Square
Square is the easiest point of sale to start with and the most widely used among small businesses. It offers retail, restaurant and appointment products on a single payments platform.
Editorial score by industry
Overall score out of 100 and rank in each industry where we rate this system
Category scores in Retail
Where this system earns and loses points in its strongest industry
Best for
Small businesses that value speed to launch, simple hardware and pay-as-you-go pricing.
Walk away if
Businesses with complex inventory, B2B terms, field operations or high-volume needs where processing costs and account holds bite.
Pricing
Free plan; Plus $49/location; Premium $149/location; processing on every plan. Checked September 2026.
After the trial or intro: $0 stays $0, but every sale pays 2.6%+ processing; Plus $49 and Premium $149 per location if you need the features.
Free basic tier with paid plans, plus per-transaction processing. Verify current rates.
Type
General-purpose POS and paymentsWhat Square is
Square is the default choice for a small business that wants to take payments today. The free tier, simple hardware and clean apps for retail, restaurants and appointments have made it the most widely adopted system among very small businesses.
At scale its weaknesses show: processing costs at volume, limited inventory and B2B capability, and the recurring reports of account holds and frozen funds that appear in our Complaint Index more than for any other mainstream system.
What it does
- 1Free basic POS with paid Plus tiers
- 2Retail, restaurant and appointment products
- 3Simple hardware and card readers
- 4Online store and invoicing
- 5Basic inventory and customer directory
- 6Payroll, loyalty and marketing add-ons
Who it fits
- 1A café or coffee cart
- 2A market stall or pop-up
- 3A new business testing an idea
What customers say.
Public review scores are a signal, not a verdict: profiles mix merchants with end customers, and unhappy buyers write more often than happy ones. We read them for patterns.
★★★½☆ · 7,400 Trustpilot reviews · September 2026
Roughly four stars across 7,000+ reviews. Positives on setup and hardware; the serious negatives are fund holds, deactivations and reaching a human.
Read on Trustpilot ↗Who uses it
Small retail, cafés, services, markets and pop-ups
Hardware
Square Reader, Terminal, Stand, Register, handhelds
Integrations & payments
Square Online, payroll, loyalty, marketing, appointments; app marketplace
Trustpilot scores, all systems
Every system we track on one chart.
What happens after you sign.
How the vendor supports customers, how onboarding works, and what buyers report when something goes wrong.
Customer service scorecard
Editorial scores out of 100 · overall support score 68
What buyers report
Getting started is effortless. Getting help when something goes wrong is where Square scores worst in our review: account holds, fund reserves and deactivations are the most common serious complaints, and buyers describe difficulty reaching a person with authority to resolve them.
Overall customer service score · ranked #20 of 23 systems
Support channels
Phone and chat support for active accounts with hours by plan, plus a large help center and community. Verify access for the free tier.
Onboarding
Fully self-serve; most businesses are running within an hour.
Customer service rankings
All 23 systems scored on support.
Strengths, weaknesses, risks.
What our analysis found and the questions we would ask before signing.
Strengths
- 1Fast setup and no long contract
- 2Clean hardware and app
- 3Broad product family
Weaknesses
- 1Processing costs at volume
- 2Account hold and support complaints are recurring themes
- 3Inventory and reporting are limited at scale
Buying risks to check
- 1Effective processing rate at your volume
- 2Support access on your plan
- 3Limits before you need paid tiers
What to test in the demo
- 1Set up a catalog and run a sale in under an hour
- 2Check inventory reporting across two locations
- 3Read the current terms on fund holds
Comparisons
Toast vs Square ↗Scores are Point of Sale Rankings editorial judgments. Product capabilities, pricing and terms change; verify final details with the vendor.
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