Square POS is the point of sale we see more than any other on Australian counters, in cafes, at markets and in the back of utes. It got there by being cheap to start and hard to outgrow: no monthly fee for the software, a card reader for $65, and the money in your bank the next business day. Square sells the hardware, ships it, and its support team gets it running. Most of the businesses we talk to have already done that part before they ring us.
What they have not done is the online side. The Square website sits half-built or not built at all, the menu is in the till but not on the internet, and the customers who would happily order a catering job or a Friday-night pickup are ordering from someone else, or through a marketplace that keeps a third of the money. That is the gap we fill. We do not sell terminals and we do not install them. We get your Square Online site and online ordering live, on your own domain, this week, and then we make sure customers can find you.
- What Square POS costs: fees, hardware, and the plans that are actually free.
- Which Square hardware suits your business
- The part most Square businesses never get to: online ordering
- What we set up, and what it costs
What Square POS costs in Australia
Square publishes its Australian pricing plainly, and it is worth reading before anyone sells you a bank terminal on a three-year contract. There is no setup fee and no monthly fee for Square POS. You pay a percentage of each payment and nothing else.
Those are Square's published figures at the time of writing; Square adjusts pricing from time to time, so treat them as a guide and check the current page before you buy. The shape does not change: a percentage when you sell, nothing when you do not. For a business doing $8,000 a month over the counter, that is around $128 in fees, with no fixed cost sitting underneath it in a quiet month.
Which Square hardware suits which business
Hardware is a one-off purchase from Square, outright or on a monthly plan, and every device works with the same account. The right answer is about where the money changes hands, not which device looks best.
| Device | Price | What it is | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square Reader | $65 | Pocket-sized tap-and-go reader paired to your phone or tablet | Tradies, markets, mobile services, anyone starting out |
| Square Terminal | $329 | All-in-one handheld with touchscreen and receipt printer; needs nothing else | Cafes, salons, small shops, table service |
| Square Stand | $149 | Turns an iPad into a counter POS with built-in card reader | Shops and cafes that already own an iPad |
| Square Register | $1,099 | Two-screen countertop POS with a customer-facing display, no iPad needed | Busy retail and hospitality counters |
| Square Handheld | $349 | Full point of sale in one hand: orders and payments away from the counter | Restaurants, venues, service at the table |
| Square Kiosk | $149 | iPad-based self-order kiosk | Quick-service food, busy lunch trade |
| Tap to Pay on iPhone or Android | No hardware | Your phone becomes the reader | Backup, or the very first sale before the Reader arrives |
Two things we see across the businesses we work with. The Terminal is the one most small businesses end up happiest with, because it takes the payment and prints the receipt without a phone, an iPad or a second box. And the Register only earns its price when a customer-facing screen matters, which usually means a queue. Square's team will get whichever one you choose talking to your account; that is their job and they do it well. Ours starts once the till is working.
The part most Square businesses never get to
Here is the pattern. A cafe, a caterer, a bakery, a butcher, a florist gets Square running at the counter in a week. Square also gives them a free online store, synced to the same items, with payments already working. And it sits there unfinished for a year, because the setup is help-yourself and the owner is at the counter.
That is a shame, because a Square website is probably the fastest and easiest way to get working e-commerce for a business that already runs Square POS. The products are already in the system. Payments are already set up. Pickup and delivery are built in. Once the menu and the photos are in, it is live in an afternoon, which is crazy quick compared with almost anything else. A caterer could spend real money having a custom ordering system built and end up with less than Square Online gives them for nothing a month.
Products already there
The items, prices, variations and stock levels in your POS are the ones on the website. Change a price at the counter and the site follows.
Payments ready to go
The same Square account takes the online payment at 2.2%, and the money lands with the rest of the day's takings.
Pickup and delivery built in
Pickup times, prep times, delivery zones, and in-house delivery by your own staff, all switched on in the settings.
Couriers on demand
Square's on-demand delivery dispatches a courier through its courier partner when the order is ready. The courier fee can be passed to the customer, in full or in part.
Your customers stay yours
Every order comes with a name and an email or phone number in your customer directory. The walk-in regular becomes an online regular, and you can reach them again.
Everything else already in Square
Inventory, staff and rosters, invoices, gift cards, loyalty, and integrations with the accounting software you already use.
If you are a cafe, a restaurant or a catering business, you cannot not have online ordering. The question is only whose platform it runs on.
Your own ordering, or a marketplace's
Plenty of businesses pay a delivery marketplace to find customers and bring the food to them. That is fair enough when the marketplace is finding you strangers. It is a lot less fair when your own Google Maps listing is sending your own regulars to the marketplace, and you are paying a marketplace commission on a customer who was always yours.
| Where the order comes from | They deliver | You deliver | Pickup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uber Eats marketplace | 30% | 16% | 6% |
| Uber Eats web shop on your own site | 25% | 6% | 6% |
| Your Square Online site | 2.2% plus the courier's per-order fee, which you can pass to the customer | 2.2% | 2.2% |
Those are Uber Eats' and Square's own published Australian figures at the time of writing. The point is not that marketplaces are bad. It is that your regulars should be ordering from you, and with Square the platform to make that happen is already paid for. Keep the marketplace for the strangers; move the regulars to your own site; put your review card in every bag so the strangers become regulars too.
