Square Online Store Pricing
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How Much Does Square Cost? – Our Full Pricing Guide
Square Online is an extremely popular website builder that’s well known in the industry for letting its users sell for free. But exactly how much does it cost to use? And are there any hidden fees you should be aware of?
Here’s a quick glance at Square Online’s pricing plans, billed annually:
Square Online Pricing Plans
- Free plan – $0
- Professional plan – $12
- Performance plan – $26
- Premium plan – $72
This guide will break down Square Online’s pricing, so you know whether it fits your budget long-term, and what exactly you get for your money with each of its plans. We’ll also look at whether it offers value for money next to its competitors. If you have questions about Square Online’s pricing, we’re here to answer them!
Overview of Square Online’s Price Plans
Free | Professional | Performance | Premium | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly cost (on monthly plan) | $0 | $16 | $29 | $79 |
Equivalent monthly cost (on annual plan) | $0 | $12 | $26 | $72 |
Transaction fee per transaction | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.6% + $0.30 |
Find out more
- Not ready to pick a price plan? Read our Square Online Review to discover how we rate this platform’s features, design, and more
- Not ready to pick a design or template? Check our our top 12 Square Online Store Examples to get inspired
How Much Does Square Cost?
You can build, publish, and even sell on Square Online for free. Square Online’s paid plans range from $12 to $72 per month when billed annually – monthly prices start at $16 per month, and go up to $79 per month.
Here’s a comparison of each plan and its features, so you can see exactly what you get for your money at each pricing tier:
Free | Professional | Performance | Premium | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cost/month | $0 | $16 | $29 | $79 |
No. of products | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Custom domain | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Square adverts | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Sync with Square POS | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Delivery options | Pickup Delivery Shipping | Pickup Delivery Shipping | Pickup Delivery Shipping | Pickup Delivery Shipping |
Instagram integration | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Customer reviews | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Abandoned cart emails | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Discounted shipping rates | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Real-time shipping calculator | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Reduced processing fees | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Square Online Pricing Plans
Free Plan: $0 per month
Best for setting up your store
We’ll be totally upfront – we do not recommend Square Online’s free plan for long-term use. If you want to make sales and be taken seriously by customers, the free plan isn’t for you. Instead, we recommend the free plan for:
- Trying out Square Online, to see if you actually like its builder
- Building your store while keeping costs low
- Testing out design ideas and product layouts before publishing
We don’t recommend the free plan for long because of its limitations, which include:
- Square adverts on your store pages
- Square subdomain, so your address will look like this: www.yourstore.square.site
- You can’t connect your own domain, even if you have one already
With that said, we’ll admit that Square Online’s free plan is generous. There aren’t many free plans that let you sell online, and yet Square Online sets you up for selling from day one.
Here’s a closer look at what you get on Square Online’s free plan:
- You can sell an unlimited amount of products
- Sell digital and physical goods, services, and tickets, and accept donations
- You can offer curbside pickup, delivery, or shipping to your customers
- Instagram integration so customers can shop on social media
- If you use Square POS, you get automatic inventory, order, and item syncing between your offline and online presence
- Create coupon codes to encourage more sales from customers
- Accept gift cards online and in person
- Inventory management makes it easier to track your stock
- Send order updates via text to your customers to let them know how their order is progressing
- Give customers the option to customize their order, to give them a better shopping experience
Not only do these features give you plenty of control and flexibility over your business, but they’re also designed to provide an awesome customer experience. Gift cards, text updates, and order customizations are all great for making customers feel like they come first.
The free plan features are the basics that come with every Square Online plan. This means you don’t have to give up any of those neat features to grow your store.
Professional Plan: $12 per month, billed annually
Best for launching your brand
The Professional plan is best for getting your store in front of customers and setting yourself up as a serious, professional brand. This is the best plan for actually publishing your store. We recommend the Professional plan for:
- Officially launching your store
- Creating a branded, professional store
- Taking your business seriously – and getting others to do the same
The Professional plan comes with all the features from the free plan, plus:
- A custom domain – you can connect your own custom domain to give your store a professional image
- A free custom domain for one year – not only can you use a custom domain, but Square actually lets you register a new one for free, saving you money
- Removal of Square adverts and branding from your store, increasing trust and brand recognition for customers
In summary, the Professional plan comes with all the attractive features of the free plan, without any of the drawbacks. You get to publish your store using your own custom domain, and without Square adverts ruining your carefully branded storefront.
