How much does Square Online cost?
Published July 2026 · Updated July 26, 2026
Per Square's published pricing (accessed July 2026), Square Online costs $0 per month on the Free plan, $49 per month per location on Plus, or $149 per month per location on Premium, with no commission on direct orders. The real cost is the processing rate: since January 13, 2026, online transactions on the Free plan run 3.3% + $0.30 each (2.9% + $0.30 on paid plans). The free site lives on a square.site subdomain with Square branding; a custom domain requires a paid plan. Plans are month-to-month, and payments only process through Square.
Every Square Online cost, line by line.
Published figures are taken from Square's pricing pages and announcements as they read in July 2026. Where Square does not publish a number, the row says so explicitly rather than guessing.
| Cost item | Amount | Detail + attribution |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | $0/mo | Square's no-subscription tier: point of sale, a website with online ordering, invoicing, and Square Banking, with no commission on direct orders. The site lives on a square.site subdomain with Square branding. Published on squareup.com/us/en/pricing. |
| Plus plan | $49/mo per location | Lower processing (2.9% + $0.30 online), custom-domain connection, expanded site customization, QR code ordering and subscriptions. Priced per location, so multi-unit restaurants pay it per store. Published on squareup.com/us/en/pricing. |
| Premium plan | $149/mo per location | Same 2.9% + $0.30 online rate as Plus with the lowest in-person rate (2.4% + $0.15), real-time shipping rates, advanced reporting, and 24/7 phone support. A Pro tier for businesses processing $250K+/year is custom-priced and not published. Published on squareup.com/us/en/pricing. |
| Online payment processing | 3.3% + $0.30 (Free) · 2.9% + $0.30 (paid) | The line that matters most for online ordering. Effective January 13, 2026, Square raised the Free plan's online rate from 2.9% + $0.30 to 3.3% + $0.30 per transaction; Plus and Premium process online at 2.9% + $0.30. Reported by AGMS and corroborated by NerdWallet (accessed July 2026). |
| In-person processing | 2.6% / 2.5% / 2.4% + $0.15 | Card-present rates by plan: 2.6% + $0.15 on Free, 2.5% + $0.15 on Plus, 2.4% + $0.15 on Premium. Applies to orders taken on Square POS in-store, not to your online channel. Per NerdWallet and AGMS (accessed July 2026). |
| Custom domain | Paid plan required | Connecting your own domain (and removing Square branding from the store) requires a paid plan; Square sells domains from roughly $19.95/year. On the Free plan the store address is a square.site subdomain. Per Square's published plan pages and support documentation (accessed July 2026). |
| Restaurant add-ons | $20 to $30 per device/mo | Restaurant workflow hardware is metered separately: Square KDS (kitchen display) runs $20/device/month and Square Kiosk $30/device/month, as reported by Sauce (accessed July 2026). |
| Delivery cost | DSP fee per order (varies) | Square removed its own delivery dispatch fees in February 2025, per its product-update announcement. On-demand delivery is fulfilled by a delivery service provider whose per-order fee varies by provider and is not published as a single flat rate. |
| Contract terms | Month-to-month | No long-term contract on Free, Plus, or Premium; plans are per location per month. Published on squareup.com/us/en/pricing. |
Square adjusts plan structure and rates over time (the January 13, 2026 online-rate increase is the most recent example), and the figures above reflect published pages as accessed in July 2026. Restaurants should confirm current terms, rates, and add-on costs directly with Square before signing.
What the free plan actually includes.
Per Square's unified-plans announcement and plan pages (accessed July 2026), the Free plan is a real product, the constraints are the subdomain, the branding, and the rate.
Templates, unlimited items, hosting, and SSL, on a square.site subdomain with Square branding until you move to a paid plan.
Direct pickup, local delivery, and shipping fulfillment with no commission on direct orders; processing applies per transaction.
Items and orders sync with Square Point of Sale; online orders route to the POS, kitchen printer, or Square KDS.
The unified 2026 Free plan includes Square's POS app. The formerly separate Square for Restaurants, Retail, and Appointments software is consolidated into the plan tiers.
Invoices and Square's banking tools are included on the Free plan, per Square's unified-plans announcement.
Square Online ships baseline SEO settings; the deeper marketing stack (loyalty, marketing tools) sits in the paid tiers.
