Square alternatives are sought by merchants who started on the free plan and found that the POS, the card terminal and the processing rate are one package. Some want a cheaper per-transaction rate, some a restaurant or retail specialist, and some a processor they can use with a till of their own choosing. They move to simple card-reader tools, to full retail and hospitality systems, or to a payments platform with a separate POS.
Tomasz WierzbickiData & Market Research
Elena Marchetti
Niels AbrahamsenShort answer: The closest replacements for Square in our point of sale ranking are SumUp, PayPal Point of Sale and Shopify POS. Choose SumUp if you take cards from a small shop or stall and want a simple per-transaction price. All 11 alternatives below are ranked products from Best POS System in 2026, and each says where it differs from Square.
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Square's Free plan has no setup or monthly fee: you only pay when you take a payment. In the US, its fee sheet lists 2.6% + 15 cents for tap, dip or swipe and 3.3% + 30 cents for online or invoices on Free, against 2.5% + 15 cents and 2.9% + 30 cents on Plus. Keying a card in manually or using a card on file costs 3.5% + 15 cents on Plus. A merchant with steady volume often finds that the processing rate, not a subscription, is the real cost.
Square sells paid plans (Plus and Premium) for restaurants, retailers and appointment businesses, and some apps are not available on Free at all: its feature list marks the kitchen display and kiosk apps as unavailable in Square Free, with separate per-device fees. A business that grows into table service or self-service ordering therefore compares a plan upgrade plus device fees with a dedicated hospitality system.
Square is operated by Block, Inc., and its POS is built around Square's own payment processing. A merchant who wants to keep an existing acquirer, or to negotiate interchange-plus pricing, finds less room than with a POS that is separate from the processor. That coupling is the usual reason for moving to a retail system with its own payments option or to a payments platform with a separate POS.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing | Key difference | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SumUp | United Kingdom | No free tier | Per transaction, published; optional monthly plans | The reader that works where nothing else does | you take cards from a small shop or stall and want a simple per-transaction price | #1 |
| PayPal Point of Sale | Sweden | No free tier | Per transaction, 1.75% on cards, published; hardware bought outright; no monthly fee | Low card fee, no monthly commitment | you want one flat card rate and a free app, and already use PayPal | #5 |
| Shopify POS | Canada | No free tier | Included with a Shopify plan, per month, published; POS Pro add-on per location; payments extra | One catalogue for the shop and the website | you sell online as well as in store and want one inventory | #6 |
| Lightspeed Retail | Canada | No free tier | Per month by plan, published: Basic $89, Core $149, Plus $289, one register included; extra registers, locations and payments extra | Serious retail inventory behind the till | you run a multi-product retail shop whose inventory has outgrown Square's item library | #9 |
| Epos Now | United Kingdom | No free tier | Complete Solution bundle from £299, published, with a 12-month payments, care and support subscription from £54 a month; other bundles quoted | Low upfront cost, read the contract twice | you want a counter system with hardware and phone support in one UK contract | #2 |
| myPOS | United Kingdom | No free tier | Buy or rent the terminal; per transaction from 1.10% + 7p, published; free account, no monthly fee under £10,000 turnover | Card terminals with instant settlement and no monthly fee | you mainly want a card terminal and a business account from one provider | #3 |
| storekit | United Kingdom | Yes | Free Starter plan; Grow £99, Pro £199 and Enterprise from £995 per location per month, published; flat per-order fee | Direct ordering and payments for restaurants, alongside the till you have | you run a pub, cafe or takeaway and want guests to order and pay from their phones | #11 |
| Adyen POS | Netherlands | No free tier | Per transaction, published as interchange plus a fee | One payment platform for the till, the site and the app | you have a developer or POS partner and want interchange-plus pricing across countries | #12 |
| Toast | United States | No free tier | Starter Kit from $0/month; Point of Sale from $69/month, published; processing extra, rate not listed | Built for restaurants first, on its own hardware and processing | you run a US restaurant and want a hospitality system rather than a general POS | #7 |
| Clover | United States | No free tier | Published on clover.com per business type, e.g. full-service restaurant from $179 a month over 36 months; card payments from 2.3% + 10 cents; reseller terms vary | Bank-distributed hardware with an app market and plans per business type | your bank or processor offers it and you prefer one relationship for the terminal and the account | #8 |
| Lightspeed Retail (X-Series) | New Zealand | No free tier | Per month by plan, published as Lightspeed Retail (X-Series): Basic $89, Core $149, Plus $289, one register included; payments extra | Retail POS now sold as Lightspeed Retail (X-Series) | a Lightspeed reseller quotes you the X-Series edition specifically | #10 |
United Kingdom · Per transaction, published; optional monthly plans
SumUp's pay-as-you-go plan charges 1.69% per transaction with no monthly fee on its UK pricing page, and Payments Plus at 19 pounds a month lowers the rate for businesses taking 3,000 pounds or more a month. It is a card reader and app first, with a business account, and its POS is lighter than Square's.