You even get a free custom domain for one year if you choose an annual plan, meaning you get a professional web address like www.yourstore.com without having to pay for it!
The Professional plan is best for anyone who is ready to share their store and start seeing sales roll in.
If you build your store using the free plan, then the Professional plan is the one you should launch your store with. If you want to make a good first impression, you’ll need those upgraded features.
Performance Plan: $26 per month, billed annually
Best for growing your business
The Performance plan is the plan we recommend the most. It’s still affordable at $26 per month, but comes with more sophisticated features, making it a great value option for growing businesses. We recommend it for:
- Getting more out of your customers
- Boosting your sales with better engagement
- Streamlining your sales and shipping process
The Performance plan comes with all the features from the Professional plan, plus the following more advanced features designed to help grow your business:
- Customer reviews directly on your store – perfect for gaining customer insights and boosting sales via social proof
- Abandoned cart recovery – recover lost sales by re-engaging customers via email
- All-in-one shipping tools – enjoy a more convenient way of shipping with label printing, carrier options, and shipment tracking from one place
- Save up to 55% on UPS shipping rates to lower your shipping costs
The Performance plan is designed to help you grow your store and get more out of your customers. The global cart abandonment rate in 2019 was 77.73%, which means abandoned cart recovery is an incredibly valuable asset for any online store.
With this plan, you get to leverage social proof through customer reviews, which are an effective tool for boosting conversions and trust in online businesses. As your sales grow, you can streamline your shipping process with Square Online’s all-in-one shipping tools.
In short, the Performance plan is for any store that wants to grow and really engage its audience. If you can comfortably afford the $26 per month subscription, then we definitely recommend this plan – it’s great value, and has useful tools to make your business go further.
Premium Plan: $72 per month, billed annually
Best for fine-tuning your established store
At $72 per month, you’ve got to really need the Premium plan’s tools to make it worthwhile. This plan is best for big businesses, where saving on processing fees and shipping rates will make a big difference to your profits. We recommend the Premium plan for:
- Scaling up an already established store
- Saving money if your everyday fees are cutting into your profits
- Big businesses looking to take their sales to the next level
Square Online’s Premium plan comes with every single feature we’ve listed so far, with some money-saving extras:
- 2.6% + $0.30 processing fees (instead of 2.9% + $0.30) per transaction
- Highest discounts on shipping rates, meaning you can save more money on delivery
- Real Time Shipping Rate Calculator – provide accurate shipping rates, removing the risk of under or over-charging customers for shipping orders
These features are designed to cut away excess costs and help you scale up your business. While every little counts when you’re a small store, we don’t recommend jumping straight to this plan. In most cases, this plan is an upgrade option for those who have reached the limits of the Performance plan.
Is Square Online Free?
Square Online is hugely popular, and part of that is down to its generous free plan. You can sign up, build, publish, and even sell online without spending a cent with Square Online’s free plan, and there’s no time limit on how long you can stay on it for.
You don’t need to enter any payment details to sign up for Square Online’s free plan, so you can be sure there’ll be no surprise payments or upgrades billed to your account.
You might be thinking, “Wow, this sounds too good to be true! What’s the catch?” And the truth is, there are a few things that aren’t so awesome about the free plan. We don’t recommend staying on it for long, for three main reasons.
3 Things You Should Know About Square Online’s Free Plan
- You can’t use a custom domain. Your web address will look like this: www.yourstore.square.site. This not only ruins your professional image, but makes it harder to rank well in Google, too.
- You’ll only get limited features. You won’t get abandoned cart recovery, customer reviews, or advanced shipping tools.
- You will have adverts displayed on your store. This is an issue for many reasons, including the fact it disrupts your own branding, can distract visitors, and undermines any professional image you may have built up. Not to mention, people will know you’ve built your site for free!
Do We Recommend Square Online’s Free Plan?
Yes, as long as you don’t stay on it forever. We recommend it for trying out Square Online’s builder, to check that it’s right for you before committing to a paid plan. It’s ideal for building your store, to save money while you set up your online presence.
We just don’t recommend it for actually launching, sharing, or growing your store.
We love a free plan, and would never tell our readers to avoid it completely – it’s a great money-saving option to get your project off the ground. But if you want to develop a professional brand and have customers take your store seriously, you will need a paid plan.
Treating the free plan as an extended free trial is the best way to achieve online success with Square Online.
Square Online Store Pricing vs Competitors
Overall, Square Online is an affordable option compared to a lot of top ecommerce website builders out there. For example, while Wix has a free plan, you can’t sell online unless you upgrade to its $23 per month Business Basic plan.
