Square Online vs Shopify UK: £0 Plan vs £25 a Month

Quick answer

Square Online suits a small UK shop that already takes card payments with Square: there is a £0 plan and online card fees of 1.4% + 25p. Shopify suits a business where online selling is the main event: plans start at £25 a month billed monthly, with more themes, apps and room to grow. Pick by where you sell most.

Both let you open an online shop in a weekend without a developer. The difference is what each is built around. Square starts from the shop counter and adds online selling. Shopify starts from the online store and adds a counter. Below are both price lists from the official pages, a fee comparison on a typical sale, a table by situation and the point where neither is the right answer.

What Square Online costs

At the time of writing (October 2026), Square’s UK online store page lists a Free plan at £0 that includes the features needed to start selling, and paid plans from £20 a month that unlock more advanced features. Square says all paid plans come with a free custom domain, which it values at £17.95.

Square’s UK pricing page lists online processing at 1.4% + 25p for UK cards and 2.5% + 25p for non-UK cards, for purchases through the online store. Square also says discounted processing is available on its paid Premium plan.

What Shopify costs

Shopify’s UK pricing page lists three main plans for small and growing shops:

• Basic: £25 a month billed monthly, or £19 billed yearly. Online standard card rate 2% + 25p.
• Grow: £65 a month billed monthly, or £49 billed yearly. Card rate 1.7% + 25p.
• Advanced: £344 a month billed monthly, or £259 billed yearly. Card rate 1.5% + 25p.

If you use a payment provider other than Shopify’s own, Shopify adds a transaction fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, on top of that provider’s charges.

Side by side

On fees alone Square is cheaper at small volumes: no monthly plan and a lower card rate. Shopify’s monthly fee buys flexibility, and that only pays off if you use it.

Where Square Online wins

• One provider for counter and website. Square Online is Square’s own online store, so a shop already taking payments in person with Square can run both through the same provider instead of adding another.
• Local selling. Square highlights shipping rules, in-store collection and local delivery, which suit bakeries, cafes, farm shops and gift shops.
• Zero fixed cost. The Free plan lets you test online orders without a monthly bill.
• Simplicity. Fewer choices means a shop is live faster, with less to maintain.

Where Shopify wins

• Design range. More themes and more control over how the shop looks.
• Apps. Subscriptions, reviews, bundles, wholesale and marketing tools are a click away, each at its own price.
• Scale. Larger catalogues, more variants, more sales channels and higher plans with lower card rates.
• Online-first brands. If most of your customers will never visit a counter, Shopify is designed for you.

Costs both leave out

The plan and card fees are only part of running a shop on either platform. Budget for these as well, whichever you pick:

• Your domain: Square includes one on paid plans; otherwise it is a small yearly fee with a registrar, and it should be registered in your own name.
• Apps and add-ons: mostly a Shopify cost, each priced separately. Add them one at a time and cancel what you do not use.
• Photography: good product photos sell more than any theme. A phone, daylight and a plain background go a long way.
• Postage and packaging: usually the biggest per-order cost after the product, on any platform.
• Marketing: neither platform brings shoppers to a new shop on its own. Plan how people will find you before launch day.
• Your time: adding products, answering messages and packing orders. Simpler tools save hours here, which is part of Square’s appeal.

A year of fees, worked through

An illustrative shop making 1,000 online sales a year at £30, using the published rates above and ignoring apps, postage and marketing:

• Square Online Free plan: £0 in plan fees plus £670 in card fees (1.4% + 25p on each sale) = £670.
• Shopify Basic, billed yearly: £228 in plan fees (£19 x 12) plus £850 in card fees (2% + 25p each) = £1,078.

Square is about £400 cheaper in that example. Whether that matters depends on what you would do with Shopify’s extra themes and apps. A shop that sells mostly at the counter will rarely miss them; a shop trying to build an online brand often will.

Which to choose, by situation

Five questions that settle it

1. Where do most sales happen today? Mostly at a counter or stall points to Square. Mostly online points to Shopify.
2. How many products, and how many variants? A short menu or a few dozen items is comfortable on either. A large catalogue with sizes and colours leans towards Shopify or a custom shop.
3. Do you need features beyond a basic shop? Subscriptions, trade pricing or bundles usually mean Shopify apps or a custom build.
4. How much does the look matter? If your brand is the reason people buy, you will want more design control than a simple template gives.
5. Can you live with a monthly fee in quiet months? If not, a £0 plan removes the pressure while you find your feet.

Three or more answers pointing the same way is usually decision enough.

Moving later is possible, but plan it

Neither platform is a trap, but moving shop is real work: products, images, customer accounts, redirects for every old page and a fresh look at payments. Choose for where you will be in two years, not just this month. If you start on Square and outgrow it, export your product list early and keep your own copy of customer data you are allowed to hold.

The things that move cleanly are the ones you own outright: your domain, your product photos, your product descriptions and your brand. Keep originals of all four outside the platform from day one. The things that do not move cleanly are platform-specific: apps, theme customisations and some saved settings, which have to be rebuilt on the new shop. A tidy spreadsheet of products, prices and stock levels makes any future move a matter of days rather than weeks.

When neither is the answer

Both Square Online and Shopify are hosted platforms: you rent the shop, follow their rules and pay their fees for as long as you trade. Some businesses want a shop that looks like nobody else’s, with code they own and can host anywhere. That is where a custom build makes sense. Our comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce covers the owned route in detail, and WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace covers the general website builders, which are a different thing from Square despite the similar name.

What we build

Our e-commerce website is £499 one-off for up to 20 products, built on WooCommerce or Shopify with Stripe and PayPal. It is hand-coded with no page builders, you own the code, and it includes custom design, a mobile-first build, an SEO foundation, Google Analytics, a written CMS walkthrough and 30 days of support. If you go the Shopify route, we can build that for you too; if you stay on Square, a strong brand still does the selling, and brand identity design is £299.

See every price on our pricing page, get a quick estimate from the website cost calculator, or read our guide to e-commerce website costs for the bigger picture. If a shop is already live but quiet, start with why an online store gets no sales.