New: Square Appointments Pricing Plans

[Tom]

Today we’re announcing changes to the Square Appointments pricing structure, which go into effect on 26 April 2022. Our plans, previously based on the number of employees you have, will now be three monthly plans based on features you need for your business on a per location basis.

Over the years, we’ve added dozens of features to help you manage and grow your business. As we continue to build features for different business needs, you’ll now have the option to choose a plan with the features that are most essential to you. This way, you only pay for what you need.

Here is a quick preview of the new plans: 

Free	Plus	Premium
$0/mo for a single location.	$40/mo per location.	$90/mo per location.
Per transaction: 1.9% (in-person processing fee for Square Stand or Reader) 1.6%  (in-person processing fee for Square Register)	Per transaction: 1.6% (in-person processing fee for Square Stand, Reader and Register)	Per transaction: 1.6% (in-person processing fee for Square Stand, Reader and Register)
Top Free Features: ✔Unlimited staff accounts ✔ Custom booking website and social media integrations ✔ Integrated payments ✔ Automatic text and email reminders	Top Plus Features: ✔ Everything in Free ✔ Customer confirmation texts and emails ✔ Book with multiple staff  ✔ No-show protection ✔ Processing time	Top Premium Features:  ✔ Everything in Plus  ✔ Team Plus ✔ Resource management ✔ Custom staff commissions ✔ Automated contracts

For a more detailed breakdown of features available in each plan, visit our pricing page.

Custom pricing is also available for businesses who process more than $250k per year. Contact us to learn more.

Note that nothing about your current plan is changing right now. You have until 26 April 2022 to select a plan or we will enroll you into one based on your current number of employees and locations. You will still be able to upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time under Account Settings in Square Dashboard.

For additional information about Square Appointments, please review our Support Article and FAQ.

[AnswerS33k3r]

Sounds like a much better pricing model than the previous.

When will we see a dedicated restaurant / table booking system?

We tried the workaround but it's not clean, and there's elements of the experience which can be confusing to the end user.

[Beauty2]

I decided to use square appointments based on having Google calendar sync, now you are taking it away, we will be looking for another product, it doesn't make sense to pay for features I already use! 

[AthletesGuildAU]

We support pricing plans / subscriptions especially if it will bring priority to the features we need and have been asking for in Square Appointments.

For years we've needed the ability to put a customer name on receipts and we still don't have that.

To take away Google Calendar sync and booking confirmation texts and emails - the only way for us practitioners who work across multiple clinics and platforms to view our aggregated diary will be the end of Square for us.

$40 / mo. to access these 2 features which without makes the free tier absolutely useless. As a single employee and mobile practitioner who already faces monthly costs for business banking ($10 / mo) and accounting ($22 / mo). Adding $40 / mo just to do business then 1.6% of every transaction is a bit rich.

Square should really give their proposed pricing plans and features a re-think. As independent practitioners who provide in-home healthcare (physical therapists, remedial therapists, occupational therapists etc.) will have little choice but to leave Square.

I am open to and welcome discussion on this topic from Square Australia. Please contact directly. A good starting point in terms of pricing (perhaps even a 'Starter' tier?) really needs to be no more than the monthly cost of existing business banking and certainly much less than the monthly cost of accounting to be viable for single staff and single location users.

[AthletesGuildAU]

Dear Square,

Consider that to switch to a Smartpay terminal (3G and WiFi capable) for $0 / mo. which adds rather than deducts the surcharge from the total sale combined with Bookafy Pro for $7 / mo. provides all of Square Appointments functionality and more.

To put into perspective, we are currently paying Square more than $7 / mo. in transaction fees to access the free version of Square Appointments. If we were to replace our Square Reader with a Smartpay terminal we would actually reduce our costs.

Most importantly Bookafy provides the 2 essential features of SMS and email confirmations plus Google Calendar, iCal, iCloud and Office365 sync (bonus being 2-way sync) in addition to customisable own booking site, booking embed buttons for own site etc.

Once again, I invite discussion from Square Australia and hope that Square really re-considers their pricing tiers for Square Appointments. Feel to contact me directly.

References

https://www.smartpay.com.au/eftpos-solutions/zero-cost-eftpos/

https://www.bookafy.com/pricing/

[NailsbyShellyR]

I don't mind paying, however, many of Square's competitors offer lower pricing with more features including the ability to take deposits. For $40 I would expect more, especially when Square already takes a % off each sale processed. 1.6% and getting back features that were previously available for free is not a good enough incentive for a sole trader. I would like to see more added, or the pricing reconsidered as I will be looking at changing otherwise.

[AthletesGuildAU]

Another very compelling solution if you are in the health, beauty or wellness industry is Fresha:-

https://www.fresha.com/for-business

Their integrated appointment and payment processing is only 1.29% + A 0.26c per transaction.

To put into perspective, this is only $1.87 on a $125 service fee vs. $2.37 with Square. I could be saving 50c on every transaction and enjoying all the same features with no monthly subscription if I switched for Fresha for appointments and payment processing.

I haven't made the switch (yet!) as I still hold out hope Square will reconsider their subscription / pricing tiers as even at $40 / mo. to reduce the transaction fee to 1.6% it is still less competitive than Fresha.

[Seamus]

@AthletesGuildAU appreciate your feedback here!

While I can't give you any assurances that the new Appointments pricing structure is going to change, I'm passing your comments on to our Appointments team for consideration.

As with other Square products, we'll continue to develop new Appointments features for both the free and paid versions of the product - though I'm not currently able to share product roadmaps or timeframes for specific features.

Thank you for adding your voice to the conversation!

[BTails]

On the "Free Tier" why are you removing the confirmation texts and emails. Please reconsider this. 

[neen3737]

I have been using square now for a couple of years.  my clients were receiving confirmation sms and reminder sms everytime they booked but this week they havnt been getting their reminder sms. I am on the free tier. How can I change this back to my clients receiving reminders?

[Seamus]

@neen3737 I've moved your post over to this thread - we recently made some changes to the Square Appointments pricing structure that shifted pricing from the number of employees using Appointments to the types of features available on the different tiered plans. It sounds like you may need to update to the Plus version of Square Appointments to access this feature under the new structure.