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.
Square’s interface is easy to navigate on any mobile device.
Optional POS Upgrades
Square offers upgraded versions of its free POS app to better meet the needs of retail stores and foodservice businesses and to compete with specialized POS systems. Square for Retail caters to large, multistore retailers while Square for Restaurants seamlessly connects back- and front-of-house operations for bars, cafes and restaurants. Both start at $60 per month, not including registers or other hardware.
Square Dashboard
Square centralizes 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.
The option to generate a payment link can be found on the Payment Details page.
Square Invoices
Square Invoices help you get paid faster by offering your customers their pick of convenient online payment options, including credit card, ACH check payments 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 three upgraded plans for $12, $26 and $76 per month, each with added sales and marketing features. You also get lower payment processing fees at the top-tier level.
Square Appointments
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 Payroll
Square Payroll is a full-service payroll solution starting at $40 per month, plus $5 per additional employee. It tracks payroll and payments for both employees and contractors, including timekeeping, tips and commissions, payroll runs, employee payments, tax filings, W-2s and 1099s and more. There’s also a simplified contractor-only option for $5 per month, per contractor.
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:
- $15 per month for up to 500 contacts
- $25 per month for 501 to 1,000 contacts
- $40 per month for 1,001 to 2,000 contacts
- See more Square Email Marketing pricing tiers
Text message marketing has a $10 monthly fee, plus usage costs based on the number of texts sent per month. Usage costs range from $10 for up to 250 messages sent per month to $125 for 25,000 messages sent per month. Special pricing is available for high-volume text messaging needs.
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 works via the Cash App and lets you set reward levels, such as points based on visits, amounts spent or item purchases. The incentives and rewards are up to you and customers can redeem them online or in-store via Cash App.
Square Loyalty fees are based on qualified loyalty visits per month:
- $45 per month for up to 500 loyalty customer visits
- $75 per month for 501 to 1,500 loyalty customer visits
- $105 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 customized with your logo or message can be purchased from Square starting at 80 cents each for a pack of 75 cards, with discounts for volume purchases of 1,000 or more.
