If you are an independent café choosing how to take online orders, Square Online and ChowNow are two of the names you will keep running into. Both are commission-free, which already puts them ahead of the marketplaces. But they price the work in completely different ways, and that difference decides which one is cheaper for your shop. This is an operator-grade comparison: what each actually costs, who owns the customer, and the volume math that picks the winner.
It is written for a café or restaurant owner in Canada or the US, usually already on Square POS.
What is Square Online?
Square Online is the ordering site that comes bundled with a Square account. It has a free plan with no monthly fee, and you pay only payment processing on each order. On Square in Canada that is 2.8% + 30¢ per online order; on the US Free plan it is 3.3% + 30¢ (2.9% + 30¢ if you are on Square’s paid Plus tier). Your menu, orders, payments, and reporting all stay inside the same Square dashboard you already use at the counter.
The trade-off is that the free tier ships a Square-branded URL, limited loyalty tooling, and no native push notifications. It is the lowest-cost, lowest-effort way to start taking direct orders — and for many cafés, it is something they are already paying for without using.
What is ChowNow?
ChowNow is an independent commission-free ordering platform built specifically for restaurants. Instead of taking a percentage of each order, it charges a flat monthly subscription, plus standard payment processing. Per third-party pricing breakdowns, ChowNow plans have historically started around $199/month with a processing fee in the region of 2.95% + $0.29 per order, and a one-time setup fee that has ranged roughly $119–$499 depending on the package and promotion. ChowNow’s lineup and exact rates change over time and vary by plan, so always confirm current pricing directly before you sign.
The pitch is ownership and predictability: a flat fee means your cost per order drops as you grow, and ChowNow positions itself as restaurant-first rather than a POS company’s bolt-on. The catch is that the subscription is dead weight at low volume, and it is a separate platform from your POS.
Square Online vs ChowNow: side by side
| Square Online (Free plan) | ChowNow | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | No monthly fee; pay per order | Flat monthly subscription |
| Headline cost | 2.8% + 30¢ CA / 3.3% + 30¢ US processing | ~$199+/mo + ~2.95% + $0.29 processing |
| Setup fee | None | ~$119–$499 one-time (varies) |
| Commission | 0% | 0% |
| Lives inside your POS | Yes (native Square) | No (separate platform) |
| Branded native app | No (web ordering) | Add-on at higher tiers |
| Loyalty + push | Loyalty is a paid add-on; no native push | Varies by plan |
| Best at | Low to moderate volume | Higher, steady volume |
Pricing reflects publicly reported rates in 2026 and changes frequently. Confirm current Square and ChowNow pricing for your country and plan before deciding.
Both sit in the same commission-free family covered in our guide to taking online orders without paying commission — the real fight here is flat-fee versus pay-per-order, not free versus paid.
The volume math: where the lines cross
The honest way to choose is to find your break-even point. A flat subscription only beats a per-order model once you do enough orders that the percentage cost would have exceeded the subscription. Here is an illustrative worked example (your real numbers will differ — plug in your own).
Assume a $22 average online ticket and compare monthly cost at different volumes. We will use Square’s Canadian online rate (2.8% + 30¢) against a simplified ChowNow model of a $199 subscription plus 2.95% + $0.29 processing.
| Monthly online orders | Monthly sales | Square Online cost | ChowNow cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | $2,200 | ~$92 | ~$259 |
| 300 | $6,600 | ~$275 | ~$381 |
| 600 | $13,200 | ~$550 | ~$589 |
| 1,000 | $22,000 | ~$916 | ~$833 |
Illustrative only. Figures assume the rates above and a flat $22 ticket; real costs depend on your actual ticket size, plan, country, and current published rates.
The pattern is the point: at 100 orders a month, Square Online is dramatically cheaper. Somewhere around 600–1,000 orders a month the lines cross and the flat subscription starts to win. The exact crossover moves with your ticket size and the current rates, but the shape is reliable — percentage-based pricing is cheaper when you are small, flat pricing is cheaper when you are busy.
If your volume is well below the crossover, paying a flat $199 every month is simply buying capacity you are not using yet.
Beyond price: who owns the customer?
Cost is only half the decision. The other half is where your menu, your orders, and your customer relationships live.
- Square Online keeps everything inside Square. One login for in-store and online, one set of sales reports, one customer directory. If you already run Square at the counter, there is real value in not splitting your data across two systems.
- ChowNow is a separate platform. That independence is a feature if you want a restaurant-first vendor that is not tied to your POS company — but it does mean reconciling two systems and exporting data to keep a unified view of your customers.
This “who owns the customer” question is the one that tends to decide everything downstream, and it is worth thinking through deliberately — we cover it in depth in marketplace vs direct ordering and your customer data.
What neither base plan gives you: a branded app with push
Here is the limitation both share at the entry level. Neither Square Online’s free plan nor ChowNow’s base plan gives you a native, downloadable app under your own brand with built-in loyalty and push notifications.
- Square Online is web ordering — great for a link in your Instagram bio or Google profile, but it is not an app a regular installs on their home screen.
- ChowNow offers branded app capability, but on higher-cost tiers, and it is still a separate stack from your Square POS.
That matters because the single most reliable retention tool for a café is a push notification to someone who has your app installed — it costs nothing per send and lands without an algorithm in between, unlike email or paid social. If pulling regulars back in is your priority, see why push notifications beat email and SMS for café retention and our breakdown of push notifications for customer retention.
A decision model for picking between them
Run yourself through these in order:
- Are you already on Square? If yes, turn on Square Online first. It is likely free, already wired into your POS, and lets you start taking direct orders this week with zero new vendor.
- What is your monthly online order volume? Below the crossover (roughly a few hundred orders a month at a typical ticket), the free per-order model wins. Sustained high volume tilts toward a flat subscription.
- Do you want a vendor that is independent of your POS? If keeping ordering separate from Square is a deliberate goal, ChowNow’s independence is a point in its favour. If consolidation is the goal, Square Online wins.
- Do you need a branded app, loyalty, and push? If yes, neither base plan delivers all three. That is the threshold where a dedicated branded-app platform built on Square becomes worth pricing out.
For most independent cafés the practical path is: start free on Square Online, watch your volume, and only graduate to a flat-fee platform or a branded app once the numbers — or the need for loyalty and push — justify it.
Where a branded app on Square fits
If your decision model lands on “I want loyalty, push, and a channel that is unmistakably mine, on top of the Square POS I already run,” that is a different product category from both options above. A branded ordering app gives you your own App Store and Google Play presence, self-running loyalty, and push notifications, while your menu and payments stay in Square.
That is the niche Tany fills: a branded order-ahead app for iOS and Android plus web ordering, with loyalty, eGift cards, and push built in, live in about a day on your existing Square POS for $99 CAD/month per location with 0% commission. It is the “own the channel” answer for when Square Online’s free tier runs out of room — not a replacement for starting cheap. The comparison that matters there is Square Online vs a branded app.
Whichever you choose, the headline is the same: both Square Online and ChowNow keep you commission-free, and the right pick is the one whose pricing model matches your volume.