Square Fees and Pricing Plans, Explained Line by Line.

How much are Square fees per transaction in 2026?

Square charges a percentage plus a fixed fee on each card payment. The percentage depends on your plan and how the card reaches you; the fixed fee depends only on how it’s taken — 15¢ in person or keyed, 30¢ online or by invoice. Square takes the fee from the full sale, including tax and tip, and charges every major card brand the same rate.

Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android is listed at 2.6% + 15¢ per tap, without naming a plan; see Square Reader and Tap to Pay costs. Cash App Pay has no separate plan-table rate; Square’s developer docs say it’s charged the card rate. Square says EBT fees are waived during the feature’s beta, through fall 2026. The 1.5% international fee applies to cards issued outside the US, but not to Afterpay, ACH, Cash App Pay, bitcoin or EBT. Here are Square’s processing fees for 2026 across all three plans, checked October 2026.

How much are Square pricing plans — and is Square Plus worth it?

Square moved to three plans in October 2025, replacing 18 à la carte subscriptions. All three include every point-of-sale mode with no per-device POS fee; moving up buys lower rates, deeper software and more phone support (Free’s ends after 90 days; Premium’s runs 24/7). Features can’t be added to or removed from a plan one at a time.

Plus and Premium are billed per active location — three locations on Plus cost $147 a month — while Square Free adds locations free. Plus and Premium each have a 30-day free trial, and you can cancel or switch anytime. One catch for long-time Square users: once you move to these plans, Square says you can’t switch back to your old subscription.

So is Square Plus worth it? Plus cuts 0.1 point off in-person cards and 0.4 point off online and invoice cards. Inside Square’s under-$250,000-a-year target (about $20,800 a month), Plus’s in-person savings top out near $21 a month, so for card-present sellers, features, not rates, have to justify it.

Premium cuts another 0.1 point in person, saves $10 per KDS screen and $20 per kiosk a month versus Plus, and drops gift card load fees to zero.

• Square Free — $0/month: the POS app, an online site, item library, invoicing, booking, and checking and savings accounts. Phone support runs 6am–6pm PT weekdays for your first 90 days.
• Square Plus — $49/month per location: adds advanced POS features by industry, lower rates, loyalty, email and text marketing with 500 texts a month, and staff management. Phone support runs 6am–6pm PT weekdays. Square tags it “Best value.”
• Square Premium — $149/month per location: adds the lowest rates, advanced reporting, 2,500 included texts, no gift card load fees and 24/7 priority phone support.
• Every plan includes: encrypted payments, fraud prevention, next-day transfers, offline payments and Square Banking. Square Payroll and hardware are billed separately.

What are Square invoice fees, online fees and keyed-in fees?

Card-not-present payments cost more, and the 0.4-point gap between Free (3.3% + 30¢) and the paid plans (2.9% + 30¢) on online and invoice cards is the biggest processing-rate difference between Square’s plans.

Keyed-in cards and cards on file cost 3.5% + 15¢ on every plan, which Square attributes to the greater risk when neither card nor cardholder is present. Square Virtual Terminal, for phone orders from a computer, has no monthly fee and charges the same 3.5% + 15¢.

ACH is the cheap lane for big invoices: 1% with a $1 minimum, capped at $10 on Plus and Premium, with no cap listed on Free. Square’s own example is a $300 ACH invoice costing $3.00. Square also lists $0 fees for ACH payments deposited into Square Checking, and says ACH funds arrive in two to three business days.

Payment Links have no monthly fee; Square’s Payment Links page quotes 3.3% + 30¢ per transaction for new Square customers. Square’s Virtual Terminal page lists payment link transactions at 3.5% + 15¢, and neither page says whether Plus and Premium get the 2.9% + 30¢ online rate on links, so confirm the rate in your Dashboard.

Online ordering profiles have no monthly fee, but the online processing fee applies. Afterpay is 6% + 30¢ in every channel. More on our Square Invoices and Square Online pages.

What other Square fees should you budget for?

Hardware is bought separately. Square’s hardware pages list your first Square Reader for magstripe free (then $10 per extra reader) and Square Reader for contactless and chip at $59; Square Terminal is $299 and Square Register $899. Block, Inc. offers financing at 15% APR where available, subject to credit approval.

Several add-ons and payout fees bill on top of your plan, as the table below shows. KDS and kiosk software require Plus or Premium and are priced per device, so three KDS screens means three fees. The $99 Restaurant Inventory by MarketMan price applies to customers new to MarketMan.

How much will Square’s credit card processing fees cost my business?

The fixed 15¢ makes small tickets expensive: on Square Free, a $10 tapped sale costs 4.1% and a $100 sale 2.75%. Ticket size matters as much as volume.

