Kaspa vs Square fees: why a free plan beats 2.6% per transaction
Square's free plan still takes 2.6% + 10¢ on every sale. Here is the math: what that costs a real shop over a year — and why Kaspa is genuinely $0.
“Square is free.” You hear it in every YouTube review and on the Square homepage itself. It is also misleading.
Square’s POS software has a free tier — true. What is not free is every sale you ring up through it. In the United States, Square charges 2.6% + 10 cents for every card-present sale, 3.5% + 15 cents for keyed-in sales, and 2.9% + 30 cents for online sales. Per transaction. Forever.
If you are a shop owner in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, or anywhere else Square does not even operate, see our broader Kaspa vs Square comparison. This post is different — it is for shop owners who do have Square as an option (US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, Spain) and want the honest math on what “free” actually costs.
Spoiler: it is not zero.
What Square actually charges
Square’s per-transaction rates (as of mid-2026):
| Sale type | Square fee |
|---|---|
| Card present (tap, dip, swipe) | 2.6% + $0.10 |
| Card not present (keyed in) | 3.5% + $0.15 |
| Invoices | 3.3% + $0.30 |
| Online checkout / e-commerce | 2.9% + $0.30 |
There is no monthly fee on the basic plan. There is no setup fee. The catch is that every single sale takes a cut on the way through. The “free” plan is free of subscription — it is not free of transaction fees.
This model makes Square a payment processor with a POS bolted on. That is a perfectly honest business. It just is not “free” in the way a small shop owner hears the word.
The math on a real shop
Let us run the numbers on a shop doing modest, realistic volume.
Shop A — small cafe, $300/day in card sales
- Daily sales: $300, average ticket $8 → 37.5 transactions/day
- Square’s cut at 2.6% + $0.10: $7.80 + $3.75 = $11.55/day
- Yearly fees: $4,215
Shop B — busy lunch counter, $800/day in card sales
- Daily sales: $800, average ticket $12 → 67 transactions/day
- Square’s cut: $20.80 + $6.70 = $27.50/day
- Yearly fees: $10,038
Shop C — small retailer, $1,500/day in card sales
- Daily sales: $1,500, average ticket $30 → 50 transactions/day
- Square’s cut: $39.00 + $5.00 = $44/day
- Yearly fees: $16,060
Square’s “free” POS, in other words, costs Shop A more than a paid Shopify POS subscription ($89/month × 12 = $1,068) — about four times over.
The reason this works for Square is that they bundle the POS with the payment rail. You cannot run Square as a POS only and process cards through a cheaper acquirer. The fee comes with the system.
How Kaspa is different
Kaspa is a POS, not a payment processor. We do not take a cut of your sales. The price is $0 a month, $0 per transaction, $0 forever.
You handle card processing through whichever provider gives you the best rate where you are — Stripe Terminal, PayHere, Sampath, Worldline, your local acquirer, your existing merchant account. Whatever you have. In Kaspa, you select “Card” as the payment method on checkout and you are done. The POS does not care which rail the money goes through.
Why does this matter? Because acquirer rates are negotiable. Square’s are not. Most small merchants in the US can get card-present rates of 1.6%–2.2% from an independent acquirer, especially if they ask. In Sri Lanka, local processors like PayHere charge 2.9% (which includes Mastercard / Visa scheme fees), and there are no per-transaction extras layered on top.
A back-of-envelope comparison for Shop B at $800/day card sales:
| Setup | Fees |
|---|---|
| Square (US, no negotiation) | $10,038/year |
| Independent acquirer at 2.0% + $0.10 | $7,752/year |
| Local Sri Lankan processor at 2.9% | $8,468/year |
| Kaspa POS | $0/year |
The savings are not in the POS — they are in the rail you pick. Square forces you to use theirs. Kaspa does not.
