Square Review for Merchants: Is Square Right for Your Business?

Please note that the information about the companies in this article was sourced from their respective websites as of August 2025. This information may be subject to change.

High processing fees, limited payment options, and clunky currency rules can eat into a merchant’s margins and slow down growth. Many sellers turn to Square for its ease of use in-store, but soon find themselves restricted by its limited online offering: lack open banking support, narrow country coverage, and fixed currency setup.

In this Square review, we take a closer look at its online features (Square Online), fees, and limitations, and explore how alternative open banking providers, like Noda, are filling the gaps.

Square’s Pros and Cons

Square Overview

What Is Square?

Square is a San Francisco-based payments platform that helps businesses and solo sellers accept payments and manage operations. It is primarily focused on offline payments and selling systems, but also offers some online tools. Square’s flagship product is its point-of-sale and ordering systems for in-person businesses. 

Square Ownership

Square was co-founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter) and Jim McKelvey. Square Inc was renamed Block Inc. in 2021 to reflect its growth beyond payments. It’s now publicly traded with no single controlling owner: major shareholders include Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street.

Square Valuation & Revenue

In 2025, Square’s revenue was about $24.5 billion, up 22% year-over-year, with a GPV of roughly $210 billion. Serving over 4.1 million active sellers worldwide, it kept a healthy 46% gross margin and earned $3.8 billion in net income.

Square Payments: Global Coverage

Square’s Available Countries

Square currently supports card payment acceptance through its app in the following countries:

• US
• Canada
• Australia
• Japan
• UK
• Ireland
• France
• Spain

Card processing isn’t available outside these countries or in UK territories, including Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, and Gibraltar.

Square doesn’t support cross-border card payments, so transactions made outside the country where your account was activated can’t be processed with the Square Reader.

However, if you’re in your account’s home country, you can still accept international cards at the same flat fee.

Square’s Coverage of Currencies

You can only process payments in the local currency of your registered country, and all settlements go to a bank account in that same currency. There’s no multi-currency processing, no in-house currency conversion, and no way to settle in anything other than your account’s home currency.

Square will accept international cards, but the customer’s bank – not Square – handles any currency conversion, and all charges still go through in your local currency. These rules apply across both online and in-person payments.

If you want to charge in different currencies, you’ll need to set up separate Square accounts in each country, each locked to that country’s currency.

Square’s Language Support

Square Dashboard and checkout is available in English across all supported regions; in French in France and Canada; in Spanish in Spain; and in Japanese in Japan. 

Square Business Clients

Square’s strongest experience is with small to mid-sized merchants in restaurants, retail, and service-based industries – particularly those who need flexible payment tools and integration with other offline software. Its partnerships and case studies show big experience in hospitality, food service, appointment-based businesses, and niche retail. 

Square’s Payment Gateway & Other Features

We focus on Square’s commerce products directed at merchants, rather than their offering in customer marketing, staff management, and embedded finance (e.g. loans). 

Square Payment Methods

Square supports the following payment methods:

• Cards: debit and credit cards 
• Digital wallet: (Apple Pay, Google Pay)
• Buy Now, Pay Later: Clearpay
• Square Pay: Square’s in-built payment button with pre-saved payment information.

Why Merchants Switch to Open Banking

Square doesn’t support pay-by-bank, a fast, PSD2-regulated payment method powered by open banking that moves money directly from one bank account to another. For many merchants, the benefits are compelling:

• Lower transaction fees: No card networks, no scheme or interchange charges. At Noda, for example, fees start from just 0.01%.
• No chargebacks: Payments are authorised by the customer in their banking app, eliminating chargeback risk.
• Instant settlement: As there are no third parties involved, the settlement of funds is almost instant for both payments and payouts. 
• Faster, smoother checkout: Customers pay without typing card details. They are securely authorising their payment in their trusted bank’s interface. Open banking is optimised for both desktop and mobile. 
• Bank-level security: Protected by biometric authentication and regulated APIs.

In the UK, open banking adoption is accelerating with 13.3 million active users as of March 2025, up 40% year-on-year. Gen Z and millennials, who are most comfortable with digital-first payments, are driving this growth. At this rate, a quarter of all UK current accounts could be open banking-active by mid-2026.

Does Pay-by-Bank Work In-Store?

While many assume open banking is only for online checkouts, pairing it with QR code payments brings it into physical retail. At Noda, we already work with offline merchants, offering bank-based face-to-face payments for just flat £0.20 per transaction:

• Barber Browns in Neilston removed all card machines, replacing them with QR codes and offering free-haircut promos for pay-by-bank customers.
• Double Deli, a Brazilian meat shop in London, recently switched to QR-based pay-by-bank for in-store payments.

Learn More About Noda’s Client Success Stories

Accept Pay-by-Bank with Noda: Online and In-Store 

Switch to our payment solution that’s faster, safer, and built for the future.

• Fully PSD2-regulated, powered by secure, bank-grade APIs
• Full UK bank coverage, plus 2,000+ banks connected across 28 countries
• Easy setup: e-commerce plugins, payment links, QR codes, or full API
• Card payments available with smart routing and fraud monitoring
• Dedicated personal manager for smooth onboarding and ongoing support

Noda fills the gaps traditional providers like Square leave behind. 

Square Settlement & Withdrawals

Square Settlement

Standard payouts: Square sends money to your linked bank account the next business day after a payment is processed.

Weekends & holidays: In some regions (e.g., UK), payouts can still arrive on these days if the payment was taken before the cutoff.

Cutoff times: Europe: around 4 PM local time; US: around 5 PM PST / 8 PM EST
Payments after the cutoff are sent the next day.

Instant transfers: Available for eligible sellers, delivering funds in minutes (1.5% fee applies and account history is required)

Square Security & Compliance

Square runs its payments system on a full end-to-end security platform that protects both businesses and customers. Payment data is encrypted the moment it’s entered and never touches the merchant’s device in raw form. 

Square builds its own hardware with encryption built in and regularly stress-tests its systems for vulnerabilities. It’s certified to ISO 27001 and uses advanced fraud monitoring and data protection policies across the platform.

Square is also PCI DSS compliant and takes care of all PCI requirements for merchants.  They stay compliant automatically when using Square’s hardware and software. Square is part of the PCI Security Standards Council, helping shape industry rules.

On the regulatory side, Square acts as the merchant of record and manages compliance with banks and financial authorities.

Square Pricing & Square Fees

Square uses a freemium model offering merchants a free plan (excluding processing fees), and then a premium plan at £29 per month (excluding processing fees).

As Square is mostly focused on offline ordering systems and doesn’t offer too many payment methods, its processing fees are fairly straightforward. The fees below apply when a customer makes a purchase through Square’s Online Store, Online Checkout, or eCommerce API products.

Read: How to Reduce Card Processing Fees

Square Customer Reviews

Square holds solid ratings of about 4 stars on Trustpilot and G2, with users often highlighting its quick setup and well-integrated hardware and software for small businesses.

The main criticism is Square’s support. While customer assistance is available via chat, email, and phone, experiences vary: email and chat are generally responsive, but phone support can be slow or unhelpful. Some also report sudden account holds or deactivations without clear explanations, and high fees.