Anyone else annoyed by the "Messages Plus" loss of features? No longer able to send a coupon.

[NB1]

As a long term Square merchant with multiple locations and 300,000 customers in my Square Dashboard, I'm annoyed at the features I've lost by not joining Messages Plus (at a cost of $10 per location a month). This is just another way for Square to generate a recurring revenue stream above the fees they already collect. Like a Netflix membership for each location. As someone who generates an enormous amount of fees that are paid to Square each month, I resent Square taking my ability to send my customers a digital coupon without paying another additional fee. I find quickly sending out a digital coupon a very convenient way to correct a mistake made on an order, or to make up for a missing item. Much better than issuing a refund, because it drives the customer back into the shop, and it also saves Square money on lost processing fees they would on a refund. Square only has my customer info (email and cell number) because my business collected them. Now, they want to hold my customers info hostage until I pay their newest ransom. They do damage to the way I feel about Square, damage to my business, and undermine what made Square a decent alternative to all the other predatory credit card processing companies. I'm sure this post will be buried, as this type of honesty will most likely be viewed as counterproductive.

[TheRealChipA]

Hey there, @NB1.  In theory, I don’t disagree with you that new fees — especially those that cause us to pay for features we once got for free — are a kidney punch.  But they don’t surprise me.  Square’s card processing fees were not set with all of these new features in mind.  New features such as text marketing come with significant costs to secure and maintain the SMS network.  

I’ve looked around recently and found that Square’s $10/location/month is a bargain, really.  The third-party apps that integrate with Square start at $19 per month, and go up from there.  They don’t advertise how much they would charge for hundreds of thousands of customers, like you have, probably because it would give people a heart attack!  It seems that this is not an inexpensive feature to build and maintain.

I use a different SMS service right now for rental properties I own where I don’t want to give out my personal cell number.  When I started using it, they were the best priced on the market at $20/month.  Now, I’m considering moving that to Square just to use this feature and save $10/month.

It might be that you can find a third-party app that integrates with Square that will cost less per location per month.  I tried by searching for “SMS marketing,” but didn’t see any promising candidates.

Trust me, I understand that your true issue here is having something that used to be free now being behind a paywall/subscription.  But I don’t think that Square’s decision to not lose money on any given part of its business suite is predatory.  It’s just facing reality and being responsible to their employees and shareholders.  Honestly, I’m not sure that pre-defined subscription tiers/bundles are the best way for Square to price things, either.  I’d rather have a list of all features I want/need and be allowed to pick the ones that I want without the baggage of the ones that I don’t want.  But this is where we are.

Lastly, you are not alone, and I doubt Square will “bury” this.  I’ve been involved in plenty of honest, blunt discussions about things on this board between fellow sellers.  As long as we follow the posting guidelines, we can usually post what we want.  If you want a good idea that I’m speaking the truth, just search the community for feedback when Square quit returning processing fees to us for returns/refunds.  That was a lively one, and it’s still out there somewhere!

Regards,

[alexandriak]

I know it sucks having to pay for something you were using without a cost prior BUT I have found that in most cases the price square charges is in line, or typically below what other companies charge. 

I'd also like to point out that Square no longer refunds fees paid if you issue a refund. This is industry standard and something PayPal has done for years.