Square is a polished product with a tempting headline: free POS software. But if you run a café, food truck, pub or restaurant in the UK, there is one thing to understand before you commit. Square's free POS requires Square Payments, forever, at 1.75% per in-person transaction. You can never bring your own card machine and you can never negotiate your rate. Payment lock-in is the price of the free software, and it is the number one reason UK operators go looking for a Square alternative.
Why UK hospitality businesses look for a Square alternative
Three reasons come up again and again:
- Payment lock-in. Square POS only works with Square Payments. As your card volume grows, that fixed 1.75% becomes the most expensive line in your tech stack, and you have no way to shop around without replacing the till.
- The free plan is thinner than it looks. On Square for Restaurants, floor plan customisation, coursing, seat management and reopening closed bills all sit on the Plus plan at £69/month per location, and kitchen display screens are £15/month per device on the free plan (as published, July 2026).
- It's general-purpose at heart. Square grew up in retail. Hospitality workflows like tabs that follow a customer from bar to table, portions for halves and doubles, and category-based kitchen print routing are where hospitality-first systems pull ahead.
Seamless vs Square: the 2026 comparison
Seamless is a UK hospitality EPOS built in Edinburgh by the founders of IntelligentPos (sold to iZettle in 2016). Here is how the two systems compare on the things that decide the decision:
| What matters | Seamless | Square |
|---|---|---|
| Payment freedom | Integrates Dojo, SumUp, Teya and Zettle. Keep your card machine, negotiate your rates, switch provider whenever you like. | Square Payments only, 1.75% in person. No other card machine can be integrated. |
| Software price | £0/month when we introduce you to Teya, or £24/month with your own machine. Pro is £39/month. | Free plan, then Restaurants Plus at £69/month per location (as published, July 2026). |
| Contract | No contract, monthly rolling, cancel anytime. | No contract, but leaving Square Payments means leaving the POS. |
| Hospitality focus | Hospitality only: tabs, table plans, portions, split payments, offline mode. | General-purpose POS with a restaurant edition; key restaurant features gated to Plus. |
| Kitchen printing & tables | Kitchen printing, tabs and table plans built in. Advanced print routing on Pro. | Kitchen displays £15/month per device on the free plan; floor plans and coursing need Plus. |
| Hardware | Runs on iPad or Android you already own, or an all-in-one till bundle from £99/month. | Reader £19, Terminal £149, Register £699 ex VAT. |
| Support | UK-based team on WhatsApp, built by people who have worked a service. | Global support, UK arm of Block, Inc. |
Square pricing as published on squareup.com/gb, July 2026. Plans change, so always confirm current pricing with the provider.
The real cost of free software
Free software plus locked payments is still a price, it just hides in your card statement. A site taking £20,000 a month by card pays £350 a month at 1.75%. Independent providers like Dojo, SumUp, Teya and Zettle quote rates competitively for established businesses, and even a 0.3 percentage point saving on that volume is £60 a month, every month, before you count the software fee you are not paying. With Seamless you can run that negotiation any time, because the till does not care who processes your payments. Work through your own numbers with our POS cost calculator.
What switching from Square actually involves
Hardware Runs on iPad or Android you already own, or an all-in-one till bundle from £99/month.Reader £19, Terminal £149, Register £699 ex VAT. Support UK-based team on WhatsApp, built by people who have worked a service.Global support, UK arm of Block, Inc.
Square pricing as published on squareup.com/gb, July 2026. Plans change, so always confirm current pricing with the provider.
