The Hidden Cost of Square Online's Free Plan

So, is Square free? The software is. Each sale is not. Square Free charges nothing a month and takes a bigger slice of every online card payment than Square's paid plans do. This guide works out what that slice costs a small food vendor at real volumes, when Square Plus starts paying for itself, and when a flat-fee storefront like the one in our Homegrown against Square Online comparison is the cheaper move.

Three questions come first, because they are what most people type into Google: is Square free, what separates Square Free from Square Plus, and how much Square costs a month. After that come the break-even numbers, the order-size math most guides skip, and a list of what the free plan quietly leaves out.

Is Square free to use, or just free to have?

Square Free costs $0 a month and 3.3% plus 30 cents on each online card payment, so Square is free to have and paid to use. Square's pricing page promises no hidden fees and no locked-in contracts. At $0 a month, Square Free includes:

• The Square point of sale app, which takes any payment type at a booth or counter
• An online site: an online ordering page, a basic website or store, or a booking site
• An item library to list your products and services (Square's feature table puts inventory tracking on Plus and Premium, not Free)
• Invoicing and booking, for estimates, invoices and appointments
• Square checking and savings accounts for your deposits

What you pay is a percentage of every card payment, and on Square Free that percentage is higher than on the paid plans. Square's fee page lists the rates by payment type for all three plans. Here are the rows a farmers market food vendor actually uses. The page also lists four rows this post leaves out: payments through Square's developer tools, bank transfers through those same tools, bitcoin, and EBT for SNAP purchases (listed at 1.8% plus 5 cents, with the fee waived while the feature is in beta through fall 2026).

Scroll sideways to see every column.

Rates read October 8, 2026, on Square's fee page and pricing page. The outside-the-US card fee sits on the pricing page under "Additional fees that may apply."

Four things stand out for a food vendor:

• The online row is where Free is worst. It is 0.4 points above the paid plans, and that gap is the whole subject of this post.
• Free is the only plan with no cap on ACH invoice fees. A $2,000 catering invoice paid by bank transfer costs $20 on Free and $10 on Plus.
• Manual entry costs 3.5% plus 15 cents on every plan. Typing in a card number for a phone order costs the same whichever plan you pick, so upgrading does nothing for those sales.
• Cash is free everywhere. A booth that takes mostly cash and taps barely notices any of this.

How much does Square cost per month?

Square costs $0, $49 or $149 a month per location, before processing fees. Square Free is $0. Square Plus is $49 a month for every location you run. Square Premium is $149 per location. A few add-ons sit on top of the paid plans:

• The kitchen display app is $30 a device each month on Plus and $20 on Premium. Free cannot use it at all.
• The kiosk app runs $50 per device monthly on Plus and $30 on Premium. Free cannot use it either.
• Text message marketing includes 500 texts a month on Plus, then 3 cents each. Premium includes 2,500, then 1.5 cents each. Free has no text marketing.
• Gift cards carry a 2.5% load fee on Free and Plus and none on Premium.

So one location on Plus with one kitchen screen is $79 a month before a single card fee. Those prices are on Square's pricing page, checked October 8, 2026.

Square Plus and Square Premium each come with a 30-day trial at no charge, and you can cancel or switch plans at any time. Square Free has nothing to trial, because there is no subscription: you pay only when you take a payment. On October 6, 2025, Square folded 18 separate software subscriptions into these three plans (Square's announcement). Any guide that quotes a separate Square Online subscription, or a plan price other than $0, $49 and $149, is describing plans Square no longer sells.

What does Square Online's free plan actually charge?

Square Online's free plan charges $0 a month, then takes 3.3% plus 30 cents from each card payment made online, 0.4 points more than the 2.9% plus 30 cents charged on both paid plans.

Nothing monthly, and more per sale. Those are the two halves of the same deal. Here is how the three plans line up on the two rates a food vendor uses most:

Swipe left for the in-person column.

Plan prices, trials and rates from Square's pricing page, checked October 8, 2026. Square charges no separate platform fee or commission on top of the card rate on any plan.