Switch from Square if you take cards from a small shop or stall and want a simple per-transaction price.
Sweden · Per transaction, 1.75% on cards, published; hardware bought outright; no monthly fee
Zettle is now PayPal Point of Sale. It charges 1.75% on card transactions at one rate for major cards, with no contracts or recurring fees, and the POS app has no additional cost. Hardware is bought outright rather than rented. It has no tiered paid POS plans like Square's Plus and Premium.
Switch from Square if you want one flat card rate and a free app, and already use PayPal.
PayPal Point of Sale, #5 of 12 in our point of sale ranking →
Canada · Included with a Shopify plan, per month, published; POS Pro add-on per location; payments extra
Shopify POS comes with a Shopify subscription (Basic from 28 euros a month on its Euro pricing page) and unifies in-store and online selling in one back office. In-person card rates on Basic start at 1.4%. POS Pro adds 79 euros a month per location. It suits merchants with an online shop first, not a shop that needs only a till.
Switch from Square if you sell online as well as in store and want one inventory.
Canada · Per month by plan, published: Basic $89, Core $149, Plus $289, one register included; extra registers, locations and payments extra
Lightspeed Retail is a paid retail system: Basic $89, Core $149 and Plus $289 a month, each with one register included, where Square Free costs nothing. Extra registers, locations and payments are charged on top. It is built for inventory-heavy retailers, with wholesale connections, and is overkill for a stall or salon.
Switch from Square if you run a multi-product retail shop whose inventory has outgrown Square's item library.
United Kingdom · Complete Solution bundle from £299, published, with a 12-month payments, care and support subscription from £54 a month; other bundles quoted
Epos Now sells hardware bundles, not a free app. Its Complete Solution is advertised from 299 pounds, conditional on a 12-month payments, care and support subscription from 54 pounds a month. It includes a countertop terminal, card machine and cash drawer. Payment rates are one flat rate, not disclosed on the page.
Switch from Square if you want a counter system with hardware and phone support in one UK contract.
United Kingdom · Buy or rent the terminal; per transaction from 1.10% + 7p, published; free account, no monthly fee under £10,000 turnover
myPOS sells its own card machines (Combo, Ultra, Unattended) and Tap to Pay, together with a business account and payment cards. It is a payments provider with terminals, not a full retail or restaurant POS, so stock control and staff features are limited compared with Square's Plus plans.
Switch from Square if you mainly want a card terminal and a business account from one provider.
United Kingdom · Free Starter plan; Grow £99, Pro £199 and Enterprise from £995 per location per month, published; flat per-order fee
storekit targets hospitality ordering rather than the counter: QR order and pay at the table, takeaway and delivery on your own branded site, kiosks as an add-on. Plans run from a free Starter to Grow at 99 pounds and Pro at 199 pounds a month, with Enterprise from 995 pounds a month per brand.