Here are three common Texas business shapes, worked as plain arithmetic on Square’s published rates and assuming every sale is the stated payment type. All three process more than $250,000 a year — the level where Square invites businesses to ask about custom pricing — so treat these as the published-rate baseline to hold any custom quote against:

• Coffee shop — $40,000 a month tapped or dipped on Square hardware, $10 average ticket (4,000 sales): Free costs $1,040 + $600 in 15¢ fees = $1,640. Plus is $1,000 + $600 + $49 = $1,649, and Premium is $960 + $600 + $149 = $1,709. Free is cheapest overall by $9 — Plus’s processing is $40 lower, but its $49 fee erases that — and the 15¢ is more than a third of the bill. Plus earns its keep only if you’ll use loyalty, email and text marketing or staff tools.
• Full-service restaurant — $120,000 a month card-present, $60 average check (2,000 sales), two KDS screens: Plus is $3,000 + $300 + $49 + $60 KDS = $3,409. Premium is $2,880 + $300 + $149 + $40 KDS = $3,369 — $40 less, with 24/7 phone support.
• Contractor — $30,000 a month in 12 invoices of $2,500: by card, $993.60 on Free or $922.60 on Plus including its $49 fee. By ACH, $300 on Free (1%, no cap listed) versus $169 on Plus ($10 cap × 12, plus $49) — and Square lists $0 ACH fees into Square Checking.

Flat rate, interchange-plus or dual pricing: how does Square’s pricing compare?

Square uses flat-rate pricing: one published rate per payment type, the same for every card brand. Square’s developer documentation says the fee covers everything from PCI-compliance fees to interchange and chargeback fees, so you see Square’s published rate, not the wholesale cost underneath. Running a restaurant? Compare Square vs Toast costs.

Interchange-plus passes the card networks’ wholesale interchange through at cost, plus a disclosed markup. Interchange varies by card type and how the card is taken, so your effective rate moves with your card mix: steady volume with plenty of debit cards can come out ahead, while a crowd carrying mostly premium rewards cards may not. See what interchange is and credit card processing fees explained.

Dual pricing posts a cash price and a card price, so the card price carries the cost of acceptance instead of your margin. It must be set up correctly on signage, terminals and receipts; see dual pricing vs surcharging vs cash discount and our Texas surcharge and dual pricing guide. Lone Star Payments offers a dual pricing program as one of its options.

When is Square’s flat rate the cheaper choice — and when isn’t it?

There’s no universal winner. Square says its standard rates are designed for businesses that process less than $250,000 a year, and invites businesses above that line to ask whether they’re eligible for custom pricing (Square Pro). That’s a useful signal for who the published flat rate is aimed at.

• Square’s flat rate often makes sense when: you’re new, seasonal or running modest volume; you want no monthly fee and no contract; you’ll use the included POS, online site, invoicing and banking; or your customers carry lots of rewards cards, since Square charges the same published rate whichever card they use.
• It’s worth pricing alternatives when: you run steady volume well above $250,000 a year; many payments are keyed in or card on file at 3.5% + 15¢; your tickets are small enough that the 15¢ eats a big share; or you need same-day money often enough that 1.95% per transfer adds up.
• If Square isn’t the fit: we also sell Clover, LINGA, KORONA POS and other platforms, plus same day funding; our Square vs Clover comparison is a good next read.

How do you lower your Square payment processing fees?

Most savings come from matching your plan to your payment mix and steering payments into cheaper lanes. Here’s the order we use with owners:

• Step 1 — Pull your mix: split three months of sales into in-person, online and invoice, keyed, ACH and gift card loads, and note your average ticket.
• Step 2 — Run the break-even: check your mix against the break-even table above before paying for Plus or Premium.
• Step 3 — Cut keyed entry: keyed and card-on-file payments cost 3.5% + 15¢, so take the card in person where you can. For remote payments, an invoice paid by card beats keying it in only above about $25 a sale on Plus and Premium (2.9% + 30¢) or about $75 on Free (3.3% + 30¢); on bigger tickets, ACH beats both.
• Step 4 — Offer ACH on big invoices: 1% with a $1 minimum, capped at $10 on Plus and Premium, and $0 into Square Checking, per Square.
• Step 5 — Skip paid payouts you don’t need: next-business-day transfers are free; instant and same-day transfers cost 1.95% each time.
• Step 6 — Check your gift card volume: Free and Plus charge 2.5% on every load; Premium charges none.
• Step 7 — Get a side-by-side: we’ll lay Square’s published costs next to our other options for your actual card volume, free. For tactics beyond Square, see our 12 ways to lower card fees.

Frequently asked questions

Square and related marks are trademarks of Block, Inc., used here to identify the products Lone Star Payments offers. Square pricing and features described on this page are Square’s published information as of October 2026 and can change — confirm current terms when you sign up.