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Square How-To

Square Payment Links for Cafés: When to Use One (and When Not)

By The Tany Team 9 min read

There is a job Square does well that most café owners never turn on: taking a payment for something that is not on the menu. A catering deposit. A cupping class. A wholesale bag of beans for the office down the street. A holiday pre-order that you do not want cluttering your normal ordering flow.

Square Payment Links — the feature previously called Square Online Checkout links — are built for exactly that. They are hosted checkout pages you create in a couple of minutes, share as a URL or a QR code, and forget about until the money lands. No website required, no monthly fee.

They are also badly misunderstood. Some owners try to run their whole menu through them and get frustrated. This guide covers what they cost, what they can actually do, the six café jobs they fit, and the point at which you have outgrown them.

A payment link is a single Square-hosted checkout page at a square.link URL. Someone opens it, pays, and you get an order in Square. That is the whole product.

You create one in the Square Dashboard under Payments & orders → Payment links → Create link. (Older accounts may see the top-level item labelled Payments or Payments & invoices.) There are four types:

  • Collect a payment — an ad-hoc amount, ideal for deposits and balances.
  • Sell an item — a specific product from your catalogue.
  • Accept a donation — a fixed or buyer-set amount.
  • Sell an event or class — ticketed sessions.

One limitation to know up front: Square notes that payment links cannot be created or customized from the Square Restaurants POS, Square Appointments POS, or Square Invoices apps. Create them in the Dashboard.

What they cost

This is the part worth getting exactly right, because payment links bill at Square’s online rate, not the in-person rate you are used to at the counter.

CanadaUnited States (Free plan)
Monthly fee for payment linksNoneNone
Online / payment link rate2.8% + 30¢3.3% + 30¢
Manually keyed / card on file3.3% + 15¢3.5% + 15¢
In-person, for contrast2.5% (credit)2.6% + 15¢
Interac debit (CA)0.75% + $0.07—
Afterpay—6% + 30¢
International cards+1.5%+1.5%

Rates from Square’s pricing and support pages, 2026. Higher Square plan tiers can carry reduced rates; confirm the current numbers for your country and plan before quoting them.

A note for the detail-oriented: Square’s developer pricing documentation still lists a 2.9% + 30¢ US e-commerce rate while the consumer pricing and support pages list 3.3% + 30¢. The support and pricing pages are the ones kept current for merchant plans — that is what we have used above.

The practical read: on a $400 catering deposit in Canada, a payment link costs you about $11.50 in processing. Against the alternative of chasing an e-transfer or taking a card number over the phone at the keyed-in rate, that is a good trade for the certainty of being paid before you buy the ingredients.

Not theoretical — these are the recurring situations where a link beats an invoice, a phone call, or a “just pay when you pick it up.”

1. Catering deposits. Use a collect a payment link with buyer-set price enabled, or a fixed 50% deposit link you reuse. This is the single highest-value use, because a deposit is what turns a soft booking into a real one. It pairs with the process in our guide to accepting pre-orders and catering on Square.

2. Classes and cuppings. The sell an event or class type exists for this. Add a custom field for the attendee’s name and you have a guest list without a spreadsheet.

3. Coffee subscriptions. Link creation includes a frequency setting — one-time or recurring — so you can sell a monthly bag without a separate subscriptions platform. If you are building this out properly, see how to run a coffee subscription or membership on Square.

4. Wholesale and office accounts. For a recurring office order that is too small to invoice formally, a reusable link with a set amount is faster for both sides. For larger accounts, invoicing is still the better instrument — we compare the two in corporate coffee accounts on Square.

5. Holiday and seasonal pre-orders. A single link for “Christmas Eve pastry box, pickup Dec 24” with pickup hours and prep time set, shared by email and a counter QR code. It keeps a chaotic seasonal item out of your everyday menu.

6. A digital tip jar or fundraiser. The donation type with buyer-set price, printed as a QR code by the till.

The common thread: each is a specific, time-boxed transaction, not the daily menu.

Square has quietly made these pages capable. Confirmed features:

  • QR code generation built into the sharing options, alongside copy link, buy button, email campaign, and social.
  • Tipping — smart tips or percentage-only, with three default percentages.
  • Pickup and shipping toggles, with pickup prep time and pickup hours.
  • Coupon codes — customers can use your Square marketing coupons at checkout.
  • Up to two custom fields, plus a customer-notes toggle.
  • Service charges, to cover overhead.
  • Branding — logo, button colour and shape, font, title, and a post-checkout redirect.
  • Wallets — Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App Pay, and Afterpay, each individually toggleable. If you want the case for turning those on, see Apple Pay and Google Pay for café mobile ordering.
  • Loyalty — the Checkout API exposes an enable_loyalty option and Square documents turning loyalty off per link, so loyalty is supported here.

And the honest limits:

  • One location at a time. Square’s own troubleshooting documentation states payment links can only be enabled for one location at a time. For a two-café operator, that is a real constraint.
  • No menu. A link is one checkout page. There is no browsing, no categories, no modifiers experience like your ordering site.
  • Tickets appear after payment. Orders with fulfillments flow to Square POS and KDS once paid — a timing difference worth briefing staff on.
  • Pre-populating buyer details is API-only (pre_populated_data on CreatePaymentLink), not a dashboard toggle.
  • Some things are simply undocumented. Whether stock decrements on a payment-link sale, whether buyers can adjust quantity on the hosted page, and whether you can sell Square eGift cards through a link are not stated in Square’s public help articles. Test before you rely on any of them.

