Square Gift Cards, Loyalty and Marketing That Bring Regulars Back.

Which Square plan includes loyalty, marketing and gift cards?

Square has three self-serve plans: Square Free ($0), Square Plus ($49/mo. per location) and Square Premium ($149/mo. per location). Features can’t be added to a plan one at a time, so the plan decides which customer tools you get.

Multi-location owners: plan fees are charged per location, but Square’s pricing page lists the text allowance per month, per account, so don’t count on 500 or 2,500 texts for each location.

How do Square gift cards work, and what do they cost?

Square Gift Cards come as physical plastic cards and eGift cards, sold in person and online. Customers redeem them at your point of sale, where the QR code or barcode scans, or on your Square Online site. Square says they don’t expire, and selling them requires no subscription.

eGift cards can go out by email or text, and Square’s free eGift order site lets buyers send cards by email to one person, several people or themselves, or start a group gift. Physical cards are ordered from Square Dashboard.

Worked example: $8,000 in December gift card sales costs 2.5% × $8,000 = $200 in load fees on Square Free or Square Plus, and $0 on Square Premium, before processing on each card purchase. Our retail POS guide covers where gift cards fit in a retail POS decision.

How does Square Loyalty work?

Square Loyalty is a points program connected to your point of sale. Customers enroll at checkout, on your Square website or through a Square invoice, and earn on every purchase, even cash. Square texts them automatically when they earn points or rewards.

Rewards can be a discount on the whole sale, a discount on an item or category, a free item, or a combo, with up to 15 rewards in one program. Points can expire after a set number of months, with a reminder text 14 days before, and members earn and redeem at every participating location. VIP tiers (up to six) and bonus-point promotions, with templates for slow hours and holidays, reward your best customers.

Pick the earning rule first:

• By visit: Easiest to explain at the counter. Best when tickets run about the same size, as at a coffee shop or barbershop.
• By amount spent: Fits when ticket sizes swing, as in boutiques (see Square for boutiques and shops). It’s the only rule that lets you exclude items or categories from earning points.
• By item or category: Pushes one product line, such as points per smoothie.

What can Square Marketing do with email and text?

Square Marketing sends one-time and automated email and text campaigns from your Square Dashboard. Your email list builds at checkout, in person or online, and Square sorts customers into smart groups such as new, lapsed, top spenders and frequent visitors.

Automations do most of the work: welcome messages, birthday coupons, lapsed-customer win-backs, abandoned-cart reminders, and Google review requests after a sale at no extra cost. Square says its automated email campaigns average a 1.7x higher open rate and 2.3x higher coupon redemption than one-off blasts.

For writing help, the email editor’s “Generate content” button uses a third-party AI partner. Managerbot, Square’s AI agent, can also draft campaigns for your approval; Square opened it to open beta in April 2026 for most non-franchise US food and beverage, retail, and health and beauty sellers.

Texts go out from a verified toll-free number to customers who opted in at checkout or by texting a unique sign-up number. Here’s monthly texting at Square’s published rates:

What is the Square Customer Directory, and what does it cost?

The Customer Directory is Square’s free CRM, built into every Square payment tool on every plan. Each sale creates or enriches a customer profile, synced across in-person and online sales, locations and devices. It also builds your marketing opt-in list automatically and shows attributed sales and coupon redemptions.

• Search and segment: Find customers by name, phone, email or custom fields, and filter with smart groups like loyalty members and lapsed customers.
• Bulk tools: Import, export and merge records when you move a list from an old system.
• Square Feedback: Customers message you privately from a digital receipt or a campaign email; if they allow replies, you can answer with a message, a reward or a refund.
• Square Messages: One inbox for texts, emails, receipts and invoices on a free account. Plus and Premium add starting new conversations and a business number customers can text.

Is Square Plus or Premium worth it for loyalty, gift cards and texts?

Start with Plus versus Free, at Square’s published rates. Plus’s in-person rate is 0.1 percentage point lower (2.5% + 15¢ versus 2.6% + 15¢), worth $1 per $1,000 of card-present sales, so at $49,000 a month the rate cut alone covers the $49 fee. If you also sell online, Plus’s online rate (2.9% + 30¢ versus 3.3% + 30¢ on Free) brings that break-even down further. Below the break-even, you’re paying for Plus features like loyalty and marketing, so make sure you’ll use them.

Premium costs $100 more per location per month than Plus. It drops the gift card load fee to 0%, raises included texts to 2,500, halves overage texts to 1.5¢, trims the in-person rate to 2.4% + 15¢, and adds 24/7 phone support. Gift card loads alone cover the gap at $4,000 a month ($4,000 × 2.5% = $100). Here’s one month at one location:

How should you set up Square Loyalty, Marketing and gift cards?

Programs stall when they launch before the items and customer list are ready. Here’s the order we recommend:

• 1. Choose the plan: Square Free covers gift cards and the Customer Directory; loyalty and marketing need Plus or Premium.
• 2. Build the item library: Item-based earning rules, spend exclusions and item-spotlight promotions all depend on it.
• 3. Import customers: Bring past customers into the Customer Directory and merge duplicates. Text only the customers who opted in.
• 4. Request text verification early: Toll-free number verification can take up to 14 business days.
• 5. Set up gift cards both ways: Turn on the eGift order site and order physical cards. On Square Register, Stand, Kiosk or Reader for Contactless and Chip, Square recommends a Square Reader for Magstripe to accept gift cards; see Square hardware.
• 6. Build loyalty in Square Dashboard: Square only allows it there, only the account owner can create VIP tiers, and Square requires prior express written consent from every member to comply with the TCPA.
• 7. Turn on automations, then train the counter: Loyalty grows fastest when cashiers invite every customer to join.

When are Square’s marketing and loyalty tools the wrong fit?

Skip or scale back these tools if one of these describes you:

• You only want gift cards: Square Free handles them, with the 2.5% load fee and no subscription.
• You sell restricted products: Tobacco shops, liquor stores and fireworks stands may find text marketing limited or unavailable under SHAFT-C rules.
• You run many locations on thin margins: Five locations cost $245 a month on Plus ($49 × 5) or $745 on Premium ($149 × 5) before processing.
• You aren’t processing on Square: These tools run on Square sales data, so if you’re staying on Clover or another platform, compare its options instead.

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.