- What is Square?
- Square is a point-of-sale and payments platform for businesses that take card payments in person.
- What does it do?
- Processes cards through its own readers, terminals and register hardware, with a POS app for items, tabs and receipts. Also handles invoices, online checkout, gift cards and customer records.
- Who is it for?
- Retail shops, cafes, restaurants and mobile sellers who want hardware and software from one vendor. Less suited to purely digital businesses selling subscriptions or downloads.
- What are the alternatives to Square?
- SumUp and Zettle are lighter card-reader-first options for small in-person sellers. Lemon Squeezy is a different shape entirely: checkout and merchant-of-record billing for digital products.
Top alternatives
Smaller, founder-led tools that quietly compete with Square.
Card readers and POS for small shops.
European smaller alternative for in-person payments.
Small-business POS, now part of PayPal.
Originally Swedish POS, still loved by small merchants.
Digital MoR.
If you sell digital instead of physical goods, this MoR is a great fit.
5% + 50¢ as MoRBootstrapped