Square Online Reviews

Pros

We were able to implement a digital gift card program for our restaurant clients in minutes. We don't use Square for regular in-person credit card processing at all we simply set up the online digital gift cards in the weeks leading up to Christmas and generated tens of thousands of dollars in cash-flow for the client and guaranteed business in the weeks that would follow our Covid-19 holiday lockdown.

It is so fast and easy every consumer facing company should do it. Your customer gets their digital gift card immediately and the business gets cash in about 48 hours. They make it super-simple to track the cards and redeem outside of your POS and conventional payment processing system.

It doesn't matter who you use for your payment processing. It is simple and fast to add Square just for their digital gift cards.

Cons

Wish I had discovered how easy implementing a gift card program was sooner. There are no Cons as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't matter what POS or payment processor you use now. There is room to add Square for gift cards to any operation.

The percentage they charge for payment processing is twice what the mainstream processors charge, but there is ZERO cost associated with selling or redeeming the gift card so for many companies it works out to be much cheaper than other gift card programs.

Alternatives Considered

Paystone

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Square offered instant set-up instead of 10 days wait and the ability to sell digital gift cards that could be redeemed inperson instead of (or inaction to) physical gift cards.

Pros

The merchant service fit my business industry, products and services. The upgrade of services and feature are awesome!

Cons

Need a easy shipping on the online website shipping admin with the weight, shipping prices and a easier one time payment link just for businesses without the campaign because it is political. So make a separate link that fits embed code on the features and make it easier to embed. And I can not receive what ever business sales amount of a purchase over 50,000.00 each transactions. I have to make partial payments through the website for one purchase transaction (For Example: if a sale is 115,000 and the transaction only excepts 50,000.00 per transaction; so there will have to be 3 purchase transactions. That's horrible. I need only one transaction per purchase at any price and they can still add other purchases if selected and add to total.

Pros

Creating our website through Square Online was pretty easy, especially for someone without a background in web design. The inventory management features and integration with Square POS is great!

Cons

Just beware, there seem to be a lot of bugs with Square Online and getting ahold of customer service via phone is not easy. You have to jump through several hoops before they will give you a phone number to call. This can be very frustrating when the website is having an issue that needs immediate attention. Once you do get ahold of customer service, if your issue is not deemed 'high priority' it can take them weeks/months to fix it, if they ever do at all.

Pros

I like how easy it was to create a simple website that looks good and works well with little issue.

Cons

Square Online is meant to go along with their other services, such as POS, inventory management, online shops, appointments, etc. It's not trying to be highly customizable, but it is just customizable enough to do a fine job for most small businesses.

Alternatives Considered

Squarespace

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

I needed something fast with a short learning curve.

Pros

Ease of use and an excellent support team makes Square Online a fabulous option. The templates are designed to look good on both desktops and mobile devices. Very modern and intuitive. Super easy to set up and learn. Integration with Square Retail catalog is good.

Cons

I wish I could copy design elements from one web page to another. The template layouts are also a bit restrictive. Would be nice to have CSS access to fully customize. Would also like the item description to sync with Square Retail without losing the design elements.

Alternatives Considered

Revel Systems and Lightspeed Retail

Reasons for Choosing Square Online

Integrated credit card processing, ease of use, excellent price point, accessible customer support/

Switched From

Vend

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Integration with Square Retail for our brick and mortar business.

Pros

Great value for the money, templates make starting up easier than you can imagine, time saving and organization right at your fingertips.

Cons

Some editing features are difficult to understand when adding pages or sections to online platform. Would like to see more instructions or easier to understand instructions when adding products and customization to pages and sections.

Alternatives Considered

PayPal

Reasons for Choosing Square Online

I did not like the cost of the fees associated with PayPal nor did I like the invoicing as compared to Square.

Switched From

PayPal

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Easier to use, better invoicing, better and more widely used devices for payment and a brand everyone knows.

Pros

I like how easy it is to add a customer & create/send/edit invoices for them.

Cons

I wish square was compatible with my online gallery service (pixieset) and I wish that I could see invoices from HoneyBook in my square dashboard! It is difficult having everything in different sites.

