Square Fees for Restaurants Explained (2026 Breakdown)

If you run a café or restaurant on Square, the fee structure is refreshingly simple compared with a traditional merchant account — but “simple” is not the same as “obvious.” There are really only three numbers that matter, plus an optional software fee, and once you see how they fit together you can predict your monthly cost to the dollar.

This guide breaks down every fee Square charges a restaurant in 2026: the per-transaction processing rates, the software plans, the things that are genuinely free, and the few costs that catch people out. It is written for an independent operator in Canada or the US who wants the real number, not a sales page.

What does Square actually charge a restaurant?

Square’s pricing has two layers, and it helps to keep them separate in your head:

1. Processing fees — a percentage (plus a small fixed amount) taken out of every card payment. This is unavoidable; it is the cost of moving money.
2. Software fees — an optional monthly subscription for a more capable point-of-sale app. The base tier is free.

Everything else — creating an account, the basic POS app, your online ordering site, customer directory, basic reporting — comes with no monthly charge. You only pay when you take a payment.

Square’s processing rates (2026)

Here is the part most owners actually want. Processing rates vary by how the card is presented and by country, so the table below shows both Canada and the US. These are standard published rates; always confirm the current number for your plan and region before you budget against it.

Rates as published by Square, 2026. The in-person rate drops on Square’s paid software plans (see below). Confirm your exact rate on Square’s pricing page.

A few things worth internalizing:

• In-person is your cheapest channel. The card is physically present, fraud risk is lower, and the rate reflects that. The vast majority of a café’s volume runs through this rate.
• Online is a little higher and adds a fixed per-order fee. That 30¢ matters most on small tickets — on a $4 coffee it is a meaningful slice — which is one reason order-batching and minimums exist.
• Keyed-in is the most expensive. Avoid typing card numbers manually where you can; use tap or a saved card on file instead.

Square’s software plans

The processing rate above assumes the Free plan. Square sells higher tiers that lower your in-person rate and unlock more restaurant-grade software. As of 2026, Square has unified its plans across its POS products, so Square Point of Sale and Square for Restaurants share the same structure:

Plan fees shown are 2026 US figures; Canadian pricing differs — confirm CAD pricing on Square’s page. Fees are per location, so multi-site operators pay per store.

The honest way to think about a paid plan: it is a bet that the lower processing rate plus the extra features will save you more than the monthly fee costs. At low volume, Free wins. As your card volume climbs, the rate reduction on Plus or Premium can more than pay for the subscription. We break the trade-off down further in our guide to Square for Restaurants vs. Square Point of Sale.

What’s genuinely free — and what costs extra

Square’s reputation for “no hidden fees” is mostly deserved, but it pays to know the line.

No charge:

• Account setup, the base POS app, and software updates
• A free Square Online ordering site (you pay only processing on orders)
• Customer directory and basic sales reporting
• No monthly minimums, no statement fees, no PCI-compliance fees, no chargeback fees on standard plans

Costs extra:

• Hardware — a card reader, stand, terminal, or kitchen printer is a one-time purchase. A basic contactless + chip reader is inexpensive; a full register or handheld terminal costs more.
• Paid software plans — Plus and Premium, as above.
• Square Online paid tiers — the free ordering site upgrades to paid plans for a custom domain, lower e-commerce rates, and more features.
• Add-ons — Square Loyalty, Square Marketing, Payroll, and similar products carry their own monthly fees.
• Instant transfers — moving your money instantly instead of next-business-day carries a small percentage fee; standard transfers are free.

A worked example in CAD

Numbers make it real. Take a café in Canada doing $40,000 a month in card sales, split as most cafés are: 85% in person, 15% online.

On the Free plan:

• In-person sales: $34,000 × ~2.5% = $850
• Online sales: $6,000 × 2.8% = $168, plus per-order fees. Say 1,500 online orders × 30¢ = $450 → $618
• Total ≈ $1,468/month in processing, with $0 software fee.

That is roughly 3.7% of card volume all-in — and notice the online per-order fees are doing real damage on small tickets, not the percentage. The fix is not to abandon online ordering; it is to push average order value up and to make sure every online dollar is one you’d otherwise lose to a 15–30% delivery marketplace. (For that math, see how to take online orders without paying commission.)

If this café upgraded to a paid plan, the in-person rate would drop a fraction of a percent. On $34,000 of in-person volume, even a 0.2–0.3% reduction is $68–$102/month — which can offset much or all of a Plus subscription while adding loyalty and better reporting. Run that specific math against your own volume before you switch; it is the only number that matters.

How Square fees compare to the alternatives

Two comparisons come up constantly.

Square vs. a traditional merchant account. Traditional processors use interchange-plus pricing with a monthly fee, a gateway fee, sometimes a monthly minimum, and PCI fees. For a small café the all-in cost is usually higher and far harder to predict than Square’s flat rate. High-volume restaurants can sometimes beat Square’s rate with a negotiated interchange-plus deal — but they trade simplicity for it.

Square processing vs. delivery commission. This is the one that actually moves the needle. Square’s ~2.5–2.9% processing is in a completely different universe from the 15–30% commission a delivery marketplace takes per order. If you are paying both — Square at the counter and DoorDash on delivery — the delivery cut is almost certainly your single largest variable cost. We break that down in what DoorDash and Uber Eats really cost restaurants.

The lesson most owners reach: Square’s own fees are rarely the problem. The expensive money leaks out through third-party commissions and through orders you could have taken directly but didn’t.

How to keep your Square fees as low as possible

A short, practical checklist:

1. Keep payments in person where you can. It is your cheapest rate. Encourage tap.
2. Avoid keyed-in transactions. Use tap or a card on file; never type numbers if a reader is available.
3. Match your software plan to your volume. Stay on Free until the math on Plus or Premium clearly favours the upgrade — then switch.
4. Use standard, not instant, transfers unless you genuinely need same-day cash.
5. Take online orders through channels you own so a ~2.8% processing fee replaces a 15–30% marketplace commission, not stacks on top of it.
6. Push average order value up so the fixed per-order fee is a smaller slice of each ticket.

The bottom line

Square’s fee model for restaurants is one of the most transparent in the industry: a clear per-transaction rate, an optional software fee, free basics, and no hidden line items. For most independent cafés the all-in processing cost lands around 2.5–3% of card volume, and the single biggest lever on your total payment costs is not Square at all — it is how much of your ordering you keep on channels you own rather than renting from a marketplace.

If owning that channel — a branded order-ahead app, web ordering, loyalty, and push, built on your existing Square POS — is where you’re headed, that is exactly what Tany provides for $99 CAD/month per location, with 0% commission and unlimited orders. Either way, start by knowing your real Square number; everything else is a decision you can now make with the actual math in front of you.

Sources

• Square Pricing — processing rates and software plans (Canada)
• Understanding Our Fees — Square Payments (Canada)
• Learn about Square fees — Square Support (Canada)
• Square’s lower processing fees in Canada (Square press)
• Square Fees: Calculator and Pricing for 2026 (NerdWallet)
• Square Simplifies Commerce Software with New Unified Plans & Pricing (Square press)