started with your account, if you need some extra help.

Which is the best Square Pricing Plan?

We’d recommend the Square Performance plan for most business owners. It comes with a comprehensive online site for selling your products in the digital world. Plus, you can create Square gift cards, and access customer reviews to boost your social proof.

The Performance plan includes most of the same benefits as the more expensive Premium plan too, although you won’t get a discount on processing online payments. However, if you’re not running a large online store, the Performance plan may be better value for money.

Can Square work with other Online tools?

Square has a decent amount of flexibility built into the platform. As well as using the solution with the Square POS environment, users can also take advantage of API integrations to automate workflows, and align various online and offline tools. You can also leverage the Square app marketplace to connect existing tools and platforms to your online store. However, some advanced apps will have their own custom pricing plans to consider.