A restaurant doing $8,000/month in direct orders.
Simple arithmetic on Square's published rates: $8,000/month of online orders at a $32 average ticket is 250 orders. Both plans pay $0.30 per order ($75/month) on top of the percentage.
The crossover sits at $12,250 per month in online sales: the 0.4-point rate gap between Free (3.3%) and Plus (2.9%) has to cover the $49 subscription, and 0.4% of $12,250 is exactly $49. Below that volume, the Free plan is the cheaper way to process online orders even at the higher rate; above it, Plus wins on processing alone. Before counting the custom domain, branding removal, and lower in-person rate that come with it. Either way, notice what the "free" plan actually is at volume: a restaurant doing $8,000/month pays Square about $4,068/year, all of it in per-transaction fees.
There is a second line that is easy to miss because it is not a fee at all: the free store is not fully yours. On the Free plan the site sits on a square.site subdomain and carries Square branding, and payments can only run through Square. That is a fine trade while you are proving that diners will order direct. It becomes the constraint once they do. Because the point of a direct channel is that the domain, the customer list, and the checkout experience belong to the restaurant.
How Zayos pricing differs.
Square Online is cheaper to start. That is the honest headline. The structural differences are what the money buys once the direct channel is real.
Zayos is $499 Operator, $599 Operator + Marketplace, or $699 Concierge per location per month (Concierge includes up to 5 virtual brands per kitchen), with no setup fee and month-to-month terms. The whole platform is built for restaurants (menu-first ordering, restaurant CRM, kitchen flow) rather than a general-purpose store with restaurant add-ons metered per device.
The restaurant keeps 100% of food revenue and tips on every plan; the diner pays a flat service fee at checkout. $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine-in, 10% on catering. Direct orders process on Stripe at ~2.9% + $0.30, the same rate Square charges its paid plans and 0.4 points below Square's free-plan online rate.
Every Zayos site runs on the restaurant's own domain with the restaurant's branding. There is no subdomain tier and no branding to pay your way out of. On Square Online, a custom domain and branding removal start at the $49/month Plus plan, per location.
At $599, Otter pulls Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub orders into the same kitchen tablet as your direct orders, one screen, one ticket flow, while the marketplaces' 15-30% base commission (25-35% blended real cost) keeps getting displaced by direct volume. Square Online takes direct orders; the marketplace tablets stay separate.
- Square official pricing page: Free $0 / Plus $49 / Premium $149 per location per month, plan features, month-to-month terms (accessed July 2026).
- Square, unified plans and pricing announcement: the three unified tiers replacing formerly separate software (Square Online, Square for Restaurants, Retail, Appointments); Free plan includes point of sale, websites, online ordering, invoicing, and Square Banking (accessed July 2026).
- AGMS, Square fees 2026: the January 13, 2026 rate change: Free-plan online processing raised from 2.9% + $0.30 to 3.3% + $0.30; paid-plan online rate 2.9% + $0.30; in-person 2.6% / 2.5% / 2.4% + $0.15 by plan (accessed July 2026).
- NerdWallet, Square fees: corroborates plan prices and the 3.3% + $0.30 Free-plan online rate vs 2.9% + $0.30 on paid plans (accessed July 2026).
- Sauce, Square Online Ordering Pricing and Fees: Square KDS $20/device/month, Square Kiosk $30/device/month, Pro tier custom pricing at $250K+/year processing, per-location plan pricing (accessed July 2026).
- Square product update, delivery dispatch fees removed: Square Online's per-order dispatch fees eliminated as of February 2025; delivery is billed as the delivery service provider's per-order fee, which varies (accessed July 2026).
- Zayos pricing: the $499/$599/$699 tiers, no setup fee, and the flat diner-paid service fee referenced above.
Where a figure is marked "not published" or "varies," Square's pages did not state a single number as of July 2026 and this page does not estimate one.
Square Online cost questions, answered.
How much does Square Online cost per month?
What is Square Online's processing rate in 2026?
Is Square Online really free?
Do I need Square POS to use Square Online?
How does Square Online's cost compare to Zayos?
Price the direct channel on your numbers.
Run the free grader on your real order volume and average ticket. It shows what the marketplaces and percentage fees cost you last month and what a flat-fee direct channel keeps, in about 60 seconds.