Square Online is a simple e-commerce platform that is offered to Square POS users. There is a free version available.
Square Online is a free e-commerce website builder that allows you to construct a website, manage several sales channels, and accept payments online. It’s a wonderful option for businesses who sell both in-person and online since it interacts with Square POS and allows you to handle all of your orders from a single dashboard.
Aside from that, Square Online may be tailored to a number of industry-specific requirements. Service providers, for example, can sync Square Online with Square Appointments to keep track of reservations. It does, however, lack complex shipping and inventory management tools that high-volume e-commerce companies may require.
Here’s a rundown of everything you need to know about Square Online.
Factors to consider
| Monthly cost when invoiced annually | $0 for the free plan. $29 for Square Plus.$79 for Square Premium. |
| Payment processing | In-person transactions are charged 2.6% + 10 cents.Online purchases or invoices without a card on file will be charged 2.9% + 30 cents. This is reduced to 2.6% + 30 cents if you have the Premium plan.For manually typed transactions or card-on-file invoices, the fee is 3.5% + 15 cents. |
| Top free features | There is no limit to the number of product listings.Orders from all stores and locations, including internet purchases, are displayed.Instagram and Facebook are excellent platforms for selling.Offer coupons are available. |
| Integrations with online marketplaces | Facebook stores.Google product listing.Instagram shoppable links. |
The primary characteristics of Square Online
Square Online is an excellent solution for brick-and-mortar businesses, such as stores and restaurants, who wish to build up a free lightweight website with extensive inventory management tools.
Product listings are limitless.
Square Online is one of the few free website builders that allows customers to list an infinite number of items. Each listing can have various options, such as sizes and colours, as well as modifiers, such as a personalised monogram. You may display your items using photographs, GIFs, and 360-degree spinning visuals.
Furthermore, you may make coupons and even offer hidden things that are password protected and only visible to consumers who have that special code.
Inventory control
You can manage inventory for both in-person and online sales on one common dashboard as a Square Online subscriber. You may establish low stock alerts, mark products as sold out, and plan automatic restocks from there.
Options for in-store pickup and delivery
People may place purchases online and then stop by to pick them up later with in-store and curbside pickup, which can help you reduce the trouble of packaging and shipping goods for delivery and perhaps drive additional sales when people visit your shop.
You can limit in-house delivery by radius or ZIP code if you like. You may also show an anticipated delivery time, offer no-contact deliveries, and charge additional costs. You may also use a third-party delivery service, such as DoorDash, to deliver goods to clients’ doors, but you’ll have to pay $1.50 per item or pass that cost on to your consumers.
Square Online plan features
Square Online offers three distinct plans. In addition to any monthly fees, you will be charged 2.9% + 30 cents every online transaction to cover payment processing costs. If you choose the Premium plan, your payment processing rates will be reduced to 2.6% + 30 cents each transaction.
Square free: Ideal for a low-budget website.
Square’s free plan makes it simple for brick-and-mortar businesses to get online.
There is no monthly cost.
Features:
- List as many goods as you want.
- Provide alternatives for pickup, delivery, and shipment.
- Access tools that can help you enhance the search results for your website.
- Buy and sell on Facebook and Instagram.
- Orders from numerous business locations may be managed.
- Taxes should be calculated automatically.
- Make shipment labels.
- Square accepts payments via Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Cash App.
Square Plus: is ideal for getting started with selling goods online.
If you want to transform online sales into a significant cash stream, Square Plus’s added capabilities, such as abandoned cart recovery, gift purchases, and product reviews, may be useful.
When invoiced annually, the cost is $29 per month.
Features:
- One year of free domain registration.
- There will be no Square advertising on your website.
- Customers may open accounts.
- Recovery of abandoned carts.
- Send consumers text messages with order updates.
- Ordering through a QR code.
- Allow consumers to purchase items as presents.
- Customers should be encouraged to write product reviews.
Square Premium: Recommended for companies with more than $16,000 in monthly online sales.
Square Premium has cheaper payment processing expenses, but it requires about $17,000 in monthly online sales to pay for itself.
When invoiced annually, the cost is $79 each month.
Features:
- Reduced online payment processing fee: 2.6% plus 30 cents per transaction – a better price than the Plus plan if you handle more than $16,667 in online sales per month.
- Shipping data in real time.
Square Online advantages
It is simple to take your business online, especially if you utilise Square POS.
Users with no technical or creative expertise can use Square Online because of its easy-to-customize templates. While you do not need to utilize Square POS or conduct in-person sales to use Square Online, those who do will find it much easier to get started: Square Online instantly feeds inventory, customer data, loyalty programs, and other Square services you already use.
A free version with several features
While other rivals provide free trials, Square provides a fully working version that is available for free perpetually. Its advanced inventory management capabilities and limitless, customisable product listings should be adequate for many small businesses — however you may purchase for extra features like QR code ordering and abandoned cart recovery.
You may create your own software.
Square’s product range includes software for invoicing, appointment scheduling, customer loyalty programmes, and more, in addition to Square Online. The majority of these have their own price schemes. Paying for only the software you require as a small business will help you keep track of which investments are paying off and save money.
Square Online disadvantages
Integrations with third-party markets are limited.
Square Online allows you to sell through social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. However, other big e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, Walmart, and eBay, are conspicuously absent. You may still sell through those channels; you’ll simply have to handle them separately or use another e-commerce provider, such as BigCommerce.
There are few features for B2B or high-volume vendors.
Although Square Online members can list an infinite number of items, it is not a B2B e-commerce platform. For example, you can’t provide bespoke pricing unless you use Square Invoices to send each customer their own invoice, or allow payment methods other than cards and ACH transfers.
There is no opportunity to select your own payment processor.
Square Online’s free plan requires you to use Square for payment processing. You have the option of using PayPal with the Plus and Premium subscriptions.
Online Square Alternatives
BigCommerce is better for multichannel sales.
If your business has a presence on third-party marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay that are not directly supported by Square, you should look at e-commerce services that allow you to manage all of your platforms from one location.
BigCommerce collaborates with a large number of online marketplaces. It also connects with Square’s POS, which is beneficial if you already use Square.
Shopify is better for businesses without physical premises.
Shopify is a robust online shop builder for businesses that sell products online. It, too, has limitless product listings and an order dashboard, but Shopify’s shipping options are far more robust. Instead than using a third-party software like Square, you can print shipping labels directly from Shopify. Sellers may benefit from reduced shipping charges and insurance coverage. When you ship through Shopify, the tracking number is automatically added to your order dashboard; with Square, you must manually enter it.
There is no free Shopify edition, however small merchants may wish to try Shopify Starter, which costs only $5 per month.
Shift4Shop: Ideal for wholesale or B2B businesses
Shift4Shop is a wholesaler-friendly e-commerce website builder. In addition to credit and debit card payments, Shift4Shop customers may accept payments by cheque, money order, purchase orders and other ways. You may also provide several wholesale pricing levels as well as customer-specific price lists. Customers can also set up their own accounts in order to place reorders or store things for later.
Furthermore, Shift4Shop is free for businesses who handle more than $500 in payments each month using its built-in payment processor, Shift4.