”But Square is convenient”
Yes. We will give them that. When you sign up for Square, the card processing is set up the same day. You do not call a sales rep, fill out a merchant application, or wait three weeks for an underwriting decision. The processor and the POS arrive together.
For a brand-new business taking its first card payment, that is a real benefit, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If your shop is opening tomorrow and you have never processed a card before, Square will get you live faster than any independent acquirer.
The question is what happens at month three, month six, month twelve. If your shop is doing real volume — Shop B numbers and above — those convenience savings are getting eaten by the fee load every single day, and you are stuck because switching POS and switching processor at the same time feels like a lot.
Kaspa decouples them. You can swap your processor whenever you find a better rate without changing how your shop rings up sales. The POS is the constant. The rail is replaceable.
What you get on Kaspa for $0
To be specific about what is in the free tier:
- Unlimited sales, unlimited products, unlimited devices
- AI assistant in 23+ languages — full setup, configuration, and reports by conversation
- Works fully offline — sales and product edits both
- Multi-device sync — second register at $0
- Inventory tracking and low-stock alerts
- Cashier PINs and per-cashier reporting
- Receipt printing on any 58 / 80 mm thermal
- Cash drawer support
- Returns, voids, return-slip credit
- CSV product import with AI column mapping
- Sales reports by day, week, month, cashier, product
None of this is gated behind a paid tier. None of it costs per transaction. See the full features page for the rundown.
A Pro tier with premium AI capabilities and advanced analytics is in flight — it will be optional, and the core POS stays free forever.
”What is the catch?”
This is the question we hear most. Three honest answers.
One: Card processing is not bundled. If you want a single button that signs you up for the POS and a card processor in one step, Kaspa is not that. You set up your processor separately.
Two: Kaspa is built ground-up for emerging markets — Sri Lanka first, then SE Asia. The product works fine in the US, UK, Australia, anywhere, but our case studies and language priorities are weighted toward shops the major POS companies overlook. If you are looking for a POS heavily integrated into the US small-business ecosystem (QuickBooks-tight, ADP payroll-tight, etc.), that integration depth will come, but Square is ahead there today.
Three: We are a small team. We move fast and we ship often, but if you need a 24/7 phone support line staffed by 200 people, that is not us. Support is via the in-product assistant and email. For most small shops, that is enough. For a 50-location chain that needs an account manager, it is not.
For shops in the “$0–$5,000/day card volume” band — which is the vast majority of independent shops everywhere — the math is straightforward. Switching from Square to (Kaspa + your own card processor) saves you between $2,000 and $20,000 a year. Multiplied across a five-year window, that is the difference between a hard year and a viable shop.
How to switch from Square
If you are already on Square and the math above is making you reconsider, three steps:
- Export your products from Square as a CSV. Square’s product list export is in their dashboard under Items → Actions → Export library.
- Upload to Kaspa. Open pos.trykaspa.com, sign in, open the assistant, and say “Import my product list.” Drop the CSV in. Kaspa’s AI maps columns automatically — Square’s format works out of the box.
- Set up your independent card processor. Stripe Terminal, PayHere, your existing merchant account, whichever you choose. Select “Card” as the payment method in Kaspa on each sale.
That is the whole migration. Time on the clock: about 15 minutes, if your CSV is ready. You can run Kaspa and Square in parallel for a week to make sure everything tracks, then turn Square off and stop paying the 2.6%.
Try the math on your own shop
Two-minute exercise. Pull last month’s card sales total from your Square dashboard. Multiply by 0.026. Add $0.10 × number of transactions. That is your annual fee divided by twelve. Multiply by twelve. That is the line item.
If it is small — under a thousand dollars a year — Square is convenient and the fees are not killing you. Stay.
If it is north of $3,000 a year, you are paying for a POS subscription twice over and not getting one. Switch.
Open Kaspa, sign in with your phone number, and try the sell screen. It is faster than Square’s. The math will keep doing itself in the background while you do the test ring-up.
That is the pitch.