Square Payroll for Texas Teams, Laid Out Plain.

How much does Square Payroll cost?

Square publishes two payroll prices, checked October 2026. Full-service payroll is $35 a month plus $6 per person paid. Contractor-only payroll is $6 per person paid per month, with no base fee. Both come with unlimited pay runs and no commitment, and you can cancel anytime.

Square’s contractor page puts full-service at “as low as $41 per month” — the $35 base plus one person at $6. These are Square’s prices, not ours, and Square can change them, so check its payroll pricing page before you commit.

Card processing is billed separately (see Square fees explained), and Square Shifts needs Square Plus ($49 a month per location) or Premium ($149). Here’s the arithmetic for a few common setups.

Full-service or contractor-only: which Square Payroll plan fits your team?

If anyone you pay is a W-2 employee, you’re looking at full-service. Contractor-only is built for businesses that pay only 1099 workers.

Full-service is where the tax work lives. Square says it automates federal and state payroll tax filings and payments at no additional charge, handles new-hire reporting, and files W-2s and 1099-NECs each January for the prior year. Whether a worker is an employee or a contractor is a question for your CPA, not your software.

• Pick full-service if: you have W-2 employees, tipped staff, overtime, or deductions and garnishments to handle.
• Pick contractor-only if: everyone you pay is a 1099 contractor and you mainly need payments sent and 1099-NECs filed.
• Mixed crew? Square’s features page says it files both W-2s and 1099-NECs for your team. Ask Square how contractors count toward the per-person fee on full-service.
• Remote hire out of state? Full-service supports multistate payroll, and Square says adding work-from-home locations helps you pay unemployment tax correctly to those employees’ home states. Confirm the details with your CPA.

What is Square Shifts, and do you need Square Plus to use it?

Square Shifts is the scheduling and time-tracking side of Square’s team tools, and it tracks time for both W-2 employees and 1099 contractors.

Shifts has no standalone price. Square includes it in Square Plus ($49/mo. per location) and Square Premium ($149/mo. per location), and each plan has a free 30-day trial, per Square’s pricing page checked October 2026. Square Free doesn’t include the staff-management features.

One wrinkle: Square’s payroll pricing table lists scheduling “up to 10 days out” as part of full-service payroll. For open shifts, swaps and labor-versus-sales reporting, you want Shifts.

• Time clock: staff clock in with a personal passcode at the register, or through the Square Team App away from the POS, with optional geofencing.
• Scheduling: publish and duplicate schedules, post open shifts with swaps, and collect availability and time-off requests.
• Labor-cost control: clock-in protection blocks early or unscheduled clock-ins, and breaks and overtime are tracked.
• Reporting: labor costs, labor versus sales, and team sales.
• Payroll handoff: timecards sync with Square Payroll, or export to a third-party payroll provider.

How does Square team management handle permissions, tips and commissions?

Advanced Access comes with Plus or Premium and adds unlimited custom permission sets, a team member activity log, a team sales report and team member badges. Square says badges work with Square Reader, Square Register and Square Stand with a built-in reader. Compare Square Register and Stand on our hardware page.

Shifts handles tip pooling, cash tip tracking, commission tracking, and hourly and salary wage types. Team Communication adds chats, announcements and shared files in the Square Team app.

• Restaurants and bars: tip pooling and cash tip tracking live in Shifts, and full-service payroll imports direct tips from Square POS. See Square for Restaurants, and our buying guide on tip handling in a restaurant POS.
• Salons, barbers and spas: commissions are tracked in Shifts and, Square says, automatically in payroll. See Square Appointments.
• Retail shops: permission sets and the activity log help you control and review what happens at the register.
• Field and home services: crews can clock in from the Square Team App away from the register, and their hours sync to payroll. See Square for service businesses.

When do you need to run Square Payroll so your team gets paid on time?

Square says to process payroll by 8 p.m. Pacific for direct deposit to land on payday. In Dallas / Ft. Worth and most of Texas, that’s 10 p.m. Central; in El Paso, 9 p.m. Mountain.

Square’s standard processing window is four business days. You can apply for Two-Day Payroll to cut that to two, and Instant Payments uses money in your Square balance to run payroll as little as one day before payday. Eligible team members who use Cash App can use Instant Deposit; Square’s features page says that means pay two calendar days before the original pay date, in qualifying states. Square’s pricing table lists two-, four- and next-day direct deposit as full-service only, so contractor-only users should confirm payment timing with Square.

How do you set up Square Payroll and Shifts? A step-by-step checklist

Here’s the order to work it in. All nine steps come before your first live payroll, and steps 4–6 are where overtime, tip-pool and permission settings get decided.

Where Lone Star Payments fits: we set up your Square point of sale with you — plan selection, team permissions, tipping and hardware pairing — and train your staff on the time clock, on-site across Dallas / Ft. Worth or remotely with a live specialist statewide. Payroll itself is Square’s service: Square files and pays taxes on full-service, and Square’s payroll specialists support it. See how our Square setup works.

• 1. Pick your Square plan. Want Shifts, tip pooling and custom permissions? Budget for Plus or Premium per location. If not, Square Free plus payroll may do.
• 2. Pick your payroll plan. Full-service for W-2 employees; contractor-only for 1099-only teams.
• 3. Add your team. Square lists employee self-onboarding on both plans, so staff enter their own details.
• 4. Set roles and permissions before the first shift, not after a problem.
• 5. Set wages, tips and commissions: hourly or salary, tip-pool rules, cash tips, commissions.
• 6. Set up the time clock: passcodes or badges at the register, the Team App for staff away from the register, and clock-in protection or geofencing (which ties clock-ins to physical presence) if you want them.
• 7. Publish the first schedule and check timecards, breaks and overtime after a full pay period.
• 8. Choose your pay timing — standard, Two-Day Payroll or Instant Payments — and calendar the submission day.
• 9. Connect QuickBooks Online if that’s where your books live.

Who is Square Payroll a good fit for — and who should look elsewhere?

Square Payroll makes the most sense when Square is already your register. The value is the handoff: with Shifts on Plus or Premium and full-service payroll, hours, tips and commissions land in payroll without anyone retyping them. If that handoff doesn’t matter to you, the case gets weaker — and since we sell several platforms, we’ll say so.

• Good fit: restaurants, cafés, bars, salons and shops already on Square POS, with hourly or tipped staff. Restaurant owners weighing Toast can see how Toast bundles payroll.
• Good fit: small 1099 crews that need contractors paid and 1099-NECs filed.
• Keep what you have if: your CPA or current provider already runs payroll well. Shifts timecards can export to a third-party payroll provider.
• Think twice if: you need evening or weekend payroll help. Square lists payroll support Monday–Friday, 6 a.m.–6 p.m. Pacific (8 a.m.–8 p.m. Central).
• Think twice if: you need firm benefits pricing up front. Health insurance, 401(k) and workers’ comp are add-ons without published prices.
• Do the math if: you run several locations. Plus is $49 a month per location, so Shifts across three stores is $147 a month before payroll.

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.