Alternatives to Square, and when you have actually outgrown it.
Square is not a bad deal, it is a flat deal — and a flat rate stops being competitive at a point you can calculate. Here is where that point is, what the published alternatives cost, and the two things that make moving awkward.
What this page settles.
Three questions, in the order most people ask them.
Square is not the problem
Worth saying before anything else, because most pages on this topic are written by people trying to sell you something.
Square publishes every rate it charges. It has no contract, no term, no early termination fee, no monthly minimum, no PCI fee and no equipment lease. The entire category of problem this site exists to explain — the clauses, the surprise fees, the four-year lease on a $350 terminal — does not apply to it. Its free software tier is genuinely free and genuinely good.
What Square is, is flat. One rate for every card, which means it is an average across your card mix. That average is generous to a business whose customers carry premium rewards cards and expensive to one whose customers tap regulated debit — and neither can tell, because a flat rate shows you one number.
As your volume grows, the margin a flat rate carries grows with it in absolute terms and never shrinks as a percentage. That is the whole case for leaving, and it only becomes a case at a certain size. Square fees, in full.
How to tell you have outgrown it
Three checks, all from one statement, all takeable in ten minutes.
Your effective rate. Total fees for a month divided by total card volume. On Square’s free tier with a $45 average ticket this comes to about 2.93%. The calculator.
Your monthly card volume. This is the number that decides it.
Your debit share. Regulated debit interchange is capped by law and low. If most of your volume is debit, a flat 2.6% is a very large margin on it and you have outgrown Square earlier than the general figure suggests. Debit versus credit cost.
The rough answer. 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. That is:
about $40 a month at $10,000 of volume, which is not worth an afternoon; about $120 a month at $30,000, which is; about $243 a month at $60,000, which is a part-time wage over a year; about $406 a month at $100,000.
The honest threshold is somewhere around $12,000 a month, and lower if you are debit-heavy or small-ticket.
Two situations where you have outgrown Square regardless of volume: a funding hold would stop you trading, and you want an underwritten merchant account rather than a sub-merchant arrangement; or a large share of your volume is keyed or online, where Square’s 3.5% + 15¢ and 3.3% + 30¢ are at the expensive end. Merchant account versus aggregator.
What to move to
Three published options and one negotiated one. Three of the four are not us.
Helcim — interchange + 0.40% + 8¢ in person, no monthly fee, no minimum, no setup fee, no cancellation fee, no PCI fee, $0 on a chargeback you win, next-business-morning funding, margin falling automatically across five published volume tiers. The simplest like-for-like replacement: nothing to negotiate, nothing monthly, and it keeps Square’s “nothing to sign” quality. Square against Helcim.
Dharma — interchange + 0.15% + $0.08 with $20 a month, no PCI fee, no termination fee, a $49 closure fee, and separate published rate schedules by industry. Cheaper than Helcim above roughly $8,000 a month, and the lowest published margin on this site.
Stax — $99 to $199+ a month and no percentage markup at all. Beats a flat 2.6% from around $12,000 a month and beats a percentage margin from around $25,000. Not for a seasonal business; you pay the subscription in the quiet months.
A negotiated interchange-plus account through an ISO, which above a few hundred thousand a month can go below any published schedule. Ask for the margin as a number, every monthly fee named, hardware bought outright and month-to-month terms, and you have the good parts of Square plus visible interchange. Comparing two quotes.
If you want to stay on a flat rate but pay less in person, PayPal’s 2.29% + 9¢ card present is the lowest published in-person figure here. It is still a flat rate, so it still has the same ceiling, but it is a smaller one.
The two things that make moving awkward
Neither is a dealbreaker and both need planning.
The hardware does not come with you. Square readers, stands and terminals only work with Square. Moving means buying new hardware — a few hundred dollars for a mainstream countertop terminal, less for a mobile reader, and you should buy it rather than lease it. At the volumes where moving makes sense, that is recovered in one to three months. Buy or lease.
Cards on file may not migrate. If you have stored customer cards for recurring billing or deposits, the tokens are Square’s and they usually cannot be handed to another processor. Ask the new provider whether a migration is possible before you commit, because the alternative is asking every customer to re-enter a card — which costs you some of them. Tokenization and P2PE.
Everything else is easy, and this is worth stating plainly because people expect worse: there is no contract to exit, no notice to give, no termination fee to pay. You export your data, board the new account, run both for a fortnight, and stop using Square. Leaving Square, step by step.
What you lose
Be honest with yourself about this before moving, because for some businesses it outweighs the saving.
The free software. Square’s till app, inventory, customer records, reporting, invoicing and appointments at $0 a month is a real product. Most interchange-plus processors do not bundle a point-of-sale system, so you are either keeping Square’s software and moving only the payments — which Square does not permit — or buying software separately. For a business that leans on Square’s software, price that replacement before counting the saving. Choosing a retail POS.
The adjacent products. Payroll, banking, loans, appointments, marketing. If you use them, they are reasons to stay that have nothing to do with the rate.
Instant everything. Square’s setup, support model and dashboard are built for a merchant with no time. A traditional merchant account comes with underwriting, paperwork and a human, and the human is an upgrade only if they are a good one.
The simplicity of one number. An interchange-plus statement has more lines. That is the point — you can finally see what interchange cost and whether anything downgraded — but it is more to read. Interchange-plus pricing.
What we charge
Interchange + 0.50% + 10¢ in person, interchange + 0.75% + 25¢ keyed, with no contract, no monthly fee, no monthly minimum and no termination fee. We sell hardware outright and do not lease it.
Our margin is not the lowest published on this page — Dharma’s 0.15% is, and it is public. Send us a Square statement and we will work out your effective rate and what interchange-plus would cost on the same volume. Below about $12,000 a month we will tell you to stay where you are, which is most of the people who ask.
While we are on the subject
Is there a cheaper alternative to Square?
Above roughly $12,000 a month in card volume, yes — interchange-plus providers like Helcim and Dharma publish margins well below what a flat 2.6% implies. Below it, Square’s free software usually wins on total cost.
Can I keep my Square hardware?
No. Square readers only work with Square, so moving means buying new hardware. At the volumes where moving makes sense, it is recovered in a couple of months.
Do I have to give Square notice?
No. There is no contract and no termination fee. You stop using it, which is one of the genuinely good things about Square.
What about my customer and sales data?
Export everything before you stop — sales history, catalogue, customers. And check whether cards you have on file can migrate at all, because stored-card tokens often cannot.