Square vs CardConnect, a price list against a quote.

The short answer

These are not the same kind of thing, and the honest comparison is between a price and a process.

Square publishes one rate — 2.6% + 15¢ in person, 3.3% + 30¢ online on the free plan, no monthly fee, no term — and charges it to every merchant identically. You can know what Square costs before you speak to anyone.

CardConnect publishes nothing. No rate, no monthly fee, no term, no funding timetable. It is a processing platform sold through ISOs, each of which quotes individually, and its own site routes every pricing question to a contact form. What you pay depends on who sold it to you and what you negotiated.

Neither approach is dishonest. A published flat rate is simple and the same for everyone, which means it is generous to some merchants and expensive to others. A quoted rate can be much better than a flat rate for the merchant it fits, and much worse for the merchant who did not read it. The trade is convenience against the possibility of a better price — and the possibility of a worse one.

Publish a rateSquare, Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, SumUp, Helcim, Stax, Dharma, SpotOn, Chase48%

Publish partlyClover, direct purchase only5%

Publish nothingToast, Lightspeed, NRS, CardConnect, Payarc, Maverick, Elavon, Worldpay, Global Payments, Heartland48%

Published pricing, side by side

Square: squareup.com — read 2026-10-08. CardConnect: cardconnect.com — read 2026-10-08.

Published prices change. These were read on the dates above and are list prices for a business buying direct — a quote you are given may differ, and should be compared as a quote rather than against a price list.

Square, also published:

• ACH via invoice 1%, $1 minimum
• Afterpay 6% + 30¢
• EBT 1.8% + 5¢
• Custom pricing available above $250,000 a year

CardConnect, also published:

• The site publishes no rates, no fees and no terms, and routes every pricing question to a contact form

Where we stand. PosNexus is an ISO. We board merchants on platforms including CardConnect, Maverick, NRS and Payarc, and we are paid on the accounts we place — so treat anything we say about those four as coming from an interested party. Everything in the table above is quoted from the provider’s own published page, with the date we read it, so you can check it.

Where they actually differ

What you can know in advance. Square: everything. CardConnect: nothing until somebody quotes you. That asymmetry is the main thing, and the rest of this page is about how to close it.

The pricing model. Square is flat rate, so you cannot see interchange and cannot tell whether a transaction downgraded. A CardConnect account quoted as interchange-plus itemises interchange, which is the difference between being able to audit your own cost and not.

The account. Square is an aggregator — you are a sub-merchant under its master account, not underwritten in your own right. CardConnect accounts are underwritten merchant accounts. The underwriting happens before you trade rather than after, which is the whole argument for it. Merchant account versus aggregator.

The contract. Square states no contract and no termination fee. A CardConnect account from an ISO may come with a term, an early termination fee, an equipment lease on a separate schedule, and auto-renewal — or with none of those, depending on what you agreed. Ask specifically.

Who you call. Square has support and a help centre and no account manager. An ISO-sold account comes with whoever sold it to you, which is either genuinely valuable or completely absent depending on the ISO. Who is who in payments.

The software. Square’s business platform is deeper than anything that comes bundled with a conventional merchant account. If you want inventory, staff and reporting as well as acceptance, that is a point for Square independent of price.

Who each one suits

Square suits a new or small business, anyone who wants to start today, anyone who would rather have a fair price than a negotiated one, and any business whose volume is low enough that a flat rate is not costing much.

A CardConnect account suits an established business doing enough volume that interchange-plus beats a flat rate, that wants its own underwritten merchant account, and that is willing to read a contract properly — which is the condition, not an aside.

The volume where this flips is roughly $25,000 to $40,000 a month in card volume for most in-person businesses, and it moves with card mix and average ticket. Below it, the flat rate is usually fine and the simplicity is worth something. Above it, the gap compounds monthly.

What the comparison does not show

A quote is not a price until it is in writing, in full. Ask for: the markup over interchange as a number, the per-item, every monthly fee named individually, the PCI arrangement, the term, the early termination terms, whether hardware is bought or leased, and the funding timetable. A quote missing any of those is not comparable to anything. Comparing two quotes properly.

The headline rate in a quote is frequently not the paid rate. A quoted 1.79% that arrives as a 3.48% effective rate is the most common complaint in this industry, and the cause is usually tiered pricing with downgrades rather than anything hidden. Why the bill went up.

The hardware clause is where the money hides. A good rate attached to a four-year non-cancellable lease is usually a worse deal than a mediocre rate with hardware bought outright. Equipment lease fees.

Disclosure on our side: PosNexus is an ISO and CardConnect is one of the platforms we board merchants on. We are paid on the accounts we place, so treat our view of CardConnect as coming from an interested party. The Square figures above are Square’s own published ones and you can check them in a minute.

How to settle it with your own numbers

Half of this comparison cannot be done from a web page, because CardConnect publishes no rate. So the comparison has to happen on your own numbers instead, and the figure that makes it possible is your effective rate: total fees for a month divided by total card volume for that month.

Get the CardConnect quote in writing, with the markup as a number, the per-item, and every monthly fee named individually. Apply all of it to your own volume, your own average ticket and your own card mix, add the monthly fees, and divide by volume. That single number is the only thing comparable to Square’s published figures — or to anybody else’s. A quote that cannot be reduced to it is not a quote.

Comparing two quotes is the full method for an unpublished rate, and the calculator does the arithmetic once you have the figures.

What we charge

Interchange + 0.50% + 10¢ in person, interchange + 0.75% + 25¢ keyed, with no contract, no monthly fee and no monthly minimum.

If you are holding a quote from CardConnect, send it to us with one page of a statement. We will reduce the quote to an effective rate at your own volume and put it next to Square’s published figures and ours, so you are comparing three numbers of the same kind instead of a price list against a sales conversation.

While we are on the subject

What does CardConnect charge?

It does not publish rates. Pricing comes from whichever ISO quotes you, which is why two CardConnect merchants can pay very different amounts.

Is a quoted rate better than a published one?

It can be much better or much worse. It is better for a business with enough volume to be worth pricing properly, and worse for a business that signs without reading.

How do I compare a quote to Square?

Reduce both to an effective rate at your own volume, average ticket and card mix. Total expected fees divided by total volume, with every monthly fee included.

Is CardConnect a processor or an ISO?

It is a processing platform. The party quoting and servicing you is usually an ISO operating on it, which is why the rate is theirs rather than CardConnect’s.