There is a clean line here. Payment links are for transactions; an ordering channel is for customers.

A link is the right tool when the purchase is occasional, specific, and initiated by you — you send it, they pay, done. It falls apart the moment you want any of the following:

  • A customer browsing a full menu with modifiers.
  • Repeat ordering that takes seconds, not a fresh link each time.
  • One experience across multiple locations.
  • Push notifications to bring someone back.
  • Loyalty and order history that a regular can actually see.

At that point you need an ordering channel — Square Online, a branded app, or both. The comparison is laid out in Square Online vs a branded app for a café, and if you have not turned on any ordering channel yet, start with the Square Online ordering setup guide.

The two are not competitors. Most cafés that run a branded ordering app still keep two or three payment links alive for catering deposits and classes, because those jobs do not belong in a menu.

A ten-minute setup

If you have never made one, do this now with a real use case — a catering deposit is the best first link.

  1. Payments & orders → Payment links → Create link.
  2. Choose collect a payment, name it “Catering deposit.”
  3. Enable allow buyer to set the price so you can quote per event, or set a fixed deposit.
  4. Add a custom field for event date, and a second for pickup or delivery name.
  5. Set tipping off — a deposit is not a tipping moment.
  6. Add your logo and brand colour.
  7. Copy the link, save it in your notes app, and paste it into every catering quote you send from now on.

That is the whole workflow. The next catering enquiry gets a link at the bottom of your reply, and you stop doing unpaid prep work on bookings that evaporate.

Where this fits in a bigger picture

Payment links solve the long tail: the payments that do not fit your menu. They will not, on their own, bring anyone back next Tuesday. That is the job of a channel customers keep — a real ordering experience with loyalty and push behind it.

If that is where you are heading, Tany builds branded iOS and Android ordering apps plus web ordering on top of your existing Square POS, with self-running loyalty, eGift cards, and push notifications, at $99 CAD/month per location. Payment links stay useful alongside it — one for deposits, one for classes, one for the holiday box.

Use the right tool for each job. A link for the one-off. A channel for the regular.

Sources

Step by step

  1. 1
    Open the payment links section of your dashboard

    In the Square Dashboard, go to Payments & orders, then Payment links, then Create link. On some accounts the top-level menu item is labelled Payments or Payments & invoices.

  2. 2
    Choose the link type that matches the job

    Pick collect a payment for a deposit or custom amount, sell an item for a specific product, accept a donation for a tip jar or fundraiser, or sell an event or class for a cupping or latte-art workshop.

  3. 3
    Set the price, or let the buyer set it

    Enter a fixed price, or use the advanced setting that allows the buyer to set the price when you are collecting a deposit or a donation. Add a service charge if you need to cover overhead.

  4. 4
    Turn on the checkout options you need

    Enable pickup with prep time and pickup hours, or shipping, if the link involves goods. Choose smart tips or percentage-only tips. Add up to two custom fields — the pickup name and the event date are the two most useful for a café.

  5. 5
    Brand the checkout page

    Upload your logo and set the button colour and shape, the font, and the title. A branded page reduces the number of customers who abandon because they are not sure the page is really yours.

  6. 6
    Share the link where the customer already is

    Copy the square.link URL into an email, or generate the built-in QR code and print it for the counter, a table tent, or a catering flyer. Links can also be shared as a buy button, in an email campaign, or on social.

  7. 7
    Watch orders and reconcile

    Check Payments & orders, then Orders, then All orders. Update fulfillment status as in progress, ready, or picked up so staff and customers stay in sync.

Frequently asked questions

Do Square Payment Links cost anything to create?
No. Square charges no monthly fee for payment links — you pay only per sale, at Square's online transaction rate. In Canada that is 2.8% + 30¢; in the United States it is 3.3% + 30¢ on the Free plan. Afterpay transactions in the US are charged at 6% + 30¢. Always confirm current rates on Square's own pricing page for your country before you quote them to a customer.
Where do I create a Square payment link?
In the Square Dashboard, go to Payments & orders, then Payment links, then Create link. Older accounts may see the top-level item labelled Payments or Payments & invoices. You can pick one of four link types: collect a payment, sell an item, accept a donation, or sell an event or class. Payment links cannot be created from the Square Restaurants POS, Square Appointments POS, or Square Invoices apps.
Can I use a payment link instead of an online ordering page?
For everyday menu ordering, no. A payment link is a single hosted checkout page, and Square notes that payment links can only be enabled for one location at a time. It has no menu browsing, no category navigation, and no repeat-order flow. Use links for specific one-off jobs — deposits, tickets, subscriptions — and a proper ordering channel for the daily menu.
Do payment link orders show up on my kitchen display?
Orders created by a payment link appear in the Square Dashboard under Payments & orders, then Orders, and orders with fulfillments flow to Square POS and KDS — but only once they have been paid. If you are used to seeing tickets appear as they are placed, that timing difference is worth briefing staff on before you start using links during service.
Do customers earn loyalty points on a payment link purchase?
Square's Checkout API exposes an enable_loyalty option on payment links, and Square documents turning the loyalty component off at the individual link level, so loyalty is supported on payment links when you run a Square Loyalty program. Note this is not true of Square Online store checkout, which Square states is not integrated with Square Loyalty — so do not assume 'online means loyalty works' across every Square surface.

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