Pros

Easy to use, affordable, quick to manage inventory, professional templates.

Cons

I wish there were a multi-select option when Bulk Editing items onto the website (as in, putting in category and marking visible at the same time).

Alternatives Considered

Shopify Plus and Shopify

Reasons for Choosing Square Online

Inventory Management and syncing in-store and online sales.

Switched From

Squarespace

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Ease of template/use, inventory management

Pros

Really enjoy the point of sale software & hardware, the invoicing ability and the CRM tools that are available with the marketing tools that you can subscribe for.

Cons

The inability to do instant transfers until you've processed a certain amount of payments, payroll fees being deducted per payment versus per service.

Alternatives Considered

Wix, QuickBooks Payroll, WooCommerce, PayPal, Clover, WordPress, Stripe, Squarespace, Shopify POS and Quickbooks Online

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

To combine all of those needs and be able to have a process whereby I can pay people, build a website and process invoices.

Pros

Ease of use was the biggest draw to this product. Everything was a breeze to setup and was able to start selling our products within minutes of uploading photos and descriptions, couldn't be easier.

Cons

The software lacked the robustness of others. As far as features, some are limited in functionality where others had some small glitches.

Pros

Square reminds me of Google when it was an early start up - I say this because I remember how clean and polished google was compared to other search engines and tech companies at the time. Square is no different - they have things down to a science, and make it extremely easy to sell items and run a business. There is no other service like it. And I appreciate that they don't gouge the price with fees and confusing extra subscriptions like Ebay or Etsy. That would be a major turn off for me. Simply put, I love how clean Square is to use. No Drama.

Cons

I wish there were more website templates to choose from, but this is a minor complaint. It's really a good service either way. Also, it would be nice if Square could allow for purchases of direct downloads. This has been a feature in the works for literally years and I think it should be a priority. Artists like me can't sell printables or patterns until this feature is reinstated!

Pros

This is the mist user friendly software I have found. I have tried others and given up. But I completed my website on Square!

Cons

I’d like more creative options. To be able to soften edges of photos, create different shaped photos. More fonts to choose from and colors. Ability to make sections smaller and move wording around in more of the free space.

Alternatives Considered

Wix

Reasons for Choosing Square Online

I had a really hard time navigating Shopify. It was not user friendly and frustrated the heck out of me.

Switched From

Shopify

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

I have used square for sales on my phone and found it a great interface. Once building my site all the others were difficult to navigate.

Pros

Square Online is a decent system that integrates well with the Square Retail POS. Managing inventory is generally easy although more features could be added consistent with our industry. Square stepped up its game by offering more options during the pandemic such as enhanced marketing tools, sales channel integrations with Facebook and an additional fulfillment method to offer to clients. Marketing features are decent, and the convenience of mobile apps is convenient when on the go.

Cons

Square needs to consider businesses that offer rentals. There can be improvements to better manage rental inventory and sales. Also, many manufacturers in our industry require that sale prices not be listed on e-commerce platforms. Square Online should add a "Call for Price" option.

Alternatives Considered

Rain POS

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Cost effectiveness, additional features for non-premium accounts, convenience

Pros

My business features both a retail store and a distribution branch, and being able to manage both areas of my business through Square has been wonderfully helpful, especially during my first year of business. The user interface is intuitive and easy-to-use for my staff, and adding and deleting items from the sale screen is quick and easy. Keeping my distribution items separately categorized and off of the retail display makes managing both parts of my business even easier.

Cons

I’ve had some issues with taxes being calculated properly, as I have tax applied to some items and not others. When I calculate what this should be on my own versus what Square says, the numbers haven’t always matched up. Also, getting photos to appear on the same item across devices (Square register, Square app, Square online) hasn’t always worked and has required me to upload the image for a second time or to change the image format.

Pros

The ease of setting up my website was amazing!!! I had no website design experience prior to setting mine up. It was so easy. I just followed the prompts and read some of the tips and voilà! I have an amazing website!! I get compliments from my customers all time on how nice my website looks. They are absolutely amazed that I didn’t myself with no prior experience. If I can do this anyone can!!

