Square Online Store Pricing: Which Plan Should You Choose?

Square Online has a free plan which lets you sell an unlimited number of products without charge. After this, it has two premium plans to choose from, priced at $29 and $79 per month, when billed annually.

Is Square Online Good Value for Money?

As the only ecommerce platform with a free selling plan, it’s no surprise that we found Square Online to be great value for money. That said, its features are limited and you can unlock more advanced sales features with other builders, such as Shopify and BigCommerce for the same price point.

For this reason, Square Online is a good option for budget-conscious businesses, but not for stores looking to seriously grow online.

While Square Online’s free plan comes with limitations, it does let you sell for free. It also comes with basic ecommerce features, such as:

• Sell unlimited products
• 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee
• Basic website builder tools
• Sell on socials
• Access to Square Online’s POS systems for in-person selling
• Accept multiple payment options, including Google Pay and Apple Pay
• Advertise your products through Facebook
• Delivery and shipping options, including pickup
• Built-in SEO tools
• Create coupons

Square Online’s Plus plan removes ads, upgrades the bandwidth, and gives you the ability to use a custom domain name.

Plus, it upgrades the sales features considerably. On top of everything from the free plan, you’ll get:

• Customer membership areas
• Website themes, custom fonts, and custom widgets for more store personalization
• Site statistics and advanced ecommerce reporting so you can track your progress
• Automatic abandoned cart recovery emails
• Sell subscriptions
• Item badges, such as low stock and selling fast
• Request reviews and publish them on product pages
• Gift options
• Offer free shipping
• Schedule discounts and product launches in advance

The Premium plan is Square Online’s most advanced ecommerce plan. You get all the features of the Plus plan, plus a few new ones:

• Reduced rate on your processing fees – 2.6% + $0.30 per transaction
• Real-time shipping rates
• 24/7 phone support
• No in-house delivery fees

Square Online has a number of additional costs to be aware of, since it now classes a lot of standard tools as add-ons. For example:

• Domain names: You’ll get a free custom domain name for one year on the Plus and Premium plans, but you’ll have to pay once it’s time to renew. (Square Online domains start from $19.95 per year.)
• Processing fees: You’ll be charged a small fee for each transaction made (starts at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction).
• Square Payroll: A payroll service for syncing the payment of employees. This is particularly useful for restaurants or retail stores (starts at $6 per month per person).
• Square Invoices: Use this to create invoices, estimates, and contracts for a number of different business industries ($20 per month, free plan available).
• Square Marketing: Square Online has both an email marketing plan and an SMS marketing plan, priced based on the number of contacts you communicate with per month (starts at $15 per month for emails and $10 per month for texts).
• Square Appointments: Use this tool to take and manage appointments, promote bookings on social media, and offer service packages to your customers (starts at $29 per month, free plan available).
• Square Loyalty: The software uses CRM tactics to turn customers into fans with loyalty programs and creates incentives to keep customers returning (starts at $45 per month).

💰Square POS

• Price: POS software and first POS hardware free

Square’s point of sale (POS) system will help you sync your in-person and ecommerce sales. The standard Square Reader comes complementary with any plan and has no monthly charges.

POS Hardware Options

If you need additional hardware after your first free card reader, then you’ll need to pay. Square has plenty of POS hardware to choose from:

• Square Reader for magstripe: first reader is free, each additional reader costs $10
• Square Reader for contactless/chip: $59 one-off payment
• Square Stand for contactless/chip: $149 one-off payment, or $14 per month for 12 months
• Square Kiosk: $149 one-off payment, or $14 per month for 12 months
• Square Terminal: $299 one-off payment, or $27 per month for 12 months
• Square Handheld: $399 one off payment, or $37 per month for 12 months
• Square Register: $799 one-off payment, or $39 per month for 24 months

Square Online also offers POS bundles as part of its Square for Restaurants, Square for Retail, and Square for Appointments add-ons.

We put Square Online to the test against 11 other website builders through over 300 hours of testing. Our research process looks at a variety of categories, including website features and ease of use. But, for pricing, we look at three key areas in particular.

1. Plan prices: How much does each plan cost, what discounts are on offer, and how steep is the price jump between plans?
2. Features vs pricing: We look at the quality of features compared to the price point to find out the value for money.
3. Free options: Does the website builder have a free trial or a free plan?

Overall, Square Online is a good budget-friendly ecommerce platform, especially if you’re looking for tools specifically related to restaurants or retail. Its well-integrated POS systems really make it stand out from other ecommerce competitors, leading to Square Online having a favorable offering for users seeking to have both online and brick-and-mortar representation.

While selling for free is an attractive prospect, the free plan isn’t sustainable for long-term selling. Instead, if your heart is set on Square Online, I’d recommend choosing the Plus plan for $29 per month (billed annually). This plan comes with all the sales features you need for an online store, but it doesn’t feel overpriced for what you get, unlike the Premium plan.

That said, try out Square Online’s 30-day free trial or free plan to get a feel for the builder and see if it’s the right fit for your online store.