Free ecommerce plan | Starting price | Transaction fees | In-house payment processor | Standard payment processing fees | Price/month for abandoned cart recovery | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Square Online | ✔️ | $12 | ❌ | Square | 2.9% + $0.30 | $26 |
Wix | ❌ | $23 | ❌ | Wix Payments | 2.9% + $0.30 | $23 |
Shopify | ❌ | $29 | ✔️ | Shopify Payments | 2.9% + $0.30 | $29 |
Square Online is by far the most budget-friendly ecommerce builder compared to Wix and Shopify, our top-rated selling platforms. It performs well in comparison thanks to its lack of transaction fees and reasonable payment processing fees.
Overall, Square Online also offers the best value for money thanks to its low entry prices and generous features. To sell under a custom domain, with automatic POS integration and various delivery options, all for just $12 per month, is impressive.
Wix offers the next best value – it packs a lot into its plans, which start at $23 per month. This is the cheapest Wix plan to let you sell online, connect a custom domain, and integrate social channels. It’s worth mentioning that this plan also includes abandoned cart recovery, a feature you only get on Square Online’s $26 per month plan.
Shopify is the most expensive of the three – it’s designed to support larger stores than the other two platforms, which is reflected in its price plans. You get a lot on its cheapest $29 per month plan, including multichannel selling, gift cards, and abandoned cart recovery. But you only get value for your money if you need all of its features.
Unlike Square Online and Wix, Shopify charges transaction fees unless you use its in-house payments gateway Shopify Payments.
Features on cheapest plan | Cheapest ecommerce plan | Gift cards | Abandoned cart recovery | Sell on social channels | Product reviews |
Square Online | $12 | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Wix | $23 | ❌* | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Shopify | $29 | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌** |
**Unlike Wix and Square Online, Shopify doesn’t have a built-in reviews feature. Instead, you have to install a reviews app, which you can do on any plan.
Find out more
- Is Wix a better option for your budget? Our Wix Pricing explores all your options.
- Would you get value for money from Shopify’s plans? Find out in our Shopify Pricing.
Additional Costs to Be Aware Of
On the whole, Square Online’s pricing is transparent – you shouldn’t run into any surprise costs at checkout. Still, there are some extra costs you may not be aware of which are worth being prepared for.
#1. Domain Names: $12+ per year
The main cost you’ll encounter is for your custom domain name. This only applies if you’re using one of Square Online’s premium plans, as you can’t connect a custom domain on its free plan.
Domain names vary depending on what you choose, but generally speaking, Square Online’s domains range from $12 to $40 per year.
The upside is that Square Online gives you a free custom domain for a year on all its premium plans. That means you get to choose your own domain – such as www.yourstore.com – and use it for free for 12 months. After that, you’ll need to pay to keep using it.
Yes, you do! But that’s very different from the custom domain you get on Square Online’s premium plans.
The free domain you get on the free plan looks like this: www.yourstore.square.site. You can’t get rid of that Square branding from your web address while you’re on the free plan.
In contrast, your custom domain can be whatever you want, as long as nobody else has registered it already.
#2. Processing Fees: 2.9% + $0.30
Square Online doesn’t charge transaction fees on any of its plans. However, it does charge processing fees. This is normal – all payments come with a small fee to cover the act of processing the transaction.
Square Online’s processing fees are standard at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. This gets reduced to 2.6% + $0.30 if you choose the $72 per month Premium plan.
This is no different from Square Online’s competitors Wix or Shopify – 2.9% + $0.30 is the industry standard.
#3. Square Invoicing: Free, plus processing fee
There are no monthly fees for Square Invoices – you can send an unlimited number of invoices and estimates for free. You only pay a processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per invoice when the customer pays online using their credit or debit card.
If you’re accepting in-person payments, then the processing fee reduces to 2.6% + $0.10 per transaction. Card on File transactions have a higher processing fee of 3.5% + $0.15.
#4. Square Marketing: $15/month+
This is an optional cost if you want to make use of Square’s marketing suite to attract more customers to your business. Square Marketing lets you design, create, send, and track email campaigns straight from your Square Dashboard.
Square Marketing comes with a 30-day free trial, and three plans to get started on after that:
- $15/month for 0 – 500 customer contacts
- $25/month for 501 – 1,000 customer contacts
- $35/month for 1,001 – 2,000 customer contacts
It has six more plans to choose from if you have over 2,000 reachable customers – the most expensive plan costs $425 per month, and caters for 50,001 to 75,000 customers!