Two things to notice. The online gap between Free and Plus is 0.4 percentage points. The in-person gap is a quarter of that size, 0.1 points, with the same 15 cents on every plan. And Premium buys no further online discount over Plus. It only lowers the in-person rate again and adds 24/7 phone support, advanced reporting and a few extras.

So the online checkout itself costs the same on Plus as on Premium. What Plus buys over Free is a lower rate on every sale plus a set of tools that Free does not include, which are listed further down.

That rate difference is the biggest piece of what "free" costs you, but not the only one. Free is also slightly worse in person, it has no cap on ACH invoice fees, and it cannot connect your own domain name or show you the website sales reports. All of that is covered below. The same comparison against a flat $10 a month storefront is worth running while you are at it, since the free plan is only the cheap option below a specific monthly volume.

Where exactly does the free plan stop being free?

The free plan stops being the cheaper choice once online sales pass $12,250 a month against Square Plus for a vendor who sells only online (less with booth sales), and at $2,500 a month against a $10 flat-fee storefront billed yearly ($3,125 month to month). Those are two different break-even points, and mixing them up is how people get this wrong.

Against Square Plus. Plus saves you 0.4% on online sales and 0.1% on in-person sales, and it pays for itself when those two savings together clear $49 a month. For a vendor who sells online only, 0.4% of online sales reaches $49 at $12,250 a month in online sales. A vendor who also sells at a booth gets there sooner, because 0.1% of those booth sales counts toward the same $49. Below the line, Free is cheaper than Plus even though Plus has the better rate. Above it, you are paying Square extra for the privilege of not subscribing.

Against a flat-fee storefront somewhere else. If another platform charges $10 a month at 2.9% plus 30 cents, the question is when 0.4% of your online sales passes $10. That happens at $2,500 a month in online sales, a far lower bar than the Square Plus one.

Homegrown is that flat-fee platform in this post: $10 a month billed yearly, or $12.50 a month billed month to month, with card processing at 2.9% plus 30 cents and no commission (its signup page, checked October 8, 2026). On the month-to-month price the break-even moves to $3,125 a month in online sales.

Here is the whole picture at four volumes, using a $20 average order and online sales only:

Scroll sideways to compare all four monthly totals.

Each total is the monthly plan plus the percentage on sales plus 30 cents on every order, using rates from Square's fee page and Homegrown's signup page (both checked October 8, 2026). None of these platforms adds a commission. Card fees are paid by the vendor on all of them. Square's paid plans are priced per location, so a second location adds another $49.

Worked out in full for the Square plans:

• $1,000 a month, 50 orders. Free costs $33.00 plus $15.00 = $48.00. Plus costs $49.00 plus $29.00 plus $15.00 = $93.00. Free wins comfortably.
• $4,000 a month, 200 orders. Free costs $132.00 plus $60.00 = $192.00. Plus costs $49.00 plus $116.00 plus $60.00 = $225.00. Free still beats Plus.
• $12,250 a month. The percentage alone is $404.25 on Free and $49.00 plus $355.25 = $404.25 on Plus. The 30 cents per order is the same on both plans, so this is the exact tie.
• $15,000 a month, 750 orders. Free costs $495.00 plus $225.00 = $720.00. Plus costs $49.00 plus $435.00 plus $225.00 = $709.00. Plus finally wins.

That is a long runway, and it is why Square's free plan is a genuinely good deal for a small vendor rather than a trap. The trap is only in the word "free," which suggests a cost of zero rather than a cost you cannot see.

What does the full fee stack look like on a $20 order?

On one $20 online order, Square Free takes 96 cents from you, while Square Plus, Square Premium and Homegrown each take 88 cents in card processing (2.9% plus 30 cents). Hotplate's default setup charges the same rate, but on the $21.55 your customer pays rather than the $20 price, so it comes to about 92 cents. What separates them is what sits on top: a monthly plan, or Hotplate's 5% plus 55 cent service fee charged to your customer.

This is the comparison people mean when they search "Square Free vs Square Plus," widened to the other two places a small food vendor usually looks. Every row shows all four parts of the cost: the monthly plan, the trial, any platform fee and the card processing.

Swipe sideways to see what each side pays.