Already on Square POS and the online store is still sitting there? Tell us what you sell and we will have it live this week.
Book a free setup callWhat we set up, and what it costs
Everything Square leaves to you, done properly, this week, with a real order placed at the end of it.
The call
Twenty minutes. What you sell, how you fulfil it, which domain you own. We tell you what the setup will include and what it costs, and you decide.
Site and branding
Your Square Online site with your logo and colours, a home page and a contact page, and your products or menu pulled through from your POS.
Your own domain
Square Online supports custom domains on its paid plans. It is the step most people get stuck on, so we connect it: DNS, the plan, the redirect from the Square address.
Payments, tested
Online payments configured and a real order put through, refunded, and checked in your dashboard. Receipts and order notifications set to the right people.
Pickup and delivery
Ordering switched on the way you actually fulfil: pickup and prep times, delivery zones, in-house or on-demand couriers, and where the orders land.
The handover
A Google Doc with the direct links to everything, step-by-step videos, and an optional 30-minute follow-up once you have run it for a week.
| Option | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Square Online Essentials | $295 | Site with your branding, home and contact pages, payments configured and tested, pickup and delivery, handover doc and videos, and how to add your photos. Your menu or products are already in Square. |
| Your own domain or subdomain | +$100 | Your site on your own address, such as menu.yourdomain.com.au, connected and secure. |
| QR menu and QR ordering | +$100 | Customers scan a code at the table or counter, order and pay from their phone, and the order lands in your Square account. |
| Website Pairing | +$100 | Your Square menu added to your existing website's menu, your Square store styled to match your website, and a link back. |
| Essentials with all three extras | $595 | Your own domain, QR ordering and Website Pairing together. See what each one includes. |
The base setup is cheap on purpose. Its job is to get you taking orders and to prove this week that we know what we are doing. Some businesses stop there for a year and that is fine. Some come back for the next step in a month.
✓ What we do
- Set up your Square Online website and online ordering, and make sure every part of it works
- Put it on your own custom domain
- Advise you on your menu or product list as part of the setup. You put the items in; nobody knows them better than you
- Switch on pickup, delivery and on-demand couriers the way you actually fulfil
- Start the review system from day one, free
- Add SEO, a WooCommerce site and push messaging when you want more customers
✗ What we do not do
- Sell Square hardware, or come to your shop to install a terminal. Square does that.
- Replace Square's support team for the POS. They are good; use them.
- Charge you a monthly fee to keep a Square site running. Square Online's free plan is free.
What comes after Square Online
Square Online is the fastest way to working e-commerce, and for a lot of businesses it is all they need. Some businesses need more functionality than it offers, and two things come up most. The first is wanting Boostable SEO content built around everything you sell, with the store and the rest of your website on one domain instead of a subdomain. The second is wanting to talk to your customers whenever you like: an app they install on their phone, and push messages to thousands of them for very little, as often as you want.
Both of those are a WooCommerce site on top of the same Square account. The counter does not change, the stock does not change, the staff keep using Square. The website becomes the engine that brings new people in and keeps the old ones coming back.
Strategy call
We ask about the business, show you what Square can do for it, and write the plan.
Online ordering live
Square Online Essentials, with your own domain, QR ordering or Website Pairing at $100 each. Live this week.
More from your customers
QR ordering, kiosk, loyalty, gift cards, email, the customer directory, the review flow and your Google Business Profile.
New customers
Boostable SEO: the content, the service pages, the suburb pages, the engine that gets you found.
More functionality
A WooCommerce site synced to your Square account, with push messaging to your customers' phones and Boostable SEO content around everything you sell.
"Thank you so much Tamhas for being so honest, hardworking and proactive on our website and marketing endeavours. Tamhas and the team worked on our catering business website in Melbourne and did a phenomenal job on what was a clunky old site that broke all the time. Look forward to a great working relationship moving forward."
Food Hugs ★★★★★ Verified Google review
Reviews start on day one
The one thing we add to every Square Online setup at no charge is the review system: a card for the bag or the counter, a poster, and the follow-up message, all pointing at your Google review link. A cafe that opens with Square and the review card has fifty reviews by the time it is thinking about SEO, and fifty reviews is the difference between being on the map and not. It costs us very little and it is the part of the setup that keeps paying after we have left.
- Check your Square dashboard for the Online section. The free store is already there, waiting.
- Get your menu or product photos together. That is the slow part, and the part only you can do.
- Decide how you fulfil: pickup, your own delivery, or on-demand couriers, and what delivery you will charge.
- Find your domain registrar login. A custom domain is possible on Square Online; it is just the fiddly step.
- Book the setup call. One call, one real order, and a document that tells you how to run it.
- Put the review card out from the first day. Do not wait until you are busy.