What About Square POS Pricing?
If you want to sell in-person as well as through your online store, then having a Square POS solution will come in handy. This is perfect for easily syncing your brick-and-mortar store with your online inventory, streamlining your business and stock management.
Square has different solutions for different businesses – for example, it has tailored POS systems for restaurants, appointments, and retail. We’ll explore the costs of its standard Square Point of Sale system, which is suitable for all sorts of businesses.
Square’s Point of Sale app is totally free, with no monthly charges. The only associated cost is a 2.6% + $0.10 processing fee per in-person transaction.
If you need hardware, such as a card reader, then you’ll need to pay for that. You can choose what sort of hardware you need for your business:
- Square Reader for magstripe: first reader free, each additional reader costs $10
- Square Reader for contactless and chip: $49 one-off payment
- Square Stand for contactless and chip: $169 one-off payment, or $16/month for 12 months
- Square Terminal: $299 one-off payment, or $27/month for 12 months
- Square Register: $799 one-off payment, or $39/month for 24 months
These prices stay the same no matter which POS system you choose – however, not all hardware is compatible with every system. For example, Square Register isn’t compatible with Square Appointments.
Cost | Processing Fees | Compatible Hardware | |
---|---|---|---|
Square Point of Sale | Free | 2.6% + $0.10 | Square Reader for magstripe Square Reader for contactless and chip Square Stand for contactless and chip Square Terminal Square Register |
Square for Restaurants | Free: $0 – unlimited devices, unlimited locations Plus: $60 per month, per location, +$40 per added POS device Premium: Custom pricing | 2.6% + $0.10 | Square Reader for magstripe Square Reader for contactless and chip Square Stand for contactless and chip Square Terminal Square Register (only supports free plan features) |
Square Appointments | Free for individuals $50/month for 2-5 employees $90/month for 6-10 employees | Individuals: 2.6% + $0.10 2-5 employees: 2.5% + $0.10 6-10 employees: 2.5% + $0.10 3.5% + $0.15 for keyed-in or Card on File payments | Square Reader for magstripe Square Reader for contactless and chip Square Stand for contactless and chip |
Square for Retail | Free: $0 for unlimited devices and locations Plus: $60 per month per location Premium: Custom pricing | 2.6% + $0.10 for tapped, dipped, and swiped payments 3.5% + $0.15 for keyed-in or Card on File payments | Square Reader for magstripe Square Reader for contactless and chip Square Stand for contactless and chip Square Register |
Summary
Square Online is an affordable ecommerce builder that offers amazing value for money, thanks to its industry-smashing low starter prices and generous features.
You can sell online at zero cost thanks to its free plan, but when it’s time to launch your store, you only need to set aside $12 per month for its annual Professional plan. The plan we recommend the most is the $26 per month Performance plan, as it provides more advanced selling features for a very reasonable price.
Square Online comes with very few extra or hidden costs. There are no transaction fees, and its processing fees are standard compared with its competitors Wix and Shopify. You get a free domain for a year with its premium annual plans, and any other costs are optional – if you want to make use of its POS systems, for example.
Overall, we were impressed with Square Online’s pricing plans, and suggest starting out on the free plan to try out its tools. However, we strongly recommend upgrading to its $12 per month Professional plan before you launch your store, for the improved features it provides.
FAQs
Yes! Square is fully compliant with the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). This means all payments and credit card details are always processed and stored securely, in order to keep this information safe from breaches. In short, it means you can sit back and relax knowing your customers’ payments are in safe hands.
Yes! Square Online includes hosting in your plan, so you don’t need to worry about finding and paying for web hosting separately. This applies to the free plan, too!
Square Online allows you to accept all major credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Square Pay through your online store. This is important, as it gives your customers plenty of choice!
If you choose a paid plan, then you’ll need to pay your subscription – whether you choose a monthly or annual plan is up to you.
You’ll also pay processing fees for each transaction you receive. This is charged as 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. There are also delivery fees – $0.50 for in-house delivery, or $1.50 for on-demand delivery per order.
Yes! You can switch plans at any time you like, meaning that if you need more features, you can easily upgrade to keep on top of your sales. Manage your subscription from inside your account – go to Account Settings to view or change your plan.
Yes! If you’re selling in-person – for example through a brick-and-mortar store, at pop-up stands, or at events – as well as online, then integrating with Square POS lets you seamlessly sync your inventory between them to stay up to date. Every plan comes with POS integration, including the free plan.
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