We checked Square's rates on its fee page, Hotplate's fee split on Hotplate's pricing page and Homegrown's price on its signup page, all on October 8, 2026. Card processing is figured on the $20 price, except on Hotplate's default, where it is figured on the $21.55 the customer pays, because Hotplate says its chefs pay "2.9% of the transaction + 30 cents." Hotplate's own worked example ($1.27 in processing on a $30 subtotal with a tip and tax) does not show its exact base. Hotplate's pricing page says the service fee is "your choice," and its post "What Hotplate does" says the default charges it to the customer and that "80% of Hotplate chefs keep the default as-is."

Three takeaways from the table:

• Square Free is the cheapest Square plan at this volume by a wide margin. $48.00 against $93.00 for Plus, because $1,000 a month online is far below the $12,250 line.
• Hotplate's default looks cheapest for you, and costs your customer $1.55 an order. A $20 loaf reads as $21.55 at checkout. If you switch the fee onto yourself, your month jumps to $121.50.
• A flat $10 plan loses to Square Free at 50 orders and wins past $2,500 a month online. At 50 orders it is $54.00 against $48.00. At 200 orders it is $186.00 against $192.00.

Why does the 0.4% matter more than it sounds?

Because a percentage charges you most in exactly the months you are doing well. Here is the extra 0.4% Square Free takes on online sales, at five volumes:

• At $500 a month online, the extra 0.4% is $2 a month, or $24 a year. Nobody should care.
• At $1,000, it is $4 a month, or $48 a year.
• At $2,500, it is $10 a month, or $120 a year.
• At $5,000, it is $20 a month, or $240 a year.
• At $10,000, it is $40 a month, or $480 a year.

None of those figures ever appears as a line on a bill. There is no invoice that says "free plan surcharge." It arrives as a slightly smaller deposit, every single day, which is the hardest kind of cost to notice and the easiest kind to carry for years.

It helps to know where the number comes from. A card rate is built from three pieces: interchange, which goes to the bank that issued your customer's card; a smaller assessment charged by the card network; and the processor's own margin. Square bundles all three into one flat rate per plan, which is why the gap between its plans is so easy to read. It also means card processing is one of the few costs a small food business pays as a share of revenue rather than as a fixed bill. A fixed cost is a decision you make once. A percentage keeps charging you.

You see the same structure across this whole category once you know to look for it:

• No subscription, a percentage on every order. Square Free and Hotplate both work this way, Square through a higher card rate and Hotplate through a 5% plus 55 cent service fee your customer pays by default, on top of the 2.9% plus 30 cents card processing you pay.
• A low monthly price plus a transaction fee. Some website builders charge a store fee on top of card processing unless you use their own payments. Shopify's Basic plan, for one, adds a 2% fee on each sale when you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments (Shopify's pricing page, October 8, 2026).
• A cheap entry tier with the tools you need one tier up. Square Free leaves out a custom domain and the website sales reports, which start on Plus.

None of that is dishonest, and in every case the numbers are on the page. But the headline price and the actual cost are different numbers, and only one of them is designed to be memorable. Our comparison of Homegrown against Hotplate works through the no-subscription version of this trade at a bakery's volumes, and our explainer on card processing fees for food vendors breaks down the rate itself.

Why does the 30 cent fee matter more than the 0.4% on a small order?

Because on a typical home food order, the fixed 30 cents is a far bigger share of the sale than the 0.4% gap is. On a $10 order, 30 cents is 3% of the sale, while the 0.4% gap between Square Free and Square Plus is 4 cents.

Run Square's online rates on orders that size and the free plan's famous 0.4% almost disappears next to the per-order fee that every plan charges:

Swipe for the Plus column and the gap.

Computed from Square's online rates (3.3% + 30¢ on Free, 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus and Premium) on its fee page, October 8, 2026. Figures are before Square rounds each payment to the cent.

Read the table from the top down. A $5 cookie order loses 9.3% of its price to Square Free's online fee, and 8.9% on Plus, a gap of 2 cents. A $50 order loses 3.9% and 3.5%. The 0.4% never costs more than 20 cents on any order in this table. So for a vendor selling $10 loaves, the way to shrink card fees is not the plan, it is the order. Two $10 loaves bought separately cost $1.26 in Square Free fees. The same two loaves in one $20 order cost 96 cents, a 30 cent saving that no plan change can match.