Switch from Square if you run a pub, cafe or takeaway and want guests to order and pay from their phones.
Netherlands · Per transaction, published as interchange plus a fee
Adyen sells in-person payments with terminals, not a merchant POS app. Card pricing is Interchange++ with a fixed fee per transaction (13 cents on its price list) and no setup or monthly fees. It suits businesses with their own software or a larger volume, and offers no till features of its own.
Switch from Square if you have a developer or POS partner and want interchange-plus pricing across countries.
United States · Starter Kit from $0/month; Point of Sale from $69/month, published; processing extra, rate not listed
Toast is a US restaurant-focused POS. We could not load its own pricing pages (they blocked our requests), so we cannot state its plan prices or processing rates here. Confirm both with Toast, and note that it is a hospitality specialist, not a general till like Square.
Switch from Square if you run a US restaurant and want a hospitality system rather than a general POS.
United States · Published on clover.com per business type, e.g. full-service restaurant from $179 a month over 36 months; card payments from 2.3% + 10 cents; reseller terms vary
Clover is sold through banks, processors and resellers, so terms differ by reseller. We could not load Clover's own pages (they need JavaScript), so we state no price or rate here. Confirm contract length and processing rate in writing before signing, since both can vary from one seller to the next.
Switch from Square if your bank or processor offers it and you prefer one relationship for the terminal and the account.
New Zealand · Per month by plan, published as Lightspeed Retail (X-Series): Basic $89, Core $149, Plus $289, one register included; payments extra
This listing is sold as Lightspeed Retail (X-Series): Basic $89, Core $149 and Plus $289 a month, one register included, payments extra. It is the same family of retail products as the Lightspeed Retail entry above, so use the one that matches the edition you are quoted.
Switch from Square if a Lightspeed reseller quotes you the X-Series edition specifically.
Lightspeed Retail (X-Series), #10 of 12 in our point of sale ranking →
Square remains the right choice for a small business that wants to start selling today with no monthly fee. The Free plan includes a POS app for any payment, an item library, invoicing, appointment booking and checking and savings accounts, and there are no contracts: you can cancel or switch at any time. If volume is low and variable, paying only per transaction is hard to beat, and the cost of a heavier system is not justified.
Moving the POS usually means moving the card terminals too, because a reader tied to one processor rarely works with another. Check what you own, what you rent and whether any plan can be cancelled without notice, then plan a day when the old and new terminals both work.
Square lets you manage items and customers in its dashboard, and most replacement systems import items from a CSV file. Clean the catalogue first, because duplicate variants and unused items carry over. Cards on file generally cannot be moved without the cardholder's consent, so plan to ask repeat customers to re-enter them.
The Square Free plan has no setup or monthly fee, and you pay per transaction. In the US the fee sheet lists 2.6% + 15 cents for in-person card payments on Free.
Paid plans (Plus and Premium) add features and lower the processing rates. Plan prices vary by country, so check Square's pricing page for yours.
On published rates, SumUp's pay-as-you-go plan is 1.69% per transaction in the UK and PayPal Point of Sale charges 1.75%. Both have no monthly fee. Rates differ by country and card type, so compare them against your own mix of in-person and online payments.
storekit is built for hospitality ordering, with QR order and pay at the table and online ordering.
Toast is a restaurant-focused POS in the US, but we could not verify its pricing. Square also has a restaurant offering, with its kitchen display app unavailable on the Free plan.
With Square the software and processing are tied together. Adyen provides terminals and Interchange++ payments for businesses with their own software, and Clover is sold through banks and resellers. Check whether a POS can use your existing acquirer before buying hardware.
Shopify POS is included in every Shopify plan and unifies in-store and online inventory. The base plan starts at 28 euros a month on its Euro pricing page, and POS Pro costs extra per location.
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Written by Tomasz Wierzbicki, edited by Elena Marchetti and fact-checked by Niels Abrahamsen. Last reviewed 8 October 2026. How we review.
