Square's numbers, and the one it will not work out for you.
There is no multi-page statement to decode, which is genuinely better. What there also is not is any view of interchange — so the only question worth asking is whether the flat rate is still a good deal at your volume.
What this page settles.
Three questions, in the order most people ask them.
There is no statement, and that is fine
Square does not post a multi-page monthly statement in the way a traditional processor does. Fees are itemised against each transaction in the dashboard, and monthly totals live in the reporting section.
For most merchants this is an improvement. There is no vocabulary to decode, no interchange category codes, no adjustment lines referring to a prior month, and — on the free plan — no fixed monthly charges hiding at the bottom. What Square charges, it charges per transaction, and it shows you.
What is missing is interchange. Not hidden; absent. A flat rate does not separate the networks’ cost from the processor’s margin, so no amount of looking will tell you how much of your 2.6% was interchange and how much was Square. That is the trade for the simplicity and it is worth understanding rather than resenting. Flat rate versus interchange-plus.
The practical consequence: reading a Square account is not about decoding anything. It is about one calculation and one decision.
Where the numbers actually are
Three places, and the exports are the useful ones.
The transaction list shows each sale with its fee, which is where you check an individual charge.
The reports section gives monthly summaries of gross sales, fees, net, and splits by payment method and by channel. This is where your monthly totals come from.
The exports are what you actually want. A transactions export and a fees export for a full calendar month, as CSV, opened in a spreadsheet. Everything below takes five minutes from there.
If you are on a paid plan, your subscription charges are billed separately from processing. Both count as fees for the calculation that follows, and people routinely leave the subscription out.
The calculation Square will not do
Total card volume for the month — all card sales, tips included. Tips are part of the authorized amount and are processed like any other volume, so they belong in the denominator. Restaurant processing.
Total fees for the month — processing fees, plus any plan subscription, plus any per-device software charges.
Divide fees by volume. That is your effective rate. The calculator does it from those two numbers.
Transaction count into volume for your average ticket.
On the free plan at 2.6% + 15¢ with a $45 average ticket, the arithmetic comes out around 2.93%. At a $15 average ticket it is 3.6%, because the 15¢ is now 1% of the sale on its own. At a $200 average ticket it is 2.68%. Same published rate, three very different costs — which is why your own number matters more than Square’s.
What you cannot see, and why it matters
Four things a traditional statement would show you and Square’s does not.
Interchange. So you cannot tell whether your card mix is cheap or expensive to serve, or what happened in the April and October interchange updates. April and October.
Downgrades. Square charges you the same whether a transaction qualified well or badly, so there is nothing to see — but it also means a procedural problem that would cost you money elsewhere is invisible here. Mostly this is in your favour.
Your debit share, at least not as a cost. You can see debit volume in the reports, and that is the figure that matters: regulated debit interchange is capped by law and low, and a flat 2.6% on it is a large margin. A debit-heavy business is the one Square serves least well, and it will never tell you so. Debit versus credit cost.
Whether you are overpaying. Which is the whole point of the exercise below.
The fees to check for
On the free plan there usually are none beyond processing, and that is one of Square’s genuinely good qualities — no monthly fee, no minimum, no PCI fee, no termination fee, no equipment lease. Square fees in full.
Four things to confirm anyway:
Your plan tier. Plus at $49 a month per location and Premium at $149 lower the in-person rate. If you are paying for a tier, check it is earning its fee — Plus saves 0.1%, which is worth $49 only above about $49,000 a month of volume.
Per-device app charges. Kitchen display and kiosk apps carry monthly per-device fees on the paid tiers.
Instant transfer fees, if anyone is using them habitually rather than occasionally. Next day versus same day.
Keyed and online volume. 3.5% + 15¢ and 3.3% + 30¢ are at the expensive end. If a meaningful share of your sales is either, your effective rate will be well above the in-person figure and that is worth knowing. Selling online.
When the answer is to leave
Having worked out your effective rate, there is one decision.
Card-present interchange plus assessments for a mixed consumer card base typically runs around 1.9% to 2.1% all in. Against an interchange-plus margin of 0.40% + 8¢ with no monthly fee, Square’s flat rate is costing roughly 0.4% more — about $40 a month at $10,000 of volume, $120 at $30,000, $243 at $60,000.
So: below roughly $12,000 a month, stay. The free software is worth more than the saving and switching costs you new hardware and an afternoon.
Above it, the arithmetic turns, and it turns harder if you are debit-heavy or small-ticket. Square alternatives covers what to move to and leaving Square covers the two things that make the move awkward — the hardware does not come with you, and stored cards may not either.
What we charge
Interchange + 0.50% + 10¢ in person, interchange + 0.75% + 25¢ keyed, with no contract, no monthly fee and no monthly minimum.
Export a month from Square and send it to us. We will work out your effective rate and what interchange-plus would cost on the same volume and card mix. Most people who ask are below the threshold, and we tell them so.
While we are on the subject
Where is my Square statement?
Square does not issue a traditional merchant statement. Fees are itemised per transaction in the dashboard, and monthly summaries are under reports.
Does Square show me interchange?
No, and it cannot — a flat rate does not separate interchange from markup. That is the trade for the simplicity.
What is a typical Square effective rate?
On the free plan at a $45 average ticket, about 2.93% for in-person volume. Yours will differ with your average ticket and channel mix.
Are there fees besides the rate?
On the free plan, generally not — no monthly fee, minimum, PCI fee or termination fee. Paid plans, hardware and add-on products are separate.