Three habits do more for your fee bill than any plan change Square offers:

• Sell a two-loaf or half-dozen option as its own product, so one checkout carries two of what you make.
• Set a minimum order for delivery. That turns a $7 order, where 30 cents is 4.3% of the sale, into a $20 one, where it is 1.5%. Square Free lets you set minimum and maximum order amounts for pickup and local delivery, so this works without upgrading.
• Take cash and cards at the booth and save the online checkout for preorders. In-person card fees on Free are 2.6% plus 15 cents, and cash is free.

Crust & Crumb sits right in the busy middle of that catalog. Our October 8, 2026 pull lists six products for the shop, two more than the frame above shows: a traditional sourdough loaf at $10, a boule at $12, the croissant loaf at $12, the rosemary and garlic sourdough at $13, cookies at $12 and bagels at $15. Five of the six sit between $10 and $13, against a catalog median of $10 and a middle half that runs $5.49 to $15. On Square Free, a customer buying one $12 loaf online costs the vendor 69.6 cents in card fees. On Square Plus it costs 64.8 cents. On Homegrown it costs the same 64.8 cents, plus the flat $10 a month. If you want to see your own margin after card fees and a subscription, our free profit margin calculator takes an average order value, weekly orders and ingredient cost and shows the monthly number.

How do you compare a percentage plan to a subscription plan?

Use one number, applied the same way to every option: what does this cost me per month at my real volume? Not the headline price and not the rate. The monthly total, worked at your slow month, your typical month and your best month, takes about ten minutes with a calculator.

• Take your real monthly sales. Split them into online and in-person, because the two are charged different rates.
• Add up each option. Subscription, plus the rate times your sales, plus the per-order fee times your order count. A month of 50 orders at $20 is $48.00 on Square Free and $93.00 on Square Plus.
• Do it at three volumes. A slow month, a typical month and your best month.
• Look at the spread, not the average. Percentage plans win the slow month and lose the good one.
• Multiply by your locations. Square Plus is $49 for each location, so three markets set up as three locations is $147 a month.
• Compare features too. A feature you do not use is worth nothing at any price, and a feature you do need can settle the question before the arithmetic does.

That exercise settles arguments people otherwise have with themselves for months. It also gives you a number you can rerun next year, which matters more than getting it exactly right today. If you would rather see the same math worked for flat plans in general, our guide to the break-even between flat monthly and percentage fees runs it across several platforms.

What else does the free plan give up?

For $49 a month per location, Square Plus adds what Free gives up: the 2.9% online rate, the loyalty program, email and text marketing, staff scheduling and access to the kitchen display app, which costs another $30 a month per screen. On the website side, it also gives up your own domain name and the site sales reports.

The rate is the main thing, but not the only thing. Moving from Free to Plus adds:

• Lower in-person rates, 2.5% plus 15 cents against 2.6% plus 15 cents
• Advanced point of sale features for food and beverage, retail and appointments
• A loyalty rewards program connected to the point of sale app
• Email and text message marketing, with unlimited email and 500 texts a month, then 3 cents a text
• Staff management, with shift scheduling and attendance
• Access to the kitchen display app, which Free cannot use and which costs $30 per screen monthly on Plus ($20 on Premium)
• Phone support that does not expire. Free gets phone support from 6am to 6pm Pacific on weekdays for your first 90 days only; Plus keeps those hours, and Premium has it 24/7.

If any of those matter to you, the $49 is buying more than a rate cut, and the break-even math above is the wrong question. Price the features you need first, then treat the rate saving as a discount on top.

Square Free vs Square Plus vs Square Premium at a glance

Square Free vs Square Plus comes down to $49 a month for each location against a 0.4% online saving, a 0.1% in-person saving and the tools in the table below. Premium is a $149 plan for businesses that want phone support around the clock, the lowest in-person rate and real-time shipping rates. Everything here is from Square's pricing page and its online store plans page, both read on October 8, 2026.

Scroll sideways for the Plus and Premium columns.

Each row comes from Square's pricing page and online store plans page, both loaded October 8, 2026. Chat and email support are included on all three plans.

