Square Fees in 2026: Every Rate by Plan, What 15 Cents Does to a $5 Sale, and When Square Plus Pays for Itself

What are Square's fees in 2026?

As of September 2026, Square charges 2.6% + 15 cents for a card tapped, dipped, or swiped in person on its free plan, 3.3% + 30 cents for a card paid online or through an invoice, and 3.5% + 15 cents for a card typed in by hand or charged from a card on file. There is no monthly fee on Square Free. Square Plus ($49 a month per location) lowers the in-person rate to 2.5% + 15 cents and the online rate to 2.9% + 30 cents; Square Premium ($149 a month per location) lowers in-person to 2.4% + 15 cents. Every rate on this page was read from squareup.com/us/en/pricing on September 16, 2026. The rate most owners should check first is not the in-person one; it is the online rate on the free plan, because that 0.4-point gap is what makes Plus pay for itself at a surprisingly low volume.

Square fees by plan

Square's page says next-day transfers, fraud prevention, and offline payments are included on every plan, and invites businesses processing more than $250,000 a year to ask about custom pricing. There is no long-term contract on any plan.

Is Square free?

The software is. Square Free costs $0 a month per location, and you pay only when you take a payment. Cash and checks recorded in the POS are free. What is not free is every card: 2.6% + 15 cents in person, 3.3% + 30 cents online. So the honest answer to "is Square free" is that Square has no fixed cost and a variable cost on every card sale, which is exactly the right shape for a new business and the wrong shape for a busy one. Paid add-ons also sit outside the free plan: Square's page lists the KDS app at $30 a month per device on Plus and the Kiosk app at $50 a month per device on Plus, and neither is available on Free.

What Square really costs per sale: the 15-cent problem

The percentage is the number everyone compares. The fixed 15 or 30 cents is the number that hurts a business with small tickets. On Square Free, in person:

Online on the free plan the fixed fee doubles to 30 cents, so a $10 online order pays 63 cents, or 6.3%. If your average ticket is under about $15, the fixed fee adds a full point or more to your effective rate, and a card minimum or a small-order surcharge, where your state and the card networks allow it, is worth more to you than any plan upgrade.

When does Square Plus pay for itself?

Plus costs $49 a month per location. What it buys on fees is 0.1 point in person and 0.4 point online. The break-even is arithmetic:

• In person only: 0.1% of volume has to reach $49, so Plus pays for itself at $49,000 a month in card-present sales.
• Online or invoiced cards: 0.4% of volume has to reach $49, so Plus pays for itself at $12,250 a month in online and invoice card payments.
• ACH invoices: on Free, Square's table shows 1% with a $1 minimum and no cap; on Plus the fee caps at $10. One $5,000 ACH invoice a month costs $50 on Free and $10 on Plus, a $40 difference by itself.

So a salon, contractor, or consultant who invoices $15,000 a month by card is overpaying on Square Free, while a cafe doing $30,000 a month across the counter is not. Premium ($149) against Plus ($49) buys another 0.1 point in person, which is worth the extra $100 only at $100,000 a month in card-present sales.

Square fees at $20,000 a month

Assume $20,000 a month of in-person card sales at a $25 average ticket, so 800 transactions.

Now move $8,000 of that month online, the way a business that takes deposits or sells gift cards through a website does. On Free the online share costs 3.3% + 30 cents; on Plus 2.9% + 30 cents. Plus saves $32 on the online portion and $12 on the in-person portion, $44 against a $49 plan fee. Add one $5,000 ACH invoice and Plus is ahead. The plan decision is a question about your mix, not your total.

The fees that are not on the headline

• Keyed cards and cards on file (3.5% + 15 cents on every plan). A phone order typed in costs 0.9 point more than the same card tapped. A business that takes most payments over the phone should compare this rate, not the in-person one.
• Afterpay (6% + 30 cents). You are paid in full up front and the customer pays in four installments; a $200 order costs $12.30.
• International cards (+1.5%). Added on top of the base rate, on every plan.
• Gift card loads. Square's page lists a 2.5% load fee on Free and Plus and 0% on Premium.
• Per-device apps. KDS $30 a month per device on Plus and $20 on Premium; Kiosk $50 and $30. A four-screen kitchen on Plus is $120 a month before a single sale.

How to lower your Square fees

1. Tap instead of typing. Every phone order you can turn into a text-to-pay link or an in-person tap moves from 3.5% to 2.6% on Free.
2. Push big invoices to ACH. A $5,000 card invoice on Free costs $165.30; the same invoice by ACH costs $50 on Free and $10 on Plus.
3. Check your online share before your total. If online and invoiced cards pass about $12,250 a month, Plus is cheaper.
4. Ask for custom pricing above $250,000 a year. That is where Square's own page opens the conversation, and where an interchange-plus quote is worth comparing.
5. Cut the no-shows you charge a card-on-file fee to recover. A cancellation fee charged from a card on file pays 3.5% + 15 cents; a deposit taken at booking through a link is cheaper and does not need the awkward call.

Where the interchange inside that 2.6% comes from, and when an interchange-plus merchant account beats a flat rate, is on credit card processing fees. Whether Square is worth it at all against a merchant account, with the math at three volumes, is on is Square worth it.

Square fees vs Stripe, Toast, and Clover

Stripe charges 2.9% + 30 cents online and 2.7% + 5 cents in person on a Stripe Terminal reader (plus 10 cents per authorization with Tap to Pay on a phone), with no monthly fee, read from stripe.com/pricing on September 16, 2026. That makes Stripe cheaper than Square Free online on every ticket, and cheaper in person on a reader for any ticket under $100, where Square's lower percentage finally outweighs its higher fixed fee; the full comparison is on Stripe vs Square. For restaurants, Toast and Clover change the shape of the bill with contracts, hardware, and reseller pricing, which is laid out on Square vs Toast vs Clover.

The fee Square cannot fix: the payment you never took

A 0.1-point plan decision is worth $49 a month at $49,000 in sales. A booking that never happens because nobody answered the phone, or a deposit that was never collected, is worth the whole ticket. The businesses that run Square best take the deposit when the appointment is booked, send the payment link while the customer is still on the line, and let the card on file cover the no-show. That is scheduling work, not payments work, and it is what AI scheduling does: books the appointment, collects the deposit, and sends the reminder, so the fee table is the only cost left to optimize.