Retail POS Choose Shopify POS (4.0/5) if you sell online and in-store — or plan to. Its unified inventory, buy-online-pick-up-in-store, and cross-channel returns are the best in this price range, and POS Lite is included from the $20/mo entry plan.
Choose Square (3.8/5) if you want the lowest, simplest cost: a genuinely $0 plan, flat-rate processing, the easiest setup we've tested, and fairly priced hardware. Its retail tools are shallower, and Square processing is mandatory.
The short version: Shopify wins on depth (processing flexibility, inventory, ecommerce, multi-location, support); Square wins on entry cost and simplicity (pricing, hardware, ease of use).
At a Glance
| Shopify POS | Square | |
|---|---|---|
| Our score | 4.0 / 5 | 3.8 / 5 |
| Starting software cost | $27/mo monthly · $20/mo annual (POS Lite included) | $0/mo per location |
| Advanced retail tier | POS Pro $89/mo per location | Plus $49 / Premium $149 per location |
| In-person processing | ~2.6–2.7% (Basic) to ~2.4% (Advanced) | 2.6% + 15¢ (Free) to 2.4% + 15¢ (Premium) |
| Own processor allowed? | Yes (0.6–2% extra fee by plan) | No — Square processing required |
| Inventory depth | Deeper on POS Pro (counts, POs, alerts) | Basic; on-hand tracking gated to Plus |
| Ecommerce | Full Shopify store; best-in-class sync | Square Online included on all plans |
| Hardware | From $49 reader; BYOD tablet OK | Broader lineup, installment financing |
| Free trial | 3 days free, then $1/mo × 3 months | 30 days on paid plans |
Shopify in-person percentages are corroborated by two independent sources (not shown on the official page); Square rates are from Square's official pricing page. All figures checked 2026-08-08.
Pricing
Shopify prices POS as part of its ecommerce plans — every plan includes POS Lite, and POS Pro is a per-location add-on:
| Shopify plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | POS included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $27/mo | $20/mo | POS Lite |
| Grow | $65/mo | $49/mo | POS Lite |
| Advanced | $399/mo | $299/mo | POS Lite |
| Plus | from $2,300/mo | — | POS Pro for 20 locations |
| POS Pro add-on | $89/mo per location (Basic/Grow/Advanced) — “free for 3 months” promo seen on official page | ||
Square restructured on October 6, 2025 into three per-location bundles:
| Square plan | Price per location | What you get | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | POS + Square Online; no inventory tracking, purchase orders or barcode labels | 30-day free trial on paid plans; cancel or switch anytime |
| Plus | $49/mo | Adds inventory tracking, purchase orders, barcode labels, stock counts, staff management | |
| Premium | $149/mo | Adds PO import, transfer orders, advanced reporting, 24/7 phone support |
Winner: Square. Square starts at $0 and reaches a full retail feature set at $49–149 per location. Shopify's entry plan is cheap ($20/mo annual), but the retail tools most growing stores need sit behind POS Pro at $89/mo per location — so a realistic single-store Shopify setup costs $116/mo before hardware. If monthly software spend is your deciding factor, Square wins this one cleanly.
Payment Processing
Shopify Payments rates (US, by plan):
| Shopify plan | Online | In-person | Third-party gateway fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 2.9% + 30¢ | ~2.6–2.7% | 2.0% |
| Grow | 2.7% + 30¢ | ~2.5% | 1.0% |
| Advanced | 2.5% + 30¢ | ~2.4% | 0.6% |
| Plus | 2.15% + 30¢ (negotiated) | custom | 0.2% |
Square processing rates (US, official pricing page — Square processing is mandatory):
| Square plan | In-person | Keyed-in | Online |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 2.6% + 15¢ | 3.5% + 15¢ | 3.3% + 30¢ |
| Plus | 2.5% + 15¢ | 3.5% + 15¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ |
| Premium | 2.4% + 15¢ | 3.5% + 15¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ |
Winner: Shopify POS. Entry-level in-person rates are close (~2.6–2.7% vs 2.6% + 15¢), but Shopify gives you a choice: use Shopify Payments or bring your own processor for a 0.6–2% plan-based fee. Square does not support third-party processors at all, so you can never shop your rates — and its flat model gets expensive on large tickets. High-volume merchants can negotiate on Shopify Plus; Square reportedly offers custom “Pro” pricing above roughly $250k/year in card sales, though that isn't shown on its public pricing page.