For a cottage food vendor, almost none of the Plus tools are built for a home kitchen. Loyalty programs, shift scheduling and a kitchen screen are restaurant and shop features. The Plus features a home baker might actually want are per-order quantity limits, which stop one customer from buying all twelve of your Saturday loaves, and inventory tracking, which stops the thirteenth sale. If your online sales are well under $12,250 a month and you can live without those, Square Free vs Square Plus is not a close call, and Free wins.

Right at the line it is close. At $12,000 a month online, the 0.4% gap is $48 against the $49 Plus price, a difference of about a dollar, so the tools decide it rather than the rate. Booth sales move that line down, because Plus saves 0.1% on those too.

What does Square Online's free plan include for a new online store?

Square Online's free plan includes a website builder with SEO tools, an online ordering page, pickup, local delivery and shipping, selling through search and social, and customer accounts. What it leaves out, according to Square's online store plans page on October 8, 2026, is connecting your own domain name, bundles and subscriptions, per-order quantity limits, abandoned cart emails, product reviews, preorders of retail items for a set date and time (preorders of food items for a set date and time are on Free) and the site sales reports. Those start on Plus.

For a food vendor launching a first online store, that works out like this:

• You can take orders on day one with pickup, local delivery or shipping. You can set ordering windows, delivery times and minimum or maximum order amounts on Free.
• Your store lives on a Square web address until you pay for a plan that connects your own domain.
• You pay 3.3% plus 30 cents on every online card payment, the Free plan online rate.
• You do not get the website sales reports on Free. You still see every payment in the Square dashboard, but the site traffic and eCommerce reports are a paid feature.
• Plus adds expanded site customization, QR code ordering, bundles and subscriptions, item badges, quantity limits and scheduled product updates, plus your own domain.
• Premium adds real-time shipping rates at checkout, advanced reporting and 24/7 phone support.

What happened to the old Square Online plans?

Square Online no longer sells plans of its own: since Square's October 6, 2025 change, its website features come inside Square Free ($0), Square Plus ($49 per location) and Square Premium ($149 per location). Square's old Square Online pricing page returned a page-not-found error when we loaded it on October 8, 2026. If you are still on a legacy Square Online Plus or Premium plan, Square's help article on moving from Square Online to the new plans describes a self-serve switch in the Square Dashboard, for eligible sellers, that cancels the old hosting plan and refunds the unused days.

Two details in that help article are worth knowing before you click. Your custom domain keeps billing separately from the new plan. And Square's companion article on switching says that once you move to Square Free, Plus or Premium, you cannot switch back to your old subscriptions.

How much does a Square website cost a month?

A Square website costs $0 a month on Square Free, on a Square web address, with each online card sale charged the Free rate of 3.3% plus 30 cents. Connecting a domain name you own takes Square Plus, at $49 per location each month, and the domain itself is a separate purchase.

So the monthly cost of a Square website depends on two choices:

• Free plan, Square address. $0 a month, 3.3% plus 30 cents per online order. At 50 orders of $20, that is $48.00 a month in card fees.
• Plus plan, your own domain. $49 a month per location, 2.9% plus 30 cents on each online order, plus whatever the domain costs you each year. Fifty $20 orders come to $93.00 a month before the domain.
• Premium plan. $149 a month per location for the same online rate as Plus, real-time shipping rates and 24/7 phone support. At 50 orders of $20, that is $193.00 a month.

For most home food vendors the first option is plenty. A Square web address works fine as a link in your Instagram bio or on a printed card at your booth. Pay for Plus when you need the domain or the Plus tools, not because the free site feels unfinished.

If what you really want is somewhere to send customers to order, without building a website at all, our guide to ordering platforms for vendors with no website compares the options built for exactly that.

Does this apply to in-person sales too?

Only slightly, and this is where Square's free plan is genuinely excellent. The in-person rate on Square Free is 2.6% plus 15 cents, just 0.1 points above Plus at 2.5% plus 15 cents and 0.2 above Premium at 2.4%.

