Understanding Square payments fees.
During these times it’s even more important that we’re fully transparent in how our payment processing fees are distributed. When a customer spends money with your business, Square only keeps a fraction of the fees, approximately one third, and that goes back into tools and features for your business.
Square fees by payment type
Card-present payments
When a customer pays via tap, chip and PIN, or contactless payments with their card in person, you pay 1.75% per transaction. There is a lower risk of fraudulent activity when the cardholder is present.
Card-not-present payments
There are multiple types of card-not-present payments. Square pays more for these transactions and the fee increase goes directly to the card issuing bank to help mitigate the risk of fraud and protect your business.
When a customer makes a purchase through your Square Online Store, Square Online Checkout, or eCommerce API, the fee is 1.4% + 25p for UK cards or 2.5% + 25p for non-UK cards. When you manually key in your customer’s card details on your Square POS app, use a card on file, or take payments via Virtual Terminal or an invoice, the fee is 2.5%.
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Card processing fees explained.
To process a sale, there are several types of set fees within a transaction. These are set not by Square but by cardholder banks and card networks. They are included as part of Square’s card processing fee.
Interchange fees
Every time a customer uses a credit or debit card in your store, a fee is charged by the cardholder’s bank, such as HSBC or Barclays. This fee can vary greatly, based on the issuer of the card, the card brand, and the country in which it was issued. When Square processes a transaction on your behalf, Square is required to give a percentage of the funds collected to your customer’s card issuer.
Assessment fees
Associations such as Mastercard or Visa also collect fees, called dues and assessments, for the use of their card brands as well as the ability to process transactions through their payment networks. Square is required to give a percentage of the amount collected from your customer to these associations.
Risk and PCI compliance
PCI DSS is a security standard all businesses that accept credit cards must comply with to safely and securely accept, store, process, and transmit cardholder data during debit and credit card transactions. Square’s tools help keep sellers PCI compliant. Square complies with PCI standards so you don’t have to validate your compliance, nor do you pay associated annual fees.
How Square processing fees work.
Here’s an illustrative example using the 1.75% card present processing rate, and a blended cost across AU, JP, CA, US and UK of where the money goes every time you make a sale.
Data in the figure is an illustrative example using the United Kingdom card present processing rate and a blended cost across Australia, Japan, Canada, United States, and United Kingdom.
Square tools and features.
With Square, you benefit from many resources designed to help you run your business. In the £50 transaction shown in the above illustrative example, the £0.30 allocated to Square allows us to provide some of the following tools and features:
Point of sale and eCommerce solutions
Download the free Square POS app or launch an online store so you can sell right away without any up-front investment.
Fraud prevention
Fraud can happen in both low-risk transactions and higher-risk transactions such as card-not-present purchases. We work around the clock to evaluate the legitimacy of your buyers to protect your business.
Dispute management
Get free dispute management services for chargebacks. We cover the fee for every dispute that we fight on your behalf. And we’ve saved sellers millions of dollars globally by managing and winning disputes for them.
Advanced reporting tools
Access important data and powerful tools straight from your Square Dashboard so you can easily keep track of your sales and make important decisions about your business.
Square support
Our general in-house phone support is available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, with email access anytime, 24/7. For Terminal and Square for Restaurants sellers, phone support is available 24/7.
Customer Directory
Keep your customers’ information organised and secure. Use it to send email or send invoices.
Team Management
Track team hours, breaks, and sales by employee. Free timecards that sync seamlessly to Square Point of Sale make payroll simple.
Inventory management
Change item details like price, name, or quantity in real time. Upload groups of items faster, track stock quantities, and get email alerts when items run low.
Our Card payments service
This summary shows the charges you pay for card payments, and other important information about our service. You can use this to compare our service with other providers, to find the best deal for you. We are required to provide this information by the Payment Systems Regulator.
- The portion of your transactions represent by each card type.
- Personal debit cards.
- Personal credit cards.
- Business debit cards.
- There are the most commonly used cards for most merchants. You pay us a percentage of each card payment you receive. Pricing can vary if you accept other card brands, non-UK cards, or use Square products like Restaurant or Retail.
- A card payment where the card, cardholder and merchant are all in the same place.
- A card payment where the card, cardholder and merchant are not all in the same place.
- A card payment where the card information is manually entered into a card terminal or virtual terminal on your computer.
- A service for capturing and transferring payment data.
- Charges relating to your compliance with card security and anti-fraud standards.
- The amount you pay if your monthly transaction charges do not meet a minimum agreed amount.
We advocate on your behalf.
Merchants in the U.K. pay millions every year in
interchange fees for electronic payments. A large portion of these fees contribute to product features and enhancements that the card issuer puts back into their portfolio.
At Square, we have an entire team that works on sellers’ behalf to negotiate with banks and card networks to keep rates as low as possible for our sellers.