Square pricing, published in full, never multiplied
Square deserves credit here. It publishes its entire rate card, which almost nobody else in this category does. What it never does is turn those rates into a monthly number, and that is where the surprise lives, so this page and the calculator do the multiplication for you.
Judd Alsup and the Equip Payment Solutions team, who install and support restaurant POS systems nationwide and sell Shift4 Dine and Clover.Updated August 9, 2026. Sources and dates cited on every figure.
The short answer
Square for Restaurants pricing, all vendor published:
- Processing 2.6% plus 15c free plan, 2.4% plus 15c on Plus and Premium; online 3.3% or 2.9% plus 30c.
- Software $0, $49 or $149 per location, not per terminal.
- The catch the free plan costs more than Plus above roughly $25,000 a month, and excludes kitchen display and kiosk.
- Contract none, which is a real advantage and we say so as a competitor.
The rest of this page is the case for each line, with sources.
The published rate card
Free plan, $0 a month, 2.6% plus 15 cents
Per location, not per terminal, which genuinely helps multi terminal rooms.
Plus plan, $49 a location, 2.4% plus 15 cents
The rate is 0.2 points lower than the free plan.
Premium, $149 a location, 2.4% plus 15 cents
Adds further tooling at the same processing rate, so the plan choice from Plus upward is about features rather than swipe economics.
Keyed and card not present, 3.5% plus 15 cents
Same across all tiers. No contract, no early termination fee, no setup fee.
The free plan costs more than the paid plan
The free plan charges 0.2 points more per swipe. At around $25,000 a month in card volume, that 0.2% exceeds the $49 subscription and free becomes the more expensive choice. Above that point, every extra dollar of volume widens the gap.
The fifteen cent fixed fee is the other half of the story. On a $4.25 latte, 2.6% plus 15 cents is an effective 6.13%. Square publishes both numbers and never multiplies them together. Our calculator does.
Also worth knowing before you choose free: kitchen display screens and self order kiosks are not available on it, and per device charges apply once you add them.
The published hardware list
Square Register at $899, or $44 a month over 24 months
The full second generation countertop, financed at 15% APR per Square's own hardware page. The financing rate is published too, which almost nobody else in the category does.
Square Terminal at $299, Handheld at $399
Both with published monthly financing options. The Terminal is the workhorse for counter rooms; the Handheld covers tableside.
Stand at $149, Kiosk hardware at $149, reader at $59
The Kiosk price excludes the iPad, and the first magstripe reader is free, one per account. A minimal single register setup starts under a hundred dollars, which is a real on-ramp no competitor matches.
The per device software fees that free plan buyers miss
Kitchen display app: $30 a device monthly on Plus, $20 on Premium, unavailable on Free. Kiosk app: $50 a device on Plus, $30 on Premium. Payroll: $35 plus $6 per person. The hardware is cheap; the per device software is where the bill quietly grows.
The online rates matter more than they used to
Square's card not present rates are published and higher: 3.3% plus 30 cents online on Free, 2.9% plus 30 cents on the paid plans, 3.5% plus 15 cents keyed. A restaurant doing a third of its volume through online ordering is running a meaningfully higher blended rate than the counter figure suggests, and should compute the blend, not the headline. The paid plan's lower online rate is part of the crossover math at volume.
ACH invoicing at 1% with a $10 cap on paid tiers is worth knowing about for caterers and wholesale accounts: on a $2,000 catering invoice, 1% capped at $10 beats every card rate on this site by a mile. Small feature, real money for the rooms it fits.
Questions owners ask
Is Square good for restaurants?
For a small room with simple service and a decent average ticket, it is genuinely capable and the pricing transparency is real. Where it strains is coursing, complex modifiers, tip pooling across shifts and multi location reporting.
Does Square lock me into a contract?
No. That is a real advantage and we will not pretend otherwise. No contract, no early termination fee, month to month.
Can I negotiate Square's rates?
At normal volumes, no: the published rate is the rate, which is both the product's honesty and its ceiling. The Pro plan at $250,000 plus a year in processing is where custom pricing opens up, per Square's own page. Below that, your negotiation is the plan choice and the online mix, which is arithmetic the calculator handles.
What is the real crossover between Free and Plus?
The paid plan's 0.2 point rate advantage covers its $49 subscription at $24,500 a month in card volume; past that, Free costs more every month, before counting the KDS and kiosk features it excludes. Square publishes both numbers and leaves the division to you, which is this site's favorite genre of finding.
Is Square Terminal or Register better for a restaurant counter?
The $299 Terminal is the honest starting point for a single register counter: payments, receipts and the core register in one battery capable device. The $899 Register earns its price when the counter runs all day at volume and wants the bigger screen and customer display. Start small; the no contract structure means upgrading later costs nothing but the hardware difference.
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