Square up POS Review

One of the most appealing aspects of Square is that, unlike traditional credit card processors, Square credit card processing has only one fee: the processing fee of the transaction. The company does not charge any other fees that are typical of credit card processing, such as activation fees, monthly fees, gateway fees, PCI Compliance fees, downgrade fees, and early termination fees. Square has no additional monthly fees whatsoever as well as no monthly minimum processing fees or requirements.Square used to offer a very priced magnetic stripe card reader, but with switch to chip cards in the U.S. users are encouraged to purchase the new chip card reader at still low cost of only $49. The company offers a single processing fee option for all merchants: pay a flat rate of 2.75% for swiped transactions and 3.5% + $0.15 for keyed-in transactions. Invoice payments are processed at a rate of 2.75%. The company formerly offered a plan that included a flat monthly fee of $275 and 0% on swiped transactions up to $250, 000 in processing per year, but this plan was discontinued as of February 2014.Although the company’s transaction rate is higher than the “Qualified” rate of most traditional merchant accounts, it is comparable to the “Mid-Qualified” and “Non-Qualified” downgrade surcharges that about 80% of most transactions experience with a traditional merchant account anyway. The 2.75% rate is, however, much more expensive than a competitive Interchange Pass-through rate pricing plan.

The Not-So-Good

Square does not verify the credit history of its customers prior to approving an account, so it sets a few limitations to avoid potential losses to fraud.Square states that there is no limit to the amount of money that can be accepted per transaction or per month through its service – which is only partially true. Instead of setting processing limitations and denying transactions once a user reaches a limit (a tactic used by most other providers), the company relies on other methods to mitigate potential losses due to fraud. These methods allow merchants to accept an “unlimited” single transaction amount as well as “unlimited” monthly sales volumes, but with a catch.