Cons

I can’t really think of anything that sticks out to me that I don’t like. The few issues that I’ve had were usually my error or not quite understanding what was needed. Just like with any computer software once you learn it and get familiar with it it’s a breeze.

Alternatives Considered

Canva

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Cost and ease of use.

Pros

This is an awesome product for small start-up businesses. You can do a ton with the free plan and the customer service has always been super helpful in my experience. You can literally build a working online store for free, however, to get the domain you have to pay monthly. The footer and header are already made for you and they look really professional and nice. You create the pages based on pre-made elements which makes it really easy.

Cons

The design of the website is pretty strict, you can't add much of your own designs or layouts. You have to make your ideas fit their layouts. Domain transferring was difficult, but the customer service helped. The embedded automatic forms sometimes don't work (I wouldn't get notified by all the submissions on my website). It can also be difficult to navigate the website in the editing portal.

Alternatives Considered

Wix and Weebly

Reasons for Choosing Square Online

I switched because of $$$.

Switched From

Shopify

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Square online was free (before I added a domain) and it required no coding experience. It also connected to the products that I sold in person at my retail store.

Pros

Square is user friendly and reasonably priced. I’ve tried other systems and ultimately came back to Square every time.

Cons

Square is a little difficult to integrate with websites that are built on other platforms but overall still the best to use.

Alternatives Considered

PayPal, QuickBooks Online Advanced and Shopify

Switched From

PayPal

Pros

I love almost everything about square. The way it catalogs all of my merchandise to the ease of access for customer info, do building my website to managing payroll and the loyalty program that engages my customers and makes shopping with me more fun for them.

Cons

There really isn’t much I can think of here, square really packs a punch but they could add a “processing fee” option where we can pass the credit card processing percentage on to the customer and remove it as a “cash incentive”

Pros

Easy to setup - and easy to train staff!

Cons

Customer merging issues, some reporting issues

Alternatives Considered

Clover

Reasons for Choosing Square Online

Cost and better tech

Switched From

NCR Aloha

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Easy to understand and could use on tablets

Pros

You can run your entire business through Square. E-commerce, storefront, payroll, marketing, team management and inventory management.

Cons

A little in the pricey side but still worth it. Getting in touch with customer service is not easy.

Alternatives Considered

Shopify

Reasons for Choosing Square Online

Squares payment solutions and we could run the entire business through Square so it made sense to switch.

Switched From

WooCommerce

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

They accept CBD and Hemp companies and they offer more services than Shopify.

Pros

Implementing Square was the easiest way to get my small business off the ground. Whag started as just a plug in card reader on my phone has now evolved into a brick and mortar retail storefront with an awesome online presence and shopping cart. The ease of installation and setup is what I love most about Square. It's accessible and intuitive.

Cons

I wish Square would accept EBT transactions. Otherwise, I have very few hiccups with the system. And it's constantly being updated to implement new features requested by its users.

Pros

In the world of publishing, there are countless ways to access or sell books and magazines. Square makes it easy to place a book up for sale on our site, with full description. Too, the purchasers are able to access the book for purchase even if they are not very familiar with computers or purchase sites.

Cons

It might be a tad easier to work with a template that allows for some changes editorially. For example, there is not a Free Shipping button.

Pros

I love all the functions and being able to keep track of all my clients and check them out and get them rescheduled so quickly!

Cons

I wish there was a better way to switch between locations on the appointment app

Alternatives Considered

Vagaro

Reasons for Choosing Square Online

Better way to link my appointments with my POS system.

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

The price

Pros

I love the ability to check out a client and book a client within the same app. I love that I can Access transactions and reports right from my phone

Cons

The ability to book with a credit card for no shows and allowing us to choose what’s being charged and making sure the card is legit

Alternatives Considered

Vagaro

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Cost. Accessible to me and client, smoother functions

Pros

The overall ease of use is pretty simple. I also love having everything I need in one place. Payroll, POS, website, Google integration and so much more!

Cons

There is currently no pay in 4 option, which I feel hurts a retail business like mine.

Alternatives Considered

Shopify Plus, Clover and Shopify

Reasons for Switching to Square Online

Square had the most features at the best price.