Square fee calculator
What Square keeps on a sale, and whether a paid plan earns its subscription back. Square repriced in 2026 and most calculators have not caught up, so every figure here was read from Square’s own pages on 11 August 2026 and is re-checked automatically. Nothing to sign up for.
Everything the customer pays, tax and tip included. Square takes its percentage on the whole thing.
Plus and Premium are billed per location.
On one sale
Over a month
The three that change with your plan, and the three that never do
Plus and Premium buy a lower rate on exactly two of the six ways you can be paid. Keyed cards, the Payments API and Afterpay cost the same whether you pay $0 or $149 a month, which is the part a subscription comparison usually skips.
| How it was paid | Square Free | Square Plus | Square Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| In person (tap, dip or swipe) | 2.6% + 15¢ | 2.5% + 15¢ | 2.4% + 15¢ |
| Online checkout or invoice | 3.3% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ |
| Online through the Payments API | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ |
| Manually keyed or card on file | 3.5% + 15¢ | 3.5% + 15¢ | 3.5% + 15¢ |
| ACH bank transfer on an invoice | 1%, $1 min | 1%, $10 cap | 1%, $10 cap |
| Afterpay | 6% + 30¢ | 6% + 30¢ | 6% + 30¢ |
Four things worth checking on any page you compare this against
The 2026 rates
Square Free moved to 2.6% + 15¢ in person and 3.3% + 30¢ online. A page still quoting 2.9% + 30¢ online is understating a $60 sale by 24¢, and by $96 a month at 400 sales.
Per-location billing
Plus at $49 is per till. Model three locations on a single subscription and the answer is out by $98 a month before a single card is tapped.
Tax and tip in the base
The percentage is charged on the total the customer pays. Calculators that take a sale price and stop are quietly optimistic on every tipped transaction.
The rates a plan cannot improve
Keyed at 3.5% + 15¢, Payments API at 2.9% + 30¢ and Afterpay at 6% + 30¢ are flat across all three plans. If most of your volume lands there, no subscription will ever pay for itself.
Real fees, but not ones a per-sale calculator should pretend to model
| Everything else | Fee | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Cash or cheque | Free | No processing fee on any plan. |
| Gift card load | 2.5% of the load | Free and Plus. Premium loads gift cards at 0%. Nothing extra to redeem one. |
| ACH through the Payments API | 1%, $1 minimum, $10 cap | Capped on every plan, unlike ACH on an invoice. $0 when the money lands in Square Checking. |
| EBT | 1.8% + 5c | Waived while the feature is in open beta, through autumn 2026. |
| Bitcoin payments | 0% | Until 31 December 2026, then 1%. |
What sellers ask before they change plan
What does Square charge per transaction?
On the Free plan, 2.6% + 15¢ in person and 3.3% + 30¢ for an online checkout or invoice. Manually keyed and card-on-file payments are 3.5% + 15¢ on every plan. Square raised both Free rates in 2026, so a calculator still showing 2.6% + 10¢ or 2.9% + 30¢ is quoting the old card.
Is Square Plus worth $49 a month?
Only if you take enough online payments. Plus drops the online rate from 3.3% to 2.9%, a saving of 0.4% of the ticket, so it pays for itself at roughly $12,250 of online card volume a month per location. In person the saving is 0.1%, which needs about $49,000 a month. On keyed, Payments API and Afterpay sales it saves nothing at all — the rate is identical on every plan.
Does Square charge per location?
The subscription does. Plus is $49 and Premium $149 per location per month, so a second till doubles it. Processing rates do not change with the number of locations. The calculator above asks for a location count because leaving it out is the single most common way a Square comparison comes out wrong.
Is the fee taken on tax and tips too?
Yes. The percentage applies to the total the customer pays, including sales tax and any tip. On a $40 sale with $3.40 of tax and a $6 tip, Square charges on $49.40.
What about cards issued outside the US?
Square adds 1.5% on top of the usual rate when the card was issued abroad, in person and online alike. It does not apply to Afterpay, ACH, Cash App Pay, bitcoin or EBT. Tick the box in the calculator to include it.
Are these rates the same outside the US?
No, and this page does not cover other countries. Square prices separately in Canada, the UK, Australia, Ireland, France, Spain and Japan. Applying US rates to a non-US account would be worse than not answering, so the calculator only offers the US card.
Can I get a lower rate than these?
Square quotes custom rates above $250,000 a year in card sales. If you are near that, the figures here are your ceiling rather than your price.
Square is rarely the only place you sell
The moment a Square till and an online shop hold the same stock, the fee stops being the expensive part and the oversell does. QuickSync keeps one count behind up to eight shops, Square included.
No credit card. After the trial, syncing stops if you walk away. Nothing is removed from your shops.
Rates read from Square’s fee page and Square’s fee article on 11 August 2026, and re-checked automatically against both. Rates are for US Square accounts. Other countries price differently and this page does not cover them. Square quotes custom rates above $250,000 a year in card sales, so a high-volume seller may be paying less than any figure here. The percentage is taken on the whole transaction, tax and tip included, not on your sale price alone. Not affiliated with Block, Inc. Square is their trademark.