Square Online Store Reviewed – Best Online Ordering Platform in 2021?

by Jeremiah Svaren | Last Updated: July 15, 2021 •  5 min read

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The quick takeaway: Great for businesses already using Square and looking for online ordering, not so great for your whole website. We give Square Online 4.5/5 stars for being super fast and easy to set up for existing Square POS users.

Square online grow overnight!

Now thanks to 2020, the surge in online ordering, curbside pickup & delivery, Square Online a highly competitive E-Commerce solution. Not to mention, it’s FREE to start selling!

Who Should Consider Using Square Online?

Pretty much anyone that is looking to sell online and offer curbside pickup, delivery, or shipping. Here are a few examples of businesses that would be a great match.

• Restaurants & Cafes
• Food Trucks
• Meal Delivery
• Small Touristy Type Shops
• Any Retail Shop
• Liquor Stores
• Breweries & Bars

Now with a recent update, Square Online is offering on-demand delivery for alcohol. Use either 3rd party delivery services or your own crew. Available in a limited number of states. What a world huh?

Is Square Online Really Free?

You only pay when you make a sale. So you can design, build, and launch your online store all for free!

Meaning the real cost is 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.

Plus 50¢ per in-house delivery order or $1.50 per on-demand delivery.

Which is a pretty good deal for all the features they include!

This is really great for businesses that are running lean or if you just want to test out Square Online to see if it’s truly a good fit for your business.

Pros

• Free to get started selling online right away
• Relatively easy to create and manage
• Integrate with existing Square POS inventory
• Integrate with ticketing system (if using Square already)
• Accept PayPal, Apple & Google pay
• Local delivery option built-in
• Accept Square gift cards
• Integrate with Shopping on Instagram

Cons

• The free version has Square branding
• May not integrate well with other brands of POS
• Limited free tools (still valuable tools!)
• Have to upgrade to use a custom domain
• Not a good option for digital products

TRY FOR FREE

Square Online

3.5

Quickly and easily build an online ordering platform that will integrate with your existing Square POS (point of sale) inventory. Great for restaurant pickup and delivery orders!

Start Building

We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

But Should You Pay For More Features?

If you can afford $12 a month (paid annually), then we would recommend the upgrade. Why? Well for starters, you’ll be able to remove the Square branding at the footer of your store. In addition, you can use a custom domain, we recommend using something like shop.yoursite.com while keeping your existing website.

Just those two alone will clean up the shop page and make the shopping experience feel more intuitive. Not to mention make everything flow nicely with your own brand!

If you are shipping a lot of products, you may consider upgrading to the top 2 plans. You’ll get discounts on shipping, more e-commerce features, and on the final tier, you’ll get discounted transaction fees. But if you are shipping a ton of products every year, you may want to look into Shopify.

How We Use Square Online

For our client NW raw, we had to get online ordering setup quickly and Square provided everything we need to do so.

With Square Online, we instantly had access to every product in the existing inventory on Square POS. Then we just set the order times, added images and descriptions.

Customers can place an order at any time and schedule for a pickup in as little as 15 minutes, or schedule for a later time. Even after business hours, customers can place an order for pick up the next day.

The current setup for NW Raw is a single order page only, keeping the main website on Squarespace and just using buttons and links to direct traffic. This helped speed up our build process and keep things separate if we ever choose to leave Square Online.

So is Square Online Right For You?

If you already use Square as your in-person POS and are looking for a quick & easy solution for online orders then you really have nothing to lose! On the other hand, if you are looking to build a large website with a lot of content and sell items that you plan to ship to customers, then you may want to look at WordPress or Shopify.

We hope this has been helpful for you to make a decision and if you are ready to build your online ordering page right now then take a look at our free video training that walks you through every step!

TRY FOR FREE

Square Online

3.5

Quickly and easily build an online ordering platform that will integrate with your existing Square POS (point of sale) inventory. Great for restaurant pickup and delivery orders!

Start Building

We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Get Started With Square Online Today

We’ve got a step-by-step guide to walk you through setting up your online store!

Jeremiah Svaren wears just about all the hats at Svaren Web Studio. He started getting into web design and development back in 2013. First starting to learn on his own with books and tutorials, then in 2014 he attended The Tech Academy in Portland, Oregon. He learned all about software engineering and decided to start freelancing. Now when he isn't helping clients, he makes helpful content here and on his YouTube channel Svaren.