The Free rate holds up well against other card readers too. Stripe's in-person rate is 2.7% plus 5 cents (Stripe's pricing page, October 8, 2026). With a Stripe card reader, a $20 sale costs 59 cents on Stripe against 67 cents on Square Free, and the two meet at exactly $100, above which Square Free is the cheaper one. Tapping cards on your phone adds 10 cents per payment on Stripe, while Square charges its regular in-person rate for it, which puts Square Free ahead at every order size.

So a vendor whose sales are mostly taps at a market booth is barely affected by any of this. Here is how small the in-person gap stays:

• $4,000 a month at a booth and $500 online. Staying on Free costs $4 at the booth and $2 online against Plus, $6 a month in all. Plus would charge $49 for that saving.
• $6,000 a month at a booth. The booth gap is $6, so Plus only pays off once your online sales add another $43 of savings, which takes $10,750 a month online.
• Premium against Plus, in person only. Premium's extra 0.1% off taps covers its extra $100 a month at $100,000 a month in card-present sales, far past any home food business.

If you sell both ways and want one system for the booth and the preorders, our comparison of platforms that handle booth sales and online orders together covers how each one handles the split.

When do Square Premium or Square Pro make sense?

Square Premium makes sense when 24/7 phone support, real-time shipping rates or the lowest in-person rate is worth $149 a month per location to you, and Square Pro is custom pricing that sellers processing over $250,000 a year can ask Square about. Neither is aimed at a part-time food vendor.

Premium charges the same 2.9% plus 30 cents online as Plus, so it saves nothing on your online orders. Against Square Free on online sales alone, Premium would need $37,250 a month online before its rate saving covered its price. What it does add:

• 24/7 priority phone support, against weekday business hours on Plus
• Advanced reporting across the whole business
• Real-time shipping rates at checkout, based on weight, destination and carrier
• 2,500 included texts a month instead of 500, then 1.5 cents a text
• No gift card load fee, against 2.5% on Free and Plus
• The lowest in-person rate, 2.4% plus 15 cents

Square Pro sits above the three plans. Square's pricing page lists it with "Get custom pricing" and says that if you process over $250,000 a year, you can talk to Square's sales team about custom processing fees, hardware discounts and account management. A home kitchen selling $1,000 to $5,000 a month online is a long way from that line, so for this post it is enough to know it exists.

What should you actually do?

Compare one number to $49: your monthly online sales times 0.4%, plus your in-person sales times 0.1%. That one number decides the Square question on rate, and if you need none of the Plus tools, it decides the whole thing. These seven steps get you to it:

• Pull your last three months. Split online from in-person in the Square dashboard.
• Multiply online sales by 0.4% and in-person sales by 0.1%. Added together, that is what the free plan costs you each month compared with Plus.
• Compare the total to $49. If it is smaller, stay on Free.
• Compare the online number on its own to $10 if you are weighing a flat-fee storefront elsewhere. That bar is much lower.
• Count your locations. Square Plus is priced per location, so three markets set up as three Square locations is $147 a month, not $49.
• Check the feature list. Loyalty, marketing, staff tools or per-order quantity limits may justify the plan on their own.
• Recheck in six months. The right answer changes as your online share grows.

If you run this properly and the free plan is still correct, that is a fine outcome. The point of the exercise is not to talk you into a subscription. It is to make sure you know what you are paying rather than assuming it is nothing. A vendor who has decided to accept 0.4% because their online volume is small is in a completely different position from one who believes the plan is free, even though they are on the same plan paying the same amount. The first will notice when their online share grows. The second will not.

What does this cost against a flat-fee alternative?

Because the $2,500 break-even is so much lower than the $12,250 one, a flat-fee storefront passes Square Free long before Square Plus does. At $4,000 a month across 200 online orders:

• Square Free: 3.3% of $4,000 = $132.00, plus $0.30 x 200 = $60.00. $192.00 a month.
• A $10 a month storefront (Homegrown, billed yearly) at 2.9% + $0.30: $10.00, plus $116.00, plus $60.00. $186.00 a month.

That is $6 a month, or $72 a year, which on its own is not a reason to move anything. What is worth pricing alongside it is what each one does: whether sales tax gets filed for you, whether pickup can be scheduled at more than one location, whether local delivery has a radius and a fee you set, and whether you pay per location. Our full comparison of Homegrown against Square Online works that through, and our roundup of the best e-commerce platforms for local vendors covers the wider field.