Hardware
| Role | Shopify | Square |
|---|---|---|
| Entry card reader | Tap & Chip $49 · WisePad 3 $49 | Contactless + chip $59 · magstripe $10 |
| Handheld all-in-one | POS Go $399 | Square Handheld $399 |
| Countertop terminal | POS Terminal $349 (full kit $459) | Square Terminal $299 |
| Two-screen register | — | Square Register $899 |
| Tablet stand | Retail Stand Kit $219 (others ~$149–199) | Square Stand $149 |
| Printer / scanner / drawer | ~$299–399 / ~$119–299 / ~$119–159 | mPoP printer + drawer $549; accessories catalog |
| Financing | Hardware sold outright | Installments offered (e.g. 15% APR, $49–$10,000 purchases) |
Both systems run on your own tablet or smartphone, and both support Tap to Pay on phone with no hardware. Both also lock card readers to their own approved devices — don't plan on reusing another system's reader.
Winner: Square. Square's lineup is broader (a two-screen Register, a kiosk, a cheaper Terminal and Stand) and it offers installment financing on devices $49 and up. Shopify's $49 readers are the cheapest way to take a card payment, and BYOD tablets work on both, but Square earns the higher hardware subscore (4.5 vs 4.0).
Inventory Management
Both vendors gate their retail workflows — the difference is where the gates sit:
| Capability | Shopify POS | Square |
|---|---|---|
| Stock levels / on-hand tracking | Basic levels on Lite, synced with online | Not on Free — requires Plus ($49) |
| Inventory counts | POS Pro | Plus |
| Purchase orders | POS Pro | Plus (PO import needs Premium) |
| Low-stock alerts | POS Pro | All plans |
| Barcode label printing | Supported | Plus (printing from POs needs Premium) |
| Cross-location transfers | Supported (Pro workflows) | Premium only (transfer orders) |
| Returns/exchanges across locations | Pro — any location (Lite: original location only) | Supported for retail sellers; no published gate |
| Catalog limits | 100 variants per product (3 option types); 2,048 rollout for some stores | No published item limits (not officially verified) |
Winner: Shopify POS. Shopify bundles counts, purchase orders, low-stock alerts, cross-location returns and professional reports into one $89/location add-on; Square spreads the basics across Plus and keeps PO import and transfer orders behind the $149 Premium tier — basic on-hand tracking isn't even available on its free plan. One caveat: neither matches Lightspeed Retail for very large or receiving-heavy catalogs, and Shopify's 100-variant-per-product cap can pinch deep size/color matrices.
Ecommerce & Omnichannel
Shopify started as an ecommerce platform and it shows: one product and inventory pool across channels with automatic stock sync, BOPIS, local delivery, ship-to-customer, emailed carts, endless aisle (Pro), unified customer profiles, and in-store returns of online purchases at any location on Pro. It also integrates with existing IMS/OMS setups via apps and API.
Square counters with a Square Online website builder included on every plan, pickup and local delivery on all plans, shipping label printing and discounts on all plans, and social/Google selling. Custom domains, preorders and abandoned-cart emails need Plus; real-time carrier rates need Premium.
Winner: Shopify POS. This is Shopify's home turf — our omnichannel subscore is 5.0 vs Square's 4.0. Square Online is a solid free web store, but Shopify's online-to-store integration (especially cross-channel returns and endless aisle) is deeper and more mature.
Multi-Location
Shopify tracks inventory per location and syncs automatically; POS Pro adds returns and exchanges at any location, and Shopify Plus includes POS Pro for 20 locations. Expect $89/mo per location for Pro on the lower plans. Square supports multiple locations on every plan, but the Plus/Premium fee applies per location — and cross-location transfer orders require Premium ($149/location).
Winner: Shopify POS. The cross-location toolkit (transfers, any-location returns, per-location stock) unlocks at $89/location versus Square's $149/location Premium gate, and Plus's 20-location Pro bundle is a cleaner deal for bigger fleets.
Ease of Use
Square is the easiest start in retail POS: sign up, download the app, and sell the same day — Tap to Pay on your phone needs zero hardware. Independent hands-on testing consistently rates its setup and dashboard among the cleanest. Shopify is close behind: merchants commonly report staff training in about 30 minutes, and the checkout flow is fast and familiar. Both subscores land at 4.5.
Winner: Square — narrowly. The $0 entry point, zero-hardware start and shorter path to first sale edge it ahead, but day-to-day neither system will slow your staff down.
Support
Shopify advertises 24/7 support on all plans via chat and email, with callback-style phone help and priority support on Plus (third-party verified; Shopify's Help Center pages blocked our checks). Square offers chat and email on all plans, but phone support on the Free plan runs 6am–6pm PT weekdays for your first 90 days only; Plus keeps the same hours indefinitely, and only Premium ($149) gets 24/7 phone support.
