Shopify vs Square Online (2026): $29 vs Free, Priced Out

The shopify vs square question is usually framed as David and Goliath. It is actually a bookkeeping exam. Square Online will host your store for $0 a month and take 3.3% + $0.30 of every online order; Shopify Basic takes $29 a month and 2.9% + $0.30. One cost structure is fully variable, the other partly fixed — and which is cheaper depends on nothing but your revenue.

This audit prices the crossover exactly, checks it against our standard example, walks the POS ledgers in both directions, and closes with who each platform genuinely serves. Figures verified August 2026, including Square's January 2026 rate change.

Fixed versus variable: the real question

Square's October 2025 unification collapsed eighteen separate subscriptions into three plans: Square Free at $0 a month per location, Square Plus at $49, and Square Premium at $149. On Free, everything is variable — no plan fee, and online cards at 3.3% + $0.30 since the January 13, 2026 repricing (it was 2.9%). Shopify Basic inverts the structure: $29 a month fixed on annual billing ($39 monthly), with online cards at 2.9% + $0.30 through Shopify Payments.

Note the trap in Square's paid tiers for online-only sellers: Plus at $49 processes online at 2.9% + $0.30 — the same rate Shopify sells with a plan fee $20 cheaper. Square's paid plans earn their keep at the register, not at the web checkout. If you are buying a rate reduction for an online store, Shopify is the cheaper vendor of it.

The crossover, worked in full

Both platforms charge the same $0.30 fixed fee per order, so order count cancels out of the comparison entirely. What remains is 0.4 percentage points of rate (3.3% minus 2.9%) against $29 of plan fee. Square costs more by 0.4% of your revenue; Shopify costs more by a flat $29. Set them equal: 0.004 × revenue = $29, so revenue = $7,250 a month. Below $7,250 in online sales, Square Free is cheaper. Above it, Shopify Basic is — and the gap widens by $4 for every additional $1,000 of monthly sales.

Proof at the crossover: at $7,250 a month, Square bills $7,250 × 3.3% = $239.25; Shopify bills $29 + $7,250 × 2.9% = $29 + $210.25 = $239.25. Identical to the cent. Sanity-check against our standard $2,000, 40-order month: Square runs $66.00 + $12.00 = $78.00; Shopify runs $29 + $58.00 + $12.00 = $99.00. Square wins by $21 — the $29 plan fee saved, less $8 of extra rate.

One more honest entry: pay Shopify monthly at $39 and the crossover moves to $9,750, since 0.004 × $9,750 = $39. The annual commitment is part of what you are buying.

POS cuts both ways

Square was born at the register and the rates show it: in-person cards run 2.6% + $0.15 on Free, 2.5% + $0.15 on Plus, 2.4% + $0.15 on Premium, with keyed entry at 3.5% + $0.15 — and the register software, invoicing, and Square Banking ride along at $0. A seller already running a Square register gets an online store as a costless extension of an existing account, which is why it remains the commonest destination for hobby sellers stepping down from Shopify's fixed costs.

Shopify's counter is narrower but real: POS is included with Basic at 2.6% + $0.10 in person — a nickel cheaper per transaction than Square Free — and POS Pro adds retail depth at $89 a month per location. Our reading of the two ledgers: retail-first operations stay on Square; online-first stores adding a market stall stay on Shopify. Neither should switch camps for the register alone.

The feature gap, priced

What does the $29 buy that $0 does not? A checkout with documented pedigree — a Shopify-commissioned Big-Three-consultancy study puts Shopify checkout up to 36% ahead of competitors on conversion, about 15% ahead on average; discount for the commissioning, and note that even a sliver of that lift out-earns the fee difference. An app catalog in the thousands — roughly 13,000+ by most counts, unaudited by us. Shipping discounts up to 77% on Basic. More than 200 built-in reports.

Square Free's constraints are the price of $0: your store publishes to a yourname.square.site subdomain with a small Square branding footer, and at the time of checking, connecting a custom domain appears to require a paid plan, with domain purchase around $19.95 a year through Square. None of this blocks selling. All of it caps how much the store feels like yours.

Square's January 13, 2026 repricing raised the Free plan's online rate from 2.9% to 3.3% — quietly the largest fee hike in our eight-builder table this year. The tier stayed free; the meter did not.

Who each genuinely serves

Square Online Free is the correct entry for side sellers, sub-$500-a-month hobby stores, and any business already settled on Square's registers. Shopify Basic is the correct entry for anyone treating the store as the business: lower rate, stronger checkout, an ecosystem that scales, and a bill that only looks worse until $7,250 a month. Both placements match our best ecommerce website builders ranking, where Shopify holds first at 9.3 and Square Online sits sixth at 7.4 — the 3.3% online rate being the tax on free.

If you are under the crossover and staying there, take the free plan and bank the $29: Square Online. If you are over it, or intend to be, the arithmetic has already made the decision: Shopify.