When does a $10 flat storefront beat Square Free for preorders?

Once your online preorders pass about $2,500 a month, a flat storefront usually costs less than Square Free for the online half of your business. Homegrown is $10 a month billed yearly ($12.50 billed monthly), with no percentage fees beyond standard payment processing at 2.9% plus 30 cents, paid by you, with a 7-day trial and no charge until day 8. Here is how it lines up against the options in this post:

• Against Square Free, you trade a 0.4% surcharge on every online order for a fixed $10. Below $2,500 a month online, Square Free is cheaper. Above it, the flat plan is.
• Against Square Plus, you get the same 2.9% plus 30 cents online rate for $10 a month billed yearly, or $12.50 month to month, instead of $49, and multiple pickup locations live under one storefront with no per-location charge.
• Against Hotplate, your customer sees $20.00 at checkout instead of $21.55. You pay 2.9% plus 30 cents in card processing on both. Homegrown adds no service fee on top, and its card processing cannot be passed on to the customer.

What Homegrown does for this exact problem is short to list. Sales tax is calculated and filed for you in all 50 states. Each pickup spot gets its own days and time windows, and you set the prep time you need before each pickup. Local delivery runs on a radius and a flat fee you choose. Payouts land the next business day. You can keep Square Free for booth taps, since it costs nothing a month, and send the online orders to your Homegrown link.

The limits: customers create a Homegrown account the first time they order. There is no feature for timed product releases, sometimes called drops, and no date for one. Homegrown does not connect your own domain name, so your storefront lives on a Homegrown link. Your storefront is listed on Homegrown's marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from people you send to your own link. If those trade-offs work for you, you can start a Homegrown storefront and run your own numbers against your last three months on Square.

If baked goods are your product, two of our guides run this same fee stack against Etsy, Shopify, Hotplate and Bakesy: the best platforms for selling baked goods online without Etsy and the best platform to sell food from home. Both use the same rule as this post: subscription plus rate plus per-order fee, at your volume.

Whichever one you pick, keep the card fees on their own line in your books. The IRS guidance on recordkeeping for small businesses says you can use any recordkeeping system that "clearly shows your income and expenses." A fee line you can actually read is what lets you run this calculation on your own numbers next year.

Frequently asked questions

Is Square Online really free?

Square Online's free plan is free to have but not free to use. Square Free charges 3.3% plus 30 cents on every online card payment, against 2.9% plus 30 cents on Square Plus and Premium. That 0.4% difference is the real cost of the free plan, and it grows with your sales.

How much does the free plan cost me in practice?

Against Square Plus, the free plan costs you 0.4% of your online sales and 0.1% of anything you sell in person. Taking the online part on its own, that is $4 a month at $1,000 in online sales, $20 a month ($240 a year) at $5,000, and $40 a month ($480 a year) at $10,000.

When should I upgrade to Square Plus?

On rate alone, upgrade once your online sales reach about $12,250 a month, where the 0.4% saving covers the $49 Plus price. If you also tap cards in person, add 0.1% of those sales to the 0.4% of your online sales, because Plus cuts the in-person rate too and pays for itself sooner. Before that point, upgrade only for the tools: loyalty, email and text marketing, staff management, a custom domain or per-order quantity limits.

Does the free plan affect my in-person rates?

Barely. Square Free charges 2.6% plus 15 cents for a tapped or dipped card, against 2.5% plus 15 cents on Plus. On $4,000 a month of booth sales, that difference is $4 a month, so a vendor who sells mostly in person pays almost nothing for staying on Free.

Is Square Plus priced per location?

Yes. Square Plus is $49 a month per location and Square Premium is $149 per location, as Square's pricing page listed them in our October 8, 2026 check. A vendor who sets up three farmers markets as three Square locations pays $147 a month on Plus, so multiply before you compare anything.

Why would Square charge more on a free plan?

Because a free plan has to be paid for somewhere, and a slightly higher card rate is a common way to do it. Square publishes both rates openly on its fee page, so the cost is disclosed rather than hidden. It is only "hidden" in the sense that it never shows up as its own line on a bill.

What is the cheapest way to sell online with Square?