Winner: Shopify POS. Around-the-clock availability on every plan beats Square's 90-day phone window for free users — reflected in support subscores of 4.0 vs 3.0.
Pros & Cons Recap
Shopify POS
Pros
- Best-in-class online + in-store sync from $20/mo (annual)
- BOPIS, local delivery, endless aisle, any-location returns (Pro)
- Can keep your own payment processor (0.6–2% fee)
- Huge app ecosystem; BYOD tablet or smartphone
Cons
- POS Pro ($89/location) gates the serious retail tools
- Up to 2% extra fee without Shopify Payments
- 100-variant-per-product cap (2,048 rollout for some stores)
- No card payments while offline
Square
Pros
- $0 plan with POS and Square Online included
- Simple flat-rate processing, no surprises
- Easiest setup; cleanest day-to-day UI
- Broad, fairly priced hardware with installment options
Cons
- Inventory tracking, POs and barcode labels gated to Plus ($49)
- Square processing is mandatory — no rate shopping
- PO import and transfer orders need Premium ($149)
- Free-plan phone support ends after 90 days
Which Is Cheaper?
Worked example for one store doing $30,000/month in card sales, all in person:
| Cost line | Shopify (Basic, monthly billing) | Square (Free plan) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software /mo | $27 | $0 | Annual billing lowers Shopify to $20/mo |
| Processing /mo | ~$780 (~2.6%) | ~$870 (2.6% + 15¢) | Square assumes ~600 transactions (≈$50 average ticket) |
| Total /mo | ~$807 | ~$870 | |
| Year-one total | ~$9,684 | ~$10,440 | Excludes one-time hardware (readers: $49 vs $59) |
Assumptions: all sales are card-present through Shopify Payments' Basic in-person rate (using ~2.6%, the lower end of the verified ~2.6–2.7% range) and Square's official 2.6% + 15¢; no paid apps on either side.
The counterintuitive result: at $30k/month, Shopify is roughly $750/year cheaper than Square's “free” plan, because Square's 15¢ per transaction adds up faster than Shopify's subscription. The picture flips at very low volumes — under roughly $5k/month in card sales, Square's $0 subscription usually wins. And if you need POS Pro ($89/mo), Shopify's year-one rises to ~$10,752 — about what Square costs once you add Plus ($49/mo) for inventory tracking (~$10,668/yr). Processing fees dominate both totals; get rates in writing before you sign.
Which Has Better Inventory?
Shopify POS, for most retailers. Once you add POS Pro, Shopify covers counts, purchase orders, low-stock alerts, barcode labels, cross-location transfers and any-location returns in one add-on, all synced with your online catalog. Square's inventory tooling is competent on Plus (tracking, counts, POs, bundles, COGS reports) but key workflows — PO import and transfer orders — sit on Premium, and the Free plan can't track on-hand stock at all. If your catalog runs to tens of thousands of SKUs with heavy receiving, neither is ideal: see Lightspeed Retail.
Final Decision
You sell online and in-store (or plan to), you want unified inventory and cross-channel returns, or you may want to shop processing rates later. Budget $89/mo per location for Pro as you grow.
Visit Shopify POSYou run one or two smaller, mostly in-person stores, you want the lowest entry cost and the simplest setup, and you're comfortable with Square as your permanent processor.
Visit SquareFAQ
Which is better overall, Shopify POS or Square?
Shopify POS scores 4.0/5 in our methodology versus Square's 3.8/5, driven by omnichannel depth, processing flexibility, inventory tools and support. Square wins on pricing, hardware and ease of use, and is the better pick for simple, budget-led, mostly in-person stores.
Which is cheaper for a small retail store?
At very low card volumes (under roughly $5k/month), Square's $0 plan is usually cheapest. Around $30k/month, our worked example puts Shopify Basic ~$750/year ahead of Square Free because Square's 15¢ per-transaction fee outpaces Shopify's subscription. If you need advanced tools, compare Shopify + POS Pro ($116/mo total on Basic) against Square Plus ($49/mo).
Can I switch between Square and Shopify POS later?
Yes, but budget for the friction: card readers and payment devices don't carry over between systems, so expect to rebuy hardware (entry readers run $49–59 either way). Product and customer data can be exported and re-imported; plan a few weeks to verify barcodes and retrain staff. Our buying guide walks through the process.
Do I need Shopify POS Pro or Square Plus from day one?
Usually no. Start on Shopify's Basic with POS Lite or Square's Free plan, and upgrade when you hit a specific gate: staff permissions, cross-location returns, purchase orders or inventory counts (Shopify Pro, $89/mo per location) — or on-hand inventory tracking, POs and barcode labels (Square Plus, $49/mo).