Below roughly $12,250 of online sales a month, Square Free is the cheapest Square plan despite its higher rate, and above that Square Plus is. In-person sales pull that line lower, because Plus saves 0.1% on taps as well. If you are also weighing platforms outside Square, the break-even against a $10 a month flat storefront at 2.9% plus 30 cents is much lower, at about $2,500 a month online.

Is Square free to use?

Square's software is free to use on Square Free, and each card payment is not. There is no monthly charge, and Square's pricing page promises no hidden fees or locked-in contracts. The plan includes the point of sale app, an online site, invoicing and booking. Every card payment carries a fee: 2.6% plus 15 cents at the booth and 3.3% plus 30 cents for each online sale on the Free plan. Cash and check payments cost nothing on any plan.

How much does Square cost per month?

Square costs $0 a month on Square Free, $49 per location on Square Plus and $149 per location on Square Premium, with card processing on top on every plan. Add-ons cost extra on the paid plans: a kitchen display screen adds $30 a month (Plus) or $20 (Premium) per device, and a kiosk adds $50 or $30 per device. Square's pricing page showed those prices on October 8, 2026.

Does Square have a trial for Plus, and is it free?

Yes. Both paid plans come with a 30-day trial at no charge, and you can cancel or switch plans at any time. Square Free has no trial because it has no subscription: you sign up, take a payment and pay the processing fee on that payment. If you upgrade later and have already used a trial, Square's help center says you are charged a prorated amount for the rest of the month.

What is the difference between Square Plus and Square Premium?

Square Premium costs $100 a month more per location than Plus and buys a 0.1% lower in-person rate, 24/7 phone support, advanced reporting, real-time shipping rates, 2,500 included texts instead of 500 and no gift card load fee. Online, both charge 2.9% plus 30 cents. For a home food vendor, Plus already has more than you will use.

Is a Square website free?

Yes, a basic Square website is free on Square Free: the website builder, SEO tools, an online ordering page, pickup, delivery and shipping all come with the $0 plan. Every online card order costs 3.3% plus 30 cents, and connecting your own domain name takes Square Plus or Premium. So a Square website is free to build and paid per order.

Related Reading

These five posts pick up where this one stops, from the $10 flat-fee math in more detail to the steps for moving off Square if your numbers say it is time. Each one is written for a small food vendor, not a restaurant:

• Homegrown vs Square Online: the full side-by-side, feature by feature, for a food vendor choosing between the two.
• How to switch from Square Online: what to move, in what order, if your numbers say it is time.
• Card processing fees explained for food vendors: where the 2.9% and the 30 cents come from on every platform.
• The break-even between flat monthly and percentage fees: the same math as this post, run across other platforms.
• Square Online vs Shopify for food sellers: if you are deciding between two website builders rather than two Square plans.

Each of those posts uses the same rule as this one: add the monthly plan, the percentage and the per-order fee, and work them at your own volume rather than the platform's example.

The bottom line

Square Online's free plan is a good product, and it is the right Square plan for any vendor whose Plus savings stay under $49 a month and who does not need the loyalty, marketing, staff or domain tools that Plus adds, or the kitchen display app that Plus opens up for another $30 a month per screen. The 0.4% online surcharge and the 0.1% in-person one take a long time to add up to $49 together, and the in-person rates are excellent throughout.

What it is not, is free. It is a plan with the cost moved from a subscription line onto every transaction, which means you pay most when you are selling most, and you never see the extra 0.4% as its own line. Run the calculation that matters, your online sales times 0.4% plus your in-person sales times 0.1%, and you will know within a minute whether the free plan is saving you money or costing you more than Plus would. If you need what else is on Plus, price those tools first and count the rate saving as a discount. If the number is uncomfortable and you are also tired of filing your own sales tax, it is worth seeing what a flat-fee storefront does with the same orders before you upgrade anything.

The vendors in our catalog pull are the reason this post exists. A $10 item sold online pays 63 cents in card fees on Square Free and 59 cents on a plan that also charges a monthly price. Neither number is a problem. The problem is choosing a plan without knowing them, or paying $49 a month for restaurant tools a home kitchen never opens. Know your online sales, know your order size